CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
This time, the pastor of Hruni was in.
He came to the door, an imposing man with a large bushy beard and big black eyebrows. He frowned when he saw Magnus, but his expression changed when his eyes rested on the detective’s companion.
‘Ingileif? Goodness me, I haven’t seen you since your poor mother’s funeral. How are you, my child?’ The pastor’s voice was a pleasant rich baritone.
‘I’m very well,’ said Ingileif.
‘And to what do I owe this pleasure?’
Magnus spoke up. ‘My name is Magnus Ragnarsson and I am attached to the Reykjavik Metropolitan Police. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may. May we come in?’
The pastor pulled together his mighty eyebrows. ‘I was expecting a visit from you,’ he said. ‘I suppose you had better come through.’
Magnus and Ingileif took off their shoes and followed the pastor through a hallway thick with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. He led them into a study, crammed full of books. In addition to a desk, there was a sofa and an armchair covered in worn chintz fabric. Ingileif and Magnus perched next to each other on the sofa, while Hakon took the chair. Magnus was surprised to notice a small collection of CDs tucked among the books, including Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
No sign of any coffee. Which was pretty rude in Iceland. You always gave your guests coffee and cakes, especially if you had some brewing.
Hakon addressed Ingileif. ‘I must confess I was expecting another visit from the police. But I don’t understand why you are accompanying them?’
‘Ingileif is concerned about the death of her father,’ Magnus said.
‘Ah, I see,’ said the pastor. ‘It is natural to have questions, especially since you were so young when the tragedy happened. Although I still don’t see why you would want to ask them now. And in the presence of the police.’
‘You know we have your son in custody?’ Magnus said.
‘Yes, I heard it on the radio. You have made a mistake there, young man. A terrible mistake.’ Deep-set eyes glowered at Magnus. Although an imposing man, the Reverend Hakon seemed younger than Magnus imagined. There was some grey around his temples, and some lines along his forehead, but he looked closer to forty than to sixty.
‘He is being interviewed at Police Headquarters in Reykjavik right now,’ said Magnus. ‘And I’m sure that my colleagues will want to talk to you once they have finished speaking with him. But in the meantime, tell me what happened on the trip you and Dr Asgrimur took the weekend he died.’
The pastor took a deep breath. ‘Well, there was a police investigation of course, and I spoke to them at length. I’m sure you could look up the file. But to answer your question. It was early May. Your father and I had worked throughout the winter on a project.’ He glanced inquiringly at Ingileif.
‘Magnus has read Gaukur’s Saga,’ said Ingileif. ‘And he knows that my grandfather claims to have found the ring and hidden it again.’
This information caused the pastor to pause a moment while he collected his thoughts. ‘Well, in that case you know as much as me. Using my knowledge of folklore, together with the clues in the saga, such as they are, we drew up a list of three or four possible hiding places for Gaukur’s ring. This was our second trip of the season, and it was a glorious day. We didn’t check the weather forecast, although we should have done, of course.
‘A few years before, I had read an old nineteenth-century history of Icelandic folklore, in which I stumbled across a little-known local legend about a ring hidden in a cave guarded by a troll. It was a variation on the old story of a shepherd girl meeting a hidden man or an elf and going off with him, despite the opposition of her family. That theme is quite common in these stories, but the ring was unusual. The location of the cave is identified in the story, so we took a tent and hiked out there.’
Magnus recognized the story of Thorgerd from the pastor’s old notes in the doctor’s papers at Ingileif’s house.
The pastor sighed. ‘It was more of a hole in the rock, really. And there was nothing in it. We were disappointed and we camped about a mile away, by a stream. It snowed in the night – you know, one of those sudden storms you get in May that come out of nowhere – and it was still snowing when we got up. We took down our tent and headed home. The snow thickened, it became difficult to see. Your father was walking a few metres ahead of me. We were both tired, I was just staring at the ground in front of me, one step at a time, when I heard a cry. I looked up and he had disappeared.
‘I realized that we were on the rim of a cliff, and he had slipped over. I could see him about twenty metres down, lying at an odd angle. I had to move a fair distance along the cliff top to find a route down, and even then it was very difficult in the snow. I slid and fell myself, but my fall was cushioned by the snow.’
The pastor paused and fixed Ingileif with his deep-set dark eyes. ‘When I found your father he was still alive, but unconscious. He had hit his head. I took off my own coat to keep him warm, and then rushed off to find help. Well, “rushed” is hardly the word for it in the snowstorm. I should have taken it more slowly: I got lost. It was only when the snowstorm ceased that I saw a farm in the distance. I was very cold by then – remember I had given my coat to your father.’
‘The farm was Alfabrekka?’
‘That’s right. There were two farmers there, a father and a son, and they both came back with me to look for Asgrimur, while the farmer’s wife called mountain rescue. By the time we got to your father, he was dead.’ The pastor shook his head. ‘When the rescue team eventually arrived they said he had been dead for a while, but I still wish I hadn’t got myself lost in the storm.’
‘Did the police find any evidence that the doctor’s death wasn’t accidental?’ Magnus asked.
‘Of course not!’ the pastor protested, his voice booming. ‘You can check on the file. There was never any doubt about that.’ The pastor glared at Magnus, commanding him to accept his assertion. Magnus didn’t flinch. He would make up his own mind.
He was beginning to understand what Ingileif had meant when she said the pastor was creepy. The man had an aura of power about him that reached out towards Magnus, urging him to bend to his will.
It was a power that Magnus was determined to resist.
‘Did you continue looking for the ring after my father’s death?’ Ingileif asked.
The pastor turned to her and relaxed slightly. ‘No. I let all that drop. I must confess it was fun working on the puzzle with your father, but once he had died then I lost all interest in the ring. Or the saga.’
Magnus glanced at the walls. There were three different prints of a volcano erupting. Hekla. ‘So how do you explain those?’
‘I have made quite a study of the role of the devil in Icelandic ecclesiastical history,’ said Hakon. ‘Hekla was known throughout Europe as the mouth of hell. That, as you can imagine, intrigues me.’
He paused. ‘I must admit that from that point of view, Gaukur’s Saga is very interesting. As far as I am aware it is the earliest mention of Hekla in that role. And also the first recorded ascent of the mountain. Until now we thought that no one dared climb Hekla until 1750. But of course Isildur and Gaukur were climbing it before the big eruption of 1104, so perhaps it wasn’t quite so frightening then.’
‘You spoke to my colleague a few days ago about a visit here by Professor Agnar Haraldsson,’ Magnus said.
‘That’s true.’
‘And what did you tell her he wanted to speak to you about?’
The pastor smiled, a mass of wrinkles appearing around his eyes. ‘Ah, I wasn’t entirely honest with your colleague. I take the confidences of my parishioners very seriously.’ He looked pointedly at Ingileif.
‘So what did Agnar really talk to you about?’
‘ Gaukur’s Saga, of course. And the ring.’ The pastor pulled at his beard. ‘He told me that Ingileif had asked him to act for the family in the sale of the saga.’ He frowned at Ingileif. ‘I must admit that I was quite shocked by this. After all the years that the family had successfully kept the saga a secret. Centuries even.’
