Magnus could remember Johnny’s home e-mail address – he had used it enough times the previous year. He weighed the risks. There was no way that anyone would be monitoring Johnny Yeoh for a contact with Magnus. And although Lenahan had lots of buddies throughout the police department, Johnny was about the least likely person to be one of them.
He tapped out Johnny’s address and pressed send.
With any luck, by morning they would know who Isildur was.
CHAPTER TEN
Thingholt was a jumble of brightly coloured little houses in the central 101 postal district of Reykjavik, clinging to the side of the hill below the big church. It was where the artists lived, the designers, the writers, the poets, the actors, the cool and the fashionable.
It wasn’t really a cop’s neighbourhood, but Magnus liked it.
Arni drove him along a quiet street just around the corner from the gallery Magnus had visited earlier that afternoon, and stopped outside a tiny house, probably the smallest in the road. The walls were cream concrete, and the roof lime-green corrugated metal, out from which jutted a lone window. Paint on walls and roof was peeling and the grass in the tiny yard at the side of the building was straggly and trampled down. Yet it reminded Magnus of the house he had grown up in as a child.
Arni rang the doorbell. Waited. Rang the bell again. ‘She’s probably asleep.’
Magnus checked his watch. It was only seven o’clock. ‘She’s in bed early.’
‘No, I mean she hasn’t got up yet.’
Just then the door opened, and there stood a very tall, black-haired girl, with a pale face, wearing a skimpy T-shirt and shorts. ‘Arni!’ she said. ‘What are you doing waking me up at this hour?’
‘What’s wrong with this hour?’ Arni said. ‘Can we come in?’
The woman nodded, a slow droop of her head, and stood back to let them in. They went through the hallway into a small living room, in which was a long blue sofa, a big TV, a couple of bean bags on the polished wooden floor and a bookcase heaving with books. The walls were panelled in wood; the longest had been painted in swirls of blue, green and yellow, giving an impression of a tropical island.
‘This is my sister, Katrin,’ Arni said. ‘This is Magnus. He’s an American friend of mine. He was looking for a place to stay in Reykjavik and so I suggested here.’
Katrin rubbed her eyes and tried to focus on Magnus. Her top was more of a singlet than a T-shirt, one of her small breasts peeked out. She looked quite a lot like Arni, tall, thin and dark, but where Arni’s features were weak, hers were strong, white face, angled cheekbones and jaw, thick short black hair, big dark eyes.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ She spoke in English, with a British accent.
‘I’m doing good,’ Magnus replied. ‘And you?’
‘Yeah. Cool,’ she mumbled.
‘Shall we sit down and have a chat?’ Arni asked.
Katrin focused on Magnus, staring him up and down. ‘No. He’s cool. I’m going back to bed.’ And with that she disappeared into a room off the hallway.
‘Looks like you passed,’ said Arni. ‘Let me show you the room.’ He led Magnus up some narrow stairs. ‘Our grandparents used to live here. It belongs to both of us now, and we rent out the room on the first floor. Here we are.’
They emerged into a small room with the basic furniture: bed, table, a couple of chairs and so on. There were two windows, pale evening light streamed in through one, and through the other Magnus could see the spire of the Hallgrimskirkja swooping high above the multicoloured patchwork of metal roofs. ‘Nice view,’ he said.
‘Do you like the room?’
‘What happened to the previous tenant?’
Arni looked pained. ‘We arrested him. Last week.’
‘Ah. Narcotics?’
‘Amphetamines. Small-time dealer.’
‘I see.’
Arni coughed. ‘I would appreciate it if you could keep an eye on Katrin while you’re here. In a low-key way, of course.’
‘Will she mind that? I mean, is she happy sharing a place with a cop?’
‘There’s no need to tell her what you do, is there, do you think? And I wouldn’t let Chief Superintendent Thorkell know you are staying here.’
‘Uncle Thorkell wouldn’t approve?’
‘Let’s just say that Katrin isn’t his favourite niece.’
‘How much is the rent?’
Arni mentioned a figure that seemed very reasonable. ‘It would have been twice that a year ago,’ he assured Magnus.
‘I believe you.’ Magnus smiled. He liked the little room, he liked the tiny house, he liked the view, and he even liked the look of the weird sister. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘Excellent,’ said Arni. ‘Now let’s go and get your stuff from your hotel.’
It didn’t take long to ferry Magnus’s bag back to the house, and once Arni had made sure that Magnus was installed, he left him. There was no sound from Katrin.
Magnus stepped out on to the street. Consulting a city map, he walked one block down the hill and one block across. The sky had cleared, apart from a single thin slab that covered the top of the ridge of stone and snow that was Mount Esja. Magnus was beginning to spot a pattern: the base of the cloud moved up and down the mountain several times a day, depending on the weather. The air was clear and crisp. At eight-thirty it was still light.
He found the street he was looking for and made his way slowly along, examining each house as he went. Perhaps he wouldn’t recognize it after all these years. Perhaps they had changed the colour of the roof. But as he followed the road over a hump he saw it: the small house with the bright blue roof of his childhood.
He stopped outside it and stared. The old whitebeam was still there, but a rope had been added to one of the branches. A good idea. A deflated football lay in a bed of daffodils, just about to bloom. He was glad there were still children there; he guessed most of the houses in that neighbourhood were now inhabited by young couples. A large Mercedes SUV stood proudly outside, containing two child seats. A far cry from his father’s old VW Beetle.
He closed his eyes. Above the murmur of the traffic he could hear his mother calling Oli and him inside for bed. He smiled.
Then the front door began to open and he turned away, embarrassed that the current owners would see a strange man leering at their house.
He made his way down the hill towards the centre of town. He passed a group of four men and a woman unloading equipment from a van. A band getting ready for Saturday night. The girl with the leopard-skin miniskirt and tail zipped past on her bicycle. In Reykjavik, he realized, you could expect to see the same person on the streets several times in one day.
He stopped at Eymundsson’s bookstore, an all-glass jewel on Austurstraeti, where he picked up the last English copy of The Lord of the Rings, and a copy of the Saga of the Volsungs, in Icelandic.
He headed over towards the Old Harbour and another memory from his childhood, a small red kiosk, Baejarins beztu pylsur. He and his father used to go there every Wednesday night, after hand-ball practice, for a hot dog. He joined the line. Unlike the rest of Reykjavik, Baejarins beztu hadn’t changed over the years, except there was now a picture outside of a grinning Bill Clinton tucking into a large sausage.
Munching his hot dog, he strolled through the harbour area and along the pier. It was a working harbour, but at this time of the evening it was peaceful. On one side were trawlers, on the other, sleek whale-watching vessels and small inshore fishing boats. There was a smell of fish and of diesel, although Magnus passed a squat white hydrogen fuel pump. He paused at the end, a respectful distance from a fisherman fiddling with his bait in a bag, and surveyed the stillness.
Beyond the harbour wall, the black rock and white snow of Mount Esja was reflected in the steel-grey water.
