Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

thought he was interested, so when he said he wanted to see the volcano, I agreed to take him, even though the weather forecast was bad. I have a snowmobile and a trailer, and I
borrowed another machine from my brother-in-law, and we headed up there. I’ve been several times over the last few weeks.
    ‘Anyway, the visibility was poor until we actually got to the volcano, when fortunately it cleared for a bit. We spent about half an hour up there, and then came down.’
    ‘OK,’ said Magnus. ‘And who did you see on the volcano?’
    ‘We met several jeeps coming down as we were going up, and snowmobiles. There was a middle-aged couple sitting in a jeep up there. And a group of five or six others. And also a single guy
in another jeep, a smaller one.’
    Magnus’s pulse quickened. ‘OK, we’ll come back to the last guy. Tell me about the group.’
    ‘They arrived just after us, I think. They all went up to the rim. We spoke to one of them who was kind of off by himself.’
    ‘What did you say?’
    ‘Just how amazing the volcano was, that kind of thing. Pierre did most of the talking. He spoke French.’
    ‘Did you see where he went?’
    ‘No, except that he returned to the jeep early, I saw that.’
    ‘What about the others? Did you see a man and a woman go off to the side?’
    ‘No.’
    Magnus examined Mikael Már. There was no obvious link between him and Freeflow. He didn’t look like a hired hit man or an Italian Mafioso. His Icelandic was perfect.
    ‘Have you ever heard of Freeflow?’ Magnus asked.
    Mikael Már shrugged. ‘Not until I listened to the news this morning.’
    ‘Or Erika Zinn.’
    He shook his head. ‘Never.’
    ‘OK, what about Pierre Joubert? Did he seem interested in the Freeflow group?’
    ‘Not at all,’ said Mikael Már. ‘He just wanted to see the volcano. Although he kind of liked talking to the guy in French.’
    ‘Do you know him well?’
    ‘No. This is the first time I have actually met him. We’ve been e-mailing back and forth for a month or so.’
    ‘And did you contact him or did he contact you initially?’ Magnus realized that was the key question. If Mikael Már had approached the Frenchman first, then it meant that
Joubert’s visit to Iceland was not a result of Freeflow’s decision to meet there. Whereas if Joubert had got in touch with Mikael Már out of the blue, that would have been more
interesting.
    ‘I contacted him. Or rather his boss in Lyons. Here, I’ve got some of their sales literature.’
    Mikael Már leafed through some papers on his messy desk and pulled out a glossy brochure of French vans. On a middle page was a tiny picture of a tall, slightly overweight man in his late
thirties. The caption read ‘Pierre Joubert, Directeur Régional’.
    Realistically, it would be impossible to fake all this at short notice. The mysterious Frenchman in the red ski jacket was off the list of suspects. But there was the other visitor to the
crater.
    ‘Tell me about the other jeep. The one with the single guy.’
    Mikael Már winced, concentrating. ‘I didn’t really see much of him. The jeep came up after us and after the Freeflow group. It was parked a couple of hundred metres away from
our snowmobiles and the other two jeeps. Out of sight of them. We only saw it when we walked around a bit. And he left before we did. But we overtook him on the way back down.’
    ‘And the guy? Did you see him?’
    ‘Not then. I’d seen him before on the way up, just by Skógafoss. He was wearing a red jacket and staring at his mobile phone.’ Mikael Már raised his eyebrows.
‘Just like Pierre. The red jacket, I mean.’
    ‘How do you know it was the same guy?’
    ‘Same jeep. A black Suzuki Vitara. I remember thinking it was a bit small to take up a glacier, especially when the weather was bad. I suppose it is possible that there were two vehicles
of the same type.’
    ‘Possible, but unlikely,’ said Magnus. ‘Can you describe him?’
    Mikael Már screwed up his eyes, thinking. ‘No. I think he was young. But no, not really. I certainly wouldn’t be able to identify him. I could show you the spot where he was
waiting.’
    ‘Could you do that now?’ asked Magnus.
    ‘Yes, if you like,’ said Mikael Már. ‘But what about the new eruption?’
    ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Magnus. ‘Let’s go.’
    They went in Magnus’s Range Rover. The cloud was low as they drove over the plain to the east of Selfoss. It was impossible