‘There must be some connection with Steve Jubb,’ Magnus said. ‘The name Isildur, or Isildur is significant, I know it. Did you notice she didn’t seem surprised we were asking about her long-dead brother? And if she saw the Lord of the Rings movie the name Isildur would have jumped out at her. She didn’t mention that connection at all.’
‘You mean she was trying to downplay the Isildur name?’
‘Exactly. There’s a connection there she’s not talking about.’
‘Shall we bring her in to the station for questioning?’ Vigdis suggested. ‘Perhaps Baldur should see her.’
‘Let’s leave it a while. Let her relax, drop her guard. We’ll come back and interview her again in a day or two. It’s easier to find the hole in a story second time around.’
They checked with the woman who owned the boutique next door. She confirmed she had dropped into Ingileif’s gallery one afternoon earlier that week to borrow some tea bags, although she wasn’t absolutely sure whether it was the Monday or the Tuesday.
Vigdis drove up the hill past the Hallgrimskirkja. Magnus peered up at a large bronze statue on a plinth in front of the church. The first vestur-islenskur, Leifur Eiriksson, the Viking who had discovered America a thousand years before. He was staring out over the jumble of brightly coloured buildings in the middle of town to the bay to the west, and on towards the Atlantic.
‘Where are you from originally?’ Magnus asked. Although his Icelandic was already improving rapidly, he was finding it tiring, and there was something familiar about sitting in a car with a black partner that tempted him to slip back into English.
‘I don’t speak English,’ Vigdis replied, in Icelandic.
‘What do you mean you don’t speak English? Every Icelander under the age of forty can speak English.’
‘I said I don’t speak English, not I can’t speak it.’
‘OK. Then, where are you from?’ Magnus asked again, this time in Icelandic.
‘I’m an Icelander,’ Vigdis said. ‘I was born here, I live here, I have never lived anywhere else.’
‘Right,’ Magnus said. A touchy subject, clearly. But he had to admit that Vigdis was an incontrovertibly Icelandic name.
Vigdis sighed. ‘My father was an American serviceman at the Keflavik airbase. I don’t know his name, I’ve never met him, according to my mother he doesn’t even know I exist. Does that satisfy you?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. ‘I know how difficult it can be to figure out your identity. I still don’t know whether I am an Icelander or an American, and I just get more confused the older I get.’
‘Hey, I don’t have a problem with my identity,’ said Vigdis. ‘I know exactly who I am. It’s just other people never believe it.’
‘Ah,’ said Magnus. A couple of raindrops fell on the windscreen. ‘Do you think it will rain all day?’
Vigdis laughed. ‘There you are, you are an Icelander. When in doubt discuss the weather. No, Magnus, I do not think it will rain for more than five minutes.’ She drove down the other side of the hill towards the police headquarters on Hverfisgata. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I just find it easier to straighten out those kind of questions up front. Icelandic women are a bit like that, you know. We say what we think.’
‘It must be tough being the only black detective in the country.’
‘You’re damn right. I’m pretty sure that Baldur didn’t want me to join the department. And I don’t exactly blend in when I’m out on the streets, you know. But I did well in the exams and I pushed for it. It was Snorri who got me the job.’
‘The Commissioner?’
‘He told me my appointment was an important symbol for Reykjavik’s police force to be seen as modern and outward looking. I know that some of my colleagues think a black detective in this town is absurd, but I hope I have proved myself.’ She sighed. ‘The problem is I feel like I have to prove myself every day.’
‘Well, you seem like a good cop to me,’ Magnus said.
Vigdis smiled. ‘Thanks.’
They reached police headquarters, an ugly long concrete office block opposite the bus station. Vigdis drove her car into a compound around the back and parked. The rain began to fall hard, thundering down on the car roof. Vigdis peered out at the water leaping about the parking lot and hesitated.
Magnus decided to take advantage of Vigdis’s direct honesty to find out a bit more about what he had got himself into. ‘Is Arni Holm related to Thorkell Holm in some way?’
‘Nephew. And yes, that is probably why he is in the department. He’s not exactly our top detective, but he’s harmless. I think Baldur might be trying to get rid of him.’
‘Which is why he dumped him on me?’
Vigdis shrugged. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
‘Baldur isn’t very happy with me being here, is he?’
‘No, he isn’t. We Icelanders don’t like being shown what to do by the Americans, or anyone else for that matter.’
‘I can understand that,’ Magnus said.
‘But it’s more than that. He’s threatened by you. We all are, I suppose. There was a murderer on the loose last year, he killed three women before he turned himself in.’
‘I know, the Commissioner told me.’
‘Well, Baldur was in charge of the investigation. We failed to find the killer and there was a lot of pressure on Snorri and Thorkell to do something. People wanted heads to roll. Moving Baldur on would have been the easiest thing to do, but Snorri didn’t do that. I’d say Baldur isn’t out of the woods yet. He needs to solve this case and he needs to do it himself.’
Magnus sighed. He could understand Baldur’s position, but it wasn’t going to make his life in Reykjavik easy. ‘And what do you think?’
Vigdis smiled. ‘I think I might learn something from you, and that’s always good. Come on. The rain is easing off, just like I said it would. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got work to do.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ingileif was shaken by the visit of the two detectives. An odd couple: the black woman had a flawless Icelandic accent, whereas the tall red-haired man spoke a bit hesitantly with an American lilt. Neither of them had believed her, though.
As soon as she had read about Agnar’s death in the newspaper, she had expected the police. She thought she had perfected her story, but in the end she didn’t think she had done very well. She just wasn’t a good liar. Still, they had gone now. Perhaps they wouldn’t come back, although she couldn’t help thinking that somehow they would.
The shop was empty so she returned to her desk, and pulled out some sheets of paper and a calculator. She stared at all the minus signs. If she delayed the electricity bill, she might just be able to pay Svala, the woman who made the glass pieces in the gallery. Something in her stomach flipped, and an all-too familiar feeling of nausea flowed through her.
This couldn’t go on much longer.
She loved the gallery. They all did, all seven women who owned it and whose pieces were sold there. At first they had been equal partners: her own skill was making handbags and shoes out of fish skin tanned to a beautiful luminescent sheen of different colours. But it emerged that she had a natural talent for promoting and organizing the others. She had increased sales, jacked up prices and insisted on concentrating on the highest quality articles.
Her breakthrough had been the relationship she had developed with Nordidea. The company was based in Copenhagen, but had shops all over Germany selling to interior designers. Icelandic art fitted well into the minimalist spaces that were so highly fashionable there. Her designers made glassware, vases and candleholders of lava, jewellery, chairs, lamps, as well as abstract landscapes and her own fish-skin leather goods. Nordidea bought them all.
The orders from Copenhagen had grown so fast that Ingileif had had to recruit more designers, insisting all
