Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

Pétur.
    Rather than heading straight down towards the waterfall, Pétur turned left, upstream. There was now a maintained path leading up the low hill; in his childhood it had just been a narrow sheep track.
    Just over the crest of the hill was a shallow hollow. It was here that Dr Ásgrímur had liked to take his family for a picnic on sunny days. Tourists usually walked to the foot of the falls, or halfway up, or followed the gorge downstream. The hollow, above the falls, offered some privacy, even in the height of summer. The grass and moss, soft and springy, made a comfortable spot to sit, when things were dry.
    At the beginning of May, in the mist, things were very wet and there was no sign of anyone. It was only a couple of hundred metres to the car park, but there was no chance of being seen or heard above the din from there.
    Pétur walked towards the river. The dull roar turned into a crescendo as the magnificent waterfall opened out beneath him. Its power was extraordinary. The Hvítá flung itself down into the gorge in two stages, at each throwing up a thick curtain of spray. The resultant tumult was known as Gullfoss, which means ‘golden waterfall’, because of the tricks of light that low sunshine could play on the fine moisture suspended above the cauldron. In the right conditions rainbows danced gold and purple over the falls.
    On a clear day it was possible to see Langjökull, the ‘Long Glacier’ which produced all this water, crouching between the mountain peaks thirty kilometres to the north. But not today. Today, everything was covered in a grey shroud of moisture, spray and cloud merging into one.
    Again, good.
    Pétur stood and waited for Ingileif.
    He was pleased with his choice of meeting place. Like the road to Stöng. Pétur had tempted Hákon out to that remote spot with a far-fetched tale of how he knew where the helm of Fafnir was hidden. He remembered the look of excitement and expectation on the pastor’s face as he had approached him parked above the Fossá. Pétur had led the pastor down to the river, and then paused to let him pass. A blow on the back of the head with a rock, and the pastor had tumbled: it was all that Pétur had been able to do to stop him from falling straight into the water. He held him back just long enough to ease the ring off his finger, and then tipped him into the torrent. It could be weeks before his body was found, if ever.
    That was another effect of the ring on people. It persuaded them to suspend their normal critical faculties, to believe the unbelievable. Pétur smiled. The irony that the pastor had fallen for the same ruse that had done for Gaukur a thousand years before pleased him.
    Pétur stood, staring at the waterfall, and thought of his father. This place really did remind him of that sunny period before things had gone so wrong. Perhaps what he had said to Inga was true. Perhaps their father really was present.
    Pétur shuddered. He hoped not. He wouldn’t want his father to witness what might happen to Inga if she didn’t promise to keep quiet.
    Pétur wondered what the police would think when they found the pastor’s body, or more likely his car. An accident? Suicide perhaps?
    That was an idea. If the worst came to the worst, and Inga ended up in the waterfall, Pétur could claim she had killed herself. He had received a call from her. She was distraught, upset by feelings of betrayal at trying to sell Gaukur’s Saga . She told him that she was going to Gullfoss. He feared suicide, and drove up to try to stop her. But he was just too late. He saw her jump.
    That would explain his own presence at the waterfall. It would be close enough to the truth that he could carry it off.
    He fiddled with the ring on his finger. They would almost certainly arrest him, and it would be hard to describe how he came to have the ring in his possession. Much better to hide it somewhere before he raised the alarm.
    But he was getting ahead of himself. As long as he managed to explain things properly to Inga, she would understand him, she would realize he had had no other choice.
    Wouldn’t she?
    Magnus and Steve Jubb sped through Flúdir and into the farm-land beyond, dotted with domed greenhouses and emitting spirals of volcanic steam. The road soon ran alongside the Hvítá, in full spate.
    ‘I’ve been a daft bugger,’ Jubb said. ‘Somehow I thought that Agnar croaking had nothing to do with me. I knew I was innocent but I hoped I could keep