‘No. He was very secretive about all that, and frankly I wasn’t interested. They were researching something, I’ve no idea what.’
‘Did he ever mention a ring?’
‘A ring? No. What kind of ring?’
Erna seemed genuinely puzzled. Ingileif took a deep breath. The questions were going to get more painful, there was no way of avoiding it.
‘It was a ring that was mentioned in Gaukur’s Saga, the manuscript the professor who was murdered was trying to sell. You see, the police believe that my father and your husband found the ring that weekend.’
Erna frowned. ‘He never mentioned it. And I never saw a ring. But it is just the kind of thing that would fascinate him. And there was something. Something hidden in the altar in the church. I saw him sneak in there several times.’
‘Did you ever look to see what it was?’ Ingileif asked.
‘No. I told myself that it was none of my business.’ Erna shuddered. ‘But the truth is I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to know. Hakon had rather unconventional interests. I was scared about what I might find.’
‘The police think that my father may have been killed for the ring,’ said Ingileif.
‘By whom?’ said Erna. ‘Not by Hakon, surely?’
‘That’s what they think.’ Ingileif swallowed. ‘That’s what I think.’
Erna looked shocked. Shock turned to anger. ‘I know that my ex-husband is eccentric. I know that all sorts of strange stories are told about him in the village. But I am absolutely sure he didn’t kill your father. Despite all his fascination with the devil, he wouldn’t kill anyone. Ever. And…’
A tear appeared Erna’s eye.
‘And?’
‘And your father was the only true friend Hakon ever had. Sometimes I think, well I know, that Hakon was fonder of him than of me. He was quite broken up by your father’s death. It almost destroyed him.’ She sniffed and dabbed her eye with her finger. ‘He started behaving even more strangely, neglecting his parish duties, listening to Tomas’s dreadful music. He became impossible to live with after that. Impossible.’
Ingileif realized she would get no further on the subject of Hakon. She would leave grilling Erna to the police. She still thought Hakon had killed her father, but she was convinced that Erna didn’t, and she didn’t feel the need to argue with her.
‘But what has all this got to do with Tomas?’ Erna asked.
‘The police think he was there with Hakon and my father. The sheep farmers who Hakon went to for help saw him. Or at least they saw a boy, who the police think was Tomas.’ Ingileif didn’t want to confuse the issue with talk of hidden people.
‘Oh, that really is too absurd,’ said Erna. ‘Do they think Tomas killed Dr Asgrimur? But he was only twelve then!’
‘Thirteen,’ said Ingileif. ‘And yes they do think he was there. He might have witnessed what happened at the very least.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Erna. ‘It must have been someone else.’ And then her eyes lit up. ‘Wait a minute. It can’t have been Tomas!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he was with me that weekend. In Reykjavik. He was singing in the Hallgrimskirkja with the village choir. I went to listen. We stayed with my sister in Reykjavik that Saturday night.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, I’m quite sure. We didn’t get back until Sunday evening. I can remember seeing Hakon when we arrived home. He had only just got back from the hills. He was in a terrible state.’ She smiled at Ingileif. ‘You see. My son is innocent!’
The three men were squashed into Axel’s car, parked a hundred metres down the road from the house which Ingileif had entered. Axel was at the wheel, Isildur was in the back, and Gimli was in the passenger seat, a computer opened on his lap. With expense no object, Axel had planted four bugs on Ingileif when he had broken in in the small hours of the previous night. One in her bag, one in her coat, one in her studio bedroom – that had been the trickiest – and one in the car. The bug in the car doubled as a tracking device, and the location of the car was flashing on the GPS map on the computer.
The tracker had allowed them to follow Ingileif at a safe distance all the way from Reykjavik to Hella. They had driven by the house at which she had stopped and then parked out of sight. The bug in the coat was transmitting loud and clear, but in Icelandic, through a receiver which was plugged into the laptop. Axel mumbled half-translations as he listened, but they were frustratingly incomplete.
When Axel started muttering about a ring, Isildur couldn’t contain his impatience to find out more, but Axel refused to explain further, not wanting to miss any of the conversation.
As soon as Ingileif left the house, Isildur asked Axel for a translation.
‘Shouldn’t we follow her?’ said Axel.
‘We can catch her up later. The tracker will show us where she is. I want a full translation, and I want it now!’
Axel pulled the computer off Gimli’s lap and tapped some keys. The conversation was recorded on the computer’s hard drive. He went through the whole thing slowly and methodically.
Isildur was beside himself with excitement. ‘Where’s this church?’ he demanded. ‘The place where the ring is hidden?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Axel. ‘The nearest church to Hella is a place called Oddi. It’s not far.’
‘It sounds like they were neighbours when Ingileif was young,’ said Gimli. ‘This Hakon is obviously Tomas Hakonarson’s father. Do we know where he was born? Where he grew up? Or for that matter where Ingileif grew up? It might not have been Hella. It sounded to me as if this Erna woman had moved out, or moved away.’
‘Google him,’ said Isildur. ‘You got Google in Iceland, right?’
‘Google who?’
‘Tomas Hakonarson. If he’s a big star in this country, there will be a bio on him somewhere.’
Axel called up the search engine, tapped out some words, clicked and scrolled. ‘Here he is. He was born in a village in the West Fjords, but was brought up in Fludir. That’s not too far from here.’
‘Well, let’s go to Fludir church, then!’ said Isildur. ‘Get a move on!’
Axel handed the laptop back to Gimli and started up the car.
‘Hruni is the nearest church to Fludir,’ said Axel. ‘This man must be the pastor of Hruni.’ He grinned.
‘What’s so special about that?’
‘Let’s just say it fits.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
As Magnus drove up the valley of the Thjorsa towards Mount Hekla, lurking behind the cloud somewhere to the south-east, the landscape became progressively bleaker. Grass gave way to black rock and mounds of sand, like the detritus of a massive abandoned coalfield. The river flowed past the rounded lump of stone several hundred feet high known as Burfell, home to trolls in the old folk tales. Just beyond, the road crossed a smaller river, the Fossa, a tributary of the Thjorsa, but still powerful, and Magnus came to a junction and a sign. Well, two signs. One said Stong. The other Road Closed.
Magnus turned. It wasn’t a road. It wasn’t even a track. There were twists, turns, steep hills, sharp drops. At one point the road was nothing but black sand. Mist swirled around Magnus as he cajoled his car through the blackened terrain. Below and to the left, the Fossa surged. Fingers of snow reached down from the mountains above, and indeed the road would have been completely impassable a couple of weeks earlier, before the snow had melted. Once or twice, Magnus debated turning back. But of course Hakon’s four-wheel-drive would have had an easier time of it.
Then he rounded a bend and saw it. The red Suzuki. It was parked on a brief stretch of road fifty feet above the river. Magnus pulled up next to it and checked the plate. Definitely the Reverend Hakon’s vehicle.
He turned off his engine and climbed out of his car.
The damp air hit his nostrils. After the whine of his own car engine and the clanking of stones and rock against the chassis, everything seemed quiet, damply quiet. Except there was a low roar, the sound of water rushing by below.