Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

right. I’ll check.’ It took Johnny less than a minute to confirm that the domain was indeed in Iceland. The Icelandic police to be precise.
    ‘Now, Iceland ain’t in Sweden, is it?’
    ‘No,’ said Johnny.’
    ‘Is it near Sweden?’
    ‘Not really,’ said Johnny. ‘I mean it’s in Scandinavia but it’s right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A thousand miles away. Two thousand.’
    ‘All right, all right.’ The man with the gun grabbed the scrap of paper and backed off towards the door. ‘You know, you ain’t no fun, man.’
    Then the gunman did something very strange. He looked Johnny Yeoh right in the eye. Put the revolver to his own temple. Smiled.
    And pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
    T HE PASTOR CARRIED the newspaper he had just bought from the shop down in Flúdir into his study. There was a short article on page five about the investigation into Agnar’s murder. It sounded as if little real progress had been made since the initial arrest of the Englishman. The pastor smiled as he remembered how he had so disconcerted the black policewoman. But he shouldn’t be complacent. The police were making a plea for any witnesses who had seen anyone at all driving down to that part of the shore of Lake Thingvellir on the First Day of Summer to come forward.
    That worried him.
    He thought about making a phone call, but he knew the best thing to do was to stay calm, and stay quiet. There was no reason why the police should pay him another visit, but he would be wise to be prepared nonetheless.
    He glanced at the pile of books on his desk, and the exercise book open at the page he had left off working the night before. He should get back to the life of Saemundur. But he couldn’t dispel the anxiety the article in the newspaper had awakened. He needed some comfort.
    He put down the paper and examined his small CD collection on the bottom shelf of a long bookshelf, and selected one. Led Zeppelin IV . He slipped it into his CD player and turned up the volume.
    He smiled when he remembered the time fifteen years before when he had shouted at his son for listening to devil worship, and then how he had surreptitiously listened to the music himself when his son was away at school. He liked it; it was somehow apt. He stood for a moment, closed his eyes and let the music wash over him.
    After a couple of minutes he left the house and crossed the fifty yards over to the church, nestled beneath the rocky crag. Heavy, insistent chords rang out of the parsonage behind him, echoing off the rocks behind, swirling around the valley.
    The church was bright and airy inside. The sunlight streamed in through the clear glass windows. The ceiling was painted light blue and decorated with gold stars, the walls were cream wooden planks and the pews were painted pink. The pulpit and the small electric organ were made of blond pine. He walked towards the altar, draped with red velvet. Behind it was a painting of the Last Supper.
    On mornings like this, some of his congregation claimed that they could feel God in the church. But only the pastor knew what was really hidden in there.
    Beneath its finery, the altar was actually a tatty old pine cupboard, inside which were piles of old copies of the Lögbirtingablad , official notices going back several decades. The pastor reached under the pile to the right of the cupboard. His fingers felt for the familiar round shape.
    The ring.
    He drew it out and pulled it on to the fourth finger of his right hand, where it fitted snugly. The pastor had big hands, he had been a good handball player in his youth, yet the ring was not too tight. It had been made for the fingers of warriors.
    And now it belonged to the pastor of Hruni.
    Baldur ignored Magnus in the morning meeting.
    He was amassing a case against Tómas Hákonarson. No one had seen Tómas come home that evening, either when he said he did at around five or six o’clock, or much later. There was little obvious sign of mud on the trainers Tómas said he had worn that night, but then they had been soaked the previous Saturday when he had walked through puddles wearing them. The lab was working on a more thorough examination, and attempts to match the fibres on his socks with three still-unexplained fibres from the summer house.
    Tómas himself had asked for a lawyer and was sticking to his story, refusing to admit how unconvincing it sounded.
    During the whole meeting, Baldur never directed a single comment to Magnus, nor