Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

below glowed a
pale yellow in the low morning sunlight. A hundred and fifty kilometres over to the east, beyond the mountains, lurked Eyjafjallajökull, lobbing ash miles up into the sky and over towards
northern Europe.
    There was no sign of it at all in Reykjavík. The air was fresh and clear and crisp.
    Magnus took a deep breath, and let his mind drift back to the case. There were so many lines of inquiry and they all pointed in different directions. He went back through them. The unknown
assailant on the volcano; the black Suzuki Vitara rented to a non-existent Dutchman; Mikael Már and his French business associate; the Heathrow café receipt; the Gaza video and the
Israelis it would annoy. Then there were all the other people Freeflow had antagonized: the Chinese; the Zimbabweans; the Belgians; the Italians; the German bank; the American college fraternities
and God knew who else. Then there was Nico and his various betrayals, to his wife and to his mistress. Dieter’s supposed infatuation with Erika. The Italian, Israeli and Canadian tourists
they had tracked down. And finally there was Ásta’s note about Dumont, and her threat to reveal a scandal at the Church of Iceland.
    The whole investigation hadn’t been a process of elimination; it had been a process of multiplication.
    But why had Ásta died? It seemed she had heard what amounted to a confession. From whom?
    It could, of course, be someone the police didn’t know about yet, a member of the Church of Iceland, perhaps. Much more likely, it was someone involved in Freeflow. The list wasn’t
very long: Franz, Zivah, Dieter, Dúddi. Viktor perhaps.
    Or Erika. Erika was interesting. She was right at the centre of all the betrayals.
    But she was the target. Erika was always the target.
    A pair of terns wheeled and dived a few yards ahead of Magnus, sleek and graceful.
    OK. So which of the Freeflow team could be linked to the tangle of leads that had emerged over the previous few days? A link that Ásta had possibly noticed.
    He stared out across the bay into the cool breeze.
    Then it came to him.
    He stood up and turned back to the office. The more he thought about it, the more sure he was. His steps quickened until he broke into a run.
    He burst into the Violent Crimes Unit and dived for his phone.
    ‘Magnús,’ Vigdís began. ‘Baldur wants to talk to you about the murder weapon—’
    Magnus held up his hand to silence her as he checked his notes for Mikael Már’s phone number. He dialled it.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘Mikael Már, it’s Magnús from the Metropolitan Police. Do you have your friend Monsieur Joubert’s telephone number in France?’
    ‘Er, OK,’ said Mikael Már, clearly taken aback by the urgency in Magnus’s voice. ‘It’s right here. One moment.’
    He took less than twenty seconds to find it, but Magnus’s fingers were drumming. Vigdís and Árni stared at their boss.
    ‘Here it is.’ Mikael Már read out the digits and Magnus wrote them down.
    A moment later, Magnus was dialling France.
    ‘Joubert,’ said a voice.
    ‘ Monsieur Joubert? Parlez-vous anglais? ’ asked Magnus.
    ‘Yes, yes, I do,’ said the voice uncertainly, with a heavy French accent.
    ‘My name is Sergeant Magnus Jonson. I am with the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police and I would like to ask you one quick question. It’s about the man that you and Mikael
Már spoke to on the Fimmvörduháls volcano last Monday.’ Magnus forced himself to speak slowly so that the Frenchman would understand him.
    ‘Ah, yes. Mikael Már told me there had been a murder at about the time we were there.’
    ‘That’s right. I believe the man you talked to spoke French?’
    ‘That is correct.’
    ‘Did he have an accent?’
    ‘Er . . . yes. Yes, he did.’
    ‘And could you tell where he came from?’
    ‘Oh, yes. The accent wasn’t very strong, but it was quite obvious he was not French.’
    ‘Was he Swiss?’
    ‘No. No, not at all. The Swiss accent is very distinctive.’
    ‘I see, Monsieur Joubert. So which country did the man come from?’
    ‘Belgium. I am quite certain he was Belgian.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
    ‘O K, DÚDDI, LET’S go,’ said Erika.
    ‘What about the police?’ said Dúddi.
‘There’s still a car parked right outside. Will they stop us?’
    ‘Oh, God, I forgot about them,’ said Erika. She was tired; she was usually alive to who was watching her. ‘It would be best if the police didn’t realize I was
leaving until Viktor