Authors: Michael Ridpath
So Sigurbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir was Magnus’s cousin as well as his lawyer? That was interesting. In Iceland’s closed society it wasn’t remarkable that a lawyer should act for her cousin. Unless the cousin had murdered their common grandfather. Now that
was
strange.
‘Did he mention his father’s murder in 1996?’ Emil asked.
‘No.’
‘Or the murder of Benedikt Jóhannesson in 1985?’
Árni scratched his ear and shook his head.
‘Are you sure, Árni?’
‘Yes.’ Árni nodded vigorously. ‘Quite sure.’
‘In that case, can you explain why the file is signed out under your name?’
‘Er.’
Árni’s eyes were wide, startled. Emil could see him trying to put together an explanation. Emil almost felt sorry for him.
‘Take some advice, Árni. Don’t lie to me. Whatever you do, don’t lie to an investigating officer. Just tell me the truth.’
‘I think I’ll stick with “er”,’ said Árni.
Emil shook his head. ‘Can I have the file please, Árni?’
‘Er.’
Emil raised his eyebrows.
‘The file is… somewhere else. I’ll get it to you soon. Very soon.’
Emil’s tone hardened. ‘I don’t know what you are doing with that file, Árni, or why it isn’t right here on your desk. But wherever it is, I want it here in the next hour. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Árni crisply.
‘Good. One last thing. Were you on duty here yesterday morning?’
‘Yes,’ said Árni.
‘When did you hear that Magnús had discovered Hallgrímur’s body?’
‘Some time that morning.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Baldur. He got a call from the Commissioner.’
‘Magnús didn’t tell you himself?’
‘No.’ Árni noticed the expression on Emil’s face. ‘I mean…’
‘Don’t even try to lie about that,’ said Emil. ‘I understand your colleague Vigdís is on leave for a couple of days. I’d like to talk to her. Give me her number.’
Árni examined his phone and dictated some digits. Emil wrote them down and left.
The morgue wasn’t far from police headquarters, just up the road on Barónsstígur, but Emil opted to drive. He slumped into the seat of his car, panting, and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. His heart was beating too fast again. He rested for a moment, and then took out his phone and called Björn in Stykkishólmur.
‘I know it’s early, but have we got the records on Magnús’s mobile phone yet?’
‘Just come in,’ said Björn.
‘That was quick.’ Emil had only got the warrant from the judge in Borgarnes earlier that morning. Sometimes the phone company could take days to provide information.
‘Told them it was a murder inquiry,’ said Björn, with a touch of pride in his voice.
‘Well done. Can you check what calls Magnús made after he discovered the body? That would be roughly eleven-thirty yesterday morning.’
‘Sure. Hang on a moment.’ Emil heard the rustling of papers. ‘He called 112 at 11.29. Then nothing until 12.02.’
‘What was that number? I bet it wasn’t anyone at police headquarters.’
‘Let’s see. An international call. The country code was forty-nine. Where’s that?’
‘That’s Germany,’ said Emil. ‘Find out who is registered on that number as quickly as possible and call me back.’
Emil put down his phone. Who the hell would Magnus want to call in Germany?
Half an hour later, Emil was in the morgue, kitted out in scrubs, standing over a trolley bearing the pale, wizened body of an old man. The autopsy revealed nothing unexpected. The pathologist confirmed that the cause of death was cerebral bleeding following five blows to the skull. And fragments of wood in the victim’s scalp suggested that these may well have been inflicted by the murderer banging the victim’s head
against a wooden floor. There were signs that three strands of hair had been pulled out by the roots.
There were plenty of other things wrong with Hallgrímur’s body, but nothing that wouldn’t be expected from moving parts that were more than eighty years old. In fact, for his age, he had been in good health. The one thing that caught the pathologist’s attention was a couple of bruises on Hallgrímur’s arm and legs, both a few days old, and signs of pinprick bleeds. The victim wasn’t on any blood-thinning drugs, which suggested a possibility of leukaemia, a suspicion that would be quickly checked by analysis of the blood samples he had taken.
Afterwards, Emil went on to the house in Njálsgata where Magnus lived, a search warrant in his pocket. Magnus’s landlady, an extraordinary-looking young woman named Katrín, turned out to be Árni’s sister. Funny how the detective had failed to mention it. She was surly, but when Emil showed her his warrant, she gave a brief account of Magnus’s comings and goings over the previous few days. She told him about his brother Ollie, his row with his ex-girlfriend Ingileif, and his departure in a hurry to follow Ollie and his schoolteacher friend north.
Then she took him upstairs to Magnus’s room. She left Emil taking photographs of Magnus’s wall.
He was writing up notes when his phone buzzed. It was Adam.
‘How did you do with Ingvar?’ Emil asked.
‘Looks unlikely,’ Adam said. ‘He admitted that Hallgrímur had made millions on the stock market with Ingvar’s help, but apparently he lost it all later. Ingvar was angry about that, but he doesn’t expect to inherit anything.’
‘His wife is in for a bit of a shock,’ said Emil.
‘I tried not to let on that was where we got the information, but I think Ingvar guessed. I checked with Hallgrímur’s bank in town, who confirmed he had had a brokerage account there, but that he had closed it down when the shares in it became worthless.’
‘What about the will? Do we know how much he had in his estate? And who he left it to?’ The question had to be asked, but under Icelandic inheritance law, two-thirds of the deceased’s estate had to be divided equally among ‘forced heirs’, meaning spouse and children. Only one third could be disposed of according to the deceased’s will.
‘I’ll check,’ said Adam.
‘Anyone confirm that Ingvar was working on his boat at the time of the murder?’ Emil asked.
‘Yes. The harbourmaster. And the captain of the ferry, who is one of his patients and saw him.’
‘That’s pretty clear, then,’ Emil said. ‘Did Björn have any luck with the phone number?’
‘It’s a mobile phone, and most of those numbers are unlisted.’
‘Damn! We’ll have to get on to the German police.’
‘No we don’t,’ said Adam. ‘I dialled the number. Got put through to voicemail. It may be a German phone, but the owner is an Icelander, and her name is Ingileif Gunnarsdóttir.’
Emil studied the woman sitting behind the desk at the back of the small gallery in Skólavördustígur. Her colleague had agreed to leave them for a few minutes and had flipped the sign on the door to ‘Closed’.
She was slender, pretty, with blonde hair hanging down in a fringe over her eyes. Emil noticed a small scar on her left eyebrow. She seemed cool and controlled but she avoided Emil’s eyes.
Emil had simply called the number and asked to speak to her immediately. It had taken him less than ten minutes to drive from Magnus’s flat to the gallery.
‘You have no doubt heard that Magnús Ragnarsson has been arrested for murder?’
‘Yes,’ said Ingileif. ‘Of his grandfather. But I don’t believe it. It can’t be true.’
‘You were his girlfriend, I understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Ingileif. ‘We met about a year ago. But then last autumn I went away to Hamburg, and we finished it.’
‘Finished it? Didn’t you spend the night with him last week?’
‘Yes.’ Ingileif smiled quickly. ‘Yes, I did. But…’ She glanced briefly at Emil and then away again. ‘It wasn’t a good idea. You see, I have a friend back in Germany, and Magnús didn’t like that. So we had a bit of a row. I stormed out. I haven’t seen him since.’
‘And when exactly was that?’
‘Er, Thursday night, I think. Yes, Thursday.’
‘And you say you haven’t seen him since?’
‘Yes,’ said Ingileif, raising her head.
‘Have you heard from him?’
‘No.’
Emil let the silence hang. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked eventually.
Ingileif’s cheeks reddened. She seemed to feel it, because she rubbed them and then stared down at the surface of the desk.
‘Not even yesterday morning?’ Emil asked.
She looked up. ‘No.’ Stronger this time.
‘The phone records show that Magnús called your number at 12.02 p.m. yesterday.’
The redness spread down towards her chin. Emil reeled her in patiently. He raised his eyebrows.
‘I must have missed it. Although I didn’t notice a missed call.’
‘He spoke for seven minutes.’
‘Did he?’ Ingileif looked away at a painting of Mount Esja on the wall. ‘Perhaps he was leaving a message.’
‘For seven minutes? Did you hear one?’
‘I didn’t check.’
‘Can you check now?’
Ingileif pulled out her phone and began to press buttons. Then she sighed and put it down. ‘OK. Yes, he did call me.’
‘And what did he say?’
She looked at him. Opened her mouth and closed it again.
‘Ingileif, this is a murder inquiry,’ Emil said gently. ‘We already have plenty of evidence against Magnús, probably enough to
convict him. There will be a trial and this phone call will be a key piece of evidence. You will have to take the stand and tell the court what Magnús told you. If you lie, it won’t get him off the hook. But you will be charged with perjury. In fact, if you lie now, I will charge you with obstructing a murder inquiry. So think hard before you speak.’
Ingileif said nothing. The redness drained from her face. Then she bit her bottom lip and nodded.
‘So what did Magnús say?’ Emil asked again.
Ingileif coughed. ‘He said he had just killed his grandfather.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
January 2010
T
HE HOUSE IN
Wellesley Hills didn’t look big from the road, but as Magnus drove up the short driveway, he saw it was expensive. Snow lay across the carefully landscaped yard, and upon the cover of the fenced-in swimming pool.
It had taken him nearly an hour to find his stepmother’s address. The process had involved using a public computer in Duxbury’s library and calling her first husband, the one before Ragnar, whose name Magnus could remember. Kathleen was now Mrs Lichtburg, and she had clearly done well for herself. According to her former husband, Mr Lichtburg ran an investment-management boutique, whatever that was.
Magnus rang the doorbell. It was almost five o’clock and he had no idea whether Mrs Lichtburg would be in, but after a few seconds the door opened.
She was probably over fifty now, but she hadn’t changed much. Red hair – coloured now, no doubt – a little make-up, expensive top and jeans. Well-groomed, thinner than Magnus remembered her.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’ She clearly didn’t recognize him.
‘It’s Magnus.’
‘Magnus?’ She almost smiled, and then frowned. ‘What do you want?’
‘To talk to you about Dad.’
‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you. I was hoping I would never set eyes on you again.’
Magnus was about to protest vigorously when he stopped himself. She would just slam the door in his face. He forced a lopsided grin.
‘Aw, Mom. That’s not very nice! I’ve missed you.’
The idea of Kathleen being his mom struck both of them as absurd. Although for a couple of years she had indeed been his stepmother, he had never called her ‘Mom’, nor had she expected him to.
She laughed. ‘Oh, all right. Come in. But only if you have a glass of wine.’
He followed her through into a large kitchen. There were photographs of kids graduating from something or other.
‘These yours?’ Magnus asked, although he knew that they were too old to be hers.
‘They are Brian’s. Stepchildren, you could say. Although I get on with them a whole lot better than I did with you.’
‘Oh, you got on with Ollie OK, didn’t you?’
Kathleen had her back to him as she took a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator. When she turned she checked his eyes to see whether he meant anything significant. Magnus gave no sign that he did.
‘I was glad to get rid of the both of you,’ she said, pouring two glasses. ‘I was going to say, haven’t you been able to forget your dad, but that’s a bit cruel even for me. What is it? His estate? No, I know. You’re still trying to solve his murder, aren’t you?’
She sat at a stool at the island counter in the middle of the kitchen and Magnus sat opposite her.
He nodded. ‘I’ve just been to see the detective who investigated the case down in Duxbury.’
‘And he confirmed my innocence, I hope?’
‘Oh, yes. He was quite sure where you were.’ Magnus looked around the house. ‘I see you didn’t end up in Pembroke.’
‘No, I most certainly didn’t end up in Pembroke,’ Kathleen said. ‘Actually, I like where I am now.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Magnus.
‘No, I don’t just mean the money. Brian’s a good man. And I think I’m a better person. There was ten years there where you could say I made some poor life choices.’
‘Like marrying my dad?’
‘And other things. Mind you, it was a mistake we both made. I thought he was good-looking, exotic, exciting. But it turned out that your father was dull. The only things he was interested in were math and Iceland.’
‘That might be enough for some people,’ said Magnus, who had been fascinated by his father.
‘Maybe,’ said Kathleen. ‘But not me. And I could see him falling out of love with me in front of my eyes. I didn’t like that.’
‘So you started sleeping around?’
‘As I say, I made some poor choices.’
‘Including sleeping with my brother?’
Kathleen winced. ‘You know about that?’
‘Jim Fearon just told me. The Duxbury detective.’
‘He promised me he wouldn’t,’ Kathleen said. ‘But I guess it’s a long time ago. To answer your question, that was a particularly poor choice of action.’
‘And Dad found out?’
Kathleen nodded. ‘He knew I had been sleeping with someone else. I told him it was his son. I was really angry with him about something, I can’t remember what precisely now. Of course, what I was really angry with was that he didn’t love me any more and I had been dumb enough to marry him.’