Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

think?’ Baldur said, stopping.
    ‘Oh, come on. You have to have a hunch.’
    ‘I keep an open mind. I gather evidence until it points to one conclusion. Isn’t that what you do in America?’
    ‘Right,’ Magnus said.
    ‘Now, if you want to help, find me Isildur.’

CHAPTER SEVEN
    I NGILEIF ÁSGRÍMSDÓTTIR OWNED an art gallery on Skólavördustígur, which was a bit of a mouthful, even for an Icelander. New York had Fifth Avenue, London had Bond Street and Reykjavík had Skólavördustígur. The street led up from Laugavegur, the busiest shopping street in town, to the Hallgrímskirkja at the top of a hill. Small stores lined the road, part concrete, part brightly painted corrugated metal, selling art supplies, jewellery, designer clothes and fancy foods. But the credit crunch had made its mark: some premises were discreetly empty, displaying small signs showing the words Til Leigu , meaning For Rent .
    Vigdís parked her car a few metres below the gallery. Above her and Magnus the massive concrete spire of the church thrust upwards. Designed in the nineteen thirties, it was supported by two great wings that swept up from the ground; it looked like Iceland’s very own intercontinental ballistic missile, or possibly a moon rocket.
    As Magnus climbed out of the car, he was almost knocked over by a blonde girl of about twenty dressed in a lime green sweater with a short leopard-skin skirt and a two foot tail hurtling down the hill on a bicycle. Where were the traffic cops when you needed them?
    Vigdís pushed open the door to the gallery and Magnus followed her in. A woman, presumably Ingileif Ásgrímsdóttir, was speaking to a tourist couple in English. Vigdís was about to interrupt them, when Magnus touched her arm. ‘Let’s wait until she’s finished.’
    So Magnus and Vigdís examined the objects on sale in the gallery, as well as Ingileif herself. She was slim with blonde hair that came down in a fringe over her eyes and was tied back in a ponytail. A quick broad smile beneath high cheekbones, a smile which she was using to maximum effect on her customers. An English couple, they had begun by picking up a small candle holder made of rough red lava, but had ended up buying a large glass vase and an abstract painting that hinted of Reykjavík, Mount Esja and horizontal layers of pale grey cloud. They spent tens of thousands of krónur.
    After they had left the store, the owner turned to Magnus and Vigdís. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ she said in English. ‘Can I help you?’
    Her Icelandic accent was delicious, as was her smile. Magnus hadn’t appreciated that he looked so obviously American; then he realized it was Vigdís who had prompted the choice of language. In Reykjavík, black meant foreigner.
    Vigdís herself was all business. ‘Are you Ingileif Ásgrímsdóttir?’ she asked in Icelandic.
    The woman nodded.
    Vigdís pulled out her badge. ‘My name is Detective Vigdís Audarsdóttir of the Metropolitan Police, and this is my colleague, Magnús Ragnarsson. We have some questions for you relating to the murder of Agnar Haraldsson.’
    The smile disappeared. ‘You’d better sit down.’ The woman led them to a cramped desk at the back of the gallery and they sat on two small chairs. ‘I saw something about Agnar on the news. He taught me Icelandic literature when I was at the university.’
    ‘You saw him recently,’ Vigdís said, checking her notebook. ‘On the sixth of April, at two-thirty?’
    ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Ingileif, her voice suddenly hoarse. She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, I bumped into him in the street, and he asked me to drop in on him some time at the university. So I did.’
    ‘What did you discuss?’
    ‘Oh, nothing, really. My design career, mostly. This gallery. He was very attentive, very charming.’
    ‘Did he say anything about himself?’
    ‘Not much had changed really. He had married again. He said he had two children.’ She smiled briefly. ‘Difficult to imagine Agnar with kids, but there you are.’
    ‘You come from Flúdir, don’t you?’
    ‘That’s right,’ said Ingileif. ‘I was born and brought up there. Best farmland in the country, biggest courgettes, reddest tomatoes. Can’t think why I ever left.’
    ‘Sounds like quite a place. It’s near Hruni, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes. Hruni is the parish church. It’s three kilometres away.’
    ‘Did you meet Agnar at Hruni on the afternoon of the twentieth of April?’
    Ingileif