Edge of Nowhere Read Online Free PDF Page B

matter if he explicitly asked for it.
    ‘Thank you for a lovely dinner, Eyrún,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll be going now.’
    ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Eyrún.
    ‘Sure. Go right ahead,’ said Davíd.
    ‘Just to the door,’ said Eyrún.
    ‘Are you going to be OK?’ asked Magnus as she gave him his coat in the hallway.
    ‘Oh, he won’t touch me,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry about that. I should never have asked you. Davíd has been particularly bad these last couple of days.’
    ‘Is he sick?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘I think so,’ said Eyrún. ‘And I’m glad you realise it. He would never have done that a year ago. Even six months ago. I hoped leaving Reykjavík would help him. He used to work in a bank, but then he had a breakdown during the kreppa . He said he wanted to go somewhere quiet and this seemed the perfect place. And it was until a couple of months ago. Jealousy is his most recent thing, he doesn’t seem to be able to get it out of his mind. Which is absurd in a place like this.’
    ‘Can you take him to see someone?’
    ‘Out here? You must be kidding. But it’s a good idea; I’m beginning to think we should return to Reykjavík, but I’d feel really bad abandoning this job. And of course, it’s terrible for the children.’ She touched his sleeve. ‘Thanks for being so understanding. I shouldn’t have exposed you to all this. Look, I’m sorry I can’t give you a lift to the guesthouse, but I’d better stay here.’
    ‘I understand. And thanks for dinner.’
    ‘Not at all. I enjoyed it,’ she said. She smiled. ‘It was nice to talk to someone.’
    The cold air bit into Magnus’s cheeks as he stepped out into the street. Bolungarvík at nine o’clock in the evening was dead. The wind had diminished to a stiff breeze, but not before it had ripped away the clouds overhead, revealing a clear night sky splattered with a million stars.
    Magnus decided to walk through the town rather than go straight to his guesthouse. Icicles dangled from the corrugated eaves of the houses. He headed for the church on a low hill just on the edge of the village, threading his way through the soft pools of yellow thrown down by the street lights on to the snow. A traffic light blinked green, yellow and red, unnoticed by any passing car.
    He felt sorry for Eyrún. No doubt a year or two ago she and her husband had appeared the perfect couple living the Icelandic dream: two high-paying jobs, lots of stylish stuff in a stylish house in Reykjavík, two beautiful kids. And now they were trapped in their own private hell. He could imagine how moving out of the fast city had seemed like a good idea, but it had clearly been a mistake.
    Had it been a similar mistake for him to move to Iceland? He had enjoyed being a homicide detective in Boston. Over there, there were real murders, and they came thick and fast. And Magnus had relished clearing them up. He was good at it too. He smiled as he imagined what his old boss at the Homicide Unit, Deputy Superintendent Williams, would have thought of him chasing elves through the darkness and the snow. They would have loved that back in Schroeder Plaza, he wouldn’t have heard the end of it.
    He still had the problem of what the hell to tell Baldur: whether to declare this a full murder investigation. He really didn’t want to get that call wrong. If he summoned reinforcements from Ísafjördur and Reykjavík and Gústi’s death turned out to be no more than an accident, he would look a total idiot. In an absurd way, the talk of elves and hidden people had raised the stakes. The bear and the lamp were suspicious, but he wasn’t convinced of Arnór as a suspect. He would sleep on it, ask some more questions and decide the following morning.
    He crossed the bridge over the river and climbed up to the church. Below him the buildings of Bolungarvík huddled tightly together for warmth and security. Above the village towered the massive snow-covered rock of the mountain,