Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

looked back up the road. ‘No. But I did find his car a few minutes ago. On the road to Stöng. He must have gone on a hike or something. Or met someone. I found another set of tyre tracks nearby.’
    There was silence at the other end of the phone. For a moment Magnus thought the connection had been dropped. The signal was still poor. ‘Ingileif? Ingileif, are you there?’
    ‘Yes, I’m here. Bye, Magnús.’
    And she was gone.
    Pétur was under his car, wiping the chassis with a cloth. He had driven home from the car wash, grabbed a cloth and a bucket and then parked in a residential street a kilometre away. He didn’t want his neighbours to see him washing his car so carefully.
    His phone, stuffed in his jeans pocket, rang. He rolled out from under the BMW and answered it.
    ‘Pési? It’s Inga.’
    He scrambled to his feet. He need to gather his wits for this conversation.
    ‘Inga! Hi! How are you?’
    ‘Why didn’t you want me to say I saw you yesterday?’
    ‘You were with that big cop, weren’t you?’ ‘Yes. We had just been to see the sheep farmers who went to look for Dad with Hákon. Pési, I am pretty sure that Dad was killed. It wasn’t an accident.’
    Pétur realized she had given him the opportunity to go on the offensive. ‘I thought we had agreed to leave all that alone,’ he said. ‘Why were you talking to the cops about it? What could it achieve?’
    ‘Pési, where were you going yesterday?’
    Pétur took a deep breath. ‘I can’t say, Inga. I’m sorry. Don’t ask me any more.’
    ‘That won’t do, Pési. I need to know what’s going on here. Were you going to meet Hákon? On the road to Stöng?’
    ‘Look, where are you now?’
    ‘Just outside Hella.’
    ‘OK. You’re right. You do deserve an explanation. And I’ll give you one, a full one.’
    ‘Go on, then.’
    ‘Not over the phone. We need to do this face to face.’
    ‘OK. I’ll be back in Reykjavík this afternoon.’
    ‘No, not here. You remember where Dad used to take us for picnics? The spot he said was his favourite place in Iceland?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘OK, meet me there. In, say, an hour and a half.’
    ‘Why there?’
    ‘I often go there, Inga. It’s where Dad is. I go there to talk to him. And I want him to be there when I talk to you.’
    There was silence on the other end of the phone. Ingileif would know that such sentimentalism was unlike Pétur, but then she also knew how much their father’s death had affected him.
    ‘OK. An hour and a half.’
    ‘See you then. And promise me you won’t say anything to the police. At least until after I’ve had a chance to explain things.’
    ‘I promise.’
    Now he had a signal, Magnus called Baldur.
    ‘I’ve found Hákon’s car,’ he said, before the inspector had a chance to hang up on him.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘On the road to Stöng. There’s no sign of him. And it’s too misty to see very far.’
    ‘Are you there now?’ barked Baldur.
    ‘No. I had to go back down the road a couple of kilometres until I could get a signal to call you.’
    ‘I’ll send a team up to look at it.’
    ‘And to search for him,’ said Magnus.
    ‘That won’t be necessary.’
    ‘Why not? Have you found him?’
    ‘Yes. At the bottom of the Hjálparfoss. A body was discovered there by a power worker half an hour ago. A large man with a beard wearing a clerical collar.’
    Hjálparfoss was a waterfall only a kilometre or so from the turn-off to Stöng. Magnus had seen a sign to it. The powerful river below him, the Fossá, flowed into it.
    ‘He could have jumped,’ said Baldur.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Magnus. ‘I saw tyre tracks next to the Suzuki. He was pushed.’
    ‘Well, don’t go back to the scene,’ said Baldur. ‘I don’t want you taking any further part in this investigation. I’m on my way to Hjálparfoss and you had better not be there when I arrive.’
    Magnus felt the urge to snap back. He had had the hunch that Hákon had driven to Stöng. He had found the car. But he held his tongue.
    ‘Glad I could be of assistance,’ he said, and hung up.
    Well, almost held his tongue.
    It would take Baldur at least an hour, probably more like two to get to Hjálparfoss from Reykjavík, which gave Magnus plenty of time.
    He drove steadily down the track to the main road. The foot of Búrfell emerged eerily out of the mist ahead. The turn-off to Hjálparfoss was a much better track, but still through black heaps of rock and sand. After a few