Thirty-Nine
The white glare of the Greenland icecap emerged in the distance through Magnus’s aeroplane window. There were plenty of questions he needed to ask the TV crew in Greenland. What they knew about the hoax. Which of them had met Nancy Fishburn on Snaefellsnes. What their movements had been the morning Nancy had been killed.
But his first priority had to be Rósa, who was emerging as a prime suspect for Carlotta’s murder. The connection between Carlotta’s death and Nancy Fishburn’s was as yet unclear, but there would be one, and it would probably involve Rósa. Maybe she was covering for Einar? Magnus didn’t know.
He pulled out his notebook and jotted down notes for the interview. Rósa was a smart lawyer. Once she figured out she was a serious suspect for Carlotta’s murder, she would probably keep shtum. Magnus thought he could just about get away with interviewing her as a witness rather than a suspect, at least initially. It was an important distinction in Icelandic criminal law and one Rósa would be aware of. Magnus needed to tempt her to divulge as much information as possible before she realized that he knew she had lied to the police about her trip to London.
The plane descended over massive icebergs the size of ocean liners, reached the mountainous coastline and picked up the flow of a fat ribbon of glacier that darkened from white to grey and blue as it cracked and wrinkled in a frozen tumult of centuries-old ice the closer it came to the sea. The aircraft banked low around a cliff and into a long thin fjord with a drab plain bisected by a runway on one side and green hills on the other: the green of Brattahlíd, part of a narrow strip of vegetation clinging to the south-west edge of an enormous block of granite and ice.
Because of Greenland’s semi-autonomous status with Denmark, there was no immigration control for flights from Copenhagen in the small terminal, but two uniformed police officers, one male and one female, watched the arriving tourists and returning Greenlanders.
Magnus approached them and held out his hand. ‘Hi, I’m Magnus Jonson,’ he said in English, using the American version of his name. His father’s name was Ragnar Jónsson, which meant that in Iceland Magnus was known as Magnús Ragnarsson, but when he had arrived in America at the age of twelve, using his father’s last name had proved much easier all round.
‘Josepha Paulsen,’ said the female officer. ‘And this is Constable Jens Frandsen.’
Vigdís had been in touch with Inspector Paulsen, who was the police chief from Qaqortoq, the nearest big town further down the fjord towards the sea. Paulsen was Inuit, with wide, strong cheekbones and a firm mouth that broke into an unexpectedly sweet smile. Frandsen was twenty years younger than her, Danish, with fine blonde hair that was cut so short you could barely see it.
‘Taler du dansk?’ Paulsen asked. It was a fair question. Both Iceland and Greenland had been colonies of the Danish Crown, and until recently Danish had been compulsory in Icelandic schools. But there was also a linguistic dance when Icelanders and Danes met: the Icelanders preferring to speak English rather than be at a disadvantage in the colonial language.
Magnus had no choice. ‘I’m sorry. I left Iceland when I was twelve, so I never really learned Danish.’
‘That’s OK,’ Paulsen replied in heavily accented English. ‘Your colleague in Reykjavík said that you would prefer to approach Rósa Helgadóttir yourself, so we haven’t detained her. They are all filming at Brattahlíd on the other side of the fjord. We can take you there now.’
‘Great. Let’s go.’
There wasn’t much to Narsarsuaq. It was dominated by the airport, outside of which ran a long straight road which led to a cluster of large rectangular functional buildings: warehouses, sheds, small apartment blocks. Paulsen and Frandsen led Magnus over the road to a police car parked next to a little green hut bearing the word Politi. They sped down the straight road, scattering suitcase-dragging tourists from the Copenhagen flight, to its end at a small harbour of three or four jetties.
They dropped into a marked police speedboat, and soon they were zipping across the fjord, dodging sedate icebergs on their way. Frandsen was driving.
‘Can you give me some background on Rósa Helgadóttir?’ Paulsen asked.
Magnus described as succinctly as he could Carlotta’s murder and the possible relationship of Einar, Rósa and the Italian tourist, and also Vigdís’s discovery that Rósa was in the north of Iceland at the time of the crime. He mentioned Nancy Fishburn’s murder and the need to establish a connection with Carlotta’s death.
Paulsen seemed to pick it all up quickly; her English was good, and she was sharp. ‘It looks like you may want to make an arrest,’ she said.
‘It’s possible,’ said Magnus. ‘I don’t know about the paperwork?’ Although Denmark and Iceland had very good police links, international arrests were always problematic. The fact that the Icelandic criminal justice system was closely based on the Danish model would help.
‘We can hold her for twenty-four hours without charging her,’ Paulsen said. ‘We would take her to the station in Qaqortoq. Our prosecutor here is efficient; that should give you time to get a request from Reykjavík.’
‘How do we get to Qaqortoq?’ Magnus asked.
‘Helicopter,’ said Paulsen. ‘Or boat; but that’s slow.’
Magnus had seen a number of red helicopters bearing the Air Greenland livery on the tarmac at Narsarsuaq.
The boat pulled up at the dock on the other side of the fjord, where an unoccupied police car was waiting for them. ‘We don’t have a policeman in Brattahlíd, but we do keep a vehicle here,’ Paulsen explained, and she fetched the keys from a man in an unkempt red kiosk by the harbour.
They drove along an undulating road past half a dozen large farms and a church, before they reached a small group of people standing a few metres away from the road.
As Magnus approached, he noticed that there were only five of them: Eygló, Suzy, Tom the cameraman, Ajay the young sound guy and a Greenlander whom he didn’t recognize. No Rósa. And no Einar for that matter.
Suzy made no attempt to hide her unhappiness at seeing him. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she said. ‘Can’t you give us a moment’s peace?’
Magnus glanced at the others. Tom looked inscrutable, Ajay and the Greenlander curious, and Eygló scared. That was interesting.
‘I’m here to see Rósa to ask her some questions. And actually I will probably have more questions for all of you.’
‘How many times is this?’ Suzy protested. ‘If you weren’t so incompetent you would know what questions to ask, and you would only need to ask us once.’
‘That’s not the way murder investigations work,’ said Magnus patiently. ‘By their nature, new evidence comes to light, which leads to new lines of inquiry. But to start with, it’s Rósa I really need to see. Where is she?’
‘She is back at Narsarsuaq. I told her to stay away from our filming, at least today.’
‘Why was that?’
‘She was distracting the others,’ said Suzy, with a quick glance towards Eygló.
Interesting, Magnus thought. Maybe it was Rósa who was scaring Eygló and not him. He saw Tom move a little closer to Eygló and mutter something to her. Just for a second, there was real fear on her face, and then she regained her composure.
More interesting. Clearly, all was not sweetness and light in the documentary team.
‘What about Einar? Is he with her?’ Magnus asked.
‘Probably. We did a couple of takes with him first thing this morning, and then the boat took him back across the fjord.’