everything.
‘I can remember exactly where we were, on the shore of Raquette Lake. We were eating a sandwich sitting on a rock that looked like a troll. Dad told me how the Icelanders would have invented a long involved story about it. Then I asked him whether he believed in elves.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He kind of dodged the question. So I pressed him on it. He was a mathematician, he spent all his life dealing in proofs, there was no proof that elves existed.
‘So he gives me a long lecture about how although there is no proof that elves exist there is equally no absolute proof that they don’t. So science can’t answer the question. He said although he didn’t believe in elves, he was too much of an Icelander to deny their existence, and if I ever lived in Iceland I would understand.’
‘And now you live in Iceland, do you believe in them?’
Magnus laughed. ‘No. What about you?’
‘My grandmother saw hidden people all the time,’ Ingileif said. ‘Back in a rock near the farm where my mother was born. In fact a hidden woman came to her the night before my mother’s birth. They were planning to call Mum Boghildur, but the hidden woman said that unless my grandmother named her Liney the baby would die young. So that’s how my mother became Liney.’
‘Better than Boghildur,’ said Magnus. ‘The hidden woman had taste.’
‘Here, look,’ said Ingileif, pointing to a map with notes and arrows scrawled across it. ‘This is where they were heading for the weekend my father died.’ A cave was marked near a stream about ten kilometres away from the abandoned Viking farm at Stong.
Ingileif’s cell phone rang. As she answered Magnus could hear an agitated male voice, although he couldn’t hear it well enough to recognize it.
‘That was my brother,’ Ingileif said when the call was over. ‘Apparently the two foreigners who were trying to buy the saga showed up at Neon. An American and an Englishman. They were asking about the ring. Petur sent them packing.’
‘You’d think they would have the sense to leave all that alone.’
‘That’s certainly Petur’s opinion,’ said Ingileif. ‘He warned me they’ll be looking for me too. He doesn’t want me to tell them anything.’
‘Will you?’
‘No. And they’re not buying the saga at any price, if we ever do get the chance to sell it. Petur is adamant about that, and I agree with him.’ She checked her watch. ‘It’s nearly seven o’clock. The pastor should be back by now. Shall we go and check?’
They drove back up to Hruni, but there was no answer when they rang the doorbell. The pastor’s car was still in the garage. They looked up around the hills and the valley to see if they could spot a solitary walker. The sun, lower now, produced a soft, clear light, that seemed to pick out every detail of the landscape, and lit the snow on the distant mountains with a pinkish glow. A pair of ravens whirled in the distance, their croaking borne over the grassland by the breeze. But there was no sign of a human being anywhere.
‘What time does it get dark?’ Magnus asked. ‘Nine-thirty?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ingileif. ‘About that, I guess. It’s getting later and later these days.’
‘Are you hungry?’
Ingileif nodded. ‘I know a place in the village we can get something to eat.’
‘Let’s do that. We can come back here afterwards.’
‘And then drive back to Reykjavik?’
Magnus nodded.
‘We could do that,’ said Ingileif. ‘Or…’ She smiled. Her grey eyes danced under her blonde fringe. She looked delectable.
‘Or what?’
‘Or we could see him in the morning.’
Magnus woke with a start. He was sweating. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. He looked across the room at an unfamiliar window, blue-grey moonlight behind the thin curtains.
A hand touched his forearm.
He turned to see a woman lying in bed next to him. Ingileif.
‘What is it, Magnus?’
‘A dream, that’s all.’
‘A bad dream?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘No, it’s OK.’
‘Magnus, I want to know about your bad dreams.’ She pulled herself up on one elbow, her breasts shadows in the weak light seeping in from the curtains. He could make out a half smile of concern. She touched his cheek.
So he told her. About the dream, the 7-Eleven, O’Malley, the dopehead. And about the alleyway, the garbage cans, the fat bald guy, and the kid, the kid who Williams had said had just died.
She listened. ‘Do you get these dreams a lot?’
‘No,’ Magnus said. ‘Not until very recently. That second shooting.’
‘But they were trying to kill you, weren’t they, those two men?’
‘Oh, yeah. I don’t feel guilty about it at all,’ said Magnus. ‘At least, not while I’m awake.’ He slammed his fist into the mattress. ‘It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why I let it bother me.’
‘Hey, you killed someone,’ Ingileif said. ‘You were absolutely right to do it, you had no choice, but you feel bad about it. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t, and you are human, even if you think you are a big tough cop. I wouldn’t like you if you weren’t.’
And she snuggled up into his chest. He pulled her tightly to him.
They kissed.
He stirred.
Afterwards she fell right back asleep. But Magnus couldn’t. He lay still, on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
She was right about the dreams, of course. He should expect them, accept them. The idea lulled him.
But then he thought of Colby, hiding out somewhere, God knows where, fearing for her life. Shouldn’t he feel guilty about her?
He glanced over to Ingileif, her eyes closed, breathing gently in and out through half-open lips. Even in the gloom he could make out the nick in her eyebrow.
Colby had made it pretty clear that there was little chance of salvaging their relationship. In fact, a one- night-stand with a beautiful Icelandic girl was a perfectly sensible way to get over her. Much better than getting blind drunk and winding up in jail. Trouble was, looking at Ingileif lying beside him, it didn’t feel like a one-night stand at all. He really liked her. Really liked her.
And for some stupid reason that made it a much worse betrayal of Colby.
After driving back from Hruni they had stopped at the only hotel in Fludir. It turned out to have a very good restaurant. They had eaten a long leisurely dinner, watching the valley of the Hvita submerge into darkness in front of them. They had walked back to Ingileif’s house along the smaller river that ran through the village, and then they had wound up in Ingileif’s childhood bedroom.
He smiled at the memory.
He was being ridiculous. He had been in Iceland for less than a week, and already he was beginning to understand that the Icelanders had a more casual attitude to sex than he was used to. He was just like, what’s- his-name, the painter, Ingileif’s alibi. Sure she liked him, just like she liked skyr or strawberry ice cream. Maybe less.
He had to be careful here. Sleeping with a witness was a definite no-no in America, and somehow he doubted that Baldur would be impressed if he ever found out. And could he be entirely sure that she was innocent?
Of course he could.
But the detective in him, the professional, whispered something else.
