Whale Fjord

Eighteen

The radiocarbon-dating report from the Anthropology Department of the University of Iceland was waiting for Magnus when he logged on to his computer in the morning.

The results were frustrating. You needed soft tissue to date time of death, but in this case that had long decayed. Teeth could be very roughly dated to the time they were formed. The age of a skeleton at death was important as was how and in what type of ground it had been buried.

Variables piled upon variables. The only thing the report could state for sure was that the victims had been buried before the 1950s when the prevalence of carbon-14 in the world’s atmosphere had risen dramatically following a spate of nuclear bomb tests.

So 1940 was possible as a date of death. And, more importantly, these were not recent murders.

But they still needed the DNA analysis for a definite ID.

Vigdís arrived, looking worn out.

Was it Erla? Audur? Magnus didn’t know, and, given their conversation about Vigdís’s mother the previous day, he decided not to ask.

He briefed her on the radiocarbon report and his discussion with Louisa Sugarman the previous afternoon.

‘Can we get the British police file on Pybus-Smith’s murder?’ Vigdís asked.

‘I doubt it,’ said Magnus. ‘An investigation in the 1980s? Not just that, but one that was questioned in the press? The investigating officers will have long retired, and if they haven’t, they certainly won’t want to talk to us about it. Europol will take forever and then the Brits will probably just say no.’

There was an international mechanism for sharing such information through Europol and Interpol, but it was cumbersome. Magnus often had better luck using informal channels with a direct phone call to the police officer involved in an investigation overseas, but that wouldn’t work in this case.

‘So, what about these two Scandinavian men? Were they real?’

‘Could be,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s an odd thing to make up. But it’s not clear to me whether they were seen before or after Pybus-Smith was murdered. They could just have been visiting someone else in the building.’

‘Is it worth seeing Gudni again? See if he knows anything?’

Magnus’s phone rang.

Assault outside a house in Kópavogur. A sixteen-year-old boy had been beaten up by intruders leaving his parents’ house on his way to school. He was now in hospital.

Magnus had a sinking feeling about this one as he set off, taking Vigdís with him.

The case was as Magnus feared. The kid had been attacked by a large guy who had knocked him about and trodden on his phone. Not stolen it. Destroyed it.

The boy, who was conscious in hospital with a broken collarbone, swore blind that he had no idea why he had been attacked, that it must have been a mugging. His description of the thug was vague in the extreme: ‘big’ was the only adjective he was confident of.

The boy’s mother, who was with him, was distraught.

Magnus and Vigdís both knew what had happened. The kid owed money for drugs and hadn’t paid. The mother probably didn’t even know that her son took drugs. The kid was terrified of both the dealers whom he had left unpaid and his parents in case they found out what had really happened.

Vigdís took the mother to one side, and Magnus talked to the boy.

In six years’ time, could this be Ási? Would Magnus be the parent fussing in the hospital?

Would he trust Ási if he swore blind he had never touched drugs or bought from dealers? Probably not, given what Magnus had seen in his professional life. Would Ingileif?

Probably.

‘Why can’t I be in there with him?’ the woman asked Vigdís. She was in her mid-forties, a little heavy, with long blonde hair. She was tense, worried, but also willing to fight for her child.

They were in a quiet corner of the corridor of the hospital. Magnus was asking the kid awkward questions, questions which he probably wouldn’t answer, and which he definitely wouldn’t answer if his mother was with him.

‘Has your son ever had trouble with drugs?’ Vigdís asked her, as blandly as she could.

‘Drugs? No, of course not. Doddi has never taken drugs. How can you ask that?’

Vigdís searched the woman’s eyes for a hint of doubt, and found it. The woman turned away from her. Vigdís persisted; she wanted to warn the mother gently how this was going to go.

‘We have had a couple of similar incidents over the last few months,’ Vigdís said. ‘And we would like to catch the gang who are responsible. So more kids aren’t beaten up.’

‘It was a mugging. It’s obvious. Doddi is only sixteen! He’s never been in trouble with the police, or even at school.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, not much trouble.’

Vigdís had checked LÖKE, the police database, and the mother was correct about that, at least as far as the police were concerned. ‘Let’s just wait for my colleague, shall we?’ she said.

Her phone rang.

She glanced at the woman, stood up and moved away as she answered. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Vigdís, it’s Lúdvík. Listen, I’ve got some bad news. You know that jogger who was hit outside your place on Tuesday?’

‘Yes?’ Vigdís felt her throat tighten, as if to trap the panic she could feel rising in her chest.

‘He died. Last night.’

‘What? But I thought he was OK?’

‘So did I. He spent the night in hospital, and they didn’t spot anything, so they let him go in the morning. But it turns out there was bleeding in his brain. He called an ambulance with a bad headache last night, but by the time they got him to the hospital he was dead.’

‘But they were supposed to observe him, right?’ said Vigdís, unsuccessfully trying to control the panic. ‘Why didn’t they spot it? Didn’t they do a brain scan?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Lúdvík. ‘I guess not.’

‘Why not?’ demanded Vigdís.

‘I have no idea,’ said Lúdvík. Vigdís picked up a hint of suspicion in his reply. She had to get control of herself. Immediately.

‘Of course you don’t,’ she said, her voice steadier. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a bit of a shock. I was just pleased that he was OK, and now, suddenly, he’s not.’

‘I know,’ said Lúdvík. ‘I spoke to him — he was a nice guy. A devoted girlfriend. Two devoted parents. It was a shock to all of them.’

‘I bet it was,’ said Vigdís.

‘Anyway. It means I need to take a formal statement from you.’

Vigdís’s heart sank. ‘Of course.’

‘Are you at the station now?’

Vigdís glanced at the mother, who was watching her closely. ‘No. I’m at the National Hospital. I’ll probably be back by lunchtime.’

‘Good. I’ll come by and take a statement from you then.’

‘If you can wait till this evening, we can do it at my place,’ Vigdís said, playing for time. That would be more convenient for Lúdvík, who was based in Hafnarfjördur.

‘No, I’ll come your way. You’re the only witness.’

‘OK,’ said Vigdís. ‘I’ll call you when I’m back at the station.’

She hung up.

‘Bad news?’ asked the woman, with a look of concern.

Vigdís nodded. ‘Very.’

Gudni smiled as Jimmy Greaves blasted the ball into the back of the net past the Burnley goalkeeper.

It was one of a series of DVDs in Gudni’s collection. His son Bjarni had given him a set of Tottenham Hotspur’s six televised FA Cup final victories for Christmas a few years ago. Comfort fare. He needed it now, to take his mind off all those thoughts that were swirling around his brain since the police’s visit the day before.

But, as Burnley restarted the game, his thoughts returned to his mother. And his father, and his grandfather and uncle and aunt and all those people who had looked after him and were now gone. His father he couldn’t remember and his mother only barely. But Grandpa and Uncle Siggi had done a good job bringing him up at Laxahóll, as had Sunna when she had married Uncle Siggi. Fortunately, Gudni was well out of the house and married himself when Siggi ran away with Frída from Selvík, but perhaps because of that he had been able to maintain contact with his uncle, who was only twelve years older than him.

But even Uncle Siggi had been dead over twenty years. Elísabet, Gudni’s beloved wife, was gone now too.

The Burnley winger crossed the ball, but their centre forward nodded it wide, as Gudni knew he would, having seen him miss at that point in the game a dozen times before.

Gudni would be ninety in six months’ time. What was the point? Shouldn’t he just turn up his toes? Except you couldn’t turn up your toes, just like that.

He needed to shake himself out of this. There were new people in his family. His son and his two daughters. His six grandchildren. Maybe great-grandchildren soon. Even Jón, Siggi’s son, and his children.

Would they care if he turned up his toes?

They might. A bit.

The entryphone buzzed. Gudni glanced at his watch: it was not yet ten o’clock. He heaved himself out of his armchair and checked the tiny screen. Looked like a woman: a woman he didn’t recognize.

He buzzed her in.

A minute later she rang the doorbell to his flat and he opened the door. She was blonde, in her sixties, shrewd eyes and a friendly smile. Foreign.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Gudni Thorsteinsson?’ My name is Louisa Sugarman. Do you speak English?’

‘I do,’ said Gudni.

The woman smiled. ‘Good. May I come in?’

Gudni wasn’t sure.

‘I’d like to speak to you about your mother.’

Gudni still wasn’t sure. But his curiosity over why this British woman would know or care about his mother overwhelmed his caution.

‘All right. Come in. Would you like some coffee?’

Gudni had set himself up with a thermos for the morning and fussed over mugs as he poured one for himself and one for his guest.

Louisa noticed the TV and paused to watch for a few seconds. ‘Nineteen sixty-one FA Cup final?’ she said. ‘Or is it sixty-two?’

‘Sixty-two! How did you know?’

‘I’m a lifelong Spurs fan.’ She took the mug from Gudni’s shaking hand. ‘I had to be, given my father.’

Gudni shuffled back to his armchair. So that was it.

He sipped his coffee. ‘Tom?’

‘That’s right!’ said the woman with a broad smile. ‘Tom Marks. Do you remember him?’

Gudni nodded. ‘Yes. But I was only six when I knew him.’

The woman reached into her handbag and pulled out two photographs. She handed one to Gudni. ‘Is that you?’

It was the one of the British soldier kicking the ball to a little boy.

‘That’s me,’ said Gudni. He couldn’t resist a smile. ‘And that’s him. And you are his daughter?’

‘I am. Here.’ She handed him the second photo. Gudni wasn’t surprised to see his mother and the iron stallion.

He nodded. ‘I have both of these,’ he said. His heart was churning. He felt a surge of warmth towards this woman, almost kinship.

On the other hand...

‘She was very beautiful, your mother, wasn’t she?’

Gudni smiled. ‘I remember her as beautiful. I only have a few photographs of her. Over time, she has become, I don’t know, black and white?’

‘I’m sorry you lost her so young.’

The woman seemed to mean it. Her face spoke of genuine sympathy.

‘I assume your own father must be dead by now?’

‘Oh, yes. He lasted until the age of seventy-eight. He talked about your mother a lot. Especially after my own mother died.’

‘You know they’ve found her body?’ Gudni said. ‘Along with my uncle?’

‘Yes. That’s why I’m here.’

He thought as much.

‘Gudni, I’d like to speak to you about another British officer from the war. I don’t know whether you will remember him. Captain Neville Pybus-Smith?’