Far North - Michael Ridpath [100]
Ingileif didn’t answer as she scooped the fish on to plates, and placed them on the table. They sat down.
‘No,’ she said.
‘No? Why not?’
She leant over and kissed him. Deeply. ‘Because of you, stupid.’
There wasn’t much Magnus could say to that. He smiled.
‘How’s the case going?’ she asked. ‘Any new suspects?’
‘A couple,’ Magnus said. ‘Do you know Sindri Pálsson?’
‘That old windbag? Yes, I do.’
‘Why am I not surprised? But he can’t be a client.’
‘Oh, no. He’s part of Iceland’s version of a liberal intelligentsia. He shows up to book launches. Exhibitions. He’s a nice guy, despite all the “world-is-ending” crap.’
‘He seems to believe that violence is the only way to destroy capitalism.’
‘He’s all talk. He’s a big pussy cat. You don’t think he killed Óskar, do you?’
‘We think he might be involved.’
‘No,’ Ingileif said. She paused, thinking. ‘No. He’d never kill anyone. I can always ask him.’
‘I already have,’ said Magnus.
‘Yes, but he might tell me.’ Ingileif chewed her fish. ‘I’m serious. I’m pretty sure he fancies me. In fact I’d say he fancies anyone under the age of thirty – and Magnús, as you know, I am still under the age of thirty.’ Ingileif was twenty-nine and three-quarters. ‘He’d tell me if I asked him in the right way.’
‘And I’m serious,’ Magnus said. ‘It would screw up the investigation.’
‘Oh, don’t be so bureaucratic. It would be kind of fun. I could solve your case for you.’
‘No, Ingileif,’ Magnus said. ‘No.’
Several hours later, they were lying in Ingileif’s bed. Magnus couldn’t sleep. He was facing away from her. He could sense she was awake also.
He felt her touch his shoulder.
‘Magnús?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you thinking about Bjarnarhöfn?’
‘Yes.’
She tugged at his shoulder so he rolled over on to his back. She kissed his lips gently. ‘Tell me. If you want to.’
‘OK.’ Magnus swallowed. ‘OK. I will.’
And so he told her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
January 1986
Magnus slipped out of the farmhouse into the cold fresh air, and stumbled through the snow towards the sea. He had to be alone.
It was night. They had just eaten and Grandpa was giving Óli a lecture about wetting his bed.
Christmas hadn’t been so bad. The boys’ uncle, aunt and cousins had visited from Canada to the delight of their grandfather. Grandpa had entered one of his phases of exuberant high spirits. There was Christmas cheer everywhere. The Yule Lads had come, placing little gifts in Magnus and Óli’s shoes.
Christmas Eve dinner was a feast to remember: ptarmigan, browned potatoes fried in butter and sugar, which were Magnus’s favourite, followed by leafbread and ice cream. Magnus received an American police car with sirens and flashing lights from his Canadian uncle and aunt. A touch babyish perhaps, but he liked it. Óli, for the first time for months, seemed to be actually enjoying himself.
Then, as Magnus knew it would, things had soured. Óli got scared again and had started wetting his bed. Just after New Year the relatives had left, leaving the boys alone in the farmhouse with their grandparents.
And Grandpa was in an evil mood.
Magnus trudged past the little church down to the sea and sat on a stone. He scanned the familiar isolated lights, which burned nearly all day at this time of year, when dusk and dawn brushed in the gloom of midday. The bright lights of the farmhouse behind him. The lights at Hraun on the other side of the lava field. The lighthouse on one of the islands in the fjord. The bobbing winks of fishing boats returning to Stykkishólmur.
It was a clear night. The reflection from the half moon glimmered on the snow, and shimmered in the waterfall streaming off the fell looming behind the farmhouse. The tall triangular racks for drying stockfish were silhouetted against the gleaming swell of the sea, which rustled gently against the shore. Twisted stone reared up out of the white Berserkjahraun. A gleam of green hovered behind the mountains away to the north of the fjord. The aurora. And high above all this, the stars, pricking the cold clear night in their