‘And she didn’t like it?’
‘No. She didn’t believe nothing happened. She started a row. It lasted all night. And, eventually, I asked her about Carlotta.’
‘What did she say?’
‘At first she denied she knew Carlotta was in Iceland before she saw her murder on the news, but by that stage I could tell she was lying. And then she told me the truth. Or I think it was the truth; at least I did then. When she was telling it to me.’
Magnus waited.
‘She knew I was seeing Carlotta. She read my emails, even though I had password-protected them — she guessed the password, and they were on my Gmail account so she could access them any time from her own computer. So she knew Carlotta was coming to Iceland, and where we were meeting in Saudárkrókur. She told me she was furious, and she wanted to catch us. She was going to scare both of us into stopping the affair, or what she assumed was an affair.
‘She decided to come back early from her trip to London. She drove up to Blönduós and tailed Carlotta to Glaumbaer. She saw us filming and Carlotta talking to me. Then she followed Carlotta up to the fjord near Drangey and then back to Glaumbaer later. She assumed Carlotta had arranged to meet me there: she wanted to catch us red-handed.’
Magnus was making notes as he listened. ‘And Carlotta didn’t spot her?’ It was difficult to follow people on empty Icelandic roads.
Einar shrugged. ‘Never underestimate Rósa,’ he said. ‘And Carlotta wouldn’t have been looking out for her.’
‘OK. Then what happened at Glaumbaer?’
‘She says...’ Einar hesitated. ‘She said that she saw Carlotta go into the churchyard. And then after about twenty minutes a man came out to Carlotta’s car, took something out and then returned to the churchyard. Rósa waited, but there was no sign of Carlotta, although she did see the man leave the folk museum car park on foot and walk along the road. Rósa waited ten minutes and then sneaked into the churchyard herself. There she saw Carlotta’s body.’
‘Did she say why she didn’t report it?’ said Magnus.
‘She was going to. And then she thought, just like I did the next morning, that she would be the obvious suspect. So she just left. Drove straight back to Reykjavík.’
Magnus remembered it was possible to get from the churchyard at Glaumbaer to the folk museum round the back of the church away from the road.
‘Who was this man? Did she recognize him?’
‘No.’
‘Was he young or old? Did he look like an Icelander? What did he take out of Carlotta’s car?’
‘I don’t know!’ protested Einar. ‘I didn’t ask anything about him, so she didn’t tell me. I wasn’t even sure there was a man.’
‘I can see that,’ Magnus acknowledged. But he was pretty sure he knew the answer to his last question: Carlotta’s HP laptop.
‘So we kind of made peace,’ Einar said. ‘Or at any rate we fell asleep. But the next morning, we started arguing again. Did we trust each other? I wasn’t going to believe that she hadn’t killed Carlotta if she wasn’t going to accept that I hadn’t had sex with Eygló.’ Einar sighed. ‘It was stupid, but we were both tired. Me especially. I wasn’t making a lot of sense.’
‘So then she came after you. To Greenland?’
‘Yes,’ said Einar.
‘Why was that? To try to straighten things out?’
‘Yes. But not just that. She had something else to tell me.’
‘Which was?’
‘Her cancer was back. And it was going to kill her. Soon.’
Forty-One
‘Did you know that the wampum find and the Columbus letter are an elaborate hoax?’
Magnus looked steadily at Einar, whose eyes flicked briefly up towards him.
‘They are not a hoax. They’ve been thoroughly checked out.’
‘They are a hoax, Einar. A hoax perpetrated by a woman named Nancy Fishburn and her husband and a friend of theirs who was a rare-book dealer. You met her in Nantucket.’
Einar stared at Magnus. ‘You are not serious?’
‘I am. Her granddaughter told me so.’
‘Her granddaughter is lying. Or confused. She was the one who confused Eygló back in Nantucket in a bar. She was drunk.’
‘I don’t think so. Nancy told her all about it last week, and she told me. Are you surprised?’
The anger in Einar’s eyes fizzled out. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ‘Why should I be surprised? Everything else has fallen apart, why shouldn’t that?’
‘Did you suspect they were fakes?’
‘No,’ said Einar.
‘Did anyone else?’
Einar hesitated. ‘Eygló, maybe. But Professor Beccari authenticated the letter. And the wampum was genuinely from Nantucket, I’m certain of that.’
‘Oh yes, it was. But it was planted by Nancy Fishburn herself nearly forty years ago in the open trench at Brattahlíd.’
‘Oh, great. I hope you have arrested her!’
‘We can’t. She was murdered on Friday morning before you all left for Greenland. In a hotel in Reykjavík.’
‘Oh God,’ said Einar. ‘I suppose you suspect me of that as well?’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘I don’t know. Three weeks ago in Nantucket, I suppose. When we were filming at the lagoon Gudrid and Thorfinn landed at.’ Einar winced. ‘The lagoon we thought they had landed at.’
‘What did you do Friday morning? Take me through that day up to the point I saw you at the City Airport.’
‘You do suspect me! I don’t believe it.’
‘What time did you wake up?’ Magnus asked, notebook at the ready.
Einar claimed he had stayed at home that morning. Suzy had asked him to meet the rest of them for breakfast so they could discuss what they were going to do in Greenland, but after his tense night with Rósa, Einar hadn’t bothered to show up. He had stayed at home until it was time to go to the airport. He doubted any of his neighbours would have seen him.
Rósa had gone to work as usual that morning, or she had said she had. Einar had no idea then that Rósa was going to jump on the plane to Greenland with him, and although she hadn’t told him this herself, Einar suspected she had booked her ticket at the last minute — probably that morning.
As for the Thursday morning in Snaefellsnes, Einar insisted he hadn’t gone to meet Nancy Fishburn — he didn’t even know she was in Iceland. Einar reminded Magnus that he had handed over his computer and phone at the police station in Ólafsvík that morning, and after that he had gone straight back to his own hotel. The others had driven off later to film at Ingjaldshóll, but that was well after the meeting with Nancy.
The door of the police hut opened and Paulsen reappeared with a constable, who led Einar away in handcuffs. Magnus followed them outside, where other police officers freshly arrived from Qaqortoq were busying themselves. Two of them jumped into an unmarked pickup truck and sped off up the road towards the Blomsterdalen.
‘We’ve set up an incident room in the school,’ Paulsen said. ‘There isn’t enough room in the hut.’
Magnus watched as the constable inserted Einar into a police vehicle and drove him away.
‘Did you ask Einar whether Rósa killed Carlotta?’ Paulsen asked.
‘He says he doesn’t know,’ Magnus replied. ‘But he suspects she might have. He knew she followed Carlotta to Glaumbaer — that’s where the murder took place. I’ll write up the interview as soon as I can.’
‘Thanks. I’ll talk to him myself again soon. Our working assumption must be that he thought Rósa killed Carlotta, and then he killed Rósa in revenge.’