Майкл Ридпат - The Wanderer

Magnus would be very surprised if Tryggvi Thór was involved in organized crime. But that was the most logical explanation.

Although Magnus knew that it was traditional Icelandic hospitality to give wandering strangers a bed, he still thought it odd that Tryggvi Thór had offered him a room in his house. Despite Tryggvi Thór’s refusal to cooperate, there had certainly been a connection between them, a mutual respect, but they had only met each other once. On the other hand, Magnus had only met the shopkeeper in Breidholt who was offering to rent out his room once. Breidholt was a dreary suburb to the south-east of the centre. Bits of it were pleasant, but not the bit where Magnus would be living.

Perhaps Tryggvi Thór wanted Magnus to help him. Or protect him from another attack.

It was a nice house. Magnus liked Álftanes. And he was intrigued by Tryggvi Thór.

He regretted not taking the task of apartment-hunting a bit more seriously. The hotel he was staying at, which had been paid for by the Metropolitan Police for a month, was adamant about throwing him out the next day. So Breidholt beckoned.

His phone rang. He checked the caller: Thelma, his boss. He answered: ‘Magnús.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Kópavogur, on my way back to headquarters.’

‘Well, come and see me as soon as you get in. A tourist been murdered in the north and Akureyri need some help.’

‘All right. Where?’

‘Glaumbaer.’

Magnus turned off the Ring Road, which circumnavigated the island of Iceland, at Varmahlíd and headed north towards Saudárkrókur. Within a few minutes he arrived at Glaumbaer. It was just after five o’clock. He had considered flying to Akureyri and driving from there, but it was quicker to get on the road right away.

As expected, there was a jumble of police vehicles parked in front of the church and in the folk museum car park next door, and a number of black-uniformed officers were milling about. He recognized the Forensics Unit’s van from Reykjavík, and an ambulance was waiting, doors open, ready to cart the body off to the morgue in the capital. Standing by itself, surrounded by police tape, was a small blue Hyundai.

A familiar figure strode towards him.

‘Árni!’ Magnus smiled. Árni hadn’t changed much. He was still tall and drippy with a puppy-dog grin, but his black floppy hair had now been cut short. Magnus embraced him.

‘Or should I say Sergeant Árni? I’m pleased you are on the case.’

‘Inspector Ólafur is leading the investigation into a series of rapes at knifepoint in Akureyri. That’s why he asked for help from Reykjavík. He knew you and I had worked together, so here I am.’

Árni grinned. Magnus wondered whether Árni’s detection skills had improved over the last five years. Maybe they had; somehow Magnus suspected that they hadn’t. But he would be good to have around.

Magnus surveyed the scene. The church was of the traditional twentieth-century Icelandic design: off-white metal walls, red metal roof, stubby white tower and a red spire. It was set thirty yards or so back from the main road, a flagpole and a sculpture of a woman in a boat standing just in front of it. The front porch faced the road, and behind the building a slope led down to the Héradsvötn valley. Crime-scene tape fluttered around the churchyard, which was enclosed by low turf walls and a white wooden gate. A line of old farmhouses backed on to one of these walls, each with a steeply sloping turf-covered roof coming down almost to the ground: the folk museum. Magnus remembered visiting the museum with his father on one of the occasional trips to Iceland they made together from America when he was a boy.

Glaumbaer wasn’t really a village as such, but there were a number of farms and houses scattered around within sight of the church and the museum. It was a magnificent setting, looking out over the meadows of the glacial river valley to the mountains on the eastern side.

‘You haven’t moved the body yet?’ Magnus asked.

‘No. We were waiting for the Forensics Unit to arrive. And you, of course. It’s back there, behind the church.’

‘Good. Before I see it, tell me about the victim.’

‘Carlotta Mondini. Italian. Occupation listed on her passport as student, although she is twenty-six. Almost certainly a tourist. Arrived in Iceland last Thursday. Stayed in Reykjavík for three days and then hired that car from the City Airport and drove up here.’ Árni nodded towards the blue Hyundai festooned with crime-scene tape. ‘She checked into a hotel in Blönduós yesterday afternoon, dumped her stuff and drove on to Glaumbaer.’ Blönduós was a small town about sixty kilometres to the west; Magnus had passed through it on his way from Reykjavík.

‘Was she travelling alone?’

‘Looks like it. At least that’s what the hotels in Reykjavík and Blönduós said.’

‘Anything about her background in Italy?’

‘Not yet. We have been in touch with the police in Milan, who will contact her family. We haven’t heard back from them.’

‘Who discovered the body?’

‘You’ll like this,’ said Árni with a grin. ‘A TV crew. They were filming here early this morning, and they stumbled across it.’

‘And why would I like that?’ said Magnus.

‘They’re filming a documentary about Gudrid. You know, the Viking woman who went to Greenland?’

‘It’s not the people who did Viking Queens is it? Eygló, isn’t that her name?’

‘It is indeed. In fact it was Eygló herself who discovered the body.’

Árni was right; Magnus was intrigued. He had made sure to watch every episode of the series, which had been broadcast on PBS in America. He had fallen for the presenter, Eygló. There was something bewitching about her evocation of the Norse world a thousand years ago, and her programmes had made him homesick for Iceland.

‘That’s right. Gudrid lived here, didn’t she?’ Magnus said, remembering The Saga of Erik the Red , one of his favourites. ‘Gudrid the Wanderer. After she came back from Greenland.’

‘That’s what they tell me.’

‘An amazing woman,’ Magnus went on. ‘That sculpture must be her and her son Snorri; he was the first European to be born in America.’

‘She may well be amazing, Magnús,’ said Árni. ‘But she is pretty low on our list of suspects right now.’

Magnus laughed. ‘OK, OK. Back to the present. Who is on your list of suspects?’

‘No one concrete, as yet,’ said Árni, looking sheepish. ‘A local child says she saw a man getting into a car parked a couple of hundred metres away. But no detailed description. Apart from that, nothing suspicious.’

‘Time of death?’

‘The police doctor who examined the body this morning placed the time of death at somewhere between seven-thirty p.m. and one a.m. last night. There was some rigor mortis in the jaw, the body was cool and post-mortem lividity was fixed, suggesting the body had been dead at least eight hours. The TV crew were filming here until seven-thirty last night, so that’s the window.’

‘OK. Show me the body.’

They donned forensics overalls and signed a crime-scene log, and then Árni led Magnus around the side of the church.

Carlotta Mondini was lying face down a couple of feet from the back wall of the building. The back of her head was smashed into a tangle of blood, brain matter and dark blonde-streaked hair. She was wearing a light blue North Face rain jacket over a grey and black lopi sweater and jeans. Lopi sweaters were a traditional Icelandic design; Carlotta must have bought hers during her few days in Reykjavík.

Edda, head of the Forensics Unit, greeted Magnus. ‘You took your time,’ she said.