of the chatter and the alcohol seeped out into the little front yard.
He went in.
Magnus was in a tight spot. He had already wasted three of the bad guys, but there were another two out there, at least. He was packing a Remington shotgun and a three fifty-seven magnum. The docks were dark. He heard a rustle.
He turned, saw a gun poke out from behind a container and loosed off two rounds from the Remington. A figure rolled out on to the tarmac, dead. Two more figures jumped him from close quarters; he shot one and then a message flashed up in the bottom corner of the screen. SHOULDER WOUND. He had to drop the gun. The grinning face of a hoodlum appeared in the screen, followed by the
business end of an MP5. ‘Make my day,’ the guy said and the screen went orange and then black. GAME OVER.
Johnny Yeoh swore and pushed his chair back from the screen. He had been playing Magnus’s career for five hours straight. Kopz Life was his favourite game, and he always called himself Magnus. That guy was just so cool.
Johnny wondered whether he should take the plunge and apply to join the police department for real. He was certainly smart enough. And he thought of himself as good under pressure. Sure, he wasn’t exactly big, but if you packed the right piece, what did that matter?
The buzzer sounded. He checked his watch: half-past midnight. He suddenly realized how hungry he was. He had ordered the pizza forty-five minutes before, although thanks to his total absorption in the game, it felt like only ten.
He buzzed the pizza guy into his building, and a minute later unlocked his apartment door to let him in.
The door slammed open and Johnny found himself pinned up against the wall of his living room, a revolver shoved down his throat. A light brown face with cool eyes stared at him, inches away. Johnny’s own eyes hurt as he crossed them, trying to focus on the gun in his mouth.
‘OK, Johnny, I got one question for you,’ the man said.
Johnny tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know whether it was the fear or the metal pressed on his tongue.
The man withdrew the gun so that it was an inch away from his mouth.
Johnny tried to speak again. No sound. It was the fear.
‘Say what?’
This time Johnny squeezed out some words. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘You done some work for a cop by the name of Magnus Jonson?’
Johnny nodded vigorously.
‘You found the address of some guy in California he was looking for?’
Johnny nodded again.
‘How about you write that down for me, man?’ The guy glanced around the room. He was tall, slim, with a smooth face and hard brown eyes. Eyes which alighted on some paper and a pen. ‘Over there!’
‘I need to check my computer,’ Johnny said.
‘Go right ahead. I’ll be watching you. So don’t go typing no messages to nobody.’
Intensely aware of the gun in the back of his head, Johnny Yeoh went over to the desk and sat in front of his computer. He clenched his buttocks, trying desperately hard to stop his bowels moving. He wanted to pee too.
Within less than a minute he had found Lawrence Feldman’s address. He wrote it down: his hand was shaking so badly it took him two attempts, and even then the words were illegible.
‘Did Jonson say where he’s at?’ the guy asked.
‘No,’ said Johnny, turning to look up at the man, his eyes wide. ‘I didn’t speak to him. He sent me an e- mail.’
‘Where’d it come from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Sweden?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then look!’ The gun was crammed into his skull.
Johnny called up his e-mail folder and found the one from Magnus. The truth was he hadn’t checked the address. The domain name was lrh. is. Where the hell was that? A country beginning with ‘IS’. Isreal? No, that was ‘. il’. ‘Iceland, perhaps?’
‘Hey, I’m asking you.’
‘All right, all right. I’ll check.’ It took Johnny less than a minute to confirm that the domain was indeed in Iceland. The Icelandic police to be precise.
‘Now, Iceland ain’t in Sweden, is it?’
‘No,’ said Johnny.’
‘Is it near Sweden?’
‘Not really,’ said Johnny. ‘I mean it’s in Scandinavia but it’s right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A thousand miles away. Two thousand.’
‘All right, all right.’ The man with the gun grabbed the scrap of paper and backed off towards the door. ‘You know, you ain’t no fun, man.’
Then the gunman did something very strange. He looked Johnny Yeoh right in the eye. Put the revolver to his own temple. Smiled.
And pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The pastor carried the newspaper he had just bought from the shop down in Fludir into his study. There was a short article on page five about the investigation into Agnar’s murder. It sounded as if little real progress had been made since the initial arrest of the Englishman. The pastor smiled as he remembered how he had so disconcerted the black policewoman. But he shouldn’t be complacent. The police were making a plea for any witnesses who had seen anyone at all driving down to that part of the shore of Lake Thingvellir on the First Day of Summer to come forward.
That worried him.
He thought about making a phone call, but he knew the best thing to do was to stay calm, and stay quiet. There was no reason why the police should pay him another visit, but he would be wise to be prepared nonetheless.
He glanced at the pile of books on his desk, and the exercise book open at the page he had left off working the night before. He should get back to the life of Saemundur. But he couldn’t dispel the anxiety the article in the newspaper had awakened. He needed some comfort.
He put down the paper and examined his small CD collection on the bottom shelf of a long bookshelf, and selected one. Led Zeppelin IV. He slipped it into his CD player and turned up the volume.
He smiled when he remembered the time fifteen years before when he had shouted at his son for listening to devil worship, and then how he had surreptitiously listened to the music himself when his son was away at school. He liked it; it was somehow apt. He stood for a moment, closed his eyes and let the music wash over him.
After a couple of minutes he left the house and crossed the fifty yards over to the church, nestled beneath the rocky crag. Heavy, insistent chords rang out of the parsonage behind him, echoing off the rocks behind, swirling around the valley.
The church was bright and airy inside. The sunlight streamed in through the clear glass windows. The ceiling was painted light blue and decorated with gold stars, the walls were cream wooden planks and the pews were painted pink. The pulpit and the small electric organ were made of blond pine. He walked towards the altar, draped with red velvet. Behind it was a painting of the Last Supper.
On mornings like this, some of his congregation claimed that they could feel God in the church. But only the pastor knew what was really hidden in there.
