Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

corresponded on and off for as long as Tolkien was alive. My grandfather even arranged for one of his nieces to work for Tolkien in Oxford as a nanny.’
    ‘It would have been a good thing all around if you had shown me this the last time I was here,’ Magnus said.
    ‘Yes, I know,’ said Ingileif. ‘And I’m sorry.’
    ‘Sorry isn’t really good enough.’ Magnus looked straight at her. ‘Do you have any idea why Agnar was killed?’
    This time she held his gaze. ‘No. I told myself that all this was irrelevant to his death, which is why I had no need to tell you about it, and I know of no connection.’ She sighed. ‘It’s not my job to guess, but doesn’t it seem likely that these people you were talking about thought that they could get hold of the saga without paying Agnar?’
    ‘Unless you killed him,’ Magnus said.
    ‘And why would I do that?’ She returned his gaze defiantly.
    ‘To shut him up. You told me yourself that you wanted to withdraw the sale of the saga and he threatened to tell the world about it.’
    ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t kill him for that reason. I wouldn’t kill anyone for any reason,’ Ingileif said.
    Magnus stared hard. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    M AGNUS LET THE hundred and twenty pages of Gaukur’s Saga fall on to Baldur’s desk with a thump.
    ‘What’s this?’ Baldur asked, glaring at Magnus.
    ‘The reason Steve Jubb killed Agnar.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Magnus reported what he and Árni had found at the summer house and his subsequent interview with Ingileif. Baldur listened closely, his long face drawn, lips pursed.
    ‘Did you get this woman Ingileif ’s prints?’ Baldur asked.
    ‘No,’ said Magnus.
    ‘Well, bring her in and take them. We need to see if those are the missing set at the scene. And we should get this authenticated.’ He tapped the typescript in front of him.
    He raised his fingers into a steeple and touched his chin. ‘So, this must be the deal they were discussing. But that still doesn’t explain why Agnar was killed. We know that Steve Jubb didn’t get a copy of the saga. We didn’t find it in his hotel room.’
    ‘He could have hidden it,’ Magnus said. ‘Or mailed it the next morning. To Lawrence Feldman.’
    ‘Possibly. The Central Post Office is just around the corner from the hotel. We can check if anyone remembers him. And if he sent it registered mail, there will be a record of it, as well as the address it was sent to.’
    ‘Or perhaps the deal went bad? They had a fight about the price.’
    ‘Until they had the original saga in their possession, Feldman and Jubb would want Agnar alive.’ Baldur sighed. ‘But we are getting somewhere. I’ll have another go with Steve Jubb. We’ll get him back from Litla Hraun tomorrow morning.’
    ‘May I join you?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘No,’ said Baldur, simply.
    ‘What about Lawrence Feldman in California?’ Magnus said. ‘It’s even more important to speak to him now.’ Magnus could feel Árni stiffening in anticipation behind him.
    ‘I said, I would think about it, and I will think about it,’ said Baldur.
    ‘Right,’ said Magnus, and he made for the door of Baldur’s office.
    ‘And Magnus,’ Baldur said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You should have reported this before you saw Ingileif. I’m in charge of the investigation here.’
    Magnus bristled, but he knew that Baldur was right. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
    Árni went to fetch Ingileif and bring her in to the station to be fingerprinted. Magnus called Nathan Moritz, a colleague of Agnar’s at the university who had been interviewed earlier by the police. Moritz was at home, and Magnus asked him to come into the station to look at something. The professor sounded doubtful at first, but when Magnus mentioned it was an English translation of a lost saga about Gaukur and his brother Ísildur, Moritz said he would be right over.
    Moritz was an American, a small man of about sixty with a neat pointed beard and messy grey hair. He spoke perfect Icelandic, which wasn’t surprising for a lecturer on the subject, and explained that he was on a two-year secondment to the University of Iceland from the University of Michigan. They slipped into English, when Magnus admitted that he was operating under a similar arrangement.
    Magnus fetched him a coffee and they sat down in an interview room, the typescript from the summer house in front of Magnus. Moritz had brought his own