Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

splashing about a bit. Then one of them got tired and fell asleep.’
    ‘Were they both splashing?’
    ‘Hm,’ said the little girl, thinking hard. ‘No they weren’t. One of them was splashing and the other one was all floppy.’
    ‘And did the man fall asleep in the water, or on the lake shore?’
    ‘In the water.’
    ‘I see. What did the other man do?’
    ‘He got out of the lake and then he got in his car and he drove away.’
    ‘Did you see what the man looked like?’
    ‘Of course not, silly. It was dark! But I think he had his clothes on, not a swimming costume.’
    ‘What about the car? Did you see the colour of the car?’
    The girl giggled. ‘I said it was dark. It was night time. You can’t see colours in the dark.’
    ‘Are you sure about this?’
    ‘Yes, I am quite sure. And I know it’s true because I saw the man asleep in the lake the next day when Jón and me went down there to play. Except then he was dead.’ The little girl went quiet.
    ‘Did you tell anyone about this?’ Vigdís asked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because nobody asked me.’ She looked straight at Vigdís with her bright blue eyes. ‘Well, I told you my story. Do you believe me?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Vigdís. ‘Yes, I do.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    M AGNUS TOOK A last look around Room 208, trying to place himself in the shoes of Steve Jubb. Where would he hide something as small as a ring?
    He couldn’t think of anywhere. He had been over every inch of the room, and he was leaving quite a mess. He didn’t care. Relations between the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police and the management of the Hótel Borg had taken a bit of a dive over the last couple of hours. The management had been upset at Magnus’s insistence that the current occupant of the room, a German businessman, should be turfed out an hour before he was ready to check out. So had the businessman.
    The cleaner, a young Polish woman, was more helpful. She was quite certain that she hadn’t seen a ring, or anything that might contain a ring, as she had told the police a few days before. Unfortunately for Magnus, she seemed a reliable, observant girl.
    The ring definitely wasn’t there. Árni’s interpretation of Jubb’s text message to Isildur was probably right – Jubb hadn’t taken it, but Jubb thought Agnar had it.
    Next stop, the summer house on Lake Thingvellir. Again.
    Magnus took the stairs down to the lobby. His thoughts drifted back to Colby. Was he serious about flying back to Boston?
    At least he would be doing something. But finding Pedro Soto would be difficult. Killing him even more difficult. Magnus would be much more likely to give Soto the opportunity to finish him off. That would solve Soto’s problems, take the pressure off the Lenahan trial, keep his narcotics import and distribution businesses going.
    What about finding Colby and protecting her? That, too, might be difficult. Colby had sounded determined to disappear. She was a capable woman: when she was determined to do something she usually did it. She would be hard for Magnus to find. And for the Dominicans. But if Magnus charged around looking for her, he ran the risk of leading the Dominicans right to her.
    Like it or not, Magnus’s best shot at hurting Soto and protecting Colby was to lie low, stay in Iceland, and testify at Lenahan’s trial.
    He handed the key card to the receptionist. As he was leaving the hotel, he passed a small man with a scruffy beard coming in, wheeling a suitcase behind him. The man was wearing a green baseball cap proclaiming ‘Frodo Lives’.
    Magnus held the door open.
    ‘Oh, er, thank you very much, sir,’ the man said, nervously. The language was English, the accent American.
    ‘No problem,’ said Magnus.
    The Hótel Borg shared a square with the Parliament building, the site of the weekly Saturday afternoon demonstrations over the winter. As Magnus walked across it towards the police-department silver Skoda that he had signed out that morning, he wondered about the cap. Strange, he had never thought about Lord of the Rings memorabilia before. Was he going to be stopped short by every Gollum or Gandalf T-shirt he came across? Were there really that many of them?
    No. There weren’t.
    He turned on his heel and returned to the lobby in time to see the elevator door closing behind the wheeled suitcase.
    ‘What was the name of the guest who just checked in?’ he asked the receptionist.
    ‘Mr Feldman,’ she said. Then, glancing at