Magnus drained his cup. ‘Despite everything, he’s lucky to have you as his mother. If you hold it together, he’ll grow up into a fine boy. I’m sure he will.’
Harpa struggled to control her tears. ‘Thanks,’ she mouthed so quietly Magnus could barely hear it.
The sun was sinking slowly towards the western ocean, brushing the broad shoulder of Bjarnarhofn Fell as it dropped. Magnus was glad to be alone as he started the drive back to Reykjavik, savouring the two hour interlude between the hubbub of Stykkisholmur police station and police headquarters.
His phone rang. Magnus didn’t recognize the number, and almost didn’t answer. After the third ring he decided he had better pick it up.
‘Magnus.’
‘Hello, Magnus, it’s Snorri here.’
Magnus felt himself straightening in the driver’s seat. The Big Salmon himself.
‘Hello, Snorri.’
‘I’m calling to apologize. You were right all along. We should have listened to you.’
‘It was a difficult call,’ Magnus said. ‘I never had the evidence.’
‘It was a good call. I guess that’s why we have you here. And why we want you to stay.’
‘Thank you,’ said Magnus. ‘And Snorri?’
‘Yes.’
‘Remember these guys are criminals, not terrorists.’
Snorri laughed. ‘I’ll remember that. I’ll just have to convince everyone else of it.’
Magnus smiled as he disconnected the phone. The apology was appreciated. Policemen didn’t like to apologize, in his experience, especially important ones.
He was staying in Iceland. So be it.
But what about Ingileif? She would have called Svala by now. Taken her decision. Perhaps he should have stayed on the phone with her just a minute longer. Told her to wait, at least until he had warned Olafur Tomasson.
But he hadn’t.
Too late.
Or was it? He didn’t want her to go. Sure, it was up to her what she did with her life. Sure, Germany was a good opportunity. Perhaps she really did need to get away from him and from Iceland. But he didn’t want her to go.
He picked up his phone. Selected her number. And waited.
She didn’t answer. She could probably see it was him calling, but she chose not to pick up.
Her message kicked in. It was good to hear her voice. The pause for him to leave his message was long. Profound. Unbreakable.
He hung up.
The fell at Bjarnarhofn was coming closer, as was the Berserkjahraun. He felt a wave of nausea sweep over him. The damned concussion.
He pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car. He stood up straight and took some deep breaths. The fresh air in Iceland is really fresh. The breeze thrust oxygen into his lungs and tingled his pale cheeks.
After a couple of minutes he felt much better. As he climbed back into the car, he noticed the pathologist’s report into the Benedikt Johannesson case lying on the back seat.
He left the driver’s door open and began to leaf through it. He was confident there would be nothing there that hadn’t been referred to in the rest of the file, but you never knew.
You never knew.
It was right there, up front, under
Benedikt had been stabbed once in the back and twice in the chest, by a killer who was probably right handed.
On a July day eleven years later, Magnus’s father had answered the door of the house he was renting for the summer in Duxbury. Let someone in. Turned away from him. Had been stabbed in the back, and then stabbed again twice in the chest. And died. The killer was right-handed.
Same MO. Same killer. No doubt about it.
It never ceased to amaze Magnus how criminals stuck to the same modus operandi, whether they be small- time car thieves, or the most cunning serial killers. There was something about the routine, the familiarity of doing things exactly the same way they had been done before, which seemed to help them deal with situations of maximum stress.
He could imagine the killer, whoever he was, ringing the bell at the house in Duxbury, wearing gloves, greeting his father and entering the hallway. Perhaps he always planned to wait until his father turned his back on him, just as Benedikt had done ten years before. Then he would stab him once, and finish him off with two more stabs to the heart. It had worked before. It would work again.
There was only one man Magnus could think of who was linked to both Benedikt and to Ragnar.
Hallgrimur. Magnus’s grandfather, Ragnar’s father-in-law and Benedikt’s childhood playmate. And the man who lived at the farm just across the lava field in front of him.
Magnus knew that the police investigation hadn’t touched his grandfather. Why should it, when Benedikt had moved to Reykjavik decades before his death?
Magnus tried to remember if his grandfather was right- or left-handed. He couldn’t visualize him writing, but he could remember being hit. The old man had favoured his left fist, he was pretty sure. But there was a more obvious problem. The USCIS had confirmed that Hallgrimur had not visited the States in the summer of 1996. More importantly, Hallgrimur didn’t even have a passport.
So where was Hallgrimur on 28 December 1985, the afternoon Benedikt was murdered?
That would have been Magnus’s second Christmas at Bjarnarhofn. The time when Sibba and his uncle and aunt had visited from Canada. But Magnus couldn’t possibly remember his grandfather’s every movement that December.
There was a definite pattern. A family feud, fit for the
He looked up from the report, over the lava field to the white buildings around the farm, and the darker dot of the church.
If he was going to stay in Iceland, what would he do about Bjarnarhofn? Would he continue to run away from it? Or would he face up to it?
Anger swept through him. The tension of the previous few days overwhelmed him. Ingileif, his grandfather, the hunt for the killers of Oskar Gunnarsson, the stabbing of Bjorn, his own escape from death.
He took a decision. He didn’t want to think about it: it was something he had to do while he had the anger to see it through.
He put his foot down and sped through the lava field, turning off on the road to the farm.
He passed the hollow where the two berserkers were buried and in a moment he was approaching the familiar cluster of buildings. It should have been a beautiful spot, the imposing fell with the waterfall pouring down its flanks, the little wooden church, the sun setting in pink streaks on the ocean.
But Magnus could feel a heavy blanket of dread descending upon him.
He didn’t want to run into his uncle Kolbeinn. He remembered Sibba saying that their grandfather no longer lived in the main farmhouse, so Magnus drew up outside one of the two smaller houses.
He got up out of the car. Through the window he could see a man bent over a newspaper in a sitting room. His face was obscured as he worked at the crossword, but Magnus could see it was an old man. And he could see he was holding his pen in his left hand.
He rang on the bell. Then he knocked. Loudly.
‘All right, all right!’ He heard the familiar voice, gruff but perhaps a touch frailer than he remembered. ‘Give a man a chance. Patience! Patience!’
Magnus knocked louder.
