Whale Fjord

Thirty-Three

Jón burst into the room carrying a blood-stained blue cooler. ‘Two cod and a wolf fish,’ he said.

Then he saw the two detectives. His eyes dropped to the programme in Magnus’s hands.

‘What are they doing here?’

‘They’ve come to ask us about Louisa, love,’ Frída said.

‘Oh.’ Jón frowned. ‘I hope you waited for me before you spoke to them.’

‘I answered their questions,’ Frída said quietly.

The frown deepened. Jón put down his cooler, poured himself a cup of coffee and joined them around the kitchen table.

He glanced again at the programme, seemed about to say something, and then kept quiet.

‘What were you doing in London on the twelfth of March 1985?’ Magnus asked.

Jón took in a deep breath. ‘Watching a football match with my dad,’ he said. ‘That one.’

‘What else were you doing?’

He shook his head. ‘Nothing. We stayed at a small hotel and came back to Iceland the following evening.’

‘I see,’ said Magnus. ‘Last Thursday evening you drove into Reykjavík just a few hours after Louisa Sugarman visited you here. What were you doing then?’

‘I needed to pick up a part for the tractor.’

‘Which shop was open that late?’

Jón shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Magnus stared at Jón. He was waiting for Jón to fill the silence, but it was Frída who spoke; her quavering voice had a hard edge.

‘Jón. Tell them, love. Tell them what you and Siggi did in London.’

Jón turned to his mother. ‘You know?’

‘When Louisa told us that that Neville man had been murdered in the 1980s, I knew. Everything slotted into place. I remembered Siggi behaving very strangely when you came back from London. He was never really the same man after that. Now I know why.’

Jón glanced from his mother to Magnus and Vigdís. ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about,’ he said.

‘I understand Neville’s death,’ Frída said. ‘What he did to your grandmother was evil. But Louisa?’ Tears welled up in the old woman’s eyes. ‘How could you do that to Louisa? She was only trying to get justice for her own father. And for the poor woman who was convicted of the murder.’

‘Mum!’ Anger flared in Jón’s eyes. ‘How can you say that? Do you know what you’re doing?’

Frída’s bottom lip trembled; the struggle of her own anger and sadness ravaged her face. A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘How could you do that, Jón? How could you kill her?’

‘This is bullshit!’ Jón pushed back his chair and got to his feet. Magnus tensed, ready to pounce if he made a run for it, or if he attacked his own mother. The big farmer fought to control his anger and then moved to the window, staring out at the fjord, his face hidden from the detectives.

‘We know you killed Neville Pybus-Smith,’ Magnus said quietly. ‘And we know you killed Louisa.’

Magnus, Vigdís and the old woman waited for Jón to decide what to say.

He turned around to face them. ‘I didn’t know Dad was going to kill the Englishman,’ he said eventually, so quietly that Magnus could barely hear him. ‘I didn’t even know he existed until after the match. Dad said we were going to visit someone: the British officer who had killed his brother and sister during the war.

‘I knew about their disappearance, of course. It was a family legend, whispered about over the years. But until then, I had no idea they had been killed. Dad said my cousin Gudni had seen it happen when he was a little boy. Seen this British officer Neville Pybus-Smith shoot them both. Gudni kept quiet about it, but eventually he told Dad. Dad said we were just going to talk to this man, and that he had brought me along because I spoke English. I was twenty at the time.

‘So, we went to this fancy apartment block in Kensington. Eton Court, it was called. We were going to ring the bell when a black lady came out of the building and let us in. We went up to Neville’s floor and knocked on his door.

‘He wasn’t expecting us, and he wasn’t pleased to see us, but Dad pushed past him into the flat. Then Dad made him sit down and I had to translate as Dad told him how he knew Neville had killed Kristín and Marteinn.

‘Neville denied it and said that if we didn’t leave his apartment immediately, he would call the police.’

Jón swallowed. ‘Then Dad went for him. I wasn’t expecting that at all, but he grabbed Neville by the neck and started squeezing. Neville was an old man, in his seventies, and although Dad wasn’t very big, he was very strong. But Neville wriggled free and scrambled over to a desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a gun.

‘Dad was about to go for him, but stopped. Neville told him to back away — I was still translating. There was something about Neville’s eyes, some kind of decision he had made. I knew he was going to shoot Dad. So I picked up a lamp and swung it, hitting Neville on the head.

‘It was a good blow. Neville was out cold. Then Dad jumped on him and grabbed his neck again.’

‘What did you do?’ Magnus said.

‘I just watched him. I hadn’t realized until that moment that Dad had planned to kill Neville all along. But that’s what he did. Right in front of my eyes.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘We left. I thought to wipe down anything we had touched, and I grabbed the gun. Then we took the Underground back to our hotel and went back to Iceland the next day. I threw the gun away in a canal near the hotel.

‘We both thought we would be caught. I was furious with Dad: he had suckered me into helping him. I’m sure that Neville deserved to die, but it wasn’t up to us to kill him! I was only twenty and my father had made me a murderer. I found it hard to forgive him for that. I never did forgive him.’ His mouth set in a grim scowl. ‘Never.’

‘Things were different between you after that trip,’ said Frída. ‘I remember. And I never understood why.’

‘That was why. But it would all have rested there. Dad died more than twenty years ago. And then Gerdur decided to have her fun.’ Jón’s voice was bitter.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Magnus.

‘That earthquake. Spitting out those remains for the stupid tourists to discover. You know, at first I really thought that skull belonged to her.’

‘Jón, Gerdur died three hundred years ago,’ said Frída. ‘There’s nothing left of her.’

Her son scowled.

‘What happened when Louisa came here on Thursday?’ Magnus asked.

‘She was upset that Gudni had told you her father had shot Kristín and Marteinn. She didn’t believe it was true and asked us whether we knew anything that would help her prove it. I said no.’ He threw a glance of frustration at Frída. ‘My mother said yes. She said Dad had told her that Gudni said it was another British officer who had killed them. I didn’t know he had done that, that she knew.’

‘What was Louisa’s reaction?’

‘She was relieved. Then she asked us whether we knew Neville had been murdered in 1985. We both said no — I think Mum genuinely didn’t know anything about it. She certainly looked surprised.’

Frída nodded. ‘That was the first I had heard of it.’

‘But I don’t think Louisa believed that I didn’t know. I said Neville deserved it if he had killed my uncle and aunt. That was a mistake: Louisa immediately became suspicious. She told us about the black woman who had let us into the building and how she had been convicted for the murder and spent years in prison.

‘She said she was going to the police to tell them that Gudni had lied to them about who shot Kristín and Marteinn. I decided against asking her not to do that — I thought it would just make me look guilty. But after she left, I realized that I had to persuade her to stay quiet somehow. The more I thought about it, the more I felt I had a good chance: she clearly believed Neville was an evil man. He deserved to die. And even if she didn’t approve of us killing Neville, it was nearly forty years ago and surely she could turn a blind eye?

‘So I drove into Reykjavík. She had given us her address there and phone number — it was an apartment in Hverfisgata.’

Jón paused. Magnus, Vigdís and Frída waited.

‘At first, she seemed sympathetic. She knew her father hated Neville and loved Kristín. She seemed to agree Neville needed to be punished for killing Kristín. But she thought murder was murder. The real problem was the black prostitute who had gone to jail for a crime she didn’t commit.’ Jón looked down. ‘Then I lost my temper. I said what did it matter, she was only a whore. Louisa didn’t like that. I knew I’d blown it.’

Jón stopped.

‘And then?’ Magnus said.

‘Then I stabbed her.’ Jón took a deep breath. ‘I knew I could never persuade her. She said she was going to talk to you the next morning about Neville’s death and I knew you’d figure out who had killed him. So I stabbed her. I wiped down her room and left. I threw her mobile phone into the sea — I thought it might have evidence on it — and came back here.’

‘What did you stab her with?’ Magnus asked quietly.

‘A knife. I threw that in the sea too.’

‘And where did you get the knife?’

‘I brought it with me. It’s one of the ones I use to gut fish.’

‘Why?’

‘In case.’

‘In case what?’

Jón looked up at Magnus, but he didn’t answer.

Premeditated, Magnus thought.

He had heard enough. The rest could be explained in the interview room at the station with a lawyer present. ‘Jón Sigurdsson, I’m arresting you for the murder of Louisa Sugarman.’

He nodded to Vigdís, who took out a pair of handcuffs and snapped them on to his wrists.

As they were leading Jón to the car, Frída touched Magnus’s arm. There were tears in her old eyes. Her wrinkled face seemed to crumple in on itself. She seemed devastated by the enormity of what she had done, but underneath her anguish, there was steel in the old woman.

‘I had to tell you,’ she said. ‘I know he’s my son, and I don’t care about that horrible soldier. But he shouldn’t have killed the poor woman! I had to tell you.’

Magnus watched as Vigdís pushed Jón into the back seat of Magnus’s car.

‘I can imagine how difficult that was for you,’ he said. ‘But you did the right thing.’ He smiled with sympathy. ‘I am sorry.’

Frída turned and hurried back into the warm farmhouse.

Had she done the right thing? Magnus had meant what he said when he had agreed with her. But he knew very well what Vigdís’s opinion would be.

The truth was, he didn’t know.