More silence. Tryggvi Thór’s heavy dark brow was knitted in anger.
‘What’s going on, Tryggvi Thór?’
Tryggvi Thór took a deep breath. ‘I told you back then that I wouldn’t answer those questions. And I said it was a condition of living here that you didn’t ask them.’
‘You did say that,’ Magnus agreed. ‘And I complied. But I’m worried about Thelma. A woman was killed in Dalvík. Her daughter’s best friend has just been murdered in Reykjavík. This cryptocurrency Thomocoin links them both. Yet Thelma is telling me not to bring Thomocoin into the investigation. She says it’s a political hot potato.’
‘Maybe it is. You know it’s the job of a superintendent to deal with politics. I’m sure it was like that in Boston. That’s what they do.’
‘“Dealing with” is OK,’ said Magnus. ‘Covering up isn’t.’
‘Do you think she’s covering stuff up?’
‘Maybe. And maybe you and she are covering stuff up too.’
The anger was growing. Tryggvi Thór clutched his brandy glass tight. ‘Are you saying I’m a bent cop too?’
‘Maybe,’ said Magnus. As soon as he uttered the word, he regretted it. But he didn’t trust Thelma and he needed to.
Tryggvi Thór pursed his lips. He was hurt. And he was angry.
‘I had to leave the country twenty-five years ago. I came back to try to clear my name. And you’re right, I nearly got killed for it!’
‘And you stopped!’ said Magnus. ‘Right after you had spoken to Thelma, it all stopped. And she claimed she never knew you.’ He shook his head. ‘I know you told me to trust you and leave it alone, and I’ve done that. But this stinks. You’ve got to admit, it stinks.’
Tryggvi Thór’s brown eyes glared at Magnus.
‘I’ve got two women murdered,’ Magnus said. ‘And my boss is squashing an obvious line of inquiry. I’m going to have to stick my neck out in the next couple of days. And I need to know I can trust her.’
‘Of course you can bloody trust her!’ Tryggvi Thór said. ‘If you trust me, you should know you can trust her.’ His stare was firm, direct, uncomfortable.
‘Even though she seems to have got you to back away from something? Something important enough for people to try to kill you?’
‘Even though,’ Tryggvi Thór said. ‘Believe me when I tell you whatever case you are working on has nothing to do with her and me.’
‘Are you sure?’
Tryggvi Thór nodded. ‘I’m sure.’
Magnus shook his head. ‘That’s not enough. If she can cover up once, she can cover up again.’
Tryggvi Thór stared down at the brandy, which he swilled around his glass, his thin lips pursed.
Then he looked up.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you this. There is a cover-up of a crime. But it’s decades old. When I came back here from Africa four years ago, I intended to lift the lid. Some people clearly didn’t like that.’
‘Including Thelma?’
Tryggvi Thór nodded. ‘Including Thelma. And she asked me to stop.’
‘And you did?”
‘I did.’
‘But why would you do that?’ said Magnus.
Tryggvi Thór hesitated. ‘Because she was the one person with the right to tell me to stop.’
Tryggvi Thór held Magnus’s eyes, willing him to understand. It took him a moment to figure it out; then he did.
‘Thelma was the victim.’
Tryggvi Thór grunted. ‘And that’s all we’re going to say about it.’
Forty-Three
Magnus emerged from Tryggvi Thór’s house in Álftanes the following morning to find a figure leaning against his car. A figure wearing a familiar cream-coloured woolly hat.
Ingileif.
His heart leaped when he saw her and then rearranged itself in its proper place.
‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Hi. Have you got a minute?’
‘Is it about Ási?’
‘Partly.’
‘Can you make it quick?’
‘Sure. Can we walk down to the beach?’
‘Look, I’ve got to hold a briefing at headquarters. There’s been another murder.’
‘Really, it will only be a couple of minutes. I’ll say my piece and be on my way.’
They walked in silence down to the sand, both of them avoiding small talk, both waiting for whatever Ingileif had to say. The tide was out. Terns wheeled and cried above them. The black folds of the Reykjanes peninsula slumbered above the water. The sea slurped softly on the volcanic pebbles at their feet.
At last, Ingileif spoke. ‘I’ve mismanaged my life, especially with men. I was going to say “screwed up” but I haven’t screwed up. I’ve had fun. My relationships may have ended up badly, but they started out well. They were good men, most of them. I have Ási: that’s good. That’s very good. But I can’t go on like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Finding a man. Having fun. Then dumping him.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Magnus neutrally.
‘I feel different with you, Magnús. Safer. Secure. I trust you, and you, God help you, you trust me. Maybe it’s because both our fathers were murdered, I don’t know. But there’s something. Don’t you think?’
Magnus was reaching for an answer when Ingileif stopped him.
‘Don’t answer that. I told myself I wouldn’t demand an answer from you on anything. I just want you to understand. Understand me.’
‘OK. I was going to say yes, there is something, but OK.’
Ingileif flashed a quick smile at him and then looked out over the water to the lava field.
‘All right. So I feel safe and secure with you. And from that security, I feel like I can have some fun. Fool around. Mess up... Back when we first met, I said you were hung up on relationships, that you were too serious, that monogamy was overrated.’
‘I remember you saying that.’
‘I did. I do think monogamy is overrated. But...’
‘But?’ Magnus was listening, fascinated.
‘I don’t know. I love Ási. I like you. Actually, I love you, I always have. But if I go back to you, if you have me, it will be great for me, and then I’ll screw it up again unless I do something.’
‘Do what?’
Ingileif looked straight at Magnus. ‘Commit. Commit to you as a lover. As Ási’s Dad. Commit myself not to have sex with anyone else. Commit and mean it. I hate to say this, but we’d probably have to get married.’ Ingileif’s lips twitched upwards at the absurdity of such a suggestion coming from her.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘That you have a girlfriend who is a hundred times better for you than I am? Yes, I’m kind of ignoring that. And that’s why I’m not looking for a response from you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve finally worked out what’s right for me. I’m not at all sure it’s right for you. But I had to tell you. I had to tell you.’
Magnus didn’t know what to say, how to respond. His brain was spinning. For so many years this was exactly what he had wanted Ingileif to say, but now she was saying it, he didn’t know how to respond. Because she was right. He had a girlfriend who was good and kind and sexy and... not Ingileif.
‘I’m going now,’ said Ingileif. ‘Text me when you want to see Ási again.’
She turned to head back up the beach to the road.
‘Ingileif?’
She stopped. ‘I told you I didn’t want any kind of answer.’
‘Thank you,’ said Magnus.
‘For what?’
‘For talking to me. Telling me all that.’
She smiled quickly and was gone.
Forty-Four