‘So, back in America, are you a tough-guy cop with a gun like you see on TV?’ Ingileif asked. ‘You know, chasing the bad guys around the city in sports cars?’
‘Cops get irritated as hell by the TV shows, they never get it right,’ said Magnus. ‘But yes, I do have a gun. And the city is full of bad guys, or at least the areas I end up working in.’
‘Doesn’t it depress you? Or do you get a thrill out of it?’
‘I dunno,’ said Magnus. It was always hard to explain being a cop to civilians. They never quite got it. Colby had never gotten it.
‘Sorry,’ said Ingileif, and she turned to look out of the window.
They drove on. Perhaps Magnus was being unfair to Ingileif. She had made an effort to understand him the night before.
‘There was a girl I knew in college, Erin. She used to go down into Providence to work with the kids there. It was a real tough place back then. I went with her, partly because I thought what she was doing was good, mostly because I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the college and I wanted to get her into bed.’
‘How romantic.’
‘Yeah. But she did do a lot of good. She was great with the kids, the boys drooled over her, and the girls thought she was cool too. And I helped out.’
‘I bet all the girls thought you were cool as well,’ Ingileif said with a grin.
‘I managed to fight them off,’ said Magnus.
‘And did you worm your evil way into this poor girl’s bed?’
‘For a while.’ Magnus smiled at the memory. ‘She was genuinely a very good person. One of the best people I’ve ever met. Much better than me.
‘Every time she met a screwed up kid who was dealing drugs or knifing his neighbours, she saw a scared little boy who had been abused and abandoned by his parents and by society.’
‘And you?’
‘Well, I tried to see it her way, I really did. But in my world there were good guys and bad guys, and all I saw was a bad guy. The way I saw it, it was the bad guys who were ruining the neighbourhood and corrupting the other kids in it. All I wanted to do was stop the little punk from ruining other people’s lives. Just like my life had been ruined by whoever killed my father.’
‘So you became a cop?’
‘That’s right. And she became a teacher.’ Magnus smiled wryly. ‘And somehow I think she has made the world a better place than I have.’
‘Do you still see her?’
‘No,’ said Magnus. ‘I visited her once in Chicago a couple of years after we left college. We were very different people by then. She was still gorgeous, though.’
‘I think I’d agree with you,’ Ingileif said, turning towards him. ‘About the bad guys.’
‘Really?’
‘You sound surprised?’
‘I guess I am.’ Erin certainly hadn’t agreed with him. Neither had Colby for that matter. Policemen always felt lonely on that point, as if they were doing the jobs no one else wanted to do, or even wanted to admit needed doing.
‘Sure. You’ve read your sagas. We Icelandic women are constantly nagging our menfolk to get out of bed and go and avenge their family honour before lunch time.’
‘That’s true,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve always loved that in a woman, especially on a Sunday morning.’
They drove on in silence. Over the cantilevered bridge at the River Olfusa and through the town of Selfoss.
‘How long are you staying in Iceland?’ Ingileif asked.
‘I thought it was going to be several months. But now it looks like I will have to go back to the States next week to testify at a trial.’
‘Are you coming back afterwards?’
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Magnus.
‘Oh. Don’t you like Iceland?’ Ingileif sounded offended. Which was hardly surprising; there is no easier way to offend an Icelander than to disparage their country.
‘I do like it. It just brings back difficult memories. And my job at the Reykjavik CID isn’t working out that well. I don’t really get along with the boss.’
‘Is there a girlfriend back in Boston?’ Ingileif asked.
‘No,’ said Magnus, thinking of Colby. She was an ex -girlfriend if ever there was one. He wanted to ask Ingileif why she had asked him that, but that would sound crass. Perhaps she was just curious. Icelanders asked direct questions when they wanted to know answers.
‘Look, there’s Hekla!’
Ingileif pointed ahead towards the broad white muscular ridge that was Iceland’s most famous volcano. It didn’t have the cone shape of the classic volcano, but it was much more violent than the prettier Mount Fuji, for example. Hekla had erupted four times in the previous forty years, through a fissure that ran horizontally along the ridge. And then, every couple of centuries or so, it would come up with a big one. Like the eruption of 1104 that had smothered Gaukur’s farm at Stong.
‘Do you know that around Boston they sell Hekla cinnamon rolls?’ Magnus said. ‘They’re big upside-down rolls covered in sugar. Look just like the mountain.’
‘But do they blow up in your face at random intervals?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Then they’re not real Hekla rolls. They need a bit more violence in them.’ Ingileif smiled. ‘I remember watching Hekla erupt in 1991. I was ten or eleven, I suppose. You can’t quite see it from Fludir, but I had a friend who lived on a farm a few kilometres to the south and you got a great view of it from there.
‘It was extraordinary. It was January and it was night time. The volcano was glowing angry red and orange and at the same time you could see a green streak of the aurora hovering above it. I’ll never forget it.’
She swallowed. ‘It was the year before Dad died.’
‘When life was normal?’ Magnus asked.
‘That’s right,’ said Ingileif. ‘When life was normal.’
The volcano loomed bigger as they drove towards it, and then they turned to the north and lost it behind the foothills that edged the valley. With two kilometres to Fludir, they came to a turn-off to Hruni to the right. Magnus took it, and the road wound through the hills for a couple of kilometres, before breaking out into a valley. The small white church of Hruni was visible beneath a rocky crag, surrounded by a house and some farm buildings.
They pulled up in the empty gravel car park in front of the church. Magnus climbed out of the car. There was a spectacular view to the north, of glaciers many miles away. Plovers dived and swirled over the fields, calling as they did so. Otherwise there was silence. And peace.
They approached the rectory, a large house by Icelandic standards, white with a red roof, and rang the doorbell. No answer. But there was a red Suzuki in the garage.
‘Let’s check inside the church,’ suggested Ingileif. ‘He is a pastor after all.’
As they walked through the ancient graveyard, Ingileif nodded towards a line of newer stones. ‘That’s where my mother is.’
‘Do you want to look?’ said Magnus. ‘I can wait.’
‘No,’ said Ingileif. ‘No, it feels wrong.’ She smiled sheepishly at Magnus. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t want to involve her in all this.’
‘It makes sense,’ said Magnus.
So they continued on to the church and went in. It was warm and really quite beautiful. It was also empty.
As they made their way back to the car, Magnus caught sight of a boy of about sixteen moving around the barn next to the rectory. He called out to him. ‘Have you seen the pastor?’
‘He was here this morning.’
‘Do you know where he might have gone? Does he have another car?’
The boy noticed the Suzuki parked in the garage. ‘No. He could have gone for a walk. He does that sometimes. He can be out all day.’
‘Thank you,’ said Magnus. He checked his watch. Three-thirty. Then turning to Ingileif: ‘What now?’
‘You could come back to our house in the village,’ she said. ‘I can show you the letters from Tolkien to my grandfather. And my father’s notes about where the ring might be. Although I doubt they will be much help.’
‘Good idea,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ll come back here later.’