Michael Ridpath: Where the Shadows Lie

‘All right,’ said Baldur. ‘This is what we know. It’s clear that Steve Jubb went to the summer house for more than a chat with an acquaintance. He was doing some kind of deal with Agnar, something involving a man named Isildur.’

He stared around the room. ‘We need to find out what it is that Agnar had discovered, and what deal they were negotiating. We need to find out a lot more about Agnar. And most of all we need to find out who the hell this Isildur is. Let’s hope Steve Jubb will begin to talk once he realizes that he is going to spend the next few weeks in jail.’

When the meeting was over, Chief Superintendent Thorkell asked Magnus for a word. His office was big and comfortable, with a magnificent view of the bay and Mount Esja. The clouds were higher than the day before; far out into the bay a patch of sunlight reflected off the water. Three photographs of small fair-haired children were positioned on the chief superintendent’s desk so that both Thorkell and his visitors could see them. A couple of primitive paintings, probably by the same kids, hung on the wall.

Thorkell sat down in his big leather desk chair and smiled. ‘Welcome to Reykjavik,’ he said.

At least he, like Arni, seemed friendly. Magnus couldn’t see any physical similarity between them, but they shared the same last name, Holm, and so they were probably related. A small minority of Icelanders used the same family naming system as the rest of the world. They were often from wealthier families, descendants of young Icelanders who had travelled abroad to Denmark to study and given themselves family names while they were there.

But then all Icelanders were related. The society was more of a gene puddle than a gene pool.

‘Thank you,’ Magnus replied.

‘You will be part of the National Police Commissioner’s staff, but when you are not at the Police College you will have a desk here, with us. I very much support the Commissioner’s initiative in requesting you, and I think you will be a great help to us in the current investigation.’

‘I hope so.’

Thorkell hesitated. ‘Inspector Baldur is an excellent detective, and very successful. He likes to use tried and tested techniques that work in Iceland. It boils down to the fact that in such a small country someone always knows someone who knows the criminal. But as the nature of crime changes in this country, so must the methods of fighting it, which is why you are here. Flexibility is perhaps not Baldur’s strong point. But don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. We want to hear it, you will have my assurance of that.’

Magnus smiled. ‘I understand.’

‘Good. Now, someone from the Commissioner’s office will be in touch with you this morning about salary and accommodation and so on. In the meantime, Arni will set you up with a desk, a phone and a computer. Do you have any questions?’

‘Yes, one. Can I carry a gun?’

‘No,’ said Thorkell. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘I’m not used to being on duty without one,’ Magnus said.

‘Then you will become used to it.’

They stared at each other for a moment. A cop needed a badge and a gun, as far as Magnus was concerned. He appreciated the difficulties with the badge. But he needed the gun.

‘How do I get a licence to carry?’

‘You don’t. No one has guns in Iceland, or not hand guns. They have been banned since 1968, after a man was shot dead.’

‘You’re telling me there are no police officers with firearms training?’

Thorkell sighed. ‘We do have some firearms officers in the Viking Squad – it’s what we call our SWAT team. You may be able to practise on the indoor range at Kopavogur, but we cannot permit you to carry a weapon outside it. That’s just not the way we do things here.’

Magnus was tempted to say something about flexibility and voicing his opinion, but he appreciated the chief superintendent’s support and didn’t want to antagonize him needlessly, so he just thanked him again and left.

Arni was waiting outside. He led Magnus to an office stuffed with small screened-in cubicles, with the sign Violent Crimes on the door. Two or three of the detectives that Magnus had seen at the meeting were on the phones or their computers, the others were already out interviewing people. Magnus’s desk was right opposite Arni’s. The phone worked, and Arni assured him that someone from the IT department would set him up with a password that morning.

Arni disappeared to the coffee machine and returned with two cups. The boy had promise.

Magnus sipped his coffee and considered Agnar. He didn’t yet know much about the professor, but he did know that he was someone’s husband, the father of two children. Magnus thought of those kids growing up with the knowledge that their father had been murdered, of the devastated wife struggling to come to terms with the destruction of her family. They needed to know who had killed Agnar and why, and they needed to know that the murderer had been punished. Otherwise – well, otherwise they would end up like Magnus.

The familiar urge returned. Even though Magnus had not yet met them, might never even meet them, he could promise them one thing: he would find Agnar’s killer.

‘Have you decided where you are going to stay in Reykjavik?’ Arni asked, sipping from his own cup.

‘No, not really,’ Magnus replied. ‘The hotel’s OK, I guess.’

‘But you won’t be able to stay there the whole time you’re with us?’

Magnus shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess not. I’ve no idea how long that will be.’

‘My sister has a spare room in her apartment. It’s a nice place, very central, in Thingholt. You could rent that. She wouldn’t charge much.’

Magnus hadn’t begun to think about money, accommodation, clothes, living expenses; he was just pleased to be alive. But operating out of a suitcase in a hotel room would soon get tiresome, and Arni’s sister might provide a quick easy solution to a problem he hadn’t even begun to address yet. And cheap. That might be important. ‘Sure, I’ll take a look at it.’

‘Great. I’ll show you around this evening, if you like.’

The coffee wasn’t bad. Icelanders lived on many cups of coffee a day – the whole society was fuelled by caffeine. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why they never sat still for long.

‘I’m sure I’ve heard this name Isildur somewhere,’ Magnus said. ‘Maybe it was a kid at school. But that would have shown up on Vigdis’s search.’

‘Probably just the movie,’ Arni said, sipping from his own cup.

‘The movie? What movie?’

‘ The Fellowship of the Ring. Haven’t you seen it? It’s the first of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.’

‘No, I haven’t seen the movie, but I did read the book. So Isildur’s one of the characters, right? What is he, some kind of elf?’

‘No, he’s a man,’ said Arni. ‘He wins the ring at the beginning of the movie and then loses it in a river somewhere. Then Gollum finds it.’

‘Arni! Why didn’t you mention this at the meeting?’

‘I was going to, but then I thought everyone would just laugh at me. They do that sometimes, you know. And it obviously doesn’t have anything to do with the case.’

‘Of course it does!’ Magnus just stopped himself from adding the words ‘you idiot!’. ‘Have you read the Saga of the Volsungs?’

‘I think I did at school,’ said Arni. ‘It’s about Sigurd and Brynhild and Gunnar, isn’t it? Dragons and treasure.’

‘And the ring. There’s a magic ring. It’s an Icelandic take on the Nibelungenlied which Wagner based his Ring Cycle on. I bet Tolkien read it too. And it’s Steve Jubb’s favourite saga – it’s probably the only saga he has read. He’s a Lord of the Rings nut and he has a friend who is another Lord of the Rings nut whose nickname is Isildur.’