After ten minutes or so, the door opened and a woman with short blonde hair entered. She was big — at least six feet tall — with the broad shoulders and triangular body shape of a swimmer. Her jaw was square and her eyes blue. She wore a blue business suit and modern gold earrings of a design that Magnus recognized. They came from Ingileif’s gallery, and she had often worn a similar pair herself.
She shook Magnus and Vigdís’s hands. ‘I’m sorry you had to wait a little. It might have been better if you had made an appointment.’ She exuded competence and confidence.
‘It’s not that kind of visit,’ said Magnus.
Rósa sat opposite them at the table, pad of paper and slim fountain pen at the ready. ‘What kind of visit is it?’
‘We are investigating a murder.’
‘Oh, really. Whose?’
‘Don’t you know?’
Rósa hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘Carlotta Mondini?’
‘That’s correct.’
Rósa’s eyes held Magnus’s. They were sharp, ready to assess difficult questions.
‘Have you ever met Carlotta Mondini?’ Magnus began.
‘We were never introduced,’ Rósa said drily.
‘We have interviewed Einar a few times,’ Magnus said. ‘Has he mentioned it?’
‘I haven’t seen him since it happened,’ said Rósa.
‘But you must have spoken to him on the phone?’
‘Yes. Once. I saw the murder on the news and I called him. We agreed to discuss it tonight when he gets home from Snaefellsnes. Carlotta Mondini has always been a sore subject between us. But of course I am sorry the poor woman is dead. No one deserves that. Have you any idea who did it?’
‘So you knew about his affair with Carlotta?’ Magnus asked.
‘Yes. Or at least the original affair. I found out five years ago when Einar was at York and I had just started up the firm here.’
Rósa’s little blue suitcase rumbled over the cobbles of Swinegate. She was moving fast, anxious to get to Einar’s flat, which was only a hundred metres away. He wouldn’t be expecting her and she hadn’t warned him she was early. She had got through Heathrow in record time and managed to catch an earlier train from King’s Cross to York than she expected.
For three days the anxiety had been crushing her. Fortunately there was plenty of work to keep her occupied back in Reykjavík, but once she was on the plane to London her impatience had risen. She needed Einar. She grinned to herself.
She needed Einar now!
She rounded the corner into a narrow alley of half-timbered buildings and rang a bell next to a small boutique selling shoes that was always empty.
Her heart thudded as she waited for the door to be open. She smiled. She and Einar had been married nearly twelve years, and been together much longer than that, and her heart still thudded. She knew his did also.
She heard the sound of his feet clattering down the wooden stairs inside, running, and there was a thud as he took the final three in one leap. The door opened and there he was! Tall, those blue eyes dancing at the sight of her.
‘Rósa!’
His flat was tiny and on the first floor. He flipped her suitcase into the building and left it at the bottom of the stairs. He dragged her up the staircase, laughing, through the open door to his flat and kissed her hard and deep.
‘I wasn’t expecting you this early,’ he said.
‘Really?’ Rósa laughed. ‘It looks like you’re pleased to see me.’
‘I am so pleased to see you!’ he said. He lifted her up as if she were a feather. Einar was tall, but Rósa was almost as tall as him. She was also strong and a little heavy: Einar was the only man she had ever met who could carry her so effortlessly.
He took her through to the sitting room and threw her down on the kilim they had bought together from a man in the bazaar in Erzurum. They were good at this by now: within seconds her jeans were down to her thighs, as were her knickers, and he was inside her, moving up and down with a vigour that was both familiar and a revelation.
It only took a minute or two, yet already his back was sweaty.
He kissed her slowly, gently.
She smiled up at him. And then, unbidden, a tear leaked out of one eye. She sniffed and wiped it.
The glow in Einar’s smile switched to concern. ‘Rósa? Rósa? What’s wrong? I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
‘Oh, no, no, my darling, no.’ She leaned up to kiss him. ‘I have just been a bit emotional recently. It’s so good to see you.’
‘Come to bed.’
She stood up, and he gently removed first her clothes and then his. She led him into his bedroom, and within a couple of moments she was snuggled up under his arm, smelling the sweet sweat of sex.
The tears had stopped.
‘What is it?’ Einar said. ‘Tell me.’
She wanted to tell him, she knew she must, but not just then, not at that moment. She wanted to stay in his arms for ever; she wanted time to stop on that Friday afternoon in October 2012.
The future scared the hell out of her.
‘You almost missed me,’ Einar said, stroking Rósa’s hair. ‘I was just about to go out and get some champagne. I won’t be a minute.’
‘Oh, stay here a bit longer.’
‘Come on, Rósa. That’s what Friday afternoons are for, isn’t it? Screwing and drinking.’
Rósa could see Einar was determined. ‘OK,’ she nodded. The wine shop was only a few minutes’ walk away. She didn’t need the champagne, but she knew Einar liked the decadence of it. ‘Be quick.’
Hurriedly he pulled on some clothes and left the flat.
Rósa lay naked on the bed staring up at the ceiling. Trying not to think.
Einar’s phone chirped on the bedside table a few centimetres from Rósa’s head. She twisted to glance at it. What she saw made her gasp in horror.
I need to fuck you. Now!
She twisted rapidly away from the phone. No. No. NO!
Oh God. Could she unsee what she had just seen? She had to. Oh, Einar, why? Why? WHY?
She lay there, her chest heaving, trying through concentrating on her breathing to ignore what she had seen. She knew Einar used to do that kind of thing. She had hoped he had stopped, but of course he hadn’t.
Who was she? Don’t answer that question. Don’t ask that question.
Who was she?
She rolled over and grabbed Einar’s phone. The short text had disappeared. Before she had time to stop herself, Rósa’s fingers had flown over the screen and tapped in Einar’s code: 1104, the year Hekla erupted, a key date for Icelandic archaeologists, since Norse remains either lay below or above the layer of ash deposited all over the country by the volcano in that year. She knew Einar didn’t suspect she knew the code, but it had only taken her five tries a couple of years before to guess it.
There was a whole stream of texts back and forth going back months, all from a woman called Carlotta.
At first Rósa assumed she was an undergraduate at York, but as Rósa scrolled through the texts, she realized who Carlotta was.
She tossed the phone on the bedside table, hunched her knees up to her chest and wept.
‘Ta dah!’ Einar thrust open the door waving a bottle of cava in front of him.
‘Rósa? Rósa, what’s wrong?’
He sat next to her and put his arm around her naked shoulders. For a tiny moment Rósa wanted to lean into his familiar body, but then a rush of anger overcame her and she wriggled free.