Authors: Michael Ridpath
Tóta was sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through a magazine and waiting for the cakes. ‘You hated him.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well, you hardly ever said anything to him.’
‘We had a lot of respect for each other.’ By which Aníta meant they had kept their own distance.
Hallgrímur had doted on Tóta, frequently commenting that she reminded him of Margrét, his lost daughter. Aníta had never known Margrét, who had died before Aníta had married Kolbeinn, so she had no idea how true this was. Kolbeinn went along with it, but Aníta suspected that this was just to keep his father happy.
There was the sound of pounding on the stairs and Krissi barged in. ‘Hey, Mum, are they ready yet? I’m starving.’
He was tall for a twelve-year-old, which was good for basketball, but he wasn’t used to his own size yet, and had developed a tendency towards clumsiness. He was also becoming surly, but in a much more withdrawn way than Tóta. But at that moment he had pink cheeks and a wide grin on his face, like a little eight-year-old. Aníta felt a huge desire to hug him. So she did. He didn’t resist.
‘He’s not sad either,’ Tóta said.
‘What about?’ asked Krissi, innocently.
‘Afi, idiot. Someone murdered him. Probably our psycho cousin. And you don’t care.’
Krissi looked serious for a moment. ‘Of course I care,’ he said, glancing at his mother.
‘Yes, of course he does, Tóta,’ said Aníta, although actually she suspected Tóta was right. And although Tóta had shed tears, Aníta wasn’t sure how sad she really was, either.
But the manner of Hallgrímur’s death really was shocking. Murder. His blood spilled on the wooden floor of the little church. It was not the way for an old man to die, not even Hallgrímur.
Another death at Bjarnarhöfn. Another ghost. So many ghosts.
‘So that was Cousin Magnús?’ said Tóta. Magnus had spent some time with them in the kitchen before the police had whisked him away. Tóta had been little more than a baby the last time he had visited Bjarnarhöfn briefly. ‘He’s pretty hot.’
‘Yuk,’ said Krissi. ‘He’s your cousin!’
‘I know,’ said Tóta. ‘I was just saying. Anyway, he’s really old.’
Tóta had a point, thought Aníta. In fact, she had warmed to Magnus as they had waited in the kitchen for the police. She doubted that he had really murdered Hallgrímur, but she didn’t regret telling the police what she had seen. She was one hundred per cent sure that Magnus was washing up that mug in Hallgrímur’s kitchen.
And the enmity that Hallgrímur felt towards his grandson was obvious. When Magnus had visited Bjarnarhöfn immediately after his father’s death, Aníta had done her best to welcome him. He was only twenty then, too young to lose both his parents. But Hallgrímur had wanted nothing to do with him and had forbidden Aníta from even asking him to stay for dinner. So Magnus had found a room in a hotel in Stykkishólmur and then gone back to America. If he had intended to effect some reconciliation with his Icelandic family, he had failed.
Kolbeinn, as usual, had taken his father’s side. There were three brothers – Vilhjálmur, Kolbeinn and Ingvar – and then Margrét, Magnus’s mother. Vilhjálmur, or Villi as he was known to his family, had emigrated to Canada sometime in the 1970s. Ingvar had gone to Reykjavík to become a doctor, and then to France before returning to Stykkishólmur. Kolbeinn had stayed put and run the farm. Someone had to.
Kolbeinn was nearly fifteen years older than Aníta, and she was his second wife, his first having run off with a fisherman from Akureyri. He was tall, strong and steady, if unimaginative. Aníta had married him on the rebound from the string of imaginative disasters she had dated in Reykjavík. But she didn’t regret her decision. After nearly twenty years she loved him still.
He was out fixing fences, preparing for the lambing season. The ewes were all indoors at the moment, but once they began lambing they would be let outside into the meadows around the farm, volcanic ash permitting. That was only two weeks away. Lambing was hard work, but totally absorbing, and the distraction would be welcome.
‘I think Amma is here,’ said Krissi, pointing out of the window. Indeed, her car, a small silver Opel, was parked next to
Magnus’s green Range Rover outside her cottage and she was talking to the policeman standing guard there. There were even more people milling about than before; the forensics team from Reykjavík had arrived. It was raining.
‘She looks upset,’ Krissi said.
‘I bet she is,’ said Aníta. She left the cakes and rushed outside, trotting over to the cottage through the rain. The dogs followed her.
Sylvía was a small, tough woman in her mid-eighties, with short grey hair. Her expression was usually one of disapproval, but for once she looked distressed. Aníta hurried over and put her arm around the old woman’s shoulders.
‘The policeman says I can’t see Hallgrímur,’ she said. ‘Where is he?’
‘I think he’s in the church, Sylvía.’
‘But he can’t be. There is no service there today. Besides, Hallgrímur never goes to church.’
‘Is that where you were, Sylvía?’ Aníta asked. ‘At church?’ In the last year or so Sylvía had started to go to church with increasing frequency. There was only one service a month at Bjarnarhöfn, given by the pastor at Helgafell, and she had started attending that. Now she often went into the new church at Stykkishólmur.
‘Yes, dear. Why won’t the policeman let me into my house?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Aníta.
The fat detective was waddling towards them from the church. Aníta beckoned to him. ‘Can my mother-in-law go in?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the inspector. ‘It’s a crime scene. Can you take her over to the farmhouse? I want to have a word with her.’
‘How long will it be a crime scene?’ Aníta asked. ‘The church I can understand, but Sylvía lives here.’
‘We have to wait for forensics. It can be a slow old job. They might not release the cottage until tomorrow. She’ll probably have to sleep at the farmhouse tonight.’
‘Can she at least get her stuff? She’ll need things for the night.’
‘Yes, she can get those later. And in fact, I’d like her to check the cottage to make sure nothing is missing. But we must wait until forensics are set up here, OK? I’d also like to have a word with you in a few minutes. I need to understand a bit more about your family.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Aníta. She turned to her mother-in-law, who was dripping in the steady rain. ‘Come back to the farmhouse, Sylvía. Let’s get you dry. The policeman says you will have to stay with us tonight.’
‘Does he indeed? And Hallgrímur too?’
Oh, God, thought Aníta. She had been afraid that this would happen; half expected it, even. She suspected that her mother-inlaw was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. She was a stubborn old bird at the best of times. If she didn’t want to accept that Hallgrímur had been murdered, it would be difficult to persuade her. She glanced at the detective, who was watching the old woman closely. He seemed to understand what was going on.
‘I’m afraid Hallgrímur is dead, Sylvía,’ Aníta said as kindly as she could.
‘Nonsense, dear. I expect he has gone into town for something. He’ll be back soon.’
‘No, Sylvía. You need to understand. He’s been killed. In the church.’
‘But he doesn’t go to church,’ said Sylvía, confusion written all over her face. ‘I told you that.’
Aníta was suddenly aware of the large damp figure of Kolbeinn at her shoulder. He opened his arms, pulled his mother into his broad chest and rocked her, tears in his eyes.
Emil drove the twenty kilometres from Bjarnarhöfn to Stykkishólmur alone. He appreciated the time to think. And it would allow him to stop for five minutes for a hot dog at the petrol station on the edge of town.
Aníta had given him some useful background on Hallgrímur’s family. It was clear that he was a nasty old man;
indeed, it seemed likely that he had been a nasty young man. He had also publicly rejected his grandson Magnus. He had been upset at the death of his alcoholic daughter and clearly hated Magnus’s father.
That wasn’t so unusual. Icelanders had lots of children, their extended families were big, and in any big Icelandic family there was always someone who made trouble. But that didn’t mean that they were murdered.
Dr Ingvar had speculated that a possible cause of the murder was someone banging Hallgrímur’s head repeatedly against the floor of the church. It was soft pine, but Hallgrímur was an old man: it wouldn’t take much to kill him. Blows to the head with a blunt instrument were still a possibility, but no likely blunt instruments had been found. All would be clearer at autopsy, which would take place in Reykjavík the following morning.
Magnus had discovered the body. It was beginning to look as if he had disrupted the crime scene intentionally. Edda, the head of the forensics team, would give Emil a much better idea of that in a few hours. It may well be that they would find enough forensic evidence to pin the crime on Magnus, but somehow Emil doubted it. Magnus had involved himself so thoroughly in the crime scene that it would be difficult to prove that he was anything but a thoughtless, blundering bystander.
No, Emil needed a motive. He needed to find out more about Sergeant Magnús Ragnarsson.
Emil had had a difficult time with Hallgrímur’s wife. She refused to accept her husband’s death. She had been to church at Stykkishólmur, and Hallgrímur had been fine when she had left, doing his Sudoku puzzles. He must have gone off to see a friend or to choir practice. After much cajoling from her son Kolbeinn, the three of them had checked the cottage. Sylvía didn’t seem to think that anything had been taken, but it was hard to be sure. There was a Sudoku book lying open on a table in the living room. Kolbeinn had checked the church: there was nothing missing from there either. So a surprised
burglar, although not to be ruled out entirely, was looking unlikely.
Stykkishólmur police station was a modern white office block surrounded by car park, between the post office and the Bónus supermarket as you came into town. Half of the building was the magistrate’s offices, and the other half the police regional headquarters.
Chief Superintendent Rúnar was waiting for him. ‘Do you want to speak to Magnús now?’
‘No,’ said Emil. ‘Let me talk to his brother first.’
‘OK. But he doesn’t speak Icelandic,’ Rúnar said. ‘I’ve got an interpreter standing by.’
Emil raised his eyebrows. ‘All right.’
That was a pain in the arse. Emil was proud of his English, but in cases with foreign nationals where both the police officers and the witnesses spoke English, an interpreter was required for an official statement.
The interpreter was a young teacher from the primary school just down the road. He followed Emil and Constable Páll into the interview room where Ollie was waiting. The Stykkishólmur police had sensibly kept him away from his brother.
Ollie was a thin man with fine features, curly fair hair and a couple of days of stubble. He looked tense.
Emil smiled as he sat down. ‘Good afternoon, Ollie,’ he said in English. ‘Do you want some more coffee?’ He nodded to Ollie’s half-full Styrofoam cup.
Ollie shook his head. ‘No, but I’d like a smoke.’
‘Sorry, Ollie. Not allowed these days.’
Ollie’s fingers drifted to his coffee cup and he began to fiddle with it.
‘Since I understand you don’t speak Icelandic, we need an interpreter,’ Emil said. ‘I’ll ask the questions in Icelandic, and although I’ll probably understand your answers, we need it translated for the record.’ He nodded to a recorder. ‘This interview is being taped.’
‘OK,’ said Ollie, swallowing.
‘Can I confirm that your name is Ólafur Hallgrímur Ragnarsson?’ Emil switched to Icelandic, with the interpreter translating.
‘Er, no. At least not any more. It’s Oliver Hallgrimur Jonson. At least that’s what it says on my United States passport, and I don’t have an Icelandic one. My father was Ragnar Jónsson, but he found it too complicated that Magnus and me had different last names to him, so he figured we should all be Jonson. And I’ve always been happy to stick with that.’
‘I see. Date of birth?’
‘February second, 1978.’
‘Address?’
‘Five six one Stanton Street, Medford, Massachusetts, USA.’
‘OK. And how long have you lived in America? You were born in Iceland, right?’
‘Yes, I was born here. In Reykjavík. I moved to the States when I was ten. That’s about twenty years ago. As you can see I’ve forgotten all my Icelandic. This is the first time I have been back.’
‘Really? And how long have you been in the country?’
‘I flew in Wednesday. Stayed with my brother in Reykjavík. I was due to fly back this afternoon, but I guess I’m going to miss my flight.’
‘Sorry about that.’ Emil smiled. ‘But I’m sure you can understand.’
‘I guess,’ said Ollie.
‘So where were you this morning at about ten-thirty?’
‘When my grandfather was killed? You don’t think I did it, do you?’
‘I have to ask the question, Ollie. Of you and everyone else.’
Ollie nodded. Swallowed. ‘I, er, I was at a place called Arnarstapi, something like that. It’s further along the peninsula. I was with Joe, Jóhannes. He wanted to show me a cliff walk there. And the glacier. It was pretty cool.’
‘I see. So it was a tourist excursion. Is Jóhannes a friend of yours?’
Ollie shook his head. ‘I only met him a couple of days ago. We were actually coming up here to talk to my grandfather. But we were too early on a Sunday morning to disturb him, so Jóhannes wanted to show me the sights. Then I called Grandpa to tell him we wanted to see him, and that’s when I heard he was dead.’
‘I see. Why did you hang up? And why didn’t you answer the phone when Páll here called you back?’
‘I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do. But when I thought about it a bit, I did call the police back.’
‘I see.’ Emil observed Ollie calmly. ‘Are you always this nervous?’
Ollie shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’
‘You don’t like talking to cops?’
Ollie laughed. ‘It depends on the circumstances.’
‘When we check your criminal record, what will we find?’ Emil asked.