Magnus nodded.
‘So we’ll need any evidence you have from Iceland that Rósa murdered Carlotta. Can you get on to your people there?’
‘Sure. Am I staying at Narsarsuaq tonight?’
‘Can we leave that open for now?’ said Paulsen. ‘I might need you in Qaqortoq for the prosecutor.’ Then she gave Magnus that oddly sweet smile she had flashed before. ‘Thanks for your help on this, Magnus. I know we were supposed to be helping you.’
‘No problem,’ said Magnus. ‘If we do this right we should both get a result.’
He retrieved his bag from the back of the police vehicle, where it was still stowed, walked the quarter-mile to the hotel and found a quiet corner of the lobby to make some phone calls and write up his interview with Einar on his laptop for Paulsen.
He called Vigdís and told her the news about Rósa. He also explained Paulsen’s theory about Rósa killing Carlotta and Einar killing Rósa. Vigdís liked the part about who had murdered Carlotta. Magnus wasn’t so sure, but he would keep an open mind; it was certainly the correct priority to pursue. He asked Vigdís to send summaries of the evidence in the Carlotta case to Paulsen in Greenland and to coordinate with Árni and Jón Kári in Saudárkrókur about building a case against Rósa.
Vigdís reported back on the investigation into Nancy’s murder: no forensic evidence of any note, and nothing from all the interviews the police had carried out. Now they would have to go back and ask the hotel staff if anyone had seen Rósa that morning. She could have gone to the hotel and murdered Nancy in her room before going on to the airport. But Magnus wasn’t clear why Rósa would have done that. To protect her husband from the scandal that his discoveries were a hoax? That didn’t sound right.
Gather the evidence and then make sense of it.
‘Did you see Tryggvi Thór?’ Magnus asked her.
‘I did. In hospital. He’s a bit of a mess. And he is a miserable old bastard.’
‘Do you think he was attacked?’
‘For sure. He didn’t admit it; he claims he must have fainted and fallen, but he was pretty comprehensively beaten up. Again. His daughter seems to think so too. She is one angry woman. She claims he needs protection.’
‘Can we give it to him? Will Thelma sign off on it?’
‘This woman says he needs protection from the police. It’s weird; I mean, she’s in the diplomatic service, she should know better. She has clearly lost it.’
‘What does Thelma say?’
‘Nothing. She hasn’t taken any interest. If I were you, I’d find somewhere new to live when you get back here.’
Magnus grunted. He could feel his stubbornness kicking in. He wasn’t going to be moved out of a perfectly nice house because its owner had been beaten up twice, even if the owner refused to admit to it. And in Tryggvi Thór he suspected his stubbornness had found a soulmate.
‘There’s something going on there, Vigdís. Can you ask around? Maybe an old-timer who was in the force when Tryggvi Thór was there?’
‘I don’t want to feed your paranoia,’ said Vigdís. ‘But if the police really are covering stuff up, we have to be careful who we ask.’
‘Maybe a retired policeman?’ Magnus paused to think. ‘What about Emil?’
Emil was a detective from Akranes whom Vigdís and Magnus had worked with when Magnus was last in Iceland. ‘He retired, didn’t he? If he’s still alive.’ Emil’s health had not been good.
‘Yeah. I can go and see Emil,’ said Vigdís. ‘I’m pretty sure he worked as a detective in Reykjavík before transferring to Akranes, in which case he might have known Tryggvi Thór well. He probably is still around; I think I would have heard if he had died.’
Magnus called Árni and repeated what he had told Vigdís. Árni and Jón Kári had been working on sightings of Rósa and her car. But it was already a week and people’s memories were fading. They had one sighting of Rósa from a resident of one of the farms around Glaumbaer, a young farm labourer who thought he had seen her waiting in a car, but he was hesitant about the time, or even the day. Árni promised he would step up the investigation of that angle.
Magnus wrote up his interview with Einar and then sent it by email to Paulsen. A muffled thudding roar erupted outside, as two red Air Greenland helicopters lined up to land — they seemed to be always buzzing in and out of the airport. Magnus could see the school the police were using as an incident room from the hotel, a shed distinguishable from the others by a swing and a see-saw outside it, and a mural of an elephant and a giraffe surrounded by sunshine and jungle on one of the walls. They looked cold.
A police vehicle and a pickup pulled up outside the building and disgorged the TV crew: Eygló, Suzy, Tom, Ajay and the Greenlander, who must have just returned from Brattahlíd over the water. Two police officers led them inside.
Magnus asked to interview the crew one by one after Paulsen and her colleagues had finished with them. They agreed that Paulsen would speak to them about Rósa, and Magnus about Nancy Fishburn. He was given a classroom to himself for the purpose, the grey breeze-block walls brightened by a collage of posters and kids’ pictures.
First up was Suzy Henshaw. Magnus and she perched on two ludicrously small children’s chairs with an undersized table between them.
She looked harried, dark smudges underpinned her dark eyes, and the lines in her face had deepened, but she sat upright and defiant on the little plastic chair.
‘I’m so sorry hear about Rósa,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘That’s what I’m going to find out,’ said Magnus. ‘With your help.’
‘It can’t have anything to do with us,’ said Suzy. ‘But I will answer your questions, obviously.’
‘Did you meet Nancy Fishburn on Thursday morning at the Hótel Búdir on Snaefellsnes?’ Magnus asked.
Suzy hesitated, examining Magnus before answering. Gauging how much she could say.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘She wanted to talk about the documentary. About Gudrid. We had interviewed her in Nantucket and she had been very helpful.’
‘Did she have anything to tell you?’
‘Not really,’ said Suzy. ‘Nothing important. She had some ideas about Gudrid; she had written a book about her back in the seventies. Nothing that we could use.’
‘Did you know she was murdered on Friday? In Reykjavík?’
Suzy’s eyes widened. She swallowed. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘And do you still say she had nothing to tell you?’
‘No,’ said Suzy, swallowing again, the confidence visibly draining from her face.
‘So she didn’t mention that she had placed the wampum at Brattahlíd? Or that her Italian book-dealer friend had forged the Columbus letter?’
‘No.’ Suzy drew herself up, but Magnus could tell she was on the verge of cracking.
‘Suzy. I know this whole thing is a hoax. The world will know very soon. It’s over. It’s all over.’
Suzy blinked.
‘The secret is out. But this is a murder investigation — three people have died. I don’t know why, and you have to help me. So, I ask you again, what did Nancy tell you?’
Suzy’s back bowed a little, but then she raised her chin in an attempt to hang on to her defiance. ‘You are right. Nancy told me it was all a hoax. That she, her husband and their Italian friend had cooked the whole thing up. I didn’t believe it at first, I thought she was just a scatty old lady, but she was very convincing with the details.’
‘What did you say to her?’
‘I was furious. I asked her why she hadn’t said anything when the wampum was found. Why she hadn’t told Einar when he tracked her down in Nantucket last year, or why she hadn’t admitted it to us when we had asked her about the Columbus letter on camera. I mean she screwed us well and truly. My house is on the line. My marriage is on the line. I need this to work; I need the cash or it’s bankruptcy. I told her all that.’