Birna herself was softer, rounder and older than Ingileif. She had big blue eyes and pouting lips. She could have been attractive, but there was something sagging and sloppy about her. Two lines pointed downwards from the corners of her mouth. She was wearing tight, bulging jeans and a bright orange top.
When she saw Magnus, she smiled, her eyes lingering over his body before moving up to his face.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ said Magnus, disconcerted despite himself. ‘We are from the Metropolitan Police. We have come to ask you about the murder of Professor Agnar Haraldsson.’
‘How nice,’ said Birna. ‘Come in. Can I get you something to drink?’
‘Just coffee,’ said Magnus.
Arni nodded. ‘Me too,’ he said, his voice a little hoarse. This woman had presence.
They sat in the living room, waiting for the coffee. The furniture was new and characterless, and the room was dominated by a truly massive television, on which was some daytime American TV show in English that Magnus vaguely recognized. Satellite.
Dotted around the living room were photographs. Most of them were of a stunning blonde girl of about eighteen wearing swimsuits and various sashes. Birna. A younger Birna. There were also a couple of pictures of a suave, dark-haired man wearing the uniform of Icelandair.
Birna returned with the coffee. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I can help you much, but I’ll try.’
‘Did you ever meet Agnar?’
‘No, never. You know about the family saga, I take it?’
‘Yes, yes we do.’
‘Well, Ingileif was handling all the negotiations. She did ask me whether I objected to her selling the thing, and I told her I didn’t give a toss.’
‘Did she tell you how the negotiations were progressing?’
‘No. In fact I haven’t spoken to her since then.’
‘Did she mention a ring?’
Birna laughed out loud. ‘You don’t mean Gaukur’s ring?’
‘It seems that your grandfather found it sixty years ago, but then he hid it again. Agnar may have found it more recently, or he may have claimed he did.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Birna said. ‘If there ever was a ring it was lost centuries ago. Let me tell you something,’ she said, leaning forward towards Magnus. He could smell some kind of alcohol on her breath. In his current state it was all he could do not to recoil. ‘That ring and that saga are just trouble. It’s all a load of bullshit. Don’t believe a word of it. I tell you Ingileif should have sold the damn thing, especially if she could have done it in secret.’
‘Are you and Ingileif close?’
Birna leaned back in her chair. ‘That’s a good question. We were once, very. After my father died my mother married again, and I had some trouble with my stepfather. Even though she was two years younger than me, Ingileif helped me a lot. Got me through it. But after that, we kind of drifted apart. We lead different lives now. I married a jerk, and Ingileif does her designer stuff.’
‘Trouble with your stepfather?’
Birna looked at Magnus again, this time at his eyes, as if deciding whether to trust him. ‘Is this relevant to your investigation?’
Magnus shrugged. ‘It might be. I won’t know until you tell me.’
Birna pulled out a packet of cigarettes, and after offering one to Magnus and Arni, lit up.
‘I was fourteen when my father died. I was a pretty girl.’ She nodded towards the photographs. ‘My mother got it into her head that I should become Miss Iceland. She became obsessed with it. As bad as Dad and his saga. I think it might have been a way of trying to deal with his death, putting it out of her mind. Of course it didn’t work.’
She smiled. ‘I never managed better than third, but Mum and I tried really hard. In the middle of all that, she married Sigursteinn, who was some kind of car dealer from Selfoss. I could tell the minute I met him that Sigursteinn fancied me. It took him less than a month after he got married before he, well…’ she took a deep drag of her cigarette. ‘Well, he raped me really. I didn’t think that at the time, but it was rape. He wanted sex with me, I was scared of him. It happened. Lots of times.’
‘Ingileif found out, caught us at it, and she went crazy. She went at him with a broken bottle, but in the end it was she who was cut. Have you noticed she has a little scar on her eyebrow? And on her cheek?’
Magnus nodded.
‘Well, that was Sigursteinn. Ingileif told Mum, who didn’t believe her. There was the most almighty family row. Ingileif was thrown out of the house, I was too scared to say anything. Then, three months later, Sigursteinn was on a business trip to Reykjavik when he fell into the harbour. I was so relieved.’
‘How did your mother react?’
‘She was totally distraught. She went as far as accusing Ingileif of killing him, which was just stupid. Then I told her exactly what he had done to me, and eventually she believed it.’ Birna stared, her big blue eyes unblinking. ‘That pretty much mucked up our family.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Magnus.
‘Ingileif went away to Reykjavik. In recent years she started speaking to Mum again. She spent a lot of time with her just before she died.’
‘And you?’
Birna blinked. ‘Oh, I married Matthias and have lived a perfect life of happiness ever since.’
Magnus ignored the sarcasm. ‘And Petur?’
‘He missed all this. He came back to Reykjavik a couple of years later. We see each other occasionally. But whenever we do I get the impression he feels sorry for me. Can’t think why.’
God, what a family, Magnus thought. His own was bad enough. He remembered Ingileif’s quavering voice when she had told him about the ghost of the girl accused of incest at the Hofdi House. No wonder she felt sorry for her. She was thinking of Birna.
‘One last question. Where were you last Thursday night? The first day of summer?’
Birna laughed again. ‘You can’t be serious? You don’t think I killed the poor man, do you.’
‘Just answer the question.’
Birna hesitated. ‘Do I have to?’
Magnus knew what was coming next. He was beginning to get used to the sex life of Icelanders. ‘Yes, you do. And we will have to check out whatever you tell us. But we will do it discreetly, I can promise you. And it won’t come up in any eventual trial, unless it is relevant to the prosecution.’
Birna sighed. ‘Matthias was in New York. Probably in bed with a flight attendant.’
‘And you?’
‘I was with a friend named Dagur Tomasson. He’s married as well. We spent the night in a hotel in Kopavogur. It’s anonymous and as discreet as you can get in Iceland.’
‘Which one?’
‘The Merlin.’
‘And can we have his address?’
‘I’ll give you his mobile phone number,’ said Birna. ‘It’s nothing serious,’ she continued, staring straight at Magnus. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards. ‘I don’t like to restrict myself to any one man.’
‘I think she likes you,’ said Arni five minutes later as he was driving Magnus back to station.
‘Shut up,’ growled Magnus. ‘And check out the hotel. But somehow I suspect that alibi will hold up.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Baldur listened closely as Magnus explained his theory that Agnar was trying to sell the ring from Gaukur’s Saga to Steve Jubb and the modern-day Isildur.
‘So what are you suggesting?’ he said, when Magnus had finished. ‘We go over Agnar’s house again, looking for a mythical ring that has been lost for a thousand years? Do you know how absurd that sounds?’ The expression on Baldur’s long face verged on contempt. ‘You were brought here to bring us some big-city homicide experience. Instead you start mumbling about elves and rings like the most superstitious Icelandic grandmother. You’ll be saying the hidden people did it next.’