Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

round the list of entries from Agnar’s appointments diary. Dates, times, and the names of people he had met, mostly fellow academics or students. He had been away on a two-day seminar at the University of Uppsala in Sweden three weeks before. And one afternoon the previous week was blocked out with the word ‘Hruni’.
    ‘Hruni is near Flúdir, isn’t it?’ Baldur said.
    ‘Just a couple of kilometres away,’ Rannveig, the assistant prosecutor, said. ‘I’ve been there. There’s nothing but the church and a farm.’
    ‘Perhaps the entry refers to the dance rather than the place,’ Baldur said. ‘Something collapsing that afternoon? A disaster?’
    Magnus had heard of Hruni. Back in the seventeenth century the pastor of Hruni was notorious for the wild parties he held in his church at Christmas. One Christmas Eve the devil was seen hanging around outside, and the following morning the whole church and its congregation had been swallowed up by the earth. Since then the phrase ‘Hruni dance’ had slipped into the language to mean something that was falling apart.
    ‘The little boy who died young came from Flúdir,’ said Vigdís. ‘Ísildur Ásgrímsson. And here’s his sister.’ She pointed to a name on the list of appointments. ‘Ingileif Ásgrímsdóttir, sixth of April, two-thirty. At least, I’m pretty sure that she was the boy’s sister. I can check.’
    ‘Do that,’ said Baldur. ‘And if you are right, track her down and interview her. We’re assuming that Isildur is a foreigner but we need to keep an open mind.’
    He picked up a sheet of paper on the conference table in front of him. ‘We have searched Steve Jubb’s hotel room and the forensics people are examining his clothes. We found a couple of interesting text messages that had been sent on his mobile phone. Or we think they might be interesting, we just don’t know. Take a look at the transcriptions.’
    He passed around the sheet, on which two short sentences had been typed. They were in a language that Magnus didn’t recognize, didn’t even begin to recognize. ‘Does anyone know what this is?’ Baldur asked.
    There were frowns and slowly shaking heads around the table. Someone tentatively suggested Finnish, someone else was sure it wasn’t. But Magnus noticed that Árni was shifting uncomfortably again.
    ‘Árni?’ Magnus said.
    Árni glared at Magnus, and then swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘Elvish,’ he said, very quietly.
    ‘What?’ Baldur demanded. ‘Speak up!’
    ‘They might be in Elvish. I think Tolkien created some Elvish languages. This might be one of them.’
    Baldur put his head in his hands and then glared at his subordinate. ‘You’re not going to tell me the huldufólk did this, are you now Árni?’
    Árni shrank. The huldufólk , or hidden people, were elf-like creatures who were supposed to live all over Iceland in rocks and stones. In everyday conversation Icelanders were proud of their belief in these beings, and, famously, highways had been diverted to avoid removing rocks in which they were known to live. Baldur did not want his murder investigation to be derailed by the most troublesome of all Iceland’s many superstitions.
    ‘Árni could be right,’ said Magnus. ‘We know Steve Jubb and Isildur, whoever he is, were doing a deal with Agnar. If they needed to communicate with each other about it they could have used a code. They are both Lord of the Rings fans: what better than Elvish?’
    Baldur pursed his lips. ‘All right, Árni. See if you can find someone in Iceland who speaks Elvish, and ask them if they recognize what this says. And then get them to translate it.’
    Baldur glanced around the table. ‘If Steve Jubb won’t tell us, we need to find out who this Isildur is ourselves. We need to get in touch with the British police in Yorkshire to see if they can help us with Jubb’s friends. And we need to check all the bars and restaurants in Reykjavík to find out if Jubb met anyone else apart from Agnar. Perhaps Isildur is here in town; we won’t know until we ask around. And I am going to interview Agnar’s wife.’ He doled out specific tasks for everyone around the table, except Magnus, and the meeting was over.
    Magnus followed the inspector into the corridor. ‘Do you mind if I join Vigdís to interview the sister of the kid who died?’
    ‘No, go ahead,’ said Baldur.
    ‘What do you think so far?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘What do you mean, what do I