Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

hair, which the police had been unable to identify, despite DNA testing.
    It was only the following year, when Magnus devoted his summer vacation from college to making his own inquiries, that he discovered that his stepmother had had a cast-iron alibi: she was in bed with an air-conditioning engineer in town at the time of the killing. A fact that stepmother and policemen had conspired to keep from Magnus and his brother.
    The bar was filling up with a younger crowd, overwhelming some of the earlier drinkers who staggered out into the dusk. A band set up, and within a few minutes began to play. The music was too loud for a contemplative beer, so Magnus left.
    Outside, the streets, so quiet earlier, were full, teeming with the young and not-so-young dolled up for a night on the town.
    Time for bed, Magnus thought. As he opened the door of his new lodgings, he passed Katrín on her way out, dressed in black gothic finery, her face powdered white and improbably studded with metal.
    ‘Hi,’ she said with half a smile.
    ‘Have a good evening,’ said Magnus in English. Somehow that seemed the correct language in which to speak to Katrín.
    She paused. ‘You’re some kind of cop, aren’t you?’
    Magnus nodded. ‘Kind of.’
    ‘Árni’s such an arsehole,’ Katrín muttered, and disappeared into the semi-darkness.
    Diego took his time breaking into the ground-floor apartment in Medford. The apartment was the bottom half of a small clapboard house in a quiet road, and the good news was that the yard was obscured by trees. No one would see him, so he could focus on not making a noise.
    He climbed through the kitchen window and padded into the living room. The bedroom door was open and he could hear gentle snoring. He sniffed. Marijuana. He smiled. That should slow his target down nicely.
    He slid into the bedroom. Noted the lump on the bed, and the bedside light. He drew his gun, a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver. Then he switched on the light, pulled back the covers and cocked his weapon. ‘Sit up, Ollie,’ he barked.
    The man sat bolt upright, his eyes blinking, his mouth open in surprise. He matched the photograph Diego had studied earlier: about thirty years old, skinny, light brown curly hair, blue eyes that were now puffy and bloodshot.
    ‘Yell, and I blow your head off! You got me?’
    The man swallowed and nodded.
    ‘All right. Now, I got one simple question for you. Where’s your brother?’
    Ollie tried to speak. Nothing came out. He swallowed and tried again. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘I know he stayed with you here last week. Where did he say he was going to when he took off?’
    Ollie took a deep breath. ‘I have no idea. He was here one day and gone the next. Just grabbed his stuff and left without saying goodbye. Typical of my brother. Hey, man,’ Ollie seemed to be waking up, ‘can we come to some arrangement here? Like, I give you some money and you leave me alone?’
    Diego grabbed Ollie’s head by his hair with his left hand and shoved the revolver into his mouth with his right. ‘The only arrangement we come to is you tell me where he is. You don’t know where he is that’s tough for you ’cause you die.’
    ‘Hey, man, I don’t know where he is, I swear!’ Ollie’s words were muffled as he tried to speak with metal in his mouth.
    ‘You ever played Russian roulette?’ said Diego.
    Ollie shook his head and swallowed.
    ‘It’s real easy. There are six chambers in this revolver. One of them holds a bullet. You and I don’t know which one. So when I pull the trigger, we don’t know whether you gonna die. But you let me pull the trigger six times, you dead for sure. Get it?’
    Ollie swallowed and nodded. He got it.
    Diego let go of Ollie’s hair, he didn’t want to shoot his own hand, after all, and then he pulled the trigger.
    A click. The chamber rotated.
    ‘Oh, God,’ said Ollie.
    ‘You might think it’s just you that’s taking the risk,’ went on Diego. ‘But in point of fact it’s me too. ’Cause if I blow your head off and you ain’t told me what I wanna know, then I lose, see? Makes the game kinda fun for the both of us.’ He smiled at Ollie. ‘So, once more, where’s your brother at?’
    ‘I don’t know, man, I swear I don’t know!’ Ollie shouted.
    ‘Hey, quiet!’ Diego narrowed his eyes. ‘You know, I still don’t believe you.’ He pulled the trigger again.
    Click.
    Ollie cracked. ‘Oh God, don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me! I’d tell