‘I know,’ said Vigdís. ‘It’s ridiculous. But I do sort of like him. I am such an idiot.’
Magnus smiled at her. It wasn’t that he disagreed with her; her idiocy was incontrovertible. But he was on her side. They both knew he could be an idiot from time to time too.
They watched the fisherman tidy up the net and lock the boat cabin. He nodded to the two detectives and headed back to the warmth of his home. Presumably he would be out at sea again early the next morning.
‘OK,’ Magnus said. ‘Tell me about the case.’
Vigdís was glad to go over the investigation with Magnus; it straightened it all in her mind. Magnus listened quietly for the most part, just asking the odd question to clarify things.
‘So there we are,’ she finished. ‘If the ballistics report comes back tomorrow with confirmation that Halldór was shot by his own rifle, we have pretty much got Gudrún.’
Magnus sat silently, his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat.
‘Magnús?’ Vigdís said. ‘What is it?’
‘Do you think it will? Confirm that the bullet came from Halldór’s rifle?’
‘Yes,’ said Vigdís. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘You said Gudrún denied killing her father,’ he said at last. ‘How did she seem?’
‘At the end of her rope. She just broke down. She answered our questions quietly, with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was hard to read her: I couldn’t tell whether she was upset because of all the pressure of the last few days, or whether she couldn’t face what she had done. Inspector Ólafur was sure she was guilty.’
‘And what about you? What was your instinct?’
Vigdís hesitated. She wanted to believe that Gudrún was guilty. She wanted to believe that Martin was innocent. But... ‘My instinct? I’m not sure.’
Magnus looked at her steadily. He raised his eyebrows. ‘I know you, Vigdís. Not being sure isn’t your style.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think your gut feel is that she’s innocent and you don’t want to admit it.’
‘Magnús, that’s ridiculous! We are detectives. We deal in evidence.’
‘We deal in people,’ said Magnus. ‘It takes a certain kind of daughter to shoot out the eye of her father. I’ve met one or two of that kind of woman in America. But none in Iceland that I can think of.’
‘So are you saying Martin or Alex shot him? Or Sveinn? He wasn’t even in Raufarhöfn.’
‘No.’ Magnus was quiet for a couple of minutes, staring at the fishing boats bobbing gently by the quayside. Vigdís let him think. ‘Has it rained since Halldór was murdered?’
‘No,’ Vigdís said.
‘Good,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ll go to bed now. I won’t wait for Ólafur — I’d like to delay talking to him if I can. But we’ll meet downstairs in the hotel lobby at five tomorrow morning to take a look at the crime scene. I think I’d like to find out a bit more before I report to him.’
Chapter eight
Vigdís led the way up the hill towards the henge, her long legs making easy work of the slope. The sun had already been up for a while, and the air was full of the sound of birds busy with whatever birds do that early in the morning.
‘You know they laid this out according to the ‘Völuspá’, the first poem of the Poetic Edda?’ Magnus said.
Vigdís’s only reply was to let out something between a moan and a grunt.
‘Apparently, there’s a path bearing the name of each of the dwarfs mentioned in the poem. All seventy-two of them.’
‘I bet you know all their names,’ said Vigdís.
‘Not all of them,’ said Magnus.
‘When did you read all this stuff?’
‘When I was a kid at high school.’
‘In America?’ Magnus had moved to Boston from Iceland when he was a kid.
‘Yes.’
They carried on in silence for a few moments.
‘Magnús?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did your friends in America think you were a little weird?’
‘Thanks, Vigdís.’
Although forensics had finished with the scene, police tape still flapped in its own geometric circle within the henge. Vigdís pointed out the spot where Halldór had been shot, and the two rocks down the hill from where it was possible his killer had stood. While there was a clear view of the gate where Halldór had been found, the rocks were on the other side of the hill from the road, out of sight.
Magnus examined the ground and then made his way down the hill along a half-trodden path, criss-crossing twenty or thirty metres on either side. He paused every time he came to a patch of exposed mud. After ten minutes or so he halted.
‘Vigdís!’
She came over. ‘Found some dwarf footprints?’
Magnus pointed to a patch of mud next to a puddle. ‘Look.’
Vigdís looked. ‘I see tracks.’
‘Look more closely. And count.’
Vigdís looked again. ‘Jesus!’ she said, standing up. ‘Well, well, well.’
‘Do you have any spare spent .22 bullets or casings among the evidence?’ Magnus asked. ‘Doesn’t matter which gun they are from.’
‘We have a few from the range Halldór used back at the station.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Bjartur! Quiet!’
The old farmer came out to meet Magnus and Vigdís, wearing blue overalls and a woolly cap. The sheepdog, the Icelandic breed with a red and white coat and a curled tail, hopped over to them on its three legs.
Vigdís was right: the skin under Egill’s beard was criss-crossed with crevasses and fault lines.
He broke into a smile of welcome when he recognized her. ‘The blue policewoman! Come in, come in! I have a little coffee but no cakes, I’m afraid.’
Before they entered the house, Magnus glanced across the river towards the more prosperous farm on the other side. The view was clear and uninterrupted.
‘So that’s where the polar bear was shot?’ he said.
The farmer frowned and nodded. ‘Yes. It was a cruel day.’
They sat at a table in the cosy kitchen and Egill took off his hat. His ears were massive, flapping straight out from his head, and sprouting white hairs like some kind of polar mammoth. He poured a small quantity of thick gritty liquid from a thermos into two cups. There wasn’t enough for himself.
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting visitors.’
Magnus sipped the coffee and tried hard not to grimace.
‘Do you know who murdered Halldór yet?’ Egill asked Vigdís.
‘Not yet,’ said Vigdís.
‘Yes,’ said Magnus.
Vigdís glanced at him quickly. And so did Egill. The bright blue eyes focused on Magnus under bushy eyebrows.
Magnus produced a clear plastic bag, inside which was a small brass-coloured metal object.
Egill’s eyes turned to the bag.
‘Did you know, Egill, that our scientists can examine a rifle and determine whether it was the one that fired this bullet? With 100 per cent accuracy.’
Egill shook his head, still concentrating on the bullet. His left hand fiddled with one of his ears, pulling it out even further from his head.
‘We’ve come to ask you for your rifle,’ Magnus said slowly. ‘So our scientists can examine it. See if it was the weapon that fired the bullet that killed Halldór. Can you fetch it for me?’
Egill didn’t move. He stared at the bullet. Then looked up at Vigdís and Magnus. He sat back in his chair.
‘You know I told you about that polar bear in Grímsey? The man the bear saved was one of my ancestors.’
‘It may be wrong to shoot polar bears,’ Magnus said quietly, ‘but it’s very wrong to shoot people.’
‘That policeman risked Anna’s life just so he could get the credit for killing a bear,’ Egill said, his eyes suddenly on fire. ‘So he shot the bear through the eye, but that was just because the bear was moving slowly.’ He leaned forward. ‘If the bear had charged — and it could easily have charged — then it would have been almost impossible to hit it with that accuracy. If he had hit the bear in the chest or the neck with a .22, Anna would be dead now. So I couldn’t understand why everyone was treating the man like a hero when he had almost killed a child.’