Michael Ridpath - Where the Shadows Lie

Magnus tapped out a reply saying it would be good to be home. Which was true. He felt that the value he was adding to the Icelandic police force was precisely zero. Baldur’s estimate would be negative.

He thought about Colby, and smiled. Good for her. If the Boston police couldn’t find her, that was a good thing. If she really wanted to hide, she could do it.

He wrote a quick e-mail to her, telling her to let him know she was OK, if she got the opportunity. That was the best he could hope for.

His thoughts turned to the case. He hated the idea of dropping it, leaving it to Baldur to clear up.

OK, if he was right and Baldur was wrong, that meant the case turned on the saga and the ring. Especially the ring. Leave aside the question of whether this was really the ring that was taken from a dwarf who fished in the shape of a pike a couple of millennia ago. That wasn’t important. What was important was that Agnar thought he knew where a ring was, and Feldman wanted that ring. Badly.

So where was it?

As he had pointed out to Arni, it seemed unlikely that Agnar could conjure up a fake thousand-year-old ring in a couple of days. Which meant either that someone else had it, Ingileif for example, or that Agnar had figured out where he could find it.

Magnus didn’t think Ingileif had the ring. All right, he didn’t want to believe that Ingileif had the ring, but he knew he should keep the idea open as a possibility.

Unless someone else had it. Magnus had no idea who.

What if Agnar had figured out where it was hidden? Magnus had read Gaukur’s Saga: there were not enough clues in there to lead anyone to the ring. But Agnar was an expert on medieval Icelandic literature. He no doubt knew of dozens of folk tales and legends which might hold clues, cross-references.

Then Magnus remembered the entry in Agnar’s diary for Hruni. Not Fludir, Hruni. Vigdis had interviewed the pastor there, the pastor Petur had told Magnus about, Dr Asgrimur’s friend. Magnus recalled her report: the pastor had had nothing much of interest to say.

Magnus needed to go to Hruni. But first he wanted to speak to Ingileif. He wanted to find out more about the ring, and the pastor.

And, damn it, he wanted to see her.

He walked to the gallery and arrived just before closing time, but Ingileif wasn’t there. Her partner, a striking dark-haired woman, told him she was probably working at home. He had her home address from the initial interview and it only took him ten minutes to walk there.

Her first reaction when she saw him on her doorstep seemed to be pleasure, her smile was wide and warm, but a moment later it was clouded by doubt. But she invited him in.

‘How are you getting on in Iceland?’ she asked ‘Met any nice girls yet?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’m offended.’

‘Present company excepted of course.’

‘Of course. Have a seat.’

Magnus sat in a low chrome chair and accepted a glass of wine. A cello was propped up against the wall, dominating the small room. In an apartment this tiny a violin might have been a better choice of instrument, Magnus thought. Or a piccolo.

‘I didn’t know you were allowed to drink on duty,’ Ingileif said as she handed the glass to him.

‘I’m not sure I am on duty,’ said Magnus.

‘Really?’ said Ingileif, raising her eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realize this was a social call.’

‘Well, it’s not a formal interview,’ Magnus said. ‘I want your help.’

‘I thought that’s what I had been doing,’ Ingileif said. ‘Helping the police with their inquiries. Except I admit I wasn’t very helpful at first.’

‘I want to talk to you about the ring. I need to figure out where it is. Who has it.’

‘I have no idea, I told you that,’ Ingileif said. ‘It’s stuffed in some tiny niche in the rocks somewhere in the Icelandic wilderness.’

‘Agnar thought he had found it,’ Magnus said. ‘Or at least he thought he knew where it was. It wasn’t just the saga he was trying to sell to Lawrence Feldman, it was the ring too.’

Magnus explained the contents of the text message Steve Jubb had sent to Feldman the night Agnar had been murdered, and Feldman’s conviction that Agnar knew where the ring was.

‘So somebody has it?’ Ingileif asked.

‘Possibly,’ Magnus said.

‘Who?’

‘The most obvious candidate is you.’

Ingileif exploded. ‘Hey! You said you wanted my help. I would have said if I had it. I know I didn’t tell you everything earlier, but I’ve given up on the saga, and the damned ring. So if you don’t believe me, take me away and interrogate me. Or torture me. You are American, aren’t you? Do you want to try out some water-boarding on me?’

Magnus was taken aback by the vehemence of her denial. ‘It’s true I have lived in America for a while. But I’m not going to torture you. In fact, I’ll just ask you. Do you know where the ring is?’

‘No,’ Ingileif said. ‘Do you believe me?’

‘Yes,’ Magnus said. He knew that as a professional detective he should still doubt her, but a professional detective wouldn’t have been drinking a glass of wine in her apartment. He had given up on being a professional detective, at least while he was in Iceland. He just wanted to find out who killed Agnar.

She seemed to calm down. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘About the water-boarding dig.’

‘Will you still help me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your brother told me that your father confided in the local pastor. That the two of them worked on theories of where the ring might be hidden. Can you tell me something about this pastor?’

‘I didn’t know anything about my grandfather finding the ring at that stage, but I did know that Dad planned several hiking trips around Thjorsardalur with the pastor to look for it. So, what can I tell you about Reverend Hakon?’

She paused, gathering her thoughts. ‘He’s strange. I mean there are plenty of eccentric country priests in Iceland, but Hakon is one of the strangest. A lot of my friends were scared of him, scared and fascinated at the same time. He used to mess with their heads.’

‘But not yours?’

‘No, he was always straightforward with me, because of my father, I think. He’s clever, he fancies himself as an intellectual. He’s very interested in Saemundur the Learned – you know, the guy who kept on cheating the devil. And of course he knows everything about the legend of the Hruni dance.’

‘Have you seen him recently?’

‘He officiated at my mother’s funeral at the end of last year. He didn’t do a bad job, actually. He definitely has presence.’ She finished her wine. ‘Do you want another glass?’

Magnus nodded. Ingileif went to the fridge to retrieve the bottle and refilled their glasses.

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about my own father’s death this week, after what happened to Agnar. I know it’s Agnar’s murder you are investigating, but I wonder whether Dad’s death was all that it seemed.’

‘What happened?’

‘Dad and the pastor were going on a two-day expedition, with tents, up in the hills to the west of the River Thjorsa. It’s pretty barren up there, and there was still some snow on the ground. I never found out exactly where they went – presumably they were checking out some local caves or hound-shaped chunks of lava.’

Ingileif took a gulp of her wine. ‘On the second day they were on their way back when a snowstorm blew up out of nowhere. I say out of nowhere, it had been forecast, but the previous day had been clear and sunny, I remember it. They got lost on the moor, and Dad stumbled over a cliff. He fell about fifteen metres on to some rocks. The pastor climbed down. He says he thought Dad was badly injured but still alive. He hurried off as quick as he could to find help, but he got lost in the snowstorm. Six hours later he found a sheep farm and grabbed the farmer. By the time they got back to the cliff, Dad was dead: fractured skull, broken neck. In fact, they think he probably died within a few minutes of the fall.’