Michael Ridpath - Where the Shadows Lie

Tomas Hakonarson.

He lived on the eighth floor of one of the new blocks of luxury apartments that had sprouted up in the Skuggahverfi, or Shadow District, along the shore of the bay. He answered the door, bleary eyed, as if he had just been woken up.

Baldur introduced himself and Vigdis, and barged in.

‘What’s this about?’ asked Tomas, blinking.

‘The murder of Agnar Haraldsson.’

‘Ah. You’d better take a seat then.’

The furniture was expensive cream leather. The view of the bay was spectacular, although at that precise moment a dark cloud was pressing down on the darker sea. Only the lowest hundred feet or so of Mount Esja was visible, and there was no chance of seeing Snaefellsnes glacier in the gloom. To the left, tall cranes dithered above the unfinished national concert hall, one of the casualties of the kreppa.

‘What do you know?’ Tomas asked.

‘I’d rather ask you what you know,’ Baldur said. ‘Starting with your movements on Thursday the twenty-third. Last Thursday.’

Tomas gathered his thoughts. ‘I got up late. Went out for a sand-wich for lunch and a cup of coffee. Then I drove over to the university.’

‘Go on.’

‘I was looking for Agnar Haraldsson. I asked a student who said that he might be at his summer house by Lake Thingvellir. So I drove up there.’

‘At what time was this?’ Vigdis asked, her notebook out, pen poised.

‘I got there about four o’clock, I think. I don’t know. I can’t remember precisely. Can’t have been much before three-thirty. Might have been a bit after four.’

‘And was Agnar there?’

‘Yes, he was. I had a cup of coffee. We chatted a bit. And then I left.’

‘I see. And what time did you leave?’

‘I don’t know. Once again, I didn’t look at my watch. I was there about three-quarters of an hour.’

‘So that would make it four forty-five?’

‘Or thereabouts.’

Baldur was silent. Tomas held his silence too. Vigdis knew the game: she was motionless, pen poised. But Tomas wasn’t saying any more.

‘What did you chat about?’ Baldur asked, eventually.

‘I wanted to discuss a possible television project on the sagas.’

‘What kind of project?’

‘Well, that was the trouble. I didn’t have a specific idea. I was kind of hoping that Agnar would provide that. But he didn’t.’

‘So you left?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And then what did you do?’

‘I came back home. Watched a movie, a DVD. Had a drink. Well, I had several drinks actually.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes,’ said Tomas.

‘Do you often drink alone?’

Tomas took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said again.

Vigdis looked around the flat. Sure enough there was an empty whisky bottle in the bin. Dewar’s.

‘And was this the first time you had met Agnar?’ Baldur asked.

‘No,’ said Tomas. ‘I had bumped into him once or twice in the past. I suppose he was my saga contact.’

Baldur’s long face was impassive, but Vigdis could feel the excitement in him. Tomas was talking nonsense, and Baldur knew it.

‘And why didn’t you come forward before?’ Baldur asked, gently.

‘Um. Well, you see, I didn’t see anything about the murder in the papers.’

‘Oh, don’t give me that, Tomas! Your job is to keep up with the news. The papers have been full of it.’

‘And… I didn’t want to get involved. I couldn’t see that it was important.’

At this Baldur couldn’t maintain his composure. He laughed. ‘Right, Tomas. You are coming with us to the station, where you had better think up a better story than that bullshit. I would suggest the truth; that usually works. But first I want you to show me what clothes you were wearing on that day. And the shoes.’

‘You can’t release Steve Jubb!’ Magnus almost shouted.

Baldur stood in the corridor outside the interview room, facing him. ‘I can and I will. We don’t have the evidence to hold him. We know that there was someone else there that night after Steve Jubb had driven back to Reykjavik. Someone who dumped Agnar into the lake once it got dark.’

‘According to a four-year-old girl.’

‘She’s five. But the point is all the forensic evidence backs that up.’

‘But what about her parents? Surely they would have heard another car going past their house after nine-thirty?’

‘We checked. They went to bed early. Their bedroom is at the back of the house. And they were busy.’

‘Busy? Busy doing what?’

‘Busy doing what married people sometimes do when they go to bed early.’

‘Oh.’

‘And now we have another suspect.’ Baldur nodded towards the door where Tomas Hakonarson was just beginning a marathon interview session.

Magnus looked in. A man with round glasses, thinning hair and chubby cheeks was sitting smoking a cigarette, watched closely by Vigdis. The famous television personality.

‘And has he confessed?’

‘Give me time,’ Baldur said. ‘His fingerprints match the unidentified set we found in the house. We’re analysing his clothes and his boots now. For the moment his story is that he came and went before Steve Jubb arrived. Jubb arrived at about seven-thirty that evening and the neighbours were out all afternoon, so it’s just about possible that Tomas came and went without them seeing him. But if you thought Jubb was lying, you should see this guy. His story is shot full of holes. We’ll break it.’

‘Don’t you think what I told you about Lawrence Feldman and Steve Jubb trying to buy a ring from Agnar changes things?’

‘No,’ said Baldur, firmly. ‘Now, I have some work to do.’

Magnus went back to his desk in intense frustration. What really bugged him was the possibility that Baldur might be right and he wrong. Baldur was a good cop who trusted his intuition, but then so was Magnus. Which was why it would be so galling if Baldur’s hunches proved to be correct and his were not.

He knew he should take a deep breath, keep an open mind, let the direction of the inquiry follow the evidence as it emerged. But the trouble was, the more he looked into the saga and ring deal, the murkier it got. And the higher were the stakes for those involved.

When it came right down to it, Tomas Hakonarson had the opportunity but as yet not the motive. Isildur and Gimli, as they liked to call themselves, had motive aplenty.

The seat opposite Magnus was empty – Arni was still up in the air. Magnus called his cell phone and left a message on his voice-mail to tell him that Isildur was in Reykjavik and he may as well come home.

Poor guy.

He switched on his computer and checked for an e-mail. There was one from Deputy Superintendent Williams, a long one by his standards.

Williams apologized for the failure to protect Colby. He claimed there was a patrol car outside all night, but they didn’t see anything. There was no trace of Colby herself, although she had told her boss and her parents that she was going away for a while.

There had been questions asked around Schroeder Plaza, the headquarters of the Homicide Unit, questions about Magnus disguised as gossip. Friends of Lenahan; friends of friends of Soto. There was no doubt that Soto’s gang was after Magnus.

The kid Magnus had shot had died. The inquest into his death and that of his older partner was going to be delayed until after the Lenahan trial.

But the big news was the Lenahan trial itself. The judge had finally grown impatient with the delay tactics of the defence and had denied their motions to subpoena thousands of e-mails from the police department. That, combined with the surprise collapse of another murder trial which left a hole in the judge’s docket, meant that it was likely that the trial would begin sometime the following week. Magnus would be called as a witness as early as possible: the FBI hoped that as soon as he testified, Lenahan would talk. The Feds would send Magnus details of his flight as soon as they had decided them. The destination airport was still under discussion, but it wouldn’t be Logan. The FBI would be there in force to meet him and take him to a safe house.