‘There’s a man called Axel Bjarnason,’ said Kristjan. ‘He’s well known to stray on the wrong side of the law. I would stay well clear of him. You’ll find his name in the phone book. Under “A”, we list people under first names in this country.’
It took Magnus a while to requisition a car for the journey to Hruni, and it wasn’t until after lunch before he rolled up outside the gallery on Skolavordustigur to pick up Ingileif. It would take a little less than two hours to get to Hruni, but there should be time to get there, speak to the pastor and return to Reykjavik that evening.
She was wearing jeans and an anorak, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She looked good. She also looked pleased to see him.
They drove out of Reykjavik under a broad dark cloud, the suburbs of Grafarvogur and Breidholt, a lesser grey, stretching out beside them. As they climbed up the pass to the south-east, lava and cloud converged, until suddenly they crested the final rise and a broad flood plain sparkled in the sunshine beneath them. The plain was scattered with knolls and tiny settlements, and bisected by a broad river, which ran down to the sea, through the town of Selfoss. Closer by, steam rose in tall plumes from the boreholes of a geothermal power station. Immediately below were the vegetable greenhouses of Hveragerdi, heated by spouts of hot water shooting up from the centre of the earth. There was a touch of sulphur in the air, even inside the car.
A thin band of white edged the black cloud hovering above them. Ahead, the sky was a pale, faultless blue.
‘Tell me about Tomas,’ Magnus said.
‘I’ve known him for about as long as I can remember,’ Ingileif said. ‘We went to elementary school together in Fludir. His parents separated when he was about fourteen, and he moved with his mother to Hella. He’s totally different to his father, a bit of a joker, charming in his way, although I never found him attractive. Quite smart. But his father was always disappointed in him.’
She paused as Magnus manoeuvred around a particularly steep bend down the hill, swerving slightly to avoid a truck coming up the other way.
‘We drive on the right in this country,’ Ingileif said.
‘I know. We do in the States too.’
‘It’s just you seem to prefer the middle of the road.’
Magnus took no notice. He was in perfect control of the car.
‘Tomas bummed around after university for a bit,’ Ingileif continued. ‘Then did some journalism and suddenly fell into this show he does: The Point. He’s perfect for it. The producer who spotted him must be a genius.’
‘When was that?’
‘A couple of years ago. I think it’s gone to his head a bit. Tomas always liked to drink, do drugs, but his parties have the reputation for being pretty wild.’
‘Have you been to any?’
‘Actually, no. I haven’t seen much of him recently, until yesterday. But he asked me to go to one on Saturday.’
‘I wouldn’t buy yourself a frock for that one.’
‘No,’ said Ingileif. ‘I hear he might be double booked.’
‘You say you saw him yesterday?’
Ingileif described her meeting with Tomas in Mokka, and his cryptic questions about the Agnar case.
‘How does he get along with his father?’ Magnus asked.
‘Well, I don’t know about now. But it always used to be the classic relationship between an over-demanding father and a son who is constantly trying to please and never quite succeeds. Tomas tried to rebel, dropping out, the parties and so on, but he never quite managed it. He always felt his father’s disapproval deeply. I’m sure he still does.’
‘So he might do his father a favour? A big favour?’
‘Like murdering someone?’
Magnus shrugged.
Ingileif thought about it for a few seconds. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in frustration eventually. ‘I can’t imagine he would. I can’t imagine that anyone would murder anyone else. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen in Iceland.’
‘It happens everywhere,’ said Magnus. ‘And it’s happened here. To Agnar.’
They were now on the floor of the plain, driving on a long straight road that cut through fields of knotted brown grass. Every mile or so, a farmhouse or a little white-and-red church perched on top of a hillock, a green patch of home meadow laid out neatly in front of it. Sheep grazed, most still shaggy with the winter’s wool, but the prevalent animal was the horse, sturdy animals, barely bigger than ponies, many a golden chestnut colour.
‘So, back in America, are you a tough-guy cop with a gun like you see on TV?’ Ingileif asked. ‘You know, chasing the bad guys around the city in sports cars?’
‘Cops get irritated as hell by the TV shows, they never get it right,’ said Magnus. ‘But yes, I do have a gun. And the city is full of bad guys, or at least the areas I end up working in.’
‘Doesn’t it depress you? Or do you get a thrill out of it?’
‘I dunno,’ said Magnus. It was always hard to explain being a cop to civilians. They never quite got it. Colby had never gotten it.
‘Sorry,’ said Ingileif, and she turned to look out of the window.
They drove on. Perhaps Magnus was being unfair to Ingileif. She had made an effort to understand him the night before.
‘There was a girl I knew in college, Erin. She used to go down into Providence to work with the kids there. It was a real tough place back then. I went with her, partly because I thought what she was doing was good, mostly because I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the college and I wanted to get her into bed.’
‘How romantic.’
‘Yeah. But she did do a lot of good. She was great with the kids, the boys drooled over her, and the girls thought she was cool too. And I helped out.’
‘I bet all the girls thought you were cool as well,’ Ingileif said with a grin.
‘I managed to fight them off,’ said Magnus.
‘And did you worm your evil way into this poor girl’s bed?’
‘For a while.’ Magnus smiled at the memory. ‘She was genuinely a very good person. One of the best people I’ve ever met. Much better than me.
‘Every time she met a screwed up kid who was dealing drugs or knifing his neighbours, she saw a scared little boy who had been abused and abandoned by his parents and by society.’
‘And you?’
‘Well, I tried to see it her way, I really did. But in my world there were good guys and bad guys, and all I saw was a bad guy. The way I saw it, it was the bad guys who were ruining the neighbourhood and corrupting the other kids in it. All I wanted to do was stop the little punk from ruining other people’s lives. Just like my life had been ruined by whoever killed my father.’
‘So you became a cop?’
‘That’s right. And she became a teacher.’ Magnus smiled wryly. ‘And somehow I think she has made the world a better place than I have.’
‘Do you still see her?’
‘No,’ said Magnus. ‘I visited her once in Chicago a couple of years after we left college. We were very different people by then. She was still gorgeous, though.’
‘I think I’d agree with you,’ Ingileif said, turning towards him. ‘About the bad guys.’
‘Really?’
‘You sound surprised?’
‘I guess I am.’ Erin certainly hadn’t agreed with him. Neither had Colby for that matter. Policemen always felt lonely on that point, as if they were doing the jobs no one else wanted to do, or even wanted to admit needed doing.
‘Sure. You’ve read your sagas. We Icelandic women are constantly nagging our menfolk to get out of bed and go and avenge their family honour before lunch time.’
‘That’s true,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve always loved that in a woman, especially on a Sunday morning.’
