Meltwater (25 page)

The way his eyes were focused on her, she knew he hadn’t just happened on the same route as her.

He was chasing her.

The man saw Erika pound across the square in front of the Hallgrímskirkja in sweatpants and a hoodie with the faded name of some American college on her chest.

Car or foot?

Foot. The man was fit; he knew he could keep up. And all it would take would be for her to cut down a one-way street and he would lose her in a car.

He was wearing trainers and his own sweatshirt, which was good, but also jeans, which would make him look less like a runner and more like someone chasing someone else.

Nothing he could do about that. He grabbed his hunting knife, hidden in a plastic supermarket bag, and jumped out of the car.

She was running fast, this Erika woman. Soon he was panting. He kept well back from her, but nonetheless he attracted some strange looks from passers-by. The knife was swinging in the plastic bag – he hoped it wasn’t too obvious what it was. He fell back. Tried to run with less purpose.

He was fairly sure that Erika was heading down towards the line of the bay, in which case he could allow a hundred metres or more between them, perhaps try to catch her on her way back.

His blood flowed faster, and not just from the running. He was going to get his chance. This time he wouldn’t blow it.

This time he would kill the bitch.

He followed well behind her along the shoreline, until she suddenly turned and retraced her steps. Realizing she was going to pass right by him, he slowed down, began panting more heavily and rolling his head from side to side like a runner in pain. There were a couple of other runners along the shore path, together with the odd walker and half a dozen cyclists.

Erika didn’t even register him as she jogged past. Her mind was miles away.

He left it a minute and then turned, keeping his eye on her. Suddenly she cut across one of the two carriageways of the busy road. He lengthened his stride and made up some of the distance between them as she waited at the next carriageway.

He knew he had to act fast. Within ten minutes she would be back in the house in Thórsgata, and who knew when she would next emerge?

He ran across both carriageways, dodging traffic, and pounded up the hill. He was nearly on her when she turned and saw him.

He lengthened his stride to close to a sprint.

She turned left down a narrow side street and he lost sight of her for a second. As he sped around the corner the street ahead was empty. It was only a short road with a recently constructed block of flats on one side and some derelict houses on the other. At the end of the street a slightly bigger road ran uphill.

He was really moving now as he headed for the next corner. But his eye caught a narrow path to the left.

He stopped.

Erika hadn’t been going quite fast enough to reach the far end of the road before he would have seen her.

Which meant that she was still in the street somewhere.

He scanned the road. There were no people. Good.

There were only a few doorways, and all the doors seemed firmly shut. Good.

And there was the one little path.

He jogged up to the gap between two derelict buildings. The path led to a small courtyard surrounded by buildings on all sides. It was empty apart from a half-filled skip.

He pulled the knife out of the plastic bag and jogged towards it. He was only a metre or so away when Erika leaped out of the skip.

She ran away from him into the corner of the courtyard. He held his arms wide. There was nothing she could do now but try to rush past him. He was ready.

He’d got her.

Magnus felt bad about leaving the station before Vigdís and Árni, but he felt worse about keeping Ollie waiting too long.

As he walked across the compound behind police headquarters to his Range Rover, he thought about what Tom Bryant had said. Magnus’s instinct was to avoid the CIA. In his experience, whenever government intelligence agencies got involved, things got complicated. That was true of the FBI, and it had to be even more true of the CIA. Magnus had promised Erika that he had nothing to do with the CIA, and he wanted to keep things that way.

And yet he understood Bryant’s point. The video Magnus had watched that afternoon would horrify the international community. It would incense the Palestinians, reigniting the sense of injustice on both sides caused by the Gaza war. If the two sides were really that close to peace, perhaps it would be better if the release of the video was delayed?

Perhaps. But it wasn’t up to him to make that decision. While he was in Iceland his loyalties lay with the government of Iceland. It was that simple.

As he turned on the Range Rover’s engine, his phone rang. ‘Magnús.’

‘It’s Gudmundur. I’m watching the house in Thórsgata. A woman has just left the property in running gear. I think it’s Erika Zinn. Do you want me to follow her?’

Magnus paused. Idiot! He’d told her to remain inside. Once she was out on the streets of Reykjavík she was vulnerable.

‘No. You’d better stay outside the house. I’m in my car at headquarters, I’ll see if I can find her. Which way did she go?’

‘Up the hill to the Hallgrímskirkja and then turned left.’

‘OK – I’ll check for her along the bay. That’s the most likely place to go for a run in that direction. What’s she wearing?’

‘Black sweatpants. Grey hoodie with “Princeton” on the front. White baseball cap.’

‘Got it.’

Police headquarters was only a few yards from Saebraut, the dual carriageway that ran along the shore of the bay. Presumably Erika didn’t know Reykjavík very well. She could have gone anywhere, of course, but the long green strip with its bike path would be the natural place for a runner to head for.

He drove slowly west along Saebraut. There were a small number of joggers on the bike path. He soon saw one with black pants and a grey top running away from him. No cap, but he accelerated to catch her up. She crossed the road and ran up a side street.

Magnus turned to follow her. He lost her in the cluster of streets around government buildings, including the big black block of the hated Central Bank. It took him several minutes before he caught up with the woman on Hverfisgata.

Not Erika.

Back to the Saebraut.

And then he saw her. Crossing the road a hundred yards ahead of him, her dark hair bobbing up and down under her white baseball cap. She disappeared up a side road.

Behind her was another runner, a man wearing jeans, moving fast.

Magnus accelerated, and followed them up the little street, only to be met by two cars heading downhill towards him, one behind the other. There was no room to pass. Three horns blared. Rather than argue with the other drivers, Magnus leaped out of his car and ran up the hill, just in time to see the man turn a corner to the left.

Magnus followed.

The road was empty.

OK. This was where Magnus needed a gun. In any halfway sensible country he could pull out his firearm. But not in Iceland. In Iceland he had to go in with just his fists.

Oh, well. Magnus knew how to use his fists.

He jogged along the road, slowing when he came to an opening. And there, at the end of a narrow path, was the man, holding his arms out wide, a hunting knife in his right hand. Erika was literally cornered.

‘Hey, you!’ Magnus shouted, in English. ‘Police! Drop the knife!’

The man turned and Erika saw her chance. She darted along one wall, but the man was too quick for her. Too quick and too strong.

In one movement he grabbed her, twisted her around and, holding her with one arm around the neck, held the knife to her face.

‘Stop!’ he shouted.

Magnus had lunged forward himself, but froze at the man’s words. If only I had a goddamned gun, he thought.

Magnus was about ten yards from the man. He studied his face. Youngish, late twenties, maybe, at six feet a couple of inches shorter than Magnus. Narrower shoulders, but strong and wiry. A long thin face, unshaven; a narrow pointed nose; longish dark hair, brushed back, receding slightly at the temples; brown eyes. Magnus would remember that face.

The eyes worried him. They were bright, shining, excited, manic. But they were also angry. And full of hate. Lots of hate.

Magnus held up his hands. ‘OK. Let’s talk about this. Let the woman go and we can talk about it.’

‘Why should I let her go? I want to kill her. I
will
kill her.’

Magnus glanced at Erika. Her eyes were wide, desperate. She was several inches shorter than the man. Slowly she began to slide down his chest. Just as slowly she drew her own right arm upwards.

Magnus knew what she was planning. If this was a genuine hostage situation Magnus might have told her to stop. But he had a feeling that she only had seconds to live. In which case her idea was her best chance.

‘So why do you want to kill her?’ Magnus said, more to distract the man than because he expected an answer. ‘Surely Freeflow is harmless, isn’t it?’

The man stared at Magnus, his eyes wild. ‘I have my reasons,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you can say—’

Then Erika made her move. She slipped down another couple of inches, thrust her arm downwards and jammed her elbow into the man’s groin.

He cried out in pain, and Erika twisted as he tried to slash her neck. He caught something, and she too yelled.

Magnus dived at the man’s knife hand. The two of them tumbled on to the ground. Magnus focused on the man’s hand, bending back the thumb until the man let go of the knife. Magnus felt a fist slam into his neck and then his ear, before he was flung sideways.

Both men lunged at the knife, Magnus sending it spinning into the corner just before the man’s fingers could grasp it.

Magnus scrabbled across the ground to grab the weapon. He pulled himself to his feet and saw the man take off, planting a kick on Erika’s head as he went.

Magnus sprinted after him, gripping the knife. Magnus was fast, and he was pretty sure he could catch the other man, but Erika was lying motionless in the dirt and Magnus knew it was more important to make sure she was OK. So he stopped after a few yards and turned back to where she was sprawled unconscious in a small pool of blood.

He knelt beside her. She was breathing. There was a fair bit of blood, but it was dribbling from a cut in her cheek rather than spurting out of her jugular.

He pulled out his phone and called in help.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

M
AGNUS UNLOCKED THE
door to his house and opened it. A faint smell of marijuana tickled his nostrils.

So Ollie had found the place then.

Magnus was very late. Erika had been taken to the National Hospital nearby, where her cheek had been discreetly patched up. Magnus had given a detailed description of her attacker, and the police were looking for him in Reykjavík. He would be hard to find. Although Magnus was sure he would recognize him again, there were hundreds, possibly thousands of men in Reykjavík who fitted his general description.

‘Hi!’ Magnus called out and walked into the kitchen. The house was small. His room was upstairs with his own little bathroom. Downstairs was larger: it was where Katrín lived. The kitchen, which Magnus had the use of, was just off the entrance hallway.

Katrín and Ollie were sitting at the table, smoking cigarettes, a couple of Magnus’s cans of Viking beer open in front of them.

‘Hey, bro!’ said Ollie as he pulled himself laboriously to his feet and gave Magnus a hug.

‘Sorry I didn’t meet you at the airport,’ Magnus said. ‘And I was supposed to be here a couple of hours ago but something came up.’

‘I’ve been OK,’ Ollie said.

‘It looks like you’ve made yourself at home.’

‘Yeah, you didn’t tell me what a great landlady you had,’ Ollie said.

Magnus smiled at Katrín. She was very tall with a pallid complexion and short dark hair cut in a bob. She was wearing black jeans and T-shirt. She was going easy on the facial metal these days – the rings and studs were confined to her ears. She gave him a small triumphant smile. Magnus and Katrín had lived together for a year and he knew her pretty well by now. It was an I’ve-slept-with-your-brother type smile.

Ollie’s eyes were shining. He looked happy to be in Iceland. Although you could tell from his features that they were related, Ollie was skinnier than Magnus and his hair was light brown and curly, compared to Magnus’s red. He was wearing a Sam Adams T-shirt and jeans. Both he and Katrín were in bare feet.

‘Yes, she is nice, isn’t she? What have you been up to all day?’

‘Just hanging here,’ Ollie said. ‘I didn’t sleep well on the plane, you know?’

‘Any sign of Ingileif?’ Magnus asked.

‘Haven’t seen her,’ Katrín said. ‘I wondered who you had with you last night. I didn’t know she was back in Iceland.’ She smiled. Magnus could see she was genuinely pleased for him. Although they had never spoken about it, Katrín knew he missed her. She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’ll leave you two alone.’