They drove on in silence. Over the cantilevered bridge at the River Olfusa and through the town of Selfoss.
‘How long are you staying in Iceland?’ Ingileif asked.
‘I thought it was going to be several months. But now it looks like I will have to go back to the States next week to testify at a trial.’
‘Are you coming back afterwards?’
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Magnus.
‘Oh. Don’t you like Iceland?’ Ingileif sounded offended. Which was hardly surprising; there is no easier way to offend an Icelander than to disparage their country.
‘I do like it. It just brings back difficult memories. And my job at the Reykjavik CID isn’t working out that well. I don’t really get along with the boss.’
‘Is there a girlfriend back in Boston?’ Ingileif asked.
‘No,’ said Magnus, thinking of Colby. She was an ex -girlfriend if ever there was one. He wanted to ask Ingileif why she had asked him that, but that would sound crass. Perhaps she was just curious. Icelanders asked direct questions when they wanted to know answers.
‘Look, there’s Hekla!’
Ingileif pointed ahead towards the broad white muscular ridge that was Iceland’s most famous volcano. It didn’t have the cone shape of the classic volcano, but it was much more violent than the prettier Mount Fuji, for example. Hekla had erupted four times in the previous forty years, through a fissure that ran horizontally along the ridge. And then, every couple of centuries or so, it would come up with a big one. Like the eruption of 1104 that had smothered Gaukur’s farm at Stong.
‘Do you know that around Boston they sell Hekla cinnamon rolls?’ Magnus said. ‘They’re big upside-down rolls covered in sugar. Look just like the mountain.’
‘But do they blow up in your face at random intervals?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Then they’re not real Hekla rolls. They need a bit more violence in them.’ Ingileif smiled. ‘I remember watching Hekla erupt in 1991. I was ten or eleven, I suppose. You can’t quite see it from Fludir, but I had a friend who lived on a farm a few kilometres to the south and you got a great view of it from there.
‘It was extraordinary. It was January and it was night time. The volcano was glowing angry red and orange and at the same time you could see a green streak of the aurora hovering above it. I’ll never forget it.’
She swallowed. ‘It was the year before Dad died.’
‘When life was normal?’ Magnus asked.
‘That’s right,’ said Ingileif. ‘When life was normal.’
The volcano loomed bigger as they drove towards it, and then they turned to the north and lost it behind the foothills that edged the valley. With two kilometres to Fludir, they came to a turn-off to Hruni to the right. Magnus took it, and the road wound through the hills for a couple of kilometres, before breaking out into a valley. The small white church of Hruni was visible beneath a rocky crag, surrounded by a house and some farm buildings.
They pulled up in the empty gravel car park in front of the church. Magnus climbed out of the car. There was a spectacular view to the north, of glaciers many miles away. Plovers dived and swirled over the fields, calling as they did so. Otherwise there was silence. And peace.
They approached the rectory, a large house by Icelandic standards, white with a red roof, and rang the doorbell. No answer. But there was a red Suzuki in the garage.
‘Let’s check inside the church,’ suggested Ingileif. ‘He is a pastor after all.’
As they walked through the ancient graveyard, Ingileif nodded towards a line of newer stones. ‘That’s where my mother is.’
‘Do you want to look?’ said Magnus. ‘I can wait.’
‘No,’ said Ingileif. ‘No, it feels wrong.’ She smiled sheepishly at Magnus. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t want to involve her in all this.’
‘It makes sense,’ said Magnus.
So they continued on to the church and went in. It was warm and really quite beautiful. It was also empty.
As they made their way back to the car, Magnus caught sight of a boy of about sixteen moving around the barn next to the rectory. He called out to him. ‘Have you seen the pastor?’
‘He was here this morning.’
‘Do you know where he might have gone? Does he have another car?’
The boy noticed the Suzuki parked in the garage. ‘No. He could have gone for a walk. He does that sometimes. He can be out all day.’
‘Thank you,’ said Magnus. He checked his watch. Three-thirty. Then turning to Ingileif: ‘What now?’
‘You could come back to our house in the village,’ she said. ‘I can show you the letters from Tolkien to my grandfather. And my father’s notes about where the ring might be. Although I doubt they will be much help.’
‘Good idea,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ll come back here later.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Austurstraeti was only a block away from the Hotel Borg. Isildur was reassured by the two men beside him, the big trucker from England and the wrinkled Icelandic ex-policeman. When Gimli had suggested a sum to Axel Bjarnason, he had been eager to drop everything to help them, although Gimli suspected that the private investigator didn’t have much to drop. He had short grey hair, sharp blue eyes and a weather-beaten face, and he looked more like a fisherman than a private investigator, not that Isildur had ever employed a private investigator before.
He clearly knew his town, though. He had recognized Petur Asgrimsson’s name immediately and had only required a few seconds to check that Ingileif’s gallery was where he thought it was. He was at the Hotel Borg less than a quarter of an hour later.
Isildur was nervous, scared even. He was in a strange country, and Iceland was a very strange country. Someone had been murdered and there was a chance that the murderer was the man walking along beside him. Isildur didn’t like to think too hard about that; he had decided not to ask Gimli right out whether he had killed the professor.
But the danger added to the thrill. It was a long shot: perhaps the police would get to the ring first. Perhaps the ring was a fake all along. Perhaps no one would ever find it. But there was a chance, a real chance, that Isildur might end up the owner of the actual ring that had inspired The Lord of the Rings, that had been carried to Iceland by his namesake a thousand years before.
That was cool. That was seriously cool.
The main entrance to Neon was just a small door on the street, but Bjarnason led them around the back. There another door was propped open by a couple of crates of beer. A young man was carrying in some cases of vodka.
Bjarnason stopped him and rattled something in Icelandic. That was one weird language. Isildur wondered to himself which Middle Earth language would sound like it. Possibly none of them: Quenya was Finnish-influenced and Sindarin was derived from Welsh. Perhaps Icelandic was just too obvious for Tolkien – no fun.
The boy led them downstairs past a vast dance floor to a small office. There a tall man with a shaved head was in earnest discussion with a red-haired woman in jeans and a Severed Crotch T-Shirt.
‘Go ahead,’ said Bjarnason to Isildur. ‘I’m sure he speaks English.’
‘Mr Asgrimsson?’ said Isildur.
The man with the shaved head looked up. ‘Yes?’ No hint of a smile. His smooth skull bulged alarmingly.
‘My name is Lawrence Feldman and this is my colleague Steve Jubb.’
‘What do you want? I thought you were in jail?’ Asgrimsson said.
‘Steve was always innocent,’ Isildur said. ‘I guess the cops finally figured that out.’
‘Well, if you want the saga, the police have it. And when they have finished with it, there is no way we are
