Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

surprised, but eventually Pétur relented as long as it could be sold privately, with a secrecy clause. I think he might have his own money problems. Everyone does these days.’
    ‘What does he do?’
    ‘He owns bars and clubs. Do you know Neon?’
    Magnus shook his head. Ingileif frowned at his ignorance. ‘It’s one of the most famous clubs in Reykjavík,’ she said.
    ‘I’m sure it is. I haven’t been here very long,’ said Magnus.
    ‘I know it,’ Árni chipped in.
    ‘I could see you were a party animal,’ Ingileif said.
    Now it was Árni’s turn to blush.
    ‘So, once you had decided to sell it, why did you approach Agnar?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘He taught me at university,’ Ingileif said. ‘And, as I told you, I knew him quite well. He was sleazy enough to agree to sell the saga on the quiet away from the Icelandic government, but he liked me well enough not to rip me off totally. And it turned out he knew just the right buyer. A wealthy American Lord of the Rings fan, who was willing to keep the purchase private.’
    ‘Lawrence Feldman? Steve Jubb?’
    ‘I didn’t know his name. You mentioned the name Steve Jubb before, didn’t you? But you said he was English.’
    ‘That’s why you said you had never heard of him?’
    ‘I hadn’t heard the name before. But I admit I wasn’t very helpful. I was desperately trying to keep the saga secret. As soon as I had told Agnar about it, I had second thoughts. I even told him that I wanted to take it off the market and keep it in the family.’ She pursed her lips. ‘He told me that it was too late. He knew all about it, and unless I went through with the sale, he would tell.’
    ‘He blackmailed you?’ Magnus said.
    ‘I suppose you could call it that. I deserved it. And it worked. I thought it would be better all round to sell the saga secretly and split the proceeds between Pétur, Birna and myself, than allow Agnar to broadcast its existence to the whole world.’
    ‘How much did he say it would bring?’
    ‘He was in the process of negotiating the price. He said it would be millions. Of dollars.’
    Magnus took a deep breath. ‘And where is this saga now?’
    ‘In the gallery safe.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you want to see it?’
    Magnus and Árni followed her through to a store cupboard at the back of the shop. On the floor was a combination safe. Ingileif twiddled the knobs. She pulled out a leather-bound volume, and placed it on the desk.
    ‘This is the seventeenth-century copy, the earliest complete copy.’ She opened up the book at a random page. The pages were paper, covered in a neat black handwriting, clear and easy to read. ‘You know when you asked me whether the saga had been kept a secret, I said there was one lapse?’
    Magnus nodded.
    ‘Well, this was copied from an earlier version that was bought from one of my ancestors by Árni Magnússon, the great saga collector. The rest of the family was furious that he had sold it. Árni Magnússon took it with all the others to Copenhagen, and it was one of those that was destroyed in the terrible fire of 1728, before it was catalogued. There is only one mention of Gaukur’s Saga in existence today, to our knowledge, with no details as to what it contains. The majority of the collection went up in smoke, especially the paper copies. Within the family, we believe there was a reason the fire started.’
    ‘Arson? Someone wanted to destroy it?’
    Ingileif shook her head. ‘That’s not what they meant, although knowing how obsessive my family were, I wouldn’t have been surprised. No it was more bad luck, fate, call it what you will.’
    ‘The power of the ring,’ said Árni.
    ‘Now you are beginning to sound like my father,’ said Ingileif. ‘But when Agnar was murdered, I couldn’t help seeing the parallels.’ She turned back to the safe. ‘And then there is this. The original, or what’s left of it.’
    She carefully extracted a large old envelope, lay it on the desk, and slipped out two layers of stiff card, between which, separated by tissue paper, were perhaps half a dozen sheets of brown vellum. She pulled back the tissue so that they could see one of the sheets closely.
    It was faded, torn at the edges, and covered in black writing. This was surprisingly clear: the initial letters of chapters were decorated in fading blues and reds. Magnus could make out the word ‘Ísildur’.
    ‘Amazing,’ Magnus said. And indeed it was. Any doubts he had had about the