Sea of Stone (31 page)

Emil led the interpreter and Adam into the interview room. Ollie was hunched up in his chair, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands.

‘Hello, Ollie,’ said Emil in English. ‘Must have been cold out there?’

Ollie grunted.

Emil turned on the recording equipment and the laborious interview started, with everything being translated back and forth from Icelandic.

‘Now, Ollie, take me through again everything that happened on Sunday morning.’

The details came thick and fast. They matched what Jóhannes had said very closely, except Ollie’s recounting of why they decided to go to Arnarstapi. In Ollie’s version, Jóhannes simply told him they were going there and didn’t tell him why. Emil let Ollie talk, and wrote everything down.

When he had finished, Emil asked him another question. ‘When did you last speak to your brother?’

‘Magnus? I don’t know.’ Ollie frowned. ‘I suppose not since last Thursday. Although I’ve been staying with him, I didn’t see him on Friday or Saturday.’

‘Did you phone him?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

Ollie paused. ‘Yeah. I’m sure.’

‘If we look at your mobile phone records, which we will do, will we find any calls to him? Any texts?’

‘No.’

Emil would bet that Ollie was telling the truth on that, at least as far as the phone records went.

‘Why didn’t you talk to him?’

‘He was busy with the case he was working on. And we had had an argument. About whether he should ask more questions about Dad’s murder, and Joe’s father, the writer. He was determined; I didn’t want him to.’

‘In that case, why did you and Jóhannes want to go up to Bjarnarhöfn to talk to your grandfather?’

Ollie didn’t answer for a moment. He sipped his coffee. Then he spoke. ‘Because I felt more comfortable with Jóhannes than
with my brother. Jóhannes is kind of reassuring; my brother is a nut job when it comes to anything to do with Dad’s death.’

‘Do you know what this is?’ said Emil, waving the sheets of paper he had brought in to the interview room with him.

Ollie shook his head.

‘This is Jóhannes’s statement that I took from him in Reykjavík this morning. I asked him the same questions I asked you. This is what he said about deciding to go to Arnarstapi.’ Emil read out three different passages, all of which contradicted Ollie. ‘You see, I don’t believe that you and Jóhannes took a detour just to go for a walk on the cliffs.’

Ollie shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘I think you were supposed to meet Hallgrímur there. That’s why you called him at the farm. He wasn’t there and you wanted to know why.’

Ollie shifted in his chair. Emil could see that he was thinking, trying to decide whether to change his story, weighing up the pros and cons.

Help him along. ‘I don’t think you killed your grandfather,’ Emil went on. ‘But it’s hard not to mark you down as a chief suspect when you and Jóhannes are lying so blatantly. All I need is an explanation about why you were there. The real explanation.’

Ollie seemed to come to a decision and smiled quickly. ‘OK. You are right. We were planning to meet Hallgrímur there. We wanted to talk about Dad’s death. We had questions to ask him.’

‘OK. But why meet him there? Why not at the farm?’

Silence. Emil waited.

‘I couldn’t face going back to the farm. You know what a miserable childhood I had there. Jóhannes mentioned Arnarstapi as a neutral place.’

‘I see,’ said Emil. Ollie seemed to relax a touch. It was Emil’s turn to think. ‘I still don’t see why you chose Arnarstapi. Why not a café in Stykkishólmur? Or Grundarfjördur? Both places are quite a bit closer.’

Ollie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Ask Jóhannes.’

‘What is it about Arnarstapi? There are those cliffs there, aren’t there? The path to Hellnar. That’s a quiet place where you couldn’t be seen. A good place to pitch someone into the sea.’

Ollie frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Both you and Jóhannes had good reasons for wanting Hallgrímur dead,’ Emil said. ‘You hated him because of what he had done to you as a child. Jóhannes hated him because he thought he had murdered his father. You didn’t want to ask him questions. Jóhannes maybe, but not you. You wanted to kill him.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ said Ollie.

‘Yes, you do. The plan was to lure Hallgrímur out to Arnarstapi, kill him, and drop him off the cliffs into the sea. Wasn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Ollie. ‘Is your theory he drove out there, we killed him, then drove him back to Bjarnarhöfn and dumped him in the church? That makes no sense.’

‘
That
doesn’t make sense. But you intended to kill him, he didn’t show up and then Magnús killed him instead. That makes sense.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Did you know Magnús was going to kill the old man?’

‘I told you, I haven’t spoken to Magnus for days,’ said Ollie. ‘And actually, I don’t believe my brother did kill him.’

‘You don’t, huh?’ Emil said. ‘Is that because you killed him after all? Killed him and then drove out to Arnarstapi afterwards? You know we can use the phone records to check exactly where you were when you made those calls to Hallgrímur?’

‘Then I suggest you should do that,’ said Ollie. ‘That way you will know I was miles away when my grandfather was murdered.’

Emil rubbed the middle of his three chins. It
almost
made sense, but not quite.

‘Can I go back to Reykjavík now?’ said Ollie. ‘I want to make sure I get my next flight out of this stupid country.’

‘No,’ said Emil. ‘We can hold you for twenty-four hours
without going to see a judge. And given your previous attempt to run away from us, you’ll spend the night in the cells right here.’

Ollie winced and closed his eyes.

‘We’ll talk again,’ said Emil. ‘But if it isn’t later on today, have a good night.’

Back in the incident room, Emil got Björn to check on Ollie’s phone records. And on Villi’s as well – that gap in Reykjavík needed to be substantiated. And he told him to take another look at the Hvalfjördur tunnel cameras, in case it was possible to identify the time that Villi’s rental car passed through the tunnel.

Baldur strolled in, carrying a cup of coffee, and took a seat opposite Emil.

‘How did it go with Ollie?’ he asked.

‘He was lying,’ said Emil. ‘I think that he and the school-teacher meant to lure Hallgrímur out to Arnarstapi to kill him.’

‘Any proof?’

‘Not yet.’ Emil didn’t want to talk too much more about Ollie’s actions on the Sunday; it was more relevant to Hallgrímur’s death than Aníta’s shooting. ‘How about Gabrielle?’

‘She was very angry with Aníta, although she’s distraught now that Aníta’s been shot. At least she
seems
to be.’

‘What was the argument about?’

‘What you guessed. Her husband figured out that she was the source of the leak to us about his dispute with Hallgrímur over the loan. She had no idea that Hallgrímur had lost the fortune Ingvar had made him. So she was angry about that and she was really angry with Aníta for coming to us.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Emil.

‘It’s a pity your guy let out Gabrielle was the source,’ Baldur said.

Emil ignored the criticism. ‘Was she angry enough to shoot Aníta?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Baldur. ‘She claims that she drove straight back home. She doesn’t think anyone saw her, but we will check with neighbours.’

‘Do we know where Ingvar was at the time of the shooting?’ Emil asked.

‘He was seeing a patient out at a farm. We are checking with the farm now.’

‘And anything more on Villi?’

‘Trying to locate the witnesses. Villi thought they looked like tourists, so we are checking the local hotels. Nothing yet.’

Baldur was asking the right questions, Emil thought.

Baldur sipped his coffee. ‘Aníta is still an attractive woman, isn’t she? I’ve never met her, but I’ve seen her photograph.’

Emil pictured the tall farmer’s wife with the clear skin and long blonde hair. ‘Yes, she is. She has a way about her.’

‘Could she be someone’s lover?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Is she?’

Emil was taken aback by the question, and then immediately felt foolish. ‘I have no idea.’

Baldur pursed his lips. ‘What about Gabrielle? She has a certain way about her too. And she’s French. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a lover as well.’

Emil wanted to pick up Baldur on his shameless stereotyping, but the inspector had a point. A good point.

‘Maybe Aníta had a lover?’ Baldur went on. ‘Maybe Gabrielle did? Maybe it was one of the brothers: Kolbeinn or Ingvar. Maybe there’s a love triangle, or love rectangle.’

‘I didn’t consider that,’ said Emil. ‘But even if that was the case, I don’t see what that might have to do with Hallgrímur’s death.’

‘People in town will know who is screwing who, won’t they?’ Baldur said.

Emil nodded. ‘Talk to Rúnar. If he doesn’t know, he will know who does.’

‘I will.’ Then Baldur frowned. ‘You know, maybe there is someone else out there, someone we don’t even know about. A jealous lover with a rifle, looking for revenge.’

*

It was just getting dark when Ingileif pulled out of the Avis parking lot at Logan airport in her small hire car. She decided to trust her map reading rather than the mysteries of the GPS, and set off through the maze of tunnels and highways out of Boston.

She had only been to America once before in her life, to New York, and she hadn’t driven then. She found the sheer scale of the place daunting. There were so many cars, so many people, and, as she got out of Boston, so many trees. She could feel her confidence waning as she neared the exit for Duxbury. What if this Jim Fearon guy flat-out refused to speak to her? What would she do then? Just turn around and drive back to Logan? She thought of the time and the tens of thousands of krónur she would have wasted.

But at least she would have tried.

She took the Duxbury exit and paused several times to study the print-out from Google Maps she had brought with her. Fearon’s address had been easy to find: there was only one entry under that name in Duxbury in the directory she had consulted on the Internet. He lived in a place called Tinkertown, which seemed to be a neighbourhood in Duxbury reached through a twisted network of wooded roads.

She finally came to the address and pulled up outside a small, neat wooden house with a boat on a trailer in the yard. She took a deep breath and rang the bell.

The door was answered by a forbidding woman in her sixties, tall, thin with blonde hair and a lined, freckled face. But when she saw Ingileif, she smiled, an unexpected burst of warmth.

‘Can I help you?’

‘My name is Ingileif. Ingileif Gunnarsdóttir. May I speak to Jim?’

The woman yelled over her shoulder. ‘Jim! There’s a young woman to see you.’

Jim Fearon eyed Ingileif with suspicion. He had grey hair, a silver moustache, and a comfortable middle.

‘Yes?’

‘Hello, Mr Fearon,’ said Ingileif, holding out her hand and launching into her prepared spiel. ‘I am Magnús Jonson’s girlfriend and I have just flown in from Iceland today to talk to you. May I come in?’

‘My, what a long way!’ exclaimed Mrs Fearon. ‘Of course you can come in.’ But the suspicion in her husband’s eyes deepened.

‘Come on, then,’ he said, and led Ingileif into the living room. ‘Have a seat.’

‘Is this some kind of police business?’ said Mrs Fearon.

‘I expect so,’ said the former detective.

Ingileif smiled at the woman and nodded.

‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Mrs Fearon said, and withdrew to the kitchen area, but she was still within earshot.

‘So you are Magnus’s girlfriend?’ said Fearon.

‘Yes. We’ve been going out for almost a year. Since he arrived in Iceland.’

‘Lucky guy,’ said Fearon.

Ingileif smiled.

‘You’re not a lawyer or a police officer, then?’

‘No. No, I promise you I’m not.’ But Ingileif could see that Fearon didn’t trust her assurances. ‘As you may know, Magnús is in custody in jail at the moment, accused of murder. He heard that you had some important evidence for him, some lab results, and he asked me to get them from you.’

‘Did he?’ said Fearon.

‘Yes,’ said Ingileif. She swallowed. She could feel her cheeks warming up. Damn it! Why did she always blush when she lied?

The detective noticed. Of course he noticed.

‘He can’t come himself, you see,’ Ingileif added unnecessarily.

‘Did he tell you who I am?’ Fearon asked.

‘Yes. You are the detective who investigated Magnús’s father’s murder here thirteen years ago.’

‘Did he tell you I am retired?’

‘Er, yes,’ said Ingileif unconvincingly.

‘And did he tell you what the lab results were about?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But he said they were important. So please can
you give them to me, so that I can take them back to Iceland and pass them on to him?’

Fearon studied Ingileif’s face carefully. Ingileif became more uncomfortable.

‘I’m sorry, Inga…’

‘Ingileif.’

‘Yes. Ingileif. I’m sorry, Ingileif. I just don’t believe you. I don’t know why you are here, but I do know you are not telling me the truth.’

Ingileif’s shoulders slumped. The optimism and energy that had lifted her over the Atlantic left her. It was late, she was tired, and she had made an enormous fool of herself.

She sighed. ‘You’re right. I went to see Magnús this morning at the jail in Iceland. They wouldn’t let me in to see him – he’s in solitary confinement. One of his police colleagues told me about the lab results and that you wouldn’t release them without proper authorization, and I thought I could persuade you. I am persuasive, you know. Usually.’

Fearon smiled for the first time. ‘I don’t doubt it. But you are not a very good liar.’

Ingileif returned his smile, nervously. ‘No. But I suspect you were a good detective.’ She felt a tear appear in the corner of her eye. ‘I’m not even Magnús’s girlfriend any more. We’ve split up.’

Fearon got to his feet. ‘I’m sorry you’ve wasted your journey.’

Ingileif rose also and nodded. ‘And I’m sorry I wasted your time, Mr Fearon.’