Where the Shadows Lie (Fire and Ice)

in Chicago a couple of years after we left college. We were very different people by then. She was still gorgeous, though.’
    ‘I think I’d agree with you,’ Ingileif said, turning towards him. ‘About the bad guys.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘You sound surprised?’
    ‘I guess I am.’ Erin certainly hadn’t agreed with him. Neither had Colby for that matter. Policemen always felt lonely on that point, as if they were doing the jobs no one else wanted to do, or even wanted to admit needed doing.
    ‘Sure. You’ve read your sagas. We Icelandic women are constantly nagging our menfolk to get out of bed and go and avenge their family honour before lunch time.’
    ‘That’s true,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve always loved that in a woman, especially on a Sunday morning.’
    They drove on in silence. Over the cantilevered bridge at the River Ölfusá and through the town of Selfoss.
    ‘How long are you staying in Iceland?’ Ingileif asked.
    ‘I thought it was going to be several months. But now it looks like I will have to go back to the States next week to testify at a trial.’
    ‘Are you coming back afterwards?’
    ‘Not if I can help it,’ said Magnus.
    ‘Oh. Don’t you like Iceland?’ Ingileif sounded offended. Which was hardly surprising; there is no easier way to offend an Icelander than to disparage their country.
    ‘I do like it. It just brings back difficult memories. And my job at the Reykjavík CID isn’t working out that well. I don’t really get along with the boss.’
    ‘Is there a girlfriend back in Boston?’ Ingileif asked.
    ‘No,’ said Magnus, thinking of Colby. She was an ex -girlfriend if ever there was one. He wanted to ask Ingileif why she had asked him that, but that would sound crass. Perhaps she was just curious. Icelanders asked direct questions when they wanted to know answers.
    ‘Look, there’s Hekla!’
    Ingileif pointed ahead towards the broad white muscular ridge that was Iceland’s most famous volcano. It didn’t have the cone shape of the classic volcano, but it was much more violent than the prettier Mount Fuji, for example. Hekla had erupted four times in the previous forty years, through a fissure that ran horizontally along the ridge. And then, every couple of centuries or so, it would come up with a big one. Like the eruption of 1104 that had smothered Gaukur’s farm at Stöng.
    ‘Do you know that around Boston they sell Hekla cinnamon rolls?’ Magnus said. ‘They’re big upside-down rolls covered in sugar. Look just like the mountain.’
    ‘But do they blow up in your face at random intervals?’
    ‘Not that I’m aware of.’
    ‘Then they’re not real Hekla rolls. They need a bit more violence in them.’ Ingileif smiled. ‘I remember watching Hekla erupt in 1991. I was ten or eleven, I suppose. You can’t quite see it from Flúdir, but I had a friend who lived on a farm a few kilometres to the south and you got a great view of it from there.
    ‘It was extraordinary. It was January and it was night time. The volcano was glowing angry red and orange and at the same time you could see a green streak of the aurora hovering above it. I’ll never forget it.’
    She swallowed. ‘It was the year before Dad died.’
    ‘When life was normal?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘That’s right,’ said Ingileif. ‘When life was normal.’
    The volcano loomed bigger as they drove towards it, and then they turned to the north and lost it behind the foothills that edged the valley. With two kilometres to Flúdir, they came to a turn-off to Hruni to the right. Magnus took it, and the road wound through the hills for a couple of kilometres, before breaking out into a valley. The small white church of Hruni was visible beneath a rocky crag, surrounded by a house and some farm buildings.
    They pulled up in the empty gravel car park in front of the church. Magnus climbed out of the car. There was a spectacular view to the north, of glaciers many miles away. Plovers dived and swirled over the fields, calling as they did so. Otherwise there was silence. And peace.
    They approached the rectory, a large house by Icelandic standards, white with a red roof, and rang the doorbell. No answer. But there was a red Suzuki in the garage.
    ‘Let’s check inside the church,’ suggested Ingileif. ‘He is a pastor after all.’
    As they walked through the ancient graveyard, Ingileif nodded towards a line of newer stones. ‘That’s where my mother is.’
    ‘Do you want to look?’ said