Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

I know you were fucking my husband!’
    Erika let her hands fall to her sides. She stood up straight, facing her adversary. Calm.
    ‘It’s your fault he’s dead. You know that, don’t you?’ Teresa’s voice had dropped, making it if anything more menacing. ‘You are the reason he came
here. The man who killed him was trying to kill you, when Nico stopped him. Why he did that, I do not know. I wish he hadn’t. I wish it was you who had been killed on the volcano.’
    ‘I know,’ said Erika quietly.
    ‘You know! How can you stand there and say you know! I am his wife, for God’s sake! The mother of his children.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You took their father away from
them. Not only did you fuck him, but you snared him with all this Freeflow crap. You tempted him to the North Pole and yes, you caused his death. May you rot in hell! I flew to Iceland to tell you
this. I’m going now and I never want to see you again. Don’t you dare come to his funeral!’
    ‘I won’t,’ said Erika.
    ‘ Puttana! ’ spat Teresa. She turned on her heel and left the house, banging the front door.
    Ásta followed her.
    Erika’s face was motionless, cold. She turned to the assembled team, who were staring back at her, their expressions frozen in shock. ‘Don’t look at me like that,
Dieter,’ she said. ‘Back to work, everyone.’
    She walked past Magnus and sat down in front of her computer.
    ‘Erika?’ Magnus said.
    Erika paused, closed her eyes. ‘Yes?’
    ‘You didn’t tell me anything about your relationship with Nico. I specifically asked you about it.’
    ‘I didn’t think it was relevant to your investigation,’ Erika said. ‘And I didn’t want to cause his widow distress. Although it looks like I needn’t have
worried about that.’
    ‘Can you tell me about it now?’
    ‘What do you want to know?’ Erika said. ‘Yes, we had an affair. Yes, I slept with him. Yes, I am upset that he is dead. What do you want? The dates? Let me see . . .’ She
tapped on some keys. ‘Yes, just checking my calendar. The last time I slept with him was two months ago. February fourteenth. Valentine’s Day. Stockholm. Got that?’
    There were tears in her eyes. Finally, there were tears in her eyes.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    ‘W OW,’ SAID RANNVEIG, once they were outside. She took a deep breath of fresh air.
    ‘Yeah. Wow.’
    ‘Lucky we’ve got someone watching the house. I wouldn’t want to be unprotected if I was Erika with that woman on the loose.’
    ‘No,’ said Magnus. He was glad Ásta had informed Teresa: it was something that he should really have done himself. But just then Baldur’s words came back to him. The
first place to look was always the husband or the wife or the boyfriend. It was true in Boston. It was true in Reykjavík.
    Something to think about.
    ‘See you later, Rannveig,’ Magnus said, and he trotted over to Ásta’s small Peugeot. She had just started the engine.
    He stooped down on the passenger’s side. Teresa was weeping. Ásta pressed a switch to wind down the electric window. ‘Signora Andreose,’ Magnus said. ‘I know you
are upset now, but I would really like to speak to you at the police station.’
    The woman nodded. Magnus glanced across to Ásta, who nodded also, mouthing in Icelandic, ‘I’ll bring her when she is ready.’
    Ásta drove off and Magnus looked down the hill to where the guy was still reading his paper on the bench. Magnus nodded at the cop in the police car and strolled down towards him. The
bench was in front of a tiny grass playground, with swings and a multicoloured little elf house.
    The man lowered his paper. It was the International Herald Tribune.
    ‘Hi, Magnus, how are you?’ he said in English. ‘My name’s Tom. Tom Bryant. I’ve got my car here. Do you want a ride?’
    ‘Can’t we just talk here?’
    ‘It’s a bit cold. It might be better to be in the car.’
    Magnus shrugged and followed Bryant to a bland saloon crammed into a space between a van and a BMW four-by-four.
    Bryant started the car. He was about forty, neatly dressed in a bland kind of a way: jeans with a belt, decent shoes, plain zip-up jacket. Not really a businessman, but not a tourist either.
    ‘I take it you work for the CIA?’ Magnus said.
    Bryant smiled. ‘I’m temporarily attached to the US Embassy here in Reykjavík.’
    ‘I’ll take that as a yes. Are you following Erika Zinn?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘She says the CIA is following her.’
    ‘Well,