Magnus considered keeping Eygló back, or indeed keeping the whole lot of them back so they missed their flight. But there would be political consequences. And actually, although what Eygló had told him was interesting, it didn’t amount to proof that the wampum was fake.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘And thank you.’
She picked up her phone and hurried out of the interview room.
He followed her out into the departures hall, and watched her join the other five through the gate and out on to the tarmac where the plane was waiting to take them to Greenland.
He turned and made his way to the terminal entrance, trying to decide what credence, if any, to place in Eygló’s information. All right, Kelly’s father’s conjecture that his mother had planted the wampum was just speculation, and third-hand speculation at that. But the fact that Nancy had stated that she had once visited Brattahlíd was interesting. Very interesting indeed.
Magnus’s brain scarcely registered that he recognized the woman rushing past him with her head down. He turned to see her showing her boarding card to the ground staff at the gate.
Rósa.
He hurried after her, calling her name.
At first she took no notice, but Magnus shouted louder and she was forced to stop and turn to meet him.
‘Rósa! Where are you going?’
‘Greenland. With my husband. I’ve taken a few days off work to join him.’
‘Why?’
‘A holiday. And the last few days have been tough for him. Tough for both of us, actually. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m late.’
‘No. You’ll have to get the next flight.’
‘Sir?’ The woman at the gate was preparing to intervene, but Magnus flashed his warrant card.
‘You have no right to stop me, unless you are arresting me. Are you arresting me?’
‘No, I merely want to ask you a few questions.’
‘You have let my husband on to the plane — he was in Saudárkrókur at the time of the poor woman’s murder. I was in London, as you know. Now, I’m a lawyer. Either you arrest me, or you let me get on that plane.’
Magnus stared at Rósa. She was calm but firm. She knew her ground.
He let her go.
‘You were a while,’ said Einar to Eygló in English as she joined them airside. ‘Did the cop ask you more questions?’
‘He tried to, but I wouldn’t let him,’ said Eygló. Out of her peripheral vision she saw Tom and Ajay a couple of metres away fiddling with some sound equipment, but she could tell from Tom’s bearing that he was concentrating on her reply. That was good: she had thought of a little story to explain her absence and she wanted him to hear it. ‘It took me a while to find him. He’d taken the phone and he was going to hand it in to the airport lost property. He could have come after us with it! I think he was just being difficult. It’s lucky I caught up with him or I would have had to go to Greenland without it.’
‘He seems suspicious about the Nantucket theory,’ said Einar. Beccari was safely out of earshot.
‘It’s his job,’ said Eygló. ‘He’s suspicious about everything. It would have helped if you had told him you knew Carlotta at the start.’ She knew she was being hypocritical; she too had kept things from the police that she shouldn’t have. But her comment had the desired effect of shutting Einar up until they were on the plane.
Suzy, Einar and Eygló were seated next to each other. Suzy had given Eygló the window seat, which was good of her since the approach into Narsarsuaq Airport was supposed to be spectacular. Beccari had booked his ticket later, and seemed happy enough to be seated alone with his tablet. Tom and Ajay sat together several rows back, also by the window, from where Tom planned to get some shots of the approach. It was unlikely they would be able to use the footage in the final documentary, but Suzy was considering chartering a helicopter for aerial shots, and Tom’s filming would be useful to decide where to go.
Despite Tom, Eygló felt good to be on the aeroplane, away from Magnus’s prying questions. She hadn’t slept well the night before. In the early part of the night, she had determined that she would tell the police everything. She had fallen asleep for a couple of hours and had then woken up terrified that she would be killed and that Bjarki would lose his mother. So don’t tell the police a thing.
At five-thirty she had got up and made herself some coffee. With wakefulness and the morning her fears had subsided, but only a little. She still didn’t know what to do; it was only when she was listening to Inspector Magnus trying to make sense of the case that she had decided to talk to him. If someone, anyone, including Einar, had killed Carlotta, they deserved to be in jail and she shouldn’t get in the way of Magnus putting them there.
She felt that she had explained things well enough to Einar to keep Tom happy, and he should be less concerned about her making difficulties once they were all in Greenland. She intended to ask Einar some detailed questions about contexts and the precise location where they had found the wampum shells when they were filming at Brattahlíd, but she would do that in Icelandic with Tom out of earshot.
A flight attendant made an announcement that they were just waiting for one more passenger to board before pushing off the stand. The weather in Greenland was clear, and warm for the country — fifteen degrees. That was good.
‘How did it go last night?’ Eygló asked Einar in Icelandic. ‘With Rósa?’
Einar winced. ‘Not very well. I slept in the guest room.’
‘Oh.’
‘I told her. About you and me two nights ago.’
‘You what! What an incredibly stupid thing to do!’
‘I had to. I had promised her that I wouldn’t hide anything from her. I mean to keep my promises.’
‘Yes, but...’ Eygló sighed in frustration. ‘You did tell her that nothing happened between us?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘Did she believe you?’
Einar winced again and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’
Jesus! Eygló definitely didn’t want Rósa as an enemy. She was almost as scared of her as she was of Tom. At least Tom would now assume that Eygló had kept quiet as he had asked. Whereas Rósa? Rósa would be as jealous as hell.
‘Well, I’m glad we are putting a thousand miles between her and me,’ Eygló said.
Einar seemed to stiffen.
‘Hello, Eygló.’ It was a woman’s voice, a voice Eygló recognized. She looked up to see the tall figure of Rósa standing in the aisle, bending down towards her with a tight smile on her face. ‘Do you mind if I sit next to my husband?’
Thirty-Two
Back at police headquarters, there had been a breakthrough in the north.
An Italian tourist, a twenty-five-year-old man named Dario Anzalone, was travelling around Iceland by himself, and had been staying in a hostel in Dalvík the night of Carlotta’s murder. Dalvík was about 120 kilometres from Glaumbaer. Anzalone had returned to the hostel a little after midnight; he had seemed agitated and jumpy. Two of the other guests, a young Dutch couple, had noticed him and wondered what was wrong. They were now in Reykjavík and had just seen an item on the Internet about the murder and the hunt for suspicious Italian tourists, so they had called the police.
Anzalone was now staying in a hostel in Egilsstadir, in the east of the country. He was out of the hostel at that moment, but local police were waiting for him to return there.
‘Do you think you should go back to Saudárkrókur?’ Vigdís asked.
‘It’s good news,’ said Magnus. ‘But I think Árni and Jón Kári can handle it. Can you check with Tacchini whether any of Carlotta’s friends in Italy have heard of Anzalone? And see if they are Facebook friends?’