Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

its damage.’
    Vigdís parked her car on one of the small streets leading down towards the bay from Hverfisgata, and she and Baldur jumped out. The renewed questioning at the university had turned up something. A uniformed officer had interviewed one of Agnar’s students, a dopey twenty-year-old, who had remembered someone asking around at the university for Agnar on the day he had died. The student had mentioned to the man that Agnar had a summer house by Lake Thingvellir and that he sometimes spent time there. Why the student hadn’t reported this before wasn’t clear, to the student or to the police, although he didn’t have a good explanation as to what he was doing on the university campus on a public holiday. The police let that drop.
    No, the man hadn’t given his name. But the student recognized him. From TV.
    Tómas Hákonarson.
    He lived on the eighth floor of one of the new blocks of luxury apartments that had sprouted up in the Skuggahverfi, or Shadow District, along the shore of the bay. He answered the door, bleary eyed, as if he had just been woken up.
    Baldur introduced himself and Vigdís, and barged in.
    ‘What’s this about?’ asked Tómas, blinking.
    ‘The murder of Agnar Haraldsson.’
    ‘Ah. You’d better take a seat then.’
    The furniture was expensive cream leather. The view of the bay was spectacular, although at that precise moment a dark cloud was pressing down on the darker sea. Only the lowest hundred feet or so of Mount Esja was visible, and there was no chance of seeing Snaefellsnes glacier in the gloom. To the left, tall cranes dithered above the unfinished national concert hall, one of the casualties of the kreppa.
    ‘What do you know?’ Tómas asked.
    ‘I’d rather ask you what you know,’ Baldur said. ‘Starting with your movements on Thursday the twenty-third. Last Thursday.’
    Tómas gathered his thoughts. ‘I got up late. Went out for a sand-wich for lunch and a cup of coffee. Then I drove over to the university.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘I was looking for Agnar Haraldsson. I asked a student who said that he might be at his summer house by Lake Thingvellir. So I drove up there.’
    ‘At what time was this?’ Vigdís asked, her notebook out, pen poised.
    ‘I got there about four o’clock, I think. I don’t know. I can’t remember precisely. Can’t have been much before three-thirty. Might have been a bit after four.’
    ‘And was Agnar there?’
    ‘Yes, he was. I had a cup of coffee. We chatted a bit. And then I left.’
    ‘I see. And what time did you leave?’
    ‘I don’t know. Once again, I didn’t look at my watch. I was there about three-quarters of an hour.’
    ‘So that would make it four forty-five?’
    ‘Or thereabouts.’
    Baldur was silent. Tómas held his silence too. Vigdís knew the game: she was motionless, pen poised. But Tómas wasn’t saying any more.
    ‘What did you chat about?’ Baldur asked, eventually.
    ‘I wanted to discuss a possible television project on the sagas.’
    ‘What kind of project?’
    ‘Well, that was the trouble. I didn’t have a specific idea. I was kind of hoping that Agnar would provide that. But he didn’t.’
    ‘So you left?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘And then what did you do?’
    ‘I came back home. Watched a movie, a DVD. Had a drink. Well, I had several drinks actually.’
    ‘Alone?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Tómas.
    ‘Do you often drink alone?’
    Tómas took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said again.
    Vigdís looked around the flat. Sure enough there was an empty whisky bottle in the bin. Dewar’s.
    ‘And was this the first time you had met Agnar?’ Baldur asked.
    ‘No,’ said Tómas. ‘I had bumped into him once or twice in the past. I suppose he was my saga contact.’
    Baldur’s long face was impassive, but Vigdís could feel the excitement in him. Tómas was talking nonsense, and Baldur knew it.
    ‘And why didn’t you come forward before?’ Baldur asked, gently.
    ‘Um. Well, you see, I didn’t see anything about the murder in the papers.’
    ‘Oh, don’t give me that, Tómas! Your job is to keep up with the news. The papers have been full of it.’
    ‘And … I didn’t want to get involved. I couldn’t see that it was important.’
    At this Baldur couldn’t maintain his composure. He laughed. ‘Right, Tómas. You are coming with us to the station, where you had better think up a better story than that bullshit. I would suggest the truth; that usually works. But first I want