Magnus altered direction towards it. He was going downhill. A few seconds later he emerged from the clouds. Below him was a new valley, grassier than the bleak one they had just left, with a road of pristine black asphalt running up the centre of it.
And a couple of hundred metres down the slope of the valley, he saw Harpa sliding down the hill, Ísak close behind her. She was finding it hard to keep her balance with her hands tied in front of her.
Magnus hurried after them. In dismay he could see Harpa heading for the top of a rocky outcrop perhaps fifty feet high. She obviously couldn’t see the drop. ‘To the left!’ he shouted. ‘Run to the left!’
But she ignored him. It looked for a second as if she was going to propel herself off the cliff, but she stopped just in time. Turned. Saw Ísak close behind her and slid down a crevice.
She came to rest on a narrow ledge and began to work her way awkwardly along the rock face, her back to the cliff, hands in front of her.
Ísak hesitated at the top of the outcrop. He turned to see Magnus approaching down the hill.
‘Wait, Ísak!’ Magnus shouted.
Ísak looked down, and slid down the crevice as well.
It took Magnus a minute to get to the rock. Below him, Harpa had run out of ledge. Ísak was inching towards her, knife outstretched. There was still some of Björn’s blood on the blade.
‘Put the knife down, Ísak!’ Magnus shouted. ‘There’s no point in killing Harpa now!’
Ísak hesitated. He was listening.
‘Sindri has talked. We know you stabbed Björn. It doesn’t matter what Harpa tells us now. So let her go!’
For a moment Magnus thought Ísak would do the rational thing. But then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You back off! Back off or I will kill her!’ He continued making his way carefully along the ledge.
A hostage situation. It was some progress. At least Ísak wouldn’t kill Harpa right away.
But hostage situations were inherently uncertain. Magnus had been involved in a couple back in Boston where people had died when they shouldn’t.
Although Ísak was desperate, he wasn’t high and he wasn’t a psycho. And yet, you never knew what might happen with hostage situations.
There were still a few seconds before Ísak reached Harpa. Magnus weighed the options. Ísak and Harpa were probably twenty feet below him. Below them was a further twenty to thirty feet to a steep grassy slope.
If Magnus slid down the rock face he could take Ísak with him in a tumble all the way to the bottom. A dumb thing to do. Magnus would probably break something, possibly his neck. And Ísak might easily stick him with the knife.
Whereas if Ísak reached Harpa the situation might resolve itself with nobody getting hurt.
Or not.
Ísak closed on Harpa. She had nowhere to go. She screamed.
What the hell. Magnus jumped.
He slid down the near-vertical smooth rock on his ass. Ísak turned and raised his knife, jabbing upwards. Magnus twisted. The knife caught his arm, but Magnus’s legs knocked into Ísak’s and the two of them rolled and bumped their way to the bottom of the slope.
Magnus hit his back, his chest and then his head on a rock.
Everything went black.
He had no idea how long he was out. It must only have been a few seconds, because when he opened his eyes, he saw Ísak scrambling towards him, clutching the knife, blood running down one of his cheeks.
Magnus tried to heave himself on to his elbow, but his head swam. His body was receiving mixed signals, his confused brain was unable to make use of the adrenalin flooding his system.
Ísak reached him. Swayed. Two Ísaks.
Magnus tried to force his brain to tell his legs and arms to cooperate, but they wouldn’t.
Ísak raised the knife. Magnus couldn’t even cry out.
Then he saw a grey stone come crashing down on the back of Ísak’s skull and the kid crumpled.
Two Harpas came into Magnus’s vision and slowly merged into one.
Finally he managed to pull himself onto his elbows.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘What shall I do?’ said Harpa, looking down at the prone body of Ísak. A stone a bit bigger than a baseball still in her bound hands.
‘If he moves, hit him again with that,’ said Magnus.
‘Do you think I’ve killed him?’
‘I hope so.’ Just then a police car came roaring up the road, its lights flashing. ‘Give them a wave, will you?’
Magnus’s head hurt, and his forearm stung where Ísak’s knife had grazed it. He was leaning against the police car which had pulled over on the verge of the road up through the pass. There had been two officers in it. One was watching over Ísak who was still unconscious, the other one was summoning an ambulance from the hospital in Stykkishólmur.
‘I’ve killed him, haven’t I?’ Harpa said.
‘Not yet, unfortunately,’ said Magnus. ‘He’s still breathing.’
‘After Gabríel Örn, I couldn’t handle knowing I had killed someone else.’
‘Harpa?’
‘Yes.’
‘A bit of advice. From now on, don’t talk to anyone, especially a policeman, about what happened to Gabríel Örn. Not unless you have a lawyer present.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Harpa. ‘I don’t care.’ She winced, and bent down to rub her knee. ‘That hurts.’
‘Trust me,’ said Magnus. ‘For Markús’s sake.’
She smiled quickly. ‘OK. But I thought you were trying to get me to confess?’
‘Yeah. But that was before you saved my life. Don’t worry, we’ll figure out what happened. I just don’t want you to screw up your defence.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks. And thanks for coming after me.’
Magnus’s brain was beginning to clear. ‘There are a load of questions we need to ask you, but I guess the most important is, do you know if they have another target?’
‘Yes,’ said Harpa. ‘Yes, they do.’
‘Do you know who?’
‘I asked Björn, but he wouldn’t say.’
‘Ingólfur Arnarson? Did he mention the name Ingólfur Arnarson?’
‘The first settler? No. He did say there’s someone else out there. Someone who actually does the killing. But I don’t know who that is.’
‘Do you have any clue? Think, Harpa.’
‘No. I tried to make him tell me, but he wouldn’t.’
‘Did he say when it’s going to happen?’
‘Yes. Kind of. What did he say?’ Harpa frowned, trying to remember. ‘How did he put it? “This afternoon maybe. Maybe this evening. Certainly by tomorrow morning.” Something like that. That’s where he was going. To receive a text from the killer on his phone. He couldn’t get reception in the hut so he went back up the pass. Have you found him? Have you arrested him?’
Magnus realized that Harpa didn’t know what had happened to her boyfriend. She had to know; he may as well be the one to tell her.
‘Yeah, I found him. He had been stabbed. By Ísak.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Harpa put her hand to her mouth. ‘Is he all right?’
‘He was in a bad way when I left him to go after you. A chest wound.’
‘You left him?’
‘Yes. With another police officer. He was going to call an ambulance.’
‘Do you know how he is?’
Magnus raised an eyebrow at the uniformed policeman who had finished on the radio. ‘I’ll check,’ the constable said.
He left the car door open as he called Páll on the radio. Magnus considered asking Harpa to step back, but there wasn’t much point. She would want to know.
‘Do you have Björn Helgason there?’ the officer asked.
‘Yes.’ Magnus heard Páll’s voice. From his tone, he knew what was coming next. ‘But he’s dead at the scene.’
Magnus heard a short gasp from Harpa. He took the radio mike from the constable. ‘Páll, it’s Magnús. Did you get a chance to ask him any questions?’
‘No. He lost consciousness as soon as I got to him.’