Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

fissures into which a vehicle could be driven or a body hidden. And, of course, there was the
shoreline on the other side of the airport road. But they couldn’t see anything driving along the tracks that criss-crossed the lava field, nor the tell-tale cloud of dust that a vehicle
would kick up.
    They reached the parking lot for the Blue Lagoon. There was already a police car there with its blue light flashing, probably from Grindavík, the fishing village just over the low ridge
of mountains. Magnus, Vigdís and Árni jumped out of the car and ran along the path to the entrance. A policeman was talking to the woman at reception.
    ‘Sergeant Magnús,’ Magnus said, identifying himself. ‘Has she seen them?’
    ‘Yes,’ the officer replied. ‘The woman and one of the men went to change. The other said he was going to the café.’
    ‘How long ago?’
    ‘Ten minutes,’ the woman at the reception desk said.
    ‘Vigdís, take the changing rooms. Árni, come with me. You too,’ he said to the constable.
    They ran through the changing room to the edge of the pool. Magnus scanned the thirty or so swimmers he could see. No sign of anyone who looked like Erika, Franz or Dúddi. But with the
steam, it was difficult to be sure.
    ‘Árni, take the perimeter. You stay here,’ he said to the constable. And with that he jumped in and waded fast into the steam.
    The water was warm, but dragged at his sodden clothes. People stared at him. The wrong people. Not Erika.
    He saw the back of a dark-haired woman swimming away from him and called Erika’s name. The woman turned around. It wasn’t her.
    Then he heard a scream. It was close by. He tried to quicken his step, the water up to his chest. The steam cleared and he saw a tall broad-shouldered man moving towards a smaller figure in a
black swimsuit.
    ‘Hey! Police!’ he shouted in English. ‘Stop!’
    The man turned to face him. It was the guy who had grabbed Erika by the Saebraut. Sébastien Freitag.
    Freitag was only a couple of yards from Erika, who was backed against the rock edge. He raised a knife. There was no way Magnus could get to him before he plunged it into her.
    ‘Cowabunga!’
    A figure flew through the air from the rocky edge, screaming as it did so, and landed on Freitag’s upraised arm.
    Both bodies plunged under the water. Magnus was on them, looking for the knife.
    Árni screamed, in pain this time. He had his arms around Sébastien’s chest and neck, but Sébastien’s knife arm was free and was stabbing down on
Árni’s back.
    Magnus grabbed the arm and pulled it back. Sébastien was big, but Magnus was bigger. He banged Sébastien’s hand against the rocky wall of the pool, but Sébastien
wouldn’t let go of the knife. The fingers of Sébastien’s other hand clutched at Magnus’s face, reaching for his eyes. Magnus jabbed at Sébastien’s throat with
his elbow, and the knife finally slipped out of Sébastien’s grasp. Magnus wrapped his arm around Sébastien’s neck in a headlock and plunged his face under water.
    Árni let go. There was a streak of red in the milky blue.
    The uniformed constable jumped in next to them, handcuffs at the ready. It took them a minute but finally Sébastien was cuffed and subdued.
    ‘Are you OK, Árni?’ Magnus asked.
    Árni flexed his shoulders. ‘It hurts, but I think it’s a scratch rather than a hole.’
    ‘Cowabunga?’ Magnus raised his eyebrows.
    Árni shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I wanted to distract him. It was the first thing that came into my head.’
    ‘Nice one, Árni.’

CHAPTER THIRTY
    Sunday 18 April 2010
    M AGNUS’S ALARM WENT off: 7.50 a.m.
    He rolled out of bed, padded over to his desk and powered up his laptop.
    Freeflow’s press conference was at nine o’clock British time, eight o’clock in Reykjavík. Erika had told him how to watch it live on his computer.
    After discussions with the Commissioner, Magnus had taken a written statement from her about the attack in the Blue Lagoon, and then let her get on her flight to Glasgow, with the promise that
she would return to Iceland within three days, ash cloud permitting. It had taken two hours to find Franz, who had never actually gone into the lagoon himself, but was waiting outside with clothes
for his brother. He had escaped into the nearby mountains, where a police dog had eventually tracked him down.
    Both he and his brother had given lengthy statements about what they had done and why they had done it. They