It was a chilly September morning, but he was dressed for it. Rays of sunshine sprinkled the waters of the fjord, and the river winding down towards it. A tight black ball of moisture was rolling along the valley to the south-west in his direction.
A bit of rain would be good. A lot of rain would be better.
Enough to wash away evidence that he had been here.
Then he saw it. A lone figure on a horse, picking its way up the hillside towards him, at least a kilometre away.
He edged backwards until he was out of sight, and then hurried down the reverse slope along the path. The spot he had picked was in a kind of hollow created by a stream tumbling down the hillside, invisible from anywhere but above, high on the summit. And there was no one up there. Just a pair of ravens circling, their loud croaks echoing off the rocky walls across the valley.
He sat, removed his glasses — they were expensive and he didn’t want to damage them — and grabbed his ankle, allowing himself to slump crookedly against a stone, a small day pack by his side.
He waited.
The horse appeared over the brow of the hill, a short, tough-looking animal with a reddish coat and a thick pale mane. The rider was preoccupied, and took a moment to spot him, even though he was only fifty metres away.
He waved and cried out. ‘Hello!’
The rider saw him, and set her horse down the gentle slope at a fast trot, or rather a weird kind of smooth run he had never seen before.
He winced.
The rider pulled the horse up next to him and said something to him in rapid Icelandic.
‘I’ve hurt my ankle,’ he replied in English. ‘I think I might have broken it.’
The rider jumped off her horse. ‘I’m a doctor,’ she said. ‘Let me take a look.’
‘Thank you.’ He smiled, moved his leg, and then let out a short cry of pain.
The woman crouched down next to him. She was in her forties with thick red hair and a warm, comforting smile. Quite attractive, he thought.
‘Let me take off your boot,’ she said.
As she bent over his foot, he shifted his right hand out from beneath the day pack by his side and swung the knife hard into her stomach.
A moment later, he was hurrying along a path back up the side of the mountain, her riderless horse whinnying as it dashed in the opposite direction towards home.
Eight
‘Want some coffee, Petra?’ Dísa asked. ‘I’ve just made some.’
The girl blinked, pushing back her thick dark hair. She was wearing pyjamas and had just emerged from Jói’s room. It was nearly eleven, but it was a Saturday. Jói was a night owl anyway — he usually worked late into the small hours of the morning, and his girlfriend was happy to do things his way.
Petra was happy pretty much all the time. Dísa envied her. She was Australian of Greek heritage, about Dísa’s age, and had met Jói the year before when she had been a student at the university. She had decided to drop out of Australian uni, stay in Reykjavík and start a career as a barista. This suited her. She didn’t seem to Dísa to do anything when she wasn’t working except lie around next to Jói fiddling with her phone.
Jói seemed just as happy with that arrangement. Petra was attractive in an exotic way for Iceland: large and soft, with olive skin, sleepy black eyes and dark hair.
Dísa was in her first year at the university. She was studying economics and had planned to share a place with Kata, her friend from Dalvík, who had signed up for English Literature. But then Kata’s boyfriend Matti had suggested that he and Kata live together in Reykjavík — he was starting at the same time — and Dísa had released Kata from her obligation to share a flat with her.
Which meant Dísa was stuffed. Jói allowed her to stay with him and Petra in his flat in Gardabaer until she sorted herself out. At least six months of the coronavirus pandemic had kept the tourists away from Reykjavík, removing some of the pressure on housing.
‘You won’t have to put up with me much longer,’ said Dísa. ‘I think I’ve found somewhere.’
‘No worries,’ said Petra. ‘You’re good here.’
Dísa smiled, knowing Petra meant it. It was a lovely modern flat built just before the crash; large, triple-glazed windows looked out over the bay towards the President’s residence on Álftanes. Nice, but not very big. Dísa was occupying Jói’s study, and since he was working from home in the pandemic, fiddling about on his computer with whatever he did for the games company, that was a bit tight all around. Dísa tried to spend as much time as she could at the university. Jói seemed to do most of his work at night in the living room while she was asleep.
‘Thanks, Petra.’
‘Did you say you’d found somewhere?’ Jói said, emerging from his bedroom, yawning.
‘I hope so. I saw a girl last night. She’s offered me a place in her flat. I need to see it first, but it sounds OK. She’s on my course, but I don’t know her very well. She seems nice.’
‘Great,’ said Jói. He gave her his habitual vacant smile. His fair hair coiled in tight curls around his brow and his round cheeks were so pale they were almost translucent. He was twenty-seven, but he had a look of mild innocence about him that made him seem much younger. Dísa sometimes thought he looked like an angel — an angel after a rough night, perhaps.
‘Thanks for letting me crash here,’ she said.
‘No, it’s been good,’ said Jói.
‘Yeah.’ And it had. Dísa had always liked Jói and had resented the way their parents’ domestic arrangements had kept her away from her brother. She hoped the month they had spent together would forge a bond they could keep as adults.
She wasn’t certain how Jói felt about it; her intuition was he felt the same.
Her phone buzzed. She checked it.
‘Hi, Anna Rós,’ she said.
For a moment there was silence. Then the sound of a sob.
Dísa darted a look of panic towards her brother, who was pouring himself a bowl of cereal.
‘Anna?’
‘It’s Mum. She’s dead.’
‘What!’
‘Someone’s murdered her. Stabbed her. I found her out here on the mountain. The police are on their way. It’s horrible! You’ve got to come home, Dísa. You’ve got to come quick!’
Nine
Magnus ladled chunks of lobster and scallops on to the linguine piled high on two plates and carried them to the table.
Tryggvi Thór poured two glasses of Sauvignon from the bottle. ‘This looks great,’ he said.
‘I used to make it back in Boston,’ Magnus said. ‘There was always plenty of lobster around.’
‘You should spend more Saturday nights here.’
‘I might just do that.’
Tryggvi Thór glanced at his lodger. ‘Eygló kicked you out, has she?’
‘No, nothing like that,’ said Magnus. ‘I don’t know. I just want to keep my independence, that’s all.’
‘Because I wouldn’t be surprised if she had kicked you out.’
‘She hasn’t kicked me out.’
‘Kicked yourself out?’
Magnus watched the old man’s alert dark eyes watching him under black eyebrows.
‘Not really,’ said Magnus.
‘Hm.’ Tryggvi Thór slurped up his pasta. ‘You know, I thought I’d be rid of you one of these days. It’s been three years.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Magnus. For most of that time he had spent the majority of his evenings and weekends at Eygló’s place, keeping his stuff in his room at Tryggvi Thór’s house, paying rent, and occasionally showing up, especially when Eygló was travelling for her work. Everyone seemed content with that relationship: Magnus, Eygló, Tryggvi Thór and even Bjarki, who had stayed with him on Álftanes sometimes when Eygló was away.