Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

little country. Do you know what temperature it was in Milan when I
left yesterday? Eh?’
    Magnus didn’t reply.
    ‘Twenty-two! Twenty-two degrees. And you know what temperature it is here? Two!’
    Magnus thought it was more like five or six, but he wasn’t going to argue. There were four of them in the room: Magnus, Teresa, Baldur and an interpreter.
    ‘Signora Andreose, the rules of interviewing in a foreign language in Iceland are a little cumbersome. I will ask the questions in Icelandic, you can answer in English and Helena here will
translate.’
    ‘That’s stupid. I demand to answer in Italian.’
    ‘We’d have to find an Italian interpreter,’ Magnus said.
    ‘ Parlo italiano ,’ said Helena. The other people in the room looked at the young interpreter in surprise. Magnus knew she was doing a PhD in languages at the University of
Iceland and that she spoke English and Danish. Italian was a good addition.
    ‘No,’ said Teresa. ‘I can speak English.’
    ‘Good,’ said Magnus. He leaned over and pressed a couple of keys on a computer. The interview rooms had video, not just audio tape. Switching to Icelandic he said: ‘Interview
with Teresa Andreose, 9:24, 15 April, 2010. Present: Teresa Andreose, Sergeant Magnús Ragnarsson, Inspector Baldur Jakobsson and Helena Gudrúnsdóttir interpreting.’
Helena translated.
    He looked up at Teresa. ‘Can you confirm your name for me please?’
    ‘Teresa Andreose.’
    ‘Date of birth?’
    ‘None of your business.’
    ‘Can you give me your passport then?’ Magnus asked.
    Teresa dug it out of her bag and tossed it to him. He read out the details for the record.
    ‘Now, Teresa, would you say you were angry with your husband?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because he cheated on me. He slept with a slut.’
    ‘How angry would you say you were?’
    ‘Very angry.’ Then she frowned. ‘You’re not going to say that I killed him, are you?’
    ‘It’s possible,’ Magnus said.
    ‘Hah! I thought so. That’s ridiculous.’
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘Of course it is! I was in Milan when he was killed.’
    ‘You could have paid someone else to do it.’
    ‘That’s absurd!’
    ‘No, it’s not,’ Magnus said calmly. ‘It’s perfectly possible. Milan is a big city. There are bound to be killers for hire there. You could have found one, paid him
to fly to Iceland to kill your husband and his lover. Couldn’t you?’
    Teresa shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess I could have done. But I didn’t.’
    ‘Who else might have killed him?’ Magnus asked. ‘Apart from you.’
    Teresa shrugged again. ‘Erika. I wouldn’t put it past her.’
    ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Magnus said. ‘Who else?’
    Teresa was silent. Magnus waited. She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps some people Freeflow had exposed.’
    ‘Like who?’
    ‘I don’t know! That’s your job to find out. You are the policeman.’
    Then Baldur spoke for the first time. Softly. ‘What is it you are not telling us, Teresa?’
    It took a moment for the interpreter to translate the question, during which Teresa focused on Baldur for the first time. Magnus noticed hesitation as she heard the question.
    ‘Why do you think he was killed?’ she asked Baldur.
    ‘If you can’t give us a good suggestion, then we will have to assume that you paid people to murder your husband,’ said Baldur. ‘It’s always the wife. Or the
husband. That’s the rule.’
    ‘And if I don’t tell you, what are you going to do? Put me in an igloo and throw away the key?’
    ‘Iceland doesn’t have igloos,’ said Magnus.
    ‘And igloos don’t have keys,’ Baldur said. And then Magnus saw Baldur do something extraordinary. He smiled.
    So did Teresa, briefly. She took a deep breath. ‘OK. I tell you. But I need a cigarette.’
    ‘Sure,’ said Baldur, and he passed a plastic cup to her to use as an ashtray. No one took any notice of the large No Smoking sign.
    She reached into her bag and pulled one out. Lit it. Took time to gather her thoughts.
    ‘I met Nico at graduate school in Rome. We were studying geology. We both went on to join oil companies and then he went to work for a big commodity trader based in London, trading oil
derivatives. He was a good geologist, but a lousy trader. I realized it, but he never did. And he was such a charmer that it took a while for the people he worked for to realize it too.
    ‘He was paid well; we got married; I stopped working and started having children; we