The seagulls surrounded the wretched fish, which still lay half submerged on its side, trying to swim with the fin that was above the water. They drew nearer. Thora couldn’t help watching, though she had no desire to witness what happened next. She felt uncomfortable, and was beginning to regret having had a drink in the bar. Suddenly the movement of the boat and the smell of the catch in the barrel were making her nauseous. She closed her eyes and breathed through her mouth, which helped a little. Her queasiness erupted again when she opened her eyes and saw that the fish was still locked in a drawn-out but hopeless fight to the death. One of the seagulls stretched out its neck and pecked at the fish’s side. The three of them stood side by side on the boat, watching silently.
Thora wished that either she’d kept her mouth shut when the fish was reeled in or she had a net to fish it out again. Suddenly all the seagulls flocked around the redfish in a feeding frenzy. The fish could be seen twitching a few times before it finally died, much to Thora’s relief. When the seagulls flew up again, full and contented, there was almost nothing left of it. Paddi turned to look at Thora and Bella, noting their identical expressions of horror.‘Are you sure you like deep-sea fishing?’ he asked. ‘We could easily change this into a sightseeing trip if you’d rather.’
‘Maybe that would be best,’replied Thora, and Bella nodded. ‘We’re not going to make good fishermen.’ She smiled at him. ‘Why don’t you take us on a short tour? The reason I booked a trip was actually to ask you about a couple of things – we were told that you’re the man who knows the most about people in the Islands.’
‘I see,’ said Paddi, taken aback.‘Why didn’t you just say so?’
‘I didn’t want to deprive you of a tour and I thought we could combine the two, fishing and conversation.’
They made their way to the upper deck, which had the best view of the magnificent scenery, and Paddi set sail again.‘I expect you’ve heard about the bodies in the basement,’said Thora. ‘I’m working for Markus Magnusson, who has unfortunately been linked to the case.’
‘I have heard,’ said Paddi, looking straight ahead. ‘This isn’t a big town and when something like this hits the headlines everyone follows the story, me included.’
‘So you may also know that Alda Thorgeirsdottir seems to have been murdered, and that Markus is a suspect?’
The old man snorted loudly. ‘The police in Reykjavik know nothing if they think Markus harmed a hair on Alda’s head,’ he exclaimed. ‘That boy used to think the sun shone out of her in the old days, and although teenage crushes aren’t the kind of thing I’d usually notice, everyone knew about it. With the possible exception of Alda. Even Gudni says the arrest is ridiculous, and he’s made a few blunders in his career.’
Although Thora was pleased to hear Paddi’s opinion of the case, she wasn’t looking for witnesses to Markus’s character. ‘Have you any thoughts on who the men in the basement might have been?’ she said. ‘It’s fairly clear that they were foreigners.’
‘Yes, Brits, I believe,’ said Paddi. Obviously he hadn’t been exaggerating when he said news spread quickly in the Islands. ‘There were no Brits here the night of the eruption, if that’s your question.’
‘What about shortly before that?’asked Thora. ‘Anyone who could have disappeared, but who people thought had simply gone away? When someone disappears, people don’t automatically assume they’ve been killed. Especially not a group of men.’
‘There were several foreigners in the Islands about a week before the volcano blew,’ he said. ‘But they were gone before it went up. Long gone.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Thora. ‘Is it possible they didn’t go far, maybe just down into the basement on Sudurvegur Street?’
‘No, no,’ said Paddi, steering towards a gannet that had taken off from the water as they approached. ‘I watched them sail away. They were a bunch of numbskulls. They sailed out of the harbour in pretty bad weather. Their old tub was a bit beaten up, and I thought they should have repaired it before continuing their journey. So I kept an eye on them. But they definitely made it out.’
‘I’ve spoken to a lot of people, and not a single one has mentioned this to me,’ said Thora, surprised. ‘Is it because you have a better memory, or is there something else going on?’
Paddi turned to smile at her.‘Naturally, some people have a better memory than others,’ he said.‘In this case there’s nothing going on, there’s a simple explanation: the smack didn’t stop here for long. It came in the evening and sailed away early the next morning, without many people noticing it.’
‘But you saw it leave?’ said Thora.
‘Yes, I always had one foot down at the harbour, still have. Not much has changed. My wife used to suggest that we hire a bulldozer and push the house down there to spare me the to-ing and fro-ing.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘May God rest her soul.’ He resumed his story – much to Thora’s relief, since she never knew what to say at moments like these. ‘So I was messing around down there, securing my boat because the forecast was bad, as I recall, when this smack came sailing into the harbour. The men were yapping something at me in a foreign language, and even though I didn’t understand the words I realized they were asking for mooring. I pointed them to an empty space and that was that.’
‘Do you know what nationality they were, or how many of them were on board?’ asked Thora.
Paddi the Hook shook his head. ‘Bloody limeys, I think,’ he said. ‘I counted two, but there could have been more as it was quite a big boat.’
‘And when was it they left, given that it seems no one but you saw them? In the middle of the night?’
‘No, love,’ said Paddi.‘They waited out the worst of the weather, since their boat wasn’t exactly in the best condition. If I could have spoken to them man to man, in Icelandic, I would have pointed out that they could have repaired most of the damage here, with us. But it didn’t get to that stage, because I was up early the next morning and watched through the kitchen window as they sailed away. Although it was dark outside it was clearly them, because the harbour was lit. I recognized their smack as it travelled out to sea. They definitely left.’
‘Do you by any chance recall the name of the boat?’ asked Thora.
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied, avoiding her glance. ‘I’m not so good at reading, I don’t mind admitting. It actually hasn’t been too much of a problem -I’m more one for working with my hands, and it’s often easier when book-learning’s not getting in your way.’
She smiled at him. ‘But you have got a good memory. How can you remember this, for example? Hundreds of boats must have been through this harbour; what was so special about this smack?’
‘There was nothing that special about it – it was a fairly good-looking boat and all that, but it’s true that other, better boats have stopped here.’ He looked back out over the rudder. ‘I remember it so clearly because of what happened the next morning, when Tolli discovered blood on the pier where it had been moored.’
Thora’s expression revealed nothing, although she was very excited. ‘I’m guessing you mean the weekend before the eruption?’ she asked. ‘I’ve heard about this but I understood that no boat had been anchored there for a long time before the blood was found.’ She decided not to tell him where she’d heard this, since she preferred not to advertise the fact that she and Bella had been snooping through Gudni’s files.
‘That’s because no one knew the smack had been there but me,’ Paddi replied. ‘When I left the harbour it was there, but for some reason the men moved it from that pontoon over to one located a bit further to the east. I watched them sail away, but I’ve never understood why they moved the boat. Maybe the weather seemed worse in the place I pointed them to.’
‘Did you tell anyone about the boat?’ said Thora. She was surprised this hadn’t come up in Gudni’s report, although there was a chance she and Bella had overlooked it in their haste.
‘No, actually I didn’t,’said Paddi. ‘No doubt I would have done eventually, but then the volcano went up and I had other things to think about. No one asked me, and then I had the feeling that this
