But what? Sophie couldn’t really believe that Zak was a terrorist, or part of a conspiracy of terrorists. In which case why not call the police with her suspicions? Let them clear him. She had the card that the policewoman had left Zak in her jeans pocket.
Because it would be disloyal, that was why. She would never be able to look Zak in the eye again.
Josh was sitting at the front of the lecture theatre, typing away on his laptop. Really taking notes, probably, he didn’t look like a Facebook surfing type.
He was a bright guy, if a little overenthusiastic. Sophie scarcely knew him – she remembered some perceptive questions he had asked in that class, and some that were a little out there.
She had an idea.
When, finally, the lecture finished, Sophie was one of the first through the exit, which was at the back of the theatre by her seat. She loitered, waiting to pounce. Josh was the third to last out.
‘Josh!’
‘Oh, hi. Sophie, isn’t it?’ He shrank back a little.
‘Can I have a quick chat about something?’
‘If it’s about what I said about your boyfriend last night, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’m sure I was wrong.’
‘It is about that,’ said Sophie. ‘And quite frankly I don’t know whether you are wrong or right. But, well, if Zak really did ask you the questions you say he did about Lister, then I think you should tell the police.’
‘I’m sure he didn’t mean anything,’ said Josh.
‘Listen to me, Josh,’ Sophie said, looking straight into his eyes. ‘I’m not at all sure of that. Do you understand me? You might be right, I just don’t know. Here’s the number of a policewoman who interviewed Zak a couple of days ago. If you’re still suspicious, call her. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Josh, staring at the card Sophie had handed him.
He let her go first, and then ambled into Clare Market in the heart of the tight cluster of buildings that made up the London School of Economics, pulled out his phone and dialled the number. Detective Sergeant Piper didn’t answer, but he left a message.
Josh was always having outlandish theories but none of them ever turned out to be true. Could that really be about to change?
Magnus walked the short distance to Ingileif’s gallery. It was on Skolavordustigur, a short road that led up the hill from Laugavegur directly to the scaffolding-clad sweeping spire of the Hallgrimskirkja. The street was lined with galleries and art shops, although since the arrival of the
As Magnus walked past the window, he saw her staring outside, an empty expression on her face. Even though she was looking straight at him, she didn’t seem to see him. It was only when he walked through the door that she noticed him.
She smiled quickly and briefly. He held her. After a few seconds they broke apart. She turned away from him, moving towards the back of the gallery, putting a little distance between them.
‘I’m sorry I stormed out on you last night,’ Ingileif said. ‘I was pretty drunk.’
‘I could tell.’
‘But why don’t you
‘I do.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Ingileif said. Pink spots appeared on her pale cheeks, a sure sign that she was either angry or embarrassed. Magnus guessed angry. ‘Admit it, you don’t trust me.’
‘I do,’ Magnus said. ‘I didn’t last night, but I do now.’
‘Why now? What’s changed? Magnus, I did it all for you, don’t you see that? Do you think I enjoyed listening to that fat old man droning on for hours on end? Do you think I actually wanted to sleep with him? I was trying to help you out. I thought you’d be pleased with me, instead of which you are upset because I didn’t stick to the rules and you think I enjoy seducing old men. I’m sorry, but if you think that, there isn’t much of a future for us.’
Magnus sighed. ‘I don’t think that, Ingileif. You’re right, I got the wrong end of the stick. I didn’t understand what you were doing. And it’s true I don’t completely understand you. That’s one of the reasons why I love you.’
Ingileif’s grey eyes searched Magnus’s. He didn’t know whether they found what they were looking for.
‘I think I’m going to go to Germany, Magnus.’
Magnus was about to say, ‘don’t do that,’ when he stopped himself. He couldn’t stop her: she could do what she wanted. ‘That would be a shame.’
‘You said there’s a good chance you’ll be going back to the States. Why should I stay for you if you won’t stay for me?’
Magnus nodded. ‘That’s true.’
‘Well, then?’ Ingileif’s expression softened. ‘It’s not just you, Magnus. I should go. It would be a good opportunity for me. And it would be good to get away from this country for a bit. That stuff earlier this year with Agnar’s murder, all the things I learned about my father, my brother, I need to put that behind me.’
‘I thought I helped you with that,’ Magnus said.
‘I thought so too. But part of me holds you responsible for it. It’s not fair, but it’s true. I need to leave, Magnus.’
Magnus looked at Ingileif. The familiar grey eyes, the little nick above her left eyebrow, the smaller scar on her cheek. He had been lucky to know her, to love her even. But he couldn’t control her. He couldn’t keep her, he shouldn’t keep her. Why should someone like her stay just for him?
‘Do what you have to do,’ he said. And he turned and left the gallery.
Isak walked out of the small shop with a plastic bag full of half a dozen items: bits and pieces of fishing tackle and a sharp knife that one could use for gutting a fish.
Or for something else.
The other items were just cover: to make it less likely that the shopkeeper would take note of a stranger coming into town to buy a knife, and just a knife.
His phone beeped. He pulled it out. A text message from Sophie asking where he was. He had no intention of replying. A shame about Sophie. She was cute but that relationship had no future. She would figure out eventually what he was up to, and she was too much of a good girl not to tell someone.
The back of his mother’s Honda was filled with his parents’ camping equipment. Isak had parked it under the rocky outcrop upon which the church at Borgarnes stood. The town was about a third of the way between Reykjavik and Grundarfjordur. He pulled out a map and examined it.
Bjorn had talked about a hut on a mountain pass behind Grundarfjordur. Grundarfjordur was on the north coast of the Snaefells Peninsula, the backbone of which was a range of mountains. There was no pass directly to the south of Grundarfjordur, but there were two candidates a little further away, one to the east and one to the west. Isak would check these first.
He felt tense and strangely excited. Gabriel Orn’s death had genuinely shocked him. But over time he had got used to the idea, and his anger with the Icelandic establishment, including his father, had grown. When he, Bjorn and Sindri had met that summer to talk about taking things further, intellectually he had been all for it. But, like the other two, he hadn’t been ready to pull the trigger himself. They had found someone else to do that.
But now, after Oskar and Julian Lister, Isak was ready to do the deed himself.
And there was no doubt in his mind Harpa had to be killed.
He had spent so long reading and arguing about ideas such as ‘the end justifies the means’, and ‘the vanguard of the people’, it was exciting to find himself actually living by those precepts. Lenin, Trotsky, Castro, Che Guevara, they had all begun their careers like him, young intellectuals with ideas and enthusiasm but no experience of violence. And then at some point ideas had become action. That point for him was now.
He knew Bjorn had given up hope of getting away with it, and he suspected that Sindri had too, but he still thought there was a good chance that they might escape prosecution. None of the three of them had actually killed anyone and there was no evidence suggesting they had. Conspiracy would be much harder to prove, especially if the police had no idea who had actually been pulling the trigger. Which Isak was pretty sure they didn’t.
Sindri was naive hoping that the time of revolution was now. It would come, it might take years, but civil
