There was an awkward moment where signals seemed to have gotten crossed, then Carter gave a slight nod, acknowledging the man's expression of sympathy.
"Do you mind if I sit down?" It was pushing things, but Carter wanted to see how Josepsson would react.
Josepsson glanced uncertainly at the other two men who watched from across the table. Carter's request to join them clearly made him uncomfortable, but he had no polite way of refusing.
"Please do," he said at last. "We have an empty place."
Carter drew up a chair, and Josepsson motioned for the waiter.
Carter scanned the menu, and when the waiter arrived, he started to order, but Josepsson cut him off. "Your first visit to our country?" he asked.
Carter nodded.
"Then have the fish. Any fish. It is always best in Iceland."
Carter pointed to an entree with an unpronounceable Icelandic name. The waiter nodded, wrote it down, then gathered up the menu and left.
"May I introduce Herr Hofstaeder and Herr Boorman. Some business associates of mine."
Carter nodded to the two men, and they returned the perfunctory greeting. Hofstaeder looked every inch the typical German in his middle sixties, light-skinned, brown hair light enough to blend in with the gray and make it difficult at first glance to tell his age. His friend, Boorman, however, was another matter. Younger — in his late thirties — his hair was jet black and his skin olive-toned. Streaks of gray had just begun to appear at the temples, giving him a dashing, somewhat Latin look.
"What brings you to Iceland, Mr. Carter?" Josepsson asked without preamble. "I imagine you will want to see the university where Dr. Coatsworth worked, and perhaps travel to the interior to see the accident site. I'm guessing now as to why you have chosen this moment to visit us."
"Did you read her letter?" Carter asked, keeping his voice neutral.
"No. It was sealed. We merely sent it to whom it was addressed. It was a simple administrative matter. You must understand, Mr. Carter, that I did not know Dr. Coatsworth personally."
"She indicated to me, Mr. Josepsson, that she had found something here. Something incredible, she wrote, that would stir up the local politics. Would you have any idea what she could have meant by that?"
For the second time Josepsson looked obviously uncomfortable. He glanced at the other two men, then glanced at his fingernails. "No," he said finally. "I have no idea. You should, perhaps, go to the university. Perhaps they can be of more help."
"I will. But I wanted to make contact with you first, sir. You did send me her letter."
"It is a mystery to me what she may have meant," Josepsson said. He took a drink of water. "But I was the sponsor for the exchange program that brought Dr. Coatsworth to our country. I saw it as my logical duty to forward her letter to you, as well as her personal effects to her family. You must understand."
Carter said nothing; he was thinking again of the last time they had been together.
"I have no knowledge of what she may have discovered that could have had any effect on our politics… though I feel I speak with some authority when I say I cannot imagine what she might have been referring to." Josepsson leaned forward slightly. "You must understand, Mr. Carter, that here in Iceland politics are a good deal more honest and aboveboard than they are anywhere else in the world. The United States included." He dabbed his napkin on his lips and laid it on his plate. "Now, if you will excuse us, Mr. Carter, we still have a great deal of business to attend to. You must understand."
Josepsson and the other two got to their feet.
Carter stood up and shook their hands. "It's quite all right," he said. "Thank you for your assistance."
"Good day, sir," Josepsson said. The other two bowed, then they all left.
Carter watched them leave, then he made a soft, low whistle under his breath. He'd wanted to see Josepsson's reaction when he mentioned the contents of Lydia's letter, and he guessed he'd seen it, although he hadn't expected the man's behavior to be so obvious. There was a lot the man wasn't saying… and a lot he was hiding. What?
In a few minutes the waiter showed up with a platter of marinated herring and a half-dozen pieces of pumpernickel bread. Carter made a quick meal of it, then paid his bill and caught a cab in front of the hotel. He instructed the driver to take him to the University of Iceland campus.
It had occurred to him that since Iceland derived all of its energy from geothermal sources, the Icelandic Internal Energy Commission's responsibilities concerned the steam wells located in the lava beds, and now, as the chimneyless buildings of Reykjavik rushed toward him through the speeding cab's windows, he wondered if there wasn't some connection between Thorstein Josepsson, Iceland's Internal Energy Commission, and whatever project Lydia had been working on when she died.
The university campus consisted of four monolithic buildings set into a barren, rock-strewn field on the south side of the city. The cab pulled up in front of the largest of these, and Carter paid the driver and headed up the sidewalk toward the main entrance. A young student with long blond hair was just coming out of the building, and he stopped her to ask where he might find the geology department. She smiled enchantingly and motioned toward the second building down, which she said housed all the natural sciences.
He thanked her, marveling at the ease with which everyone here spoke English. Icelandic is basically Old Norse, which the Vikings spoke in the tenth century. It is a complicated, highly inflected language with several consonants foreign to English. Although Carter spoke a little Danish, and understood both Swedish and Norwegian, he was thankful he did not have to converse with people here in their native tongue.
The door to the geology department's administrative office was one of a series along a narrow corridor. Carter was about to open it and go in when something on the wall outside caught his eye. Pinned to a bulletin board, framed in black, was a photo of Lydia. Although it wasn't exactly as he remembered her, he figured it must have been the snapshot she submitted with her application. Probably an old school picture. He'd known a mature woman, eyes full of knowledge of the world… frank yet bittersweet, the corners of her mouth slightly lined. And yet here was the photograph of a young woman… cheeks blooming, a gleaming smile, eyes bright and full of promise. She looked very innocent and very beautiful. It was hard to believe that she was dead.
"Pity, isn't it?" asked a lanky, red-haired man who had stopped to study Carter while Carter studied the photograph.
Carter looked at him.
"Did you know her?"
"Yes, I did."
"In America?"
"Yes, there," Carter said. "You worked with her here?"
"We were colleagues. I am Dr. Petur Tomasson. You?" he said, extending his hand.
Carter shook it. "Nick Carter. I think you're the man I came here to speak with."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Lydia wrote me of you. And of her work. I'd like to know more about both. Is there someplace we can talk?"
Tomasson looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "This way," he said. He went down the corridor, around a corner, and through a steel door with a thick quartz window set into it at eye level. "The lab," Tomasson said tersely. "My office is in the rear."
They went through the lab, which was filled with a variety of modem, up-to-date, and very expensive equipment, while Carter explained about Lydia's letter.
"And now you've come to me to see if I know what it is she found, is that it?" asked Tomasson.
They came into his tiny cubicle of an office, which was nothing more than a tiny room, filled with books and journals, containing a worktable and two chairs.
Tomasson went behind the table and sat down, motioning for Carter to take the other chair.
"She seemed concerned, and now she's dead," Carter said, sitting down. "I'd like to know what she was working on."