Michael Ridpath: Where the Shadows Lie

He turned to Baldur. ‘I think I know where your murder weapon is.’

‘Where?’ Baldur asked.

Magnus pointed out to the deep grey waters of the lake. Somewhere out there the rift between the continental plates at Thingvellir continued downwards to a depth of several hundred feet.

Baldur sighed. ‘We need divers.’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said Magnus. ‘You’ll never find it.’

Baldur frowned.

‘He was hit by a rock,’ Magnus explained. ‘Something with jagged edges. There are still flecks of stone in the wound. I have no idea where the rock came from, possibly the dirt road back there, some of those stones are pretty big. Your lab could tell you. But my guess is the killer threw it into the lake afterwards. Unless he was very stupid – it’s the perfect place to lose a rock.’

‘Do you have forensic training?’ Baldur asked, suspiciously.

‘Not much,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve just seen a few dead people with dents in their heads. Can I see inside the house?’

Baldur nodded. They walked back up the path to the summer house. The place was getting the full forensics treatment, powerful lamps, a vacuum cleaner, and at least five technicians crawling around with tweezers and fingerprint powder.

Magnus looked around. The door opened directly into a large living area, with big windows overlooking the lake. Walls and floor were soft wood, the furniture was modern but not expensive. Lots of bookshelves: novels in English and Icelandic, history books, some specialist literary criticism. An impressive collection of CDs: classical, jazz, Icelanders Magnus had never heard of. No television. A desk covered with papers occupied one corner of the room, and in the middle were chairs and a sofa around a low table, on which was a glass half filled with red wine, and a tumbler containing the dregs of what looked like Coke. Both were covered in a thin film of smudged fingerprint powder. Through one open door Magnus could see a kitchen. There were three other doors that led off the living room, presumably to bedrooms or a bathroom.

‘We think he was struck over here,’ said Baldur, pointing towards the desk. There were signs of fresh scrubbing on the wooden floor, and a few inches away, two chalk marks surrounded tiny specks.

‘Can you do DNA analysis on this?’

‘In case the blood came from the murderer?’ Baldur asked.

Magnus nodded.

‘We can. We send it to a lab in Norway. It takes a while for the results to come back.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Magnus. In Boston the DNA lab was permanently backed up; everything was a rush job and so nothing was. Somehow Magnus suspected that the Norwegian lab might treat its neighbour’s lone request with a bit more respect.

‘So we think that Agnar was hit on the back of the head here as he was turning towards the desk. Then dragged out of the house and dumped in the lake.’

‘Sounds plausible,’ said Magnus.

‘Except…’ Baldur hesitated. Magnus wondered if he was wary about expressing doubts in front of his boss.

‘Except what?’

Baldur glanced at Magnus, hesitating. ‘Come and look at this.’ He led Magnus through to the kitchen. It was tidy, except for an open bottle of wine and the makings of a ham and cheese sandwich on the counter.

‘We found some additional specks of blood here,’ Baldur said, pointing to the counter. ‘They look like high-velocity blood spatter, but that makes no sense. Perhaps Agnar hurt himself earlier. Perhaps he somehow staggered in here, but there are no other signs of a struggle in here at all. Perhaps the murderer came in here to clean himself up. Yet if that were the case, you would expect the spatters to be much bigger.’

Magnus glanced around the room. Three flies were battering the window in a never-ending attempt to get out.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘It’s the flies.’

‘Flies?’

‘Sure. They land on the body, gorge themselves, then fly into the kitchen where it’s warm. There they regurgitate the blood – it helps them to digest it. Maybe they wanted some of the sandwich for dessert.’ Magnus bent down to examine the plate. ‘Yes. There’s some more there. You’ll be able to see better with a magnifying glass, or Luminol if you have any. Of course it means that the body must have been lying around in here long enough for the flies to have their feast. But that’s only fifteen, twenty minutes.’

Baldur still wasn’t smiling, but the Commissioner was. ‘Thank you,’ was all the inspector could manage.

‘Footprints?’ asked Magnus, looking at the floor. Footprints should show up well on the polished wood.

‘Yes,’ said Baldur. ‘One set, size forty-five. Which is odd.’

It was Magnus’s turn to look puzzled. ‘How so?’

‘Icelanders usually take their shoes off when they enter a house. Except perhaps if they are a foreign visitor and don’t know the customs. We spend as much time looking for fibres from socks as footprints.’

‘Ah, of course,’ said Magnus. ‘Anything in the papers on the desk?’

‘It’s mostly academic stuff, essays from students, draft articles on Icelandic literature, that kind of thing. We need to go through it more thoroughly. There was a fartolva which the forensics team have taken away to analyse.’

‘Sorry, what is a fartolva?’ asked Magnus, who was unfamiliar with the Icelandic word. He knew the difference between a halberd and a battleaxe, but some of the newer Icelandic words threw him.

‘A small computer you can carry around with you,’ explained Baldur. ‘And there is a diary with an entry; it tells us who was here last night.’

‘The Commissioner mentioned an American,’ Magnus said. ‘With size forty-five feet, no doubt?’ He had no idea what that was in US shoe sizes, but he suspected it was quite large.

‘American. Or British. The name is Steve Jubb and the time is seven-thirty yesterday evening. And a phone number. The number is for the Hotel Borg, the best hotel in Reykjavik. We’re picking him up now. In fact, if you’ll excuse me, Snorri, I have to go back to headquarters and interview him.’

Magnus was struck by the informality of Icelanders. No ‘Sir’, or ‘Commissioner Gudmundsson’. In Iceland everyone called everyone else by their first names, be it a street sweeper speaking to the president of the country, or a police officer speaking to his chief. It would take a little getting used to, but he liked it.

‘Be sure to include Magnus in the interviews,’ the Commissioner said.

Baldur’s face remained impassive, but Magnus could tell that he was seething inside. And Magnus couldn’t blame him. This was probably one of Baldur’s biggest cases of the year, and he would not appreciate doing it under the eyes of a foreigner. Magnus might have more experience of homicides than Baldur, but he was at least ten years younger and a rank junior. The combination must have been especially irritating.

‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Arni to look after you. He’ll drive you back to Headquarters and get you settled in. And by all means come and chat to me about Steve Jubb later on.’

‘Thank you, Inspector,’ Magnus said, before he could stop himself.

Baldur’s eyes flicked towards Magnus, acknowledging the evidence of this faux pas that Magnus wasn’t a real Icelander after all. He called over a detective to escort Magnus, and then left with the Commissioner back to Reykjavik.

‘Hi, how are you doing?’ said the detective in fluent American-accented English. ‘My name’s Arni. Arni Holm. You know, like the Terminator.’

He was tall, painfully thin, with short dark hair and an Adam’s apple that bobbed furiously as he spoke. He had a wide friendly grin.

‘ Komdu saell,’ said Magnus. ‘I appreciate you speaking my language, but I really need to practise my Icelandic.’