Michael Ridpath: Where the Shadows Lie

‘So Isildur isn’t Icelandic at all?’

Magnus shook his head. ‘No, he’s probably another truck driver from Yorkshire. We need to talk to Baldur.’

A look of panic flashed across Arni’s face. ‘Do you really think this is important?’

‘I do,’ Magnus nodded. ‘It’s a lead. In a murder investigation you take every lead you get.’

‘Um… Perhaps you should see Baldur by yourself.’

‘Oh, come on Arni. I won’t tell him you knew all along who Isildur was. Let’s go.’

They had to wait an hour for Baldur to return from the courthouse on the Laekjargata, but he looked happy. ‘We can detain Steve Jubb for three weeks,’ he said when he saw Magnus. ‘And I have a search warrant for his hotel room.’

‘Didn’t he make bail?’ Magnus asked.

‘There’s no chance of bail in Iceland for a murder suspect. We usually get three weeks to pursue our investigation before we have to hand over evidence to the defence. Once we have finished with him here, Jubb will be taken to the prison at Litla Hraun. That will make him think.’

‘I like it,’ Magnus said.

‘Strange thing is, he has a new lawyer. We gave him a kid a couple of years out of law school, but he’s already fired him and hired Kristjan Gylfason, who is about the most experienced criminal lawyer in Iceland. Someone must be helping him; finding the lawyer and paying for him. Kristjan doesn’t come cheap. And for that matter, neither does the Hotel Borg.’

‘Isildur?’ Magnus asked.

Baldur shrugged. ‘Maybe. Whoever he is.’

‘We think we have an idea about that.’

Baldur listened to Magnus’s theory, a frown crossing the dome of his forehead. ‘I think we need to have another word with Mr Jubb.’

Steve Jubb’s new lawyer, Kristjan Gylfason, was smooth: intelligent face, prematurely silver hair, an air of calm competence and wealth. His very presence seemed to give Jubb comfort. Not good.

There were now five men in the interview room: Jubb, his lawyer, Baldur, Magnus and the interpreter.

Baldur flung an English copy of The Lord of the Rings onto the desk. There was silence in the room. Jubb’s eyes flicked down to it. Arni had rushed out and bought it from the Eymundsson book-shop in the middle of town.

Baldur tapped the book. ‘Ever read this before?’

Jubb nodded.

Baldur slowly and deliberately opened the book at chapter two and passed it over to Steve Jubb. ‘Now, read that and tell me you don’t know who Isildur is.’

‘It’s a character in a book,’ Jubb said. ‘That’s all.’

‘How many times have you read this book?’ Baldur asked.

‘Once or twice.’

‘Once or twice?’ Baldur snorted. ‘Isildur is a nickname, isn’t it? He’s a friend of yours. A fellow Lord of the Rings fan.’

Steve Jubb shrugged.

Magnus glanced at the lower extremity of a tattoo peeking out beneath Jubb’s sleeve. ‘Take off your shirt.’

Steve Jubb shrugged and removed the denim shirt he had been wearing since his arrest. He revealed a plain white T-shirt, and on his forearm a tattoo of a helmeted man with a beard wielding an axe.

A man? Or perhaps a dwarf.

‘Let me guess,’ said Magnus. ‘Your nickname is Gimli.’ He remembered that Gimli was the name of the dwarf in Lord of the Rings.

Jubb shrugged again.

‘Is Isildur a buddy from Yorkshire?’ Magnus asked. ‘You meet in a pub every Friday, have a few beers and talk about old Icelandic sagas?’

No answer.

‘You get cop shows in England?’ Magnus asked. ‘ CSI, Law and Order?’

Jubb frowned.

‘Well, in those shows the bad guy gets to remain silent while the good guys ask all the questions. But it doesn’t work that way in Iceland.’ Magnus leaned forward. ‘In Iceland if you keep quiet we think you’ve got something to hide. Isn’t that right, Kristjan?’

‘My client’s decision not to answer your questions is his own,’ the lawyer said. ‘I have explained the consequences.’

‘We will find out what you are hiding,’ Baldur said. ‘And your failure to cooperate will be remembered when it comes to trial.’

The lawyer was about to say something, but Jubb put a hand on his arm. ‘Look, if you two are so bloody clever, you’ll eventually figure out that I had bugger all to do with Agnar’s death, and then you’ll have to let me go. Until then, I’m saying nowt.’

The arms folded, the jaw jutted out. Steve Jubb didn’t utter another word.

Vigdis was waiting for them outside the interview room.

‘There’s someone from the British Embassy to see you.’

Baldur swore. ‘Damn it. He’s only going to waste my time. But I must speak to him, I suppose. Is there anything else?’ Baldur could tell from the look of suppressed excitement on Vigdis’s face that there was.

‘Agnar had a lover,’ Vigdis said, with a small smile of triumph.

Baldur raised his eyebrows. ‘Did he indeed?’

‘Andrea Fridriksdottir. She is one of Agnar’s Icelandic literature students at the university. She came forward as soon as she heard he had been killed.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Downstairs.’

‘Excellent. Let’s go and talk to her. Tell the man from the British Embassy I will be with him as soon as I can. But I want to speak to this Andrea first.’

Realizing that he was not invited, Magnus returned to his desk, where a woman from the National Police Commissioner’s office was waiting for him. Cell phone, bank account, daily allowance, payment of salary, cash advance, even the promise of a car in a few days, she had it all prepared. Magnus was impressed. He was quite sure that the Boston Police Department could never match her for efficiency.

She was followed by a man from the IT Department. He gave Magnus his password, and spent a few minutes showing him how to use the computer system, including how to access e-mail.

Once the man had gone, Magnus stared at the screen in front of him. The time had come. Magnus could put it off no longer.

It had turned out that the FBI agents who had escorted Magnus in his last days in Massachusetts were out of the Cleveland Field Office. One, Agent Hendricks, had been designated his contact man. Magnus had agreed never to use the phone to the United States, even to Deputy Superintendent Williams. Especially to Deputy Superintendent Williams. The fear, that was never articulated but which was in the minds of Magnus, the FBI and Williams himself, was that the three police officers who had been arrested were not alone. That they had accomplices, or perhaps just friends in the Boston PD, friends for whom tracing Magnus’s whereabouts would all be in a day’s work.

So the idea was that the only form of communication would be e-mails. Even those Magnus could not send directly, but via Agent Hendricks in Cleveland. That was the method that Magnus would have to use if he wanted to contact Colby.

And he needed to contact Colby. It had become clear to him that he couldn’t take the risk that she would be attacked or killed on his account. She had outmanoeuvred him, and he had to accept that.

He stared at the screen for several minutes more, trying out arguments, justifications, explanations, but he knew Colby, and he was aware of the danger of giving her the opportunity to complicate things. So in the end he kept it simple.

The answer to your question is yes. Now please come with me. I am very worried about you.

With all my love

Magnus.

Not very romantic – hardly the right way to start a life together. Although he was attracted to Colby, loved her even, the more he got to know her the more sure he was that they shouldn’t get married. It wasn’t just his fear of commitment, although Colby was absolutely right that he did suffer from that. He just knew that if there was a woman out there somewhere that he could spend the rest of his life with, it wasn’t Colby. Her latest high-stakes ploy was an example of why.