Edge of Nowhere

2

‘There it is,’ said Eyrún. ‘Bolungarvík.’

They had skirted a headland and in front of them, across a bay in the fjord, crouched the village. It was wedged on to the western edge of a small, flat plain, surrounded on three sides by steep mountains, and on the fourth by the sea. A cluster of white buildings clung tightly to the foot of the tallest mountain, a great block of snow-covered rock at the mouth of the fjord, towering above the town. A harbour wall stretched out into the sea, and beyond it, and beyond the great mountain, lay the Atlantic Ocean, swelling with power and danger.

The wind was blowing the clouds away behind them to the east, leaving dark blue sky tinged with pink. The sun was lurking somewhere behind the mountains to the south-west. At this time of year, dawn and dusk crowded out the daytime.

‘It’s a beautiful spot,’ said Magnus.

‘It’s beautiful from a distance,’ said Eyrún. ‘Up close it’s a different matter. The town’s architecture isn’t going to win any awards.’

They passed a squat orange lighthouse and then came to the junction with the road from the tunnel. Eyrún drove past the ‘Road Closed’ sign and pulled up next to a police car with its lights flashing, parked in front of a scattering of loose rocks not far from where the tunnel emerged out of the hill.

A tall figure dressed in the practical black uniform of an Icelandic policeman approached them.

Magnus and Eyrún got out. The cold wind slapped Magnus’s face and he zipped up his coat.

‘This is Tómas, Bolungarvík’s constable,’ Eyrún said.

Tómas was the same height as Magnus, about six-foot-four, with fair hair peeking out underneath his black cap, and bright blue eyes. For someone so large he had surprisingly delicate features. He held out his hand and greeted Magnus with a grin.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Eyrún.

After the Mayor had driven off towards the village, Magnus turned to the constable. ‘So, Tómas. Tell me what happened.’

‘It was about six-thirty this morning,’ said Tómas. ‘Gústi, that’s the victim, came up here to install some protective netting against rockslides and avalanches. We’ve had quite a few recently.’

‘So, I’ve heard,’ said Magnus.

‘He seems to have been setting up the generator to power the floodlights when for some reason he climbed up the hillside over there.’

By the side of the road was a pickup truck half full of equipment. Next to it was a generator and a floodlight, unlit. A few metres along the road and further up the hillside was a jumble of rocks and stones, some of which had spilled across the tarmac.

‘Who found him?’

‘Me. A car on its way to Ísafjördur saw the rock fall and had to stop since the road was blocked. The driver got out, looked around for the owner of the pickup, didn’t see anyone and so called 112. I came out. It took me a few minutes to figure out what happened, but when I climbed up to the rock fall I saw a leg sticking out under the stones. I called in an ambulance and the fire engine and scrabbled away. It was Gústi. He was dead.’

‘What were his injuries?’

‘He had taken quite a battering. Bruises all over his body. His head was cracked open by the rocks: I’d guess that’s what killed him.’

‘Where is the body now?’

‘At the district hospital in Ísafjördur. The doctor will do the autopsy today.’

Most autopsies in Iceland were carried out by local doctors. There were two forensic pathologists in the country, but at this stage the death didn’t warrant their attention.

‘Did the driver see the landslide?’

‘No. No one saw it. She didn’t see any people or parked vehicles near the scene, either.’

‘All right,’ said Magnus. ‘Show me.’

Tómas led Magnus up an icy path to where he had found the body. Tómas had diligently placed crime-scene tape around the pile of rocks. He and Magnus ducked under it. ‘Right here,’ he said.

Magnus looked up the slope. The sun was definitely below the horizon now, and the last vestiges of daylight were seeping away. It was still possible to make out the hillside above. ‘I can see where the fall started,’ Magnus said.

‘Yes. One of the reasons I was suspicious is that there is a narrow footpath up the hill to that point. Can you see it?’

‘Yes,’ said Magnus. He could just make out a path under the snow. ‘Did you spot any footprints?’

‘Well, I think I did. I can’t be sure. It had just started to snow. To be honest, I didn’t think of the place as a crime scene. I just wanted to get Gústi out of there. There were the ambulance guys and the fire service and a couple of cops from Ísafjördur. So there was a real mess of footprints all over the place. By the time I began to consider that path, the snow had just about covered everything.’

‘Just about?’

‘I thought I could make out some prints on the path. It was cold, it was dark, they were gone in a few minutes if they were ever there.’

‘Did you get a photograph?’

Tómas shook his head apologetically.

‘What else made you suspicious?’

‘The victim. Gústi was not popular in the village. For example, just last Saturday night someone threatened to kill him.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Arnór. A local fisherman. He was drunk at the time, they both were, but there’s no doubt he hates Gústi. Hated him.’

‘Have you spoken to him?’

‘Not yet. I was waiting for you.’

Magnus nodded. ‘Good. We’ll talk to him.’

‘Also, I couldn’t help wondering why Gústi climbed up here. Right in the path of a potential rock fall.’

‘Was this where he was planning to install the netting?’

‘No. That was supposed to be a few metres lower down.’

Magnus surveyed the scene. ‘It’s a good question. Any answers?’

Tómas shook his head.

‘A very good question.’

‘Anything else that made you suspicious?’

‘Well ...’ The constable hesitated.

‘Show me where the hidden people live,’ said Magnus.

Tómas smiled sheepishly. ‘They are all over the place. One of their dwellings is said to be there, right where Gústi was going to plant the netting.’ He pointed to a smooth rock that jutted out from the hillside.

‘Didn’t like to be messed with, huh?’ Magnus said.

‘Neither did Arnór,’ said Tómas. ‘And he’ll be a whole lot easier to interview.’

Magnus grinned. ‘Good point. I know you searched the area thoroughly, but I think I’ll take another look.’

Magnus spent twenty minutes poking about the scene with Tómas as the light drained off the mountainside. They saw nothing suspicious, but Tómas’s question bothered him. Why had Gústi climbed up to that spot? Magnus stood next to the generator, where Gústi must have been working and stared at the place where he had been crushed.

‘Come on,’ he said to Tómas.

He took Tómas’s powerful flashlight and led him up to the slide. He scrabbled across the rocks, sending several stones crashing down to the road below.

‘Careful!’ said Tómas.

‘Help me,’ said Magnus as he began to push boulders away a few metres beyond where Gústi’s body had lain. ‘He must have seen something and been climbing up towards it. If he did, that something is under these stones.’

It took them half an hour to find the thing, or rather things. There was a small hurricane lamp, its glass smashed. A stuffed bear, a polar bear to be precise, with a red ribbon tied around its neck. And a fold of several thousand kronur in notes.

‘Bait,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ve found the bait.’

They photographed and bagged the bear, the lamp and the banknotes. Tómas called Gústi’s boss to tell him to clear the road, but they left the tape around the immediate crime scene. Magnus climbed into Tómas’s police Jeep, and the constable drove them back to the village.

‘You were right to be suspicious,’ Magnus said.

‘Do you really think the bear was bait?’

‘Could well be,’ said Magnus. ‘Gústi arrives at the site, sees a light and a teddy bear, goes a bit closer, sees the banknotes, goes to pick them up and he’s just where the murderer wanted him. If it was bait, it worked.’

‘Could it be anything else?’

‘Possibly.’ Some elf-related weirdness, Magnus thought but didn’t say. The less said about elves in this investigation, the better. ‘Tell me about Gústi. And this guy Arnór.’

‘Gústi worked for the local construction company, Bolungarvíkur Engineering. They do road maintenance, minor building works, they build the odd house. Knock things down. It’s not high tech, but the quality of their work is pretty good. He’s lived here all his life. Used to be married, but it ended in disaster about ten years ago. Two kids that Gústi sees as little of as he can. No one much likes him, or trusts him. In a community this size it’s bad not to be trusted. He works hard, so they tolerate him, but that’s about it.’

‘I’m impressed with your knowledge.’

‘I know people in the town,’ said Tómas. ‘It’s unavoidable.’

It was not yet completely dark and they were getting closer to Bolungarvík. On their left Magnus spotted a sign for a golf course, although all he could see was a flattish area of snow. As they drew nearer, the mass of the mountain reared up above the tiny village, wrinkles of grey rock peeking out beneath the snow. It looked as if it might crush the human habitation at any moment. And given what Magnus had heard about landslides, that possibility didn’t seem too far fetched.

They passed a white church with a small red steeple standing alone on a knoll and crossed the bridge over a river into town.

Eyrún was right, Bolungarvík would not win any architectural prizes. Square blocks of white concrete, much of it peeled away by the Atlantic winds. Most of the roofs were classic Icelandic red corrugated metal, with the odd lime green specimen thrown in.

‘And Arnór?’

‘He’s a fisherman. Small-time, struggling. Same age as Gústi; they’ve been enemies since school. Things got out of hand last year when someone gave the Ministry of Fisheries a tip-off about Arnór cheating on his quota. That’s a big deal, as I’m sure you know.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘The Ministry investigated, didn’t find enough evidence to prosecute Arnór, but they warned him. Arnór was sure that Gústi had tipped the Ministry off. They had a fight outside the local bar last Saturday night: it had been a long time in coming. I slung them into the two separate cells at the station for the night — although when they began screaming at each other, I let Gústi go.’

‘Death threats?’

‘And the rest. Arnór swore he would kill Gústi that very day. And then leave him on the mountain for a troll to sodomize him.’

‘Nice.’

‘Didn’t see any evidence of troll-rape back there,’ said Tómas. ‘You can usually spot the signs.’

Magnus laughed. He missed the black humour of the Boston homicide cops. He liked Tómas.

They pulled up outside a flashy white block made of concrete, glass and wood, that might in fact win an architecture prize. It was the municipal building: town hall, mayor’s office, police station, post office all in one.

A woman was waiting for them outside the entrance. She was in her forties, short, with long red hair spreading out underneath a brightly striped woolly hat.

She approached Magnus as soon as he was out of the police car. ‘Are you the detective from Reykjavík?’

‘Not now, Rós,’ said Tómas. ‘We are busy.’

‘But I have some information for the detective,’ Rós said. ‘About Gústi’s death.’

‘Well, come back tomorrow morning and I’ll take a statement from you,’ said Tómas.

‘No, that’s all right,’ said Magnus. ‘Rós, is it?’

The woman nodded. She had a broad friendly face with big brown eyes.

‘My name is Sergeant Magnús. Come in and you can tell me what you have to say.’

The three of them sat in the police station’s small interview room, and once Rós had been furnished with a cup of coffee, Magnus took out a pen and pad. With her hat off, Rós’s flaming red hair spread out over her shoulders. ‘It’s the hidden people. They killed him.’

‘I see,’ said Magnus, in as serious a tone as he could muster. He wrote down the words ‘hidden people’ on his pad in big letters and underlined it. ‘And why do you think that?’

‘They told me they would.’

‘Really?’ Magnus said. ‘How?’

‘In a dream. Well, in several dreams over the last few months. They are very unhappy about their homes being destroyed. You know they live in the rocks on this side of the tunnel?’

Magnus nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve just been to see where Gústi was killed. Tómas pointed out their home.’

‘That’s just one of their dwellings. There are many more, or there were, before they were blown up to make the tunnel.’

‘And the hidden people are unhappy about this?’

‘You can say that again. At first they told me they would break the construction company’s machines. Which they did. But the company couldn’t take the hint. So now someone has been killed.’

‘I see,’ said Magnus. ‘And they told you this in a dream?’

‘They did.’

‘Who did?’ said Magnus.

‘One of the hidden people.’

‘Which one?’

Rós looked a little confused by the question.

‘I’m investigating who killed Gústi,’ Magnus said. ‘I need names.’

‘Actually, I don’t have a name,’ said Rós uncertainly.

‘All right,’ said Magnus. ‘Then how about a description?’

‘A description?’

‘That’s right. Of the hidden person who told you this. In the dream.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Rós. She cleared her throat and frowned. ‘She was a woman, maybe thirty years old, long, fair hair.’

‘Height?’

‘Height?’

‘How tall was she?’

‘I don’t know.’

Magnus allowed himself to frown at the witness. ‘OK. Dress?’

‘A long blue dress. Plain.’ Magnus raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s all I can say, really. Her hair was braided.’ She paused. ‘She was beautiful. She is beautiful.’ The woman’s eyes glowed in rapture.

Magnus wrote the words down. ‘And did she mention Gústi by name?’

‘No,’ said Rós. ‘But she wanted me to tell everyone in town that if construction went ahead on the tunnel, there would be trouble. Nobody took any notice, of course, even after all their equipment was broken. So they built the tunnel anyway. I hoped that the apology we gave the hidden people on Sunday would have worked, but it obviously didn’t.’

‘Obviously not,’ said Magnus. ‘What was this apology?’

‘We had a little ceremony, a lot of the people in Bolungarvík came, including the pastor. He said a prayer. It was an important thing to do.’

‘I see that,’ said Magnus. He spent another ten minutes asking Rós about the hidden people and their habits, before finally putting his pen down. He had two sides of notes on his pad. ‘OK, thank you for coming forward, Rós,’ said Magnus.

The red-haired woman smiled, in her stride now. ‘Not at all. I’m glad the police are finally listening to me.’ Her eyes flicked to Tómas sharply.

‘One other thing,’ Magnus said. ‘Did you ever leave anything out for the hidden people?’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘A gift of some kind,’ said Magnus.

‘A stuffed polar bear, for instance?’ said Tómas. Magnus concealed his irritation: that was a detail he wanted to keep to himself. Now everyone in Bolungarvík would know. Until then, Tómas’s actions had been very professional, but Magnus had forgotten that the constable wasn’t a detective.

‘Did you find one where Gústi was killed?’ Rós asked.

‘Did you leave anything for them?’ Magnus repeated.

‘No,’ said Rós.

‘Do you know anyone else who might have?’

‘There are a lot of people in town who are angry on behalf of the hidden people,’ she said. ‘It could have been anyone.’

‘Why a polar bear?’ Magnus asked. ‘Do the hidden people here like polar bears?’

‘That’s a ridiculous question,’ said Rós. ‘I’ve no idea.’

Magnus smiled apologetically. ‘Thanks again, Rós. And next time you see your hidden woman, ask her her name, will you?’

‘Why did you take her so seriously?’ Tómas asked, after Rós was safely out of the police station.

‘To shut her up, mostly,’ said Magnus. ‘And her friends. If the hidden people are as popular in town as you say they are, we could waste a lot of time dealing with people who want us to take them seriously. Now they know we do.’

‘You don’t believe any of this crap, do you?’ said Tómas.

‘Don’t you?’

‘Of course not. I was brought up in this town and I’ve heard it all my life. That woman is a nutcase. There aren’t any hidden people here or anywhere else. It’s only because we are all stuck in the middle of nowhere that it’s difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve heard about you. You lived in America, didn’t you? Don’t tell me you believe her.’

‘I spent twelve years working as a cop in Boston, and you’re right I didn’t come across any elves there,’ said Magnus. ‘I was in Homicide; elves would come under Narcotics.’

Tómas smiled.

‘I was also curious about the bear,’ Magnus said. ‘I thought she might have put it there.’

‘It’s the kind of whacko thing she’d do,’ said Tómas.

‘By the way, when we are interviewing someone together, leave the disclosure of information to me,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s always good to hold some details back.’

Tómas blushed. ‘Oh. Oh, I see. I’m sorry.’

‘We still have the ribbon,’ said Magnus. ‘I wonder what that was for?’

Tómas thought a moment. ‘So Gústi could see the white bear in the snow?’

‘Possibly,’ said Magnus. ‘But why a polar bear?’

‘They are popular in this town,’ the constable said. ‘There’s a stuffed one in the Museum. It was shot north of here when it arrived from Greenland on an ice floe. It’s very famous.’

‘Of course,’ Magnus couldn’t help smiling. He was getting used to Icelanders craving attention. Even in this far corner of this remote island, there was something of world renown. There had to be. It wasn’t quite as strange as the Penis Museum in the small town of Húsavík further to the east, but a polar bear was better than nothing. ‘Sorry, Tómas. Let’s take a quick look at Gústi’s house and then pay a visit to Arnór.’