66° North Read Online Free PDF

been murdered in a small town just outside Boston when Magnus was twenty and a student at college. The local police had got nowhere in solving the crime, and neither had Magnus, despite spending the best part of a year trying. In fact, he was still trying; he had never given up. That was why Magnus had joined the Boston Police Department. That was why he always had the energy for another dead body.
    And now here he was, in Iceland. On his arrival in the spring he had been thrown into a case, a very interesting case, but since then there had been nothing but teaching and studying. The orange Penal Code lay on his desk by the window. He knew probably three-quarters of it by now.
    It wasn’t as if the boys in the Violent Crimes Unit downtown had had much to do. In June a man had been found stabbed to death in the street at four on a Sunday morning. The first cops to the scene had solved the crime, figuring that the eighteen-year-old kid out of his skull on speed, waving a knife soaked in blood around his head and shouting how he would kill anyone else who came near him was a likely suspect.
    Magnus had given his word to Snorri Gudmundsson, the National Police Commissioner, that he would stay for two years. He owed it to him for providing him with refuge when the Dominican gang from back home were after him, and to Árni for taking a bullet when the hit man they sent to Reykjavík had caught up with him.
    Of course the Dominicans knew where he was now. Their boss might be in Cedar Junction jail back in Massachusetts, put there with the help of Magnus’s testimony, but there were plenty of gang members still at large. Magnus hoped that now that he had done his stint as a witness he was no longer a target, but he couldn’t be sure. He could never be sure.
    But it was going to be hard to stick it out in Reykjavík. Four months and he was already climbing the walls.
    Árni was right though. He should make a call. Try to get assigned on to this Óskar Gunnarsson case. You never knew, there might be something in it. It would make a change. And it might be interesting to deal with the British police.
    But who to call? Baldur would just say no, that was for sure. Magnus knew the Commissioner would take his call, but he wanted to save that access for when he really needed it. Thorkell Holm, head of CID, was his best bet. It would piss Baldur off, but that was just tough.
    He took out his phone, called the police switchboard and asked to be put through.
    Then he heard a giggle.
    He looked up.
    There was a naked woman lying on his bed.
    ‘Ingileif! What the hell are you doing here?’
    She threw off the covers and bounded over to him in the chair. ‘You didn’t see me, did you? What kind of cop are you when you can’t even spot a woman lying under your bed covers, desperate for sex?’
    ‘You were hiding!’ Magnus protested.
    ‘Pathetic.’
    She straddled him. Her familiar, delightful breasts shook inches away from his face as she laughed, her blonde hair falling loose over her face.
    ‘How did you get a key?’
    ‘Oh, do be quiet, Magnús. I’ve been waiting here half an hour for you. And you have far too many clothes on.’
    ‘But—’
    She kissed him. Deeply. He raised his hands to her bare hips. He didn’t care how she had got in. He wanted her. Now.
    A muffled crackling came from his phone, which had dropped to the floor. Ingileif broke away and picked it up.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Give it to me!’ Magnus cried, reaching for the phone.
    Ingileif turned away. ‘I am sorry, Sergeant Magnús is busy right now. He’ll be with you as soon as he has finished. He probably won’t be more than a couple of minutes. Doesn’t usually take him longer than that.’
    ‘Ingileif!’ Magnus pushed her off his lap and on to the floor. Ingileif triumphantly hit the red disconnect button just before Magnus could grab the phone.
    ‘That was a Chief Superintendent someone or other,’ Ingileif said. ‘Don’t worry, he said he quite