Magnus wasn’t surprised. But he knew how important it was in an investigation to check and double check everything. ‘Well, good luck,’ he said.
‘Can I bring you back anything?’
‘No, Arni. Just a full confession from Lawrence Feldman.’
Magnus turned to his computer and logged on. He was convinced that Baldur was wrong to downplay the importance of Isildur or Lawrence Feldman or whoever the hell he was. He would continue looking for the ring, or a ring, and hope that Arni came back with something useful.
He checked his e-mails.
There was one from Colby.
Magnus,
Last night one of your big ugly friends broke into my apartment and attacked me. He put a gun in my mouth and asked me where you were. I said you were in Sweden and he went away.
He scared the shit out of me.
I’m gone. They won’t find me. You won’t find me. No one knows where I am, not my family, not my friends, not the people at work, not the cops, and I’m definitely not telling you.
Magnus, you have screwed up my life and nearly gotten me killed.
Rot in hell wherever you are. And don’t ever EVER talk to me again. C.
There was a short e-mail accompanying it.
Hello Magnus,
Sorry about the delay in forwarding this – I was out of the office yesterday. I’m checking it out.
Agent Hendricks
Magnus stared at the screen. Emotions flooded over him, leaving him gasping for air. Drowning.
Anger at the scumbag who had done this to Colby. At Williams for not protecting her. At Colby herself for not understanding that it wasn’t his fault.
Anger with himself for letting it happen.
Guilt, because of course it was his fault.
Powerlessness, stuck in Reykjavik, thousands of miles away.
Guilt again, because in the last twenty-four hours he had thought very little about Colby, had almost forgotten her when she was in the greatest of danger.
He slammed his fist hard on his desk. There were only a couple of detectives in the room, but they both turned to stare.
At least Colby hadn’t said where he really was. Although at this point he didn’t care. At this point he thought of jumping on a plane to Boston, finding Pedro Soto personally and blowing him away. Why should he lurk cowering away in Iceland? He wasn’t a coward.
He tapped out an angry e-mail to Deputy Superintendent Williams, via Agent Hendricks, telling him what had happened and asking him where the hell the protection that he had promised Magnus was.
If the Boston PD couldn’t protect Colby, then Magnus would fly over and do it himself. It wasn’t as if he would be allowed to do anything useful in Iceland.
Ingileif waited in Mokka, toying with a latte. She liked the cafe, one of the oldest in Reykjavik, on the corner of Skolavordustigur and Laugavegur. Small, wood panelled and cosy, it was famous both for its waffles and for its clientele: artists, poets and novelists. The walls acted as a kind of rotating art exhibition for local artists, changing once a month. In March it had been her partner from the gallery’s turn.
There was a newspaper lying on the table, but she didn’t pick it up. It had been a good afternoon – she had sold six vases worth several hundred thousand kronur. But she had also had an awkward conversation with one of her partners about the delay in payments due from Nordidea.
She hadn’t exactly lied, but she hadn’t exactly told the truth, either.
The whole business with the saga and Agnar’s death had made her think again about her father. She could clearly remember the last morning she saw him. He had been walking out of the house with his rucksack when he had paused, turned and kissed her goodbye. She could remember what he was wearing – his blue anorak, his new lightweight hiking boots. She could remember the smell of him, the mints he used to like to suck. She also remembered her feelings of irritation towards him because he had forbidden her to sleep over at her friend’s house the night before. She hadn’t really forgiven him that dreadful morning.
There were all those questions now swirling around the death of Agnar, but there had been very few about her father. In Iceland, a man stumbling to his death in a snowstorm was an all too common occurrence, a feature of Icelandic life over the centuries.
Perhaps there should have been more questions. Perhaps there should be more questions now.
‘Hi, Inga!’
The other patrons of the cafe stared at the man who addressed her, but only for a couple of seconds, before returning to their conversations and their newspapers. Icelanders were proud of their ability to let famous people get on with their lives in public. Although of course there was only one truly famous Icelander, and that was Bjork, but the people of Reykjavik let her go as she pleased in their town.
‘Tomas! How good to see you!’ She stood up and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Hang on a moment,’ said the man. ‘Let me get myself a coffee. Do you want another?’
Ingileif shook her head and her companion went up to the counter to order a double espresso. His features were very familiar to Ingileif: the round glasses, the buck teeth, the bulging cheeks, the thinning brushed-back mousy hair. Partly, it was true, this familiarity was from seeing him once a week on TV, but it was also the result of a childhood spent together.
He returned to her table. ‘How’s things?’ he said. ‘I went into your gallery the other day. I missed you, but you have some lovely stuff. It must sell well.’
‘It does,’ said Ingileif.
‘But?’ Tomas had noticed the doubt in her voice. He was perceptive like that.
‘Too well,’ Ingileif admitted. ‘Our biggest customer went bust last month and they owe us a lot of money.’
‘And the bank isn’t being much help?’
‘You’re right there. A couple of years ago they were throwing money at us, and now they can’t get it back fast enough. They gave us one of those foreign currency loans that just keeps on growing.’
‘Well, good luck with that,’ said Tomas. ‘I’m sure you will thrive.’
‘Thank you,’ Ingileif smiled. ‘How about you? Your show seems to be going very well. I love the way you skewered the British Ambassador last week.’
Tomas smiled broadly, his cheeks bunching up like a squirrel’s. ‘He deserved it. I mean, using anti-terrorist legislation to grab our country’s biggest bank. It was bullying, pure and simple. How would the British like it if the Americans did the same thing to them?’
‘And that banker the week before. The one who paid himself a four-million-dollar bonus three months before his bank went bust.’
‘At least he had the grace to come back to Iceland to face the music,’ Tomas said. ‘But that’s the problem, you see. I won’t get any more bankers on the show for a while, or ambassadors for that matter. I have to tread a fine line between being disrespectful to please the viewers and not being too aggressive so that I scare the guests away.’
He sipped his espresso. Fame suited him, Ingileif thought. She had always liked him, he had a warm approachable sense of humour, but he used to be a bit shy, lacking in self-confidence. Now he was a household name, some of that shyness had disappeared. Not all of it though. That remained part of his charm.
‘You heard about Agnar Haraldsson?’ Tomas asked, peering at Ingileif closely through his glasses.
‘Yes,’ she said simply.
‘I remember you and he had a bit of a thing going.’
‘We did,’ Ingileif admitted. ‘Big mistake. Actually, it was probably only a little mistake, but a mistake none the less.’
‘It must have been a bit of a shock? His death. I mean I was shocked and I scarcely knew the guy.’
‘Yes,’ said Ingileif, her voice suddenly hoarse. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘Have the police been in touch?’
