Edge of Nowhere Read Free

very good question.’
    ‘Anything else that made you suspicious?’
    ‘Well …’ The constable hesitated.
    ‘Show me where the hidden people live,’ said Magnus.
    Tómas smiled sheepishly. ‘They are all over the place. One of their dwellings is said to be there, right where Gústi was going to plant the netting.’ He pointed to a smooth rock that jutted out from the hillside.
    ‘Didn’t like to be messed with, huh?’ Magnus said.
    ‘Neither did Arnór,’ said Tómas. ‘And he’ll be a whole lot easier to interview.’
    Magnus grinned. ‘Good point. I know you searched the area thoroughly, but I think I’ll take another look.’ 
    Magnus spent twenty minutes poking about the scene with Tómas as the light drained off the mountainside. They saw nothing suspicious, but Tómas’s question bothered him. Why had Gústi climbed up to that spot? Magnus stood next to the generator, where Gústi must have been working and stared at the place where he had been crushed.
    ‘Come on,’ he said to Tómas.
    He took Tómas’s powerful flashlight and led him up to the slide. He scrabbled across the rocks, sending several stones crashing down to the road below.
    ‘Careful!’ said Tómas.
    ‘Help me,’ said Magnus as he began to push boulders away a few metres beyond where Gústi’s body had lain. ‘He must have seen something and been climbing up towards it. If he did, that something is under these stones.’
    It took them half an hour to find the thing, or rather things. There was a small hurricane lamp, its glass smashed. A stuffed bear, a polar bear to be precise, with a red ribbon tied around its neck. And a fold of several thousand kronur in notes.
    ‘Bait,’ said Magnus. ‘We’ve found the bait.’
    They photographed and bagged the bear, the lamp and the banknotes. Tómas called Gústi’s boss to tell him to clear the road, but they left the tape around the immediate crime scene. Magnus climbed into Tómas’s police Jeep, and the constable drove them back to the village.
    ‘You were right to be suspicious,’ Magnus said.
    ‘Do you really think the bear was bait?’
    ‘Could well be,’ said Magnus. ‘Gústi arrives at the site, sees a light and a teddy bear, goes a bit closer, sees the banknotes, goes to pick them up and he’s just where the murderer wanted him. If it was bait, it worked.’
    ‘Could it be anything else?’
    ‘Possibly.’ Some elf-related weirdness, Magnus thought but didn’t say. The less said about elves in this investigation, the better. ‘Tell me about Gústi. And this guy Arnór.’
    ‘Gústi worked for the local construction company, Bolungarvíkur Engineering. They do road maintenance, minor building works, they build the odd house. Knock things down. It’s not high tech, but the quality of their work is pretty good. He’s lived here all his life. Used to be married, but it ended in disaster about ten years ago. Two kids that Gústi sees as little of as he can. No one much likes him, or trusts him. In a community this size it’s bad not to be trusted. He works hard, so they tolerate him, but that’s about it.’
    ‘I’m impressed with your knowledge.’
    ‘I know people in the town,’ said Tómas. ‘It’s unavoidable.’
    It was not yet completely dark and they were getting closer to Bolungarvík. On their left Magnus spotted a sign for a golf course, although all he could see was a flattish area of snow. As they drew nearer, the mass of the mountain reared up above the tiny village, wrinkles of grey rock peeking out beneath the snow. It looked as if it might crush the human habitation at any moment. And given what Magnus had heard about landslides, that possibility didn’t seem too far fetched.
    They passed a white church with a small red steeple standing alone on a knoll and crossed the bridge over a river into town.
    Eyrún was right, Bolungarvík would not win any architectural prizes. Square blocks of white concrete, much of it peeled away by the