Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

police artist.’
    ‘Damn.’ Magnus had had an appointment to see her at eleven that morning. They needed to get a good impression of Erika’s attacker out to the police throughout the country.
‘I’ll be with her in a moment. What’s going on?’
    ‘Some progress,’ said Árni. ‘We’ve found the Canadians who rented the Suzuki Vitara from Hertz. They are in Akureyri.’
    ‘Good. Get the police there to find out where they were on Monday evening. If they have a firm alibi let them go, otherwise lock them up.’
    ‘They are checking on that now.’
    ‘What about Italian tourists?’
    ‘The attack on you last night means we can rule out all those who have left the country in the last couple of days, which helps a bit. And the volcano means that the attacker is trapped in
this country for a few days at least. He can’t get out.’
    ‘Good point.’
    ‘We have two possibles waiting for you. They are both Italian tourists, they match your description and neither one of them has an alibi for Monday night.’
    ‘Good work! I’ll go see them right now. Anything from Interpol?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘Well, keep on to them. How’s the ash cloud?’
    ‘Getting bigger. The volcano is still spewing. The wind is blowing it due south over Britain and the North Atlantic. Flights still cancelled. And it’s falling hard on the farms
around Eyjafjallajökull.’
    ‘OK – take me to these Italians, and then I’ll see Ragga. Oh, one last question, Árni. Where can I buy a baseball bat?’
    The Italians were a bust. Although they both fitted Magnus’s general description, he was quite sure that neither of them was the man he had seen holding a knife to
Erika’s throat. He let them off with an apology.
    Then he went to see the police artist. He could see the value of some kind of image of the assailant: it would save the police a lot of time.
    Ragga was an ample forty-five-year-old with long curly red hair and big green eyes. She was waiting for him in an interview room with a stack of cards and a sketchbook. She was reading a
book.
    ‘Sorry I kept you waiting,’ Magnus said. ‘How long will this take?’
    ‘About an hour,’ she said.
    ‘An hour! I’d have thought they’d have E-Fit or one of those other computer systems.’
    ‘They keep trialling them,’ said Ragga. ‘But they always end up with me. They say I’m better. The first three-quarters of an hour I do pretty much the same as a computer;
I show you these cards and ask you which image each part of the face most resembles. It’s the last quarter of an hour I make the image into a person. That’s the bit the computer
can’t quite do.’
    ‘OK, well, draw me,’ said Magnus. ‘Take just two minutes.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Ragga calmly.
    ‘I want to make sure I’m not wasting my time.’
    ‘OK.’ Ragga worked fast, glancing with those big eyes at Magnus as she sketched. In a couple of minutes she showed him his portrait.
    It looked a lot like the man he saw in the mirror every day. Except: ‘Do I really look that suspicious?’
    ‘You do right now,’ said Ragga.
    Magnus laughed. ‘OK, let’s get to it.’
    An hour later they had a very good likeness of the attacker full face and profile and wearing a woolly hat. Ragga said that in Reykjavík it was good to know what people looked like
wearing woolly hats. Magnus was impressed.
    Back at the Violent Crimes Unit, Vigdís was at her desk, working on her computer.
    ‘Flight cancelled?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. Her lips were pursed in frustration.
    ‘Any chance of it going tomorrow?’
    ‘They said I should show up at the airport. I’m doubtful though. The eruption is continuing and there’s no change in the weather forecast.’ Usually so cool, Vigdís
seemed distinctly unhappy.
    ‘Did you call your man? Is he in Paris yet?’
    ‘He is.’ Vigdís sighed. ‘And he’s not pleased.’
    ‘It’s hardly your fault.’
    ‘I told him that. He said it’s never my fault when I cancel on him. He has a point.’
    ‘Make sure you’re at the airport tomorrow. I don’t want you missing a flight.’
    Vigdís smiled quickly at him, and turned back to her screen.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘Trying to track down a loose Suzuki Vitara.’
    ‘Any luck yet?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘What about the Canadians, Árni?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘They claim they were in Húsavík that evening,’ said Árni. ‘The local police there are checking with their hotel