Whale Fjord

Thirty-Four

Magnus and Vigdís transferred Jón to a police car which had met them on the main road into Reykjavík, and turned up the hill to Grafarholt. There would be plenty of time to question Jón more closely at the station, but Magnus wanted to have a word with Gudni first.

Vigdís’s worried expression had returned; she was obviously thinking about her mother.

‘You know Ingileif and I have decided to get married?’ Magnus said. ‘Properly. In a church.’

‘Really?’ Vigdís’s face lit up with a genuine smile of pleasure. ‘Congratulations! I didn’t think Ingileif would go in for that sort of thing with you.’

‘Neither did I. But she was the one who wanted to do it.’

Vigdís shook her head. ‘And I thought she had good taste. Isn’t that her job? To have good taste?’

‘She almost didn’t,’ said Magnus. ‘She thought I was Erla’s father. That’s why I had to tell her about you and Ollie.’

‘Really? She really thought you and I had...’

‘Really.’

‘Yuck.’

‘Yuck?’

Vigdís turned to Magnus. ‘Yuck.’

They drove on in silence for a while, Vigdís staring out of the window at the new apartment buildings of Grafarholt. ‘You know, I’m pleased we’ll still be working together, Vigdís,’ Magnus said.

Vigdís grunted and continued to look away. But Magnus could just make out the traces of a small smile on her lips.

Gudni was watching handball, not football, when he opened the door to them. ‘You again,’ he said grumpily. ‘Do you want coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ll only be a minute.’

Gudni led them into his living room and dropped into his armchair. Magnus and Vigdís perched on the sofa.

‘We’ve just arrested Jón.’

‘What for?’

‘For the murder of Louisa Sugarman.’

Gudni nodded. ‘Anything else?’

‘We know that he and his father Siggi killed Neville Pybus-Smith in London in 1985. It’s likely that the British authorities will want to talk to him about that. But it’s not our jurisdiction. Louisa Sugarman’s death is.’

‘Stupid boy,’ said Gudni. ‘He shouldn’t have done it.’

‘No, he shouldn’t.’

‘I guessed it must have been him.’

‘But you didn’t know?’

‘I didn’t want to know.’

‘That’s why you lied about seeing Tom Marks kill your mother?’

Gudni nodded. ‘I wanted to protect Jón: I hoped you would stop looking at Neville and the 1985 murder. Are you arresting me?’

‘Not yet. You did try to obstruct our inquiry, but it will be up to the prosecutor whether you are charged for it. If Jón pleads guilty she might not charge you, given your age. I don’t know — we’ll see. We’ll bring you into the station tomorrow for a statement. You should probably find yourself a lawyer.’

‘I didn’t know—’

Magnus held up his hand to stop Gudni. ‘Best leave anything else to our interview tomorrow when you have a lawyer present.’

‘Bjarni had nothing to do with any of it. You should know that.’

Magnus nodded. ‘I hear you. We’ll speak tomorrow. A police car will come here to fetch you in the morning.’

Gudni looked out of his window and watched the big red-haired detective and his black colleague leave the building and head towards their car.

He turned to the bookshelf where his mother’s photograph album lay and pulled it out. Then he looked up at the piles of Tottenham Hotspur match programmes crammed into a higher shelf.

It took him five minutes to move the stepladder to the proper place, climb up and pull down the earliest programmes. Time was when he could reach that shelf without the ladder. He carried them over to his armchair and shuffled through them until he found the oldest: Spurs v Newcastle United, 10 November 1956. Spurs had won three — one and Gudni had been thrilled. His grandfather had paid for his ferry ticket to Scotland for his birthday and the visit to White Hart Lane had been the highlight of his first trip to Britain.

But that wasn’t why he had picked out that particular programme.

Inside it was a blue airmail envelope addressed to him and postmarked nearly thirty years later. He had had the presence of mind to hide this one many years ago — he had simply forgotten about the other letter written a few weeks before it that the police had found.

He slumped into his armchair with the album and the programme, and slipped out a yellow newspaper cutting from the envelope. An obituary from The Times. A photograph of a self-satisfied Englishman with greying temples, a smug smile and a pencil-thin moustache was placed next to the headline: Sir Neville Pybus-Smith CBE 24 October 1910–12 March 1985.

A blue one-page note had come with it. Gudni cast his eyes over it.

Despite Tom’s hope, they never did meet again. Gudni had visited London many times over the years but had never made the diversion to Yorkshire, and, as far as he knew, Tom hadn’t visited Iceland again.

The knowledge of the murder, and each man’s ambivalent attitude towards it, had kept them apart.

It was clear that when Tom had written that letter, the murder investigation had not yet been announced in the press. Later, he must have read about the trial of Joyce Morgan and still kept quiet. Something had proved more powerful than testifying on behalf of an innocent woman. Loyalty to Gudni and Siggi? The desire for revenge? His own complicity with the murder?

When Siggi had asked Gudni to find out Neville’s addresses in England, Siggi had assured him that he only intended to confront Kristín and Marteinn’s killer. But actually, given how angry Siggi had been when Gudni had told him the year before how he had witnessed Neville shooting them in the farmyard at Laxahóll, Gudni wasn’t surprised at what Siggi did. They never spoke about it; it was only from Tom’s letter that Gudni even knew Neville had been murdered.

Like Tom, Gudni had no regrets about his part in what Siggi had done. Neville Pybus-Smith had deserved to die.

Siggi was stupid for involving his son, though.

Gudni understood why Tom’s daughter, Louisa, had thought differently — an innocent woman had gone to jail for a crime she didn’t commit, after all.

There was no excuse for Jón killing her. Idiot boy!

He opened the album and flicked through it again. He stared at the beautiful young woman standing next to a motorcycle, with a fjord in the background.

He let the programme, the letter and the cutting slide on to the floor next to his armchair.

He was tired. So tired.

It really was time to turn up his toes.

His eyelids felt heavy. If he closed them, would they ever open again? He hoped not.

He gazed at the image of his mother on his lap. It swam and faded, growing fuzzier as his eyes strained to focus.

Then it disappeared.