I drove on and, at Krysuvik, I turned inland, past the distant vapour-covered slopes where super-heated steam boils from the guts of the earth. Not far short of the lake of Kleifavatn I saw a car ahead, pulled off the road, and a man waving the universally recognized distress signal of the stranded motorist.
We were both damned fools; I because I stopped and he because he was alone. He spoke to me in bad Danish and then in good Swedish, both of which I understand. It turned out, quite naturally, that there was something wrong with his car and he couldnt get it to move.
I got out of the Cortina. Lindholm, he said in the formal Swedish manner, and stuck out his hand which I pumped up and down once in the way which protocol dictates.
Im Stewart, I said, and walked over to his Volkswagen and peered at the exposed rear engine.
I dont think he wanted to kill me at first or he would have used the gun straight away. As it was he took a swipe at me with a very professionally designed lead-loaded cosh. I think it was when he got behind me that I realized I was being a flaming idiot thats a result of being out of practice. I turned my head and saw his upraised arm and dodged sideways. If the cosh had connected with my skull it would have jarred my brains loose; instead it hit my shoulder and my whole arm went numb.
I gave him the boot in the shin, raking down from knee to ankle, and he yelped and hopped back, which gave me time to put the car between us, and groped for the sgian dubh as I went. Fortunately its a left-handed weapon which was just as well because my right arm wasnt going to be of use.
He came for me again but when he saw the knife he hesitated, his lips curling away from his teeth. He dropped the cosh and dipped his hand beneath his jacket and it was my turn to hesitate. But his cosh was too well designed; it had a leather wrist loop and the dangling weapon impeded his draw and I jumped him just as the pistol came out.
I didnt stab him. He swung around and ran straight into the blade. There was a gush of blood over my hand and he sagged against me with a ludicrous look of surprise on his face. Then he went down at my feet and the knife came free and blood pulsed from his chest into the lava dust.
So there I was on a lonely road in Southern Iceland with a newly created corpse at my feet and a bloody knife in my hand, the taste of raw bile in my throat and a frozen brain. From the time I had got out of the Cortina to the moment of death had been less than two minutes.
I dont think I consciously thought of what I did next; I think that rigorous training took over. I jumped for the Cortina and ran it forward a little so that it covered the body. Lonely though the road might be that didnt mean a car couldnt pass at any time and a body in plain sight would take a hell of a lot of explaining away.
Then I took the New York Times which, its other virtues apart, contains more newsprint than practically any other newspaper in the world, and used it to line the boot of the car. That done, I reversed again, picked up the body and dumped it into the boot and slammed the lid down quickly. Lindholm if that was his name was now out of sight if not out of mind.
He had bled like a cow in a Moslem slaughter-house and there was a great pool of blood by the side of the road. My jacket and trousers were also liberally bedaubed. I couldnt do much about my clothing right then but I covered the blood pool with handfuls of lava dust. I closed the engine compartment of the Volkswagen, got behind the wheel and switched on. Lindholm had not only been an attempted murderer he had also been a liar because the engine caught immediately. I reversed the car over the bloody bit of ground and left it there. It was too much to hope that the blood wouldnt be noticed when the car was taken away but I had to do what I could.
I got back into the Cortina after one last look at the scene of the crime and drove away, and it was then I began to think consciously. First I thought of Slade and damned his soul to hell and then I moved into more practicable channels of thought such as how to get rid of Lindholm. Youd think that in a country four-fifths the size of England with a population less than half of, say Plymouth, thered be wide open spaces with enough nooks and crannies to hide an inconvenient body. True enough, but this particular bit of Iceland the south-west was also the most heavily populated and it wasnt going to be particularly easy.
Still, I knew the country and, after a little while, I began to get ideas. I checked the petrol gauge and settled down for a long drive, hoping that the car was in good trim. To stop and be found with a blood-smeared jacket would cause the asking of pointed questions. I had another outfit in my suitcase but all at once there were too many cars about and I preferred to change discreetly.
Most of Iceland is volcanic and the south-west is particularly so with bleak vistas of lava fields, ash cones and shield volcanoes, some of them extinct, some not. In my travels I had once come across a gas vent which now seemed an ideal place for the last repose of Lindholm, and it was there I was heading.
It was a two-hour drive and, towards the end, I had to leave the road and take to the open country, bouncing across a waste of volcanic ash and scoria which did the Cortina no good. The last time I had been that way I had driven my Land-Rover which is made for that sort of country.
The place was exactly as I remembered it. There was an extinct crater with a riven side so that one could drive right into the caldera and in the middle was a rocky pustule with a hole in it through which the hot volcanic gases had driven in some long-gone eruption. The only sign that any other human being had been there since the creation of the world was the mark of tyre tracks driving up towards the lip of the crater. The Icelanders have their own peculiar form of motor sport; they drive into a crater and try to get out the hard way. Ive never known anyone break his neck at this hazardous game but its not for want of trying.
I drove the car as near to the gas vent as I could and then went forward on foot until I could look into the impenetrable darkness of the hole. I dropped a stone into it and there was a receding clatter which went on for a long time. Vernes hero who went to the centre of the earth might have had an easier time if he had picked this hole instead of Snaefellsjökull.
Before I popped Lindholm into his final resting-place I searched him. It was a messy business because the blood was still sticky and it was lucky I had not yet changed my suit. He had a Swedish passport made out in the name of Axel Lindholm, but that didnt mean a thing passports are easy to come by. There were a few more bits and pieces but nothing of importance, and all I retained were the cosh and the pistol, a Smith & Wesson .38.
Then I carried him up to the vent and dropped him into it. There were a few soggy thumps and then silence a silence I hoped would be eternal. I went back to the car and changed into a clean suit and pulled the stained clothing inside out so that the blood would not touch the inside of my suitcase. The cosh, the pistol and Slades damned package I also tossed into the suitcase before I closed it, and then I set off on the wearisome way to Reykjavik.
I was very tired.
II
It was late evening when I pulled up in front of the Hotel Saga, although it was still light with the brightness of the northern summer. My eyes were sore because I had been driving right into the western sun and I stayed in the car for a moment to rest them. If I had stayed in the car two minutes more the next fateful thing would not have happened, but I didnt; I got out and was just extracting the suitcase when a tall man came out of the hotel, paused, and hailed me. Alan Stewart!
I was very tired.
II
It was late evening when I pulled up in front of the Hotel Saga, although it was still light with the brightness of the northern summer. My eyes were sore because I had been driving right into the western sun and I stayed in the car for a moment to rest them. If I had stayed in the car two minutes more the next fateful thing would not have happened, but I didnt; I got out and was just extracting the suitcase when a tall man came out of the hotel, paused, and hailed me. Alan Stewart!
I looked up and cursed under my breath because the man in the uniform of an Icelandair pilot was the last man I wanted to see Bjarni Ragnarsson. Hello, Bjarni, I said.
We shook hands. Elin didnt tell me you were coming.
She didnt know, I said. It was a last-minute decision; I didnt even have time to telephone.
He looked at my suitcase resting on the pavement. Youre not staying at the Saga! he said in surprise.
It was a snap judgment and I had to make it fast. No, I said. Ill be going to the apartment. I didnt want to bring Elin into this but now her brother knew I was in Reykjavik he would be sure to tell her and I didnt want her to be hurt in that way. Elin was very special.
I saw Bjarni looking at the car. Ill leave it here, I said lightly. Its just a delivery job for a friend. Ill take a taxi to the apartment.
He accepted that, and said, Staying long?
For the rest of the summer, as usual, I said easily.
We must go fishing, he said.
I agreed. Have you become a father yet?
Another month, he said glumly. Im dreading it.
I laughed. I should think thats Kristins worry; you arent even in the country half the time. No nappy-changing for you.
We spent another few minutes in the usual idle-small-talk of old friends just met and then he glanced at his watch. I have a flight to Greenland, he said. I must go. Ill ring you in a couple of days.
Do that. I watched him go and then captured a taxi which had just dropped a fare at the hotel and told the driver where to go. Outside the building I paid him off and then stood uncertainly on the pavement wondering whether I was doing the right thing.
Elin Ragnarsdottir was someone very special.
She was a schoolteacher but, like many other Icelanders of her type, she held down two jobs. There are certain factors about Iceland the smallness of population, the size of the country and its situation in high northern latitudes which result in a social system which outsiders are apt to find weird. But since the system is designed to suit Icelanders they dont give a damn what outsiders think, which is just as it should be.
One result of this social system is that all the schools close down for four months in the summer and a lot of them are used as hotels. The teachers thus have a lot of spare time and many of them have quite a different summer occupation. When I first met her three years earlier, Elin had been a courier for Ferdaskrifstofaa Nordri, a travel agency in Reykjavik, and had shown visitors around the country.
A couple of seasons before, I had persuaded her to become my personal courier on a full-time summer basis. I had been afraid that her brother, Bjarni, might have thought that a touch irregular and put in an objection, but he didnt presumably he thought his sister to be grown-up enough to handle her own affairs. She was an undemanding person and it was an easy relationship, but obviously it couldnt go on like that for ever and I intended to do something about it, but I doubted if this was the appropriate time it takes someone with a stronger stomach than mine to propose marriage on the same day one has dropped a body down a hole.
I went up to the apartment and, although I had a key, I didnt use it; instead I knocked on the door. Elin opened it and looked at me with an expression of surprise changing to delight, and something in me jumped at the sight of her trim figure and corn-coloured hair. Alan! she said. Why didnt you tell me you were coming?
A quick decision, I said, and held up the cased fishing-rod. Ive got a new one.
Her lips curved down in mock glumness. That makes six, she said severely, and held the door wide. Oh, come in, darling!
I went in, dropped the suitcase and the rod, and took her in my arms. She held me closely and said, with her head against my chest, You didnt write, and I thought
You thought I wasnt coming. The reason I hadnt written was because of something Slade had said, but I couldnt tell her that. I said, Ive been very busy, Elin.
She drew back her head and looked at me intently. Yes, your face is drawn; you look tired.
I smiled. But I feel hungry.
She kissed me. Ill prepare something. She broke away. Dont worry about unpacking your bag; Ill do it after supper.
I thought of the bloody suit. Not to worry, I said. I can do it. I picked up the suitcase and the rod and took them into my room. I call it my room because it was the place where my gear was stored. Actually, the whole apartment was mine because, although it was in Elins name, I paid the rent. Spending one-third of every year in Iceland, it was convenient to have a pied-à-terre.
I put the rod with the others and laid down the suitcase, wondering what to do with the suit. Until that moment I had never had any secrets I wanted to keep from Elin with the one important exception and there wasnt a lockable cupboard or drawer in the place. I opened the wardrobe and surveyed the line of suits and jackets, each on its hanger and neatly encased in its zippered plastic bag. It would be very risky to let the suit take its place in that line; Elin was meticulous in the care of my clothes and would be certain to find it.
In the end I emptied the suitcase of everything but the suit and the weapons, locked it, and heaved it on top of the wardrobe where it usually lived when not in use. It was unlikely that Elin would pull it down and even then it was locked, although that was not usual.
I took off my shirt and examined it closely and discovered a spot of blood on the front so I took it into the bathroom and cleaned it under the cold tap. Then I scrubbed my face in cold water and felt better for it. By the time Elin called that supper was ready I was cleaned up and already in the living-room looking through the window.
I was about to turn away when my attention was caught by a flicker of movement. On the other side of the street there was an alley between two buildings and it had seemed that someone had moved quickly out of sight when I twitched the curtains. I stared across the street but saw nothing more, but when Elin called again I was thoughtful as I turned to her.
Over supper I said, Hows the Land-Rover?
I didnt know when you were coming but I had a complete overhaul done last week. Its ready for anything.
Icelandic roads being what they are, Land-Rovers are as thick as fleas on a dog. The Icelanders prefer the short wheelbase Land-Rover, but ours was the long wheelbase job, fitted out as a camping van. When we travelled we were self-contained and could, and did, spend many weeks away from civilization, only being driven into a town by running out of food. There were worse ways of spending a summer than to be alone for weeks on end with Elin Ragnarsdottir.