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to Iceland after my father died.’
    ‘When was that?’
    ‘Ninety-six. When I was twenty.’
    ‘And have you seen him since?’
    ‘Just six months ago. When I was working that case up here. Rúnar will remember that. I stopped in, just for five minutes. We had words.’
    ‘Harsh words?’
    Magnus nodded slowly. ‘There weren’t many of them, but they weren’t exactly kind.’
    Emil stared at Magnus in silence. Then he hauled himself to his feet. ‘Will you excuse me for a moment? I need to make a phone call.’
    He left Magnus in the study and went outside into the yard. He pulled out his phone.
    Rúnar followed him. ‘You don’t think Magnús has anything to do with this, do you? He’s one of our top detectives in Reykjavík.’
    Emil took a deep breath. ‘I need to call the Police Commissioner.’

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
    J ÓHANNES DROVE ALONG the south shore of the Snaefells Peninsula in sunshine, with the volcano rising majestically behind them. Then he turned north, up into the mountains that ran along the peninsula, and into thick cloud.
    He and Ollie spent half an hour or so discussing what they would say, then lapsed into silence. As they crossed the pass, a cloak of dread enveloped Ollie. It wasn’t just the forthcoming interview with the police. He was worried about that – the story they had concocted had some holes in it. That fear was a rational one. But there was a deeper, stronger terror that gripped him.
    Bjarnarhöfn and the bleak landscape around it scared the hell out of him. It always had, and it always would.
    A new road led up over the pass. But Ollie remembered the old mountain pass just to the east, presided over by a pinnacle of lava in the shape of an old woman with a sack of babies over her shoulder. The Kerlingin troll. The local legend was that if the children of Stykkishólmur were bad, then the troll would creep down to the town at night and steal them away. According to Afi, Ollie was always bad. And he had lived in constant fear of the troll.
    Ollie couldn’t see her through the cloud, but he knew she was there still, ready to pounce.
    There was another ghost up in the hills that his grandfather had told him about: Thórólfur Lame Foot, a saga chieftain from the area who had been killed by one of his rivals and had never rested quietly since.
    Eventually they descended and emerged from the cloud right by the Berserkjahraun, the berserkers’ lava field. It had started to rain. The congealed lava twisted in a frozen tumult down to Breidafjördur, at a point between Bjarnarhöfn and the neighbouring farm of Hraun. Fantastic shapes writhed in the mist, nibbled at by moss.
    ‘You know my father and your grandfather used to play here?’ Jóhannes said. ‘I’m sure you know the story of the Swedish berserkers who cut a path across the lava between our two farms and were killed by the farmer at Hraun?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Ollie in little more than a croak. The story had thrilled Afi, and Magnus for that matter, but it was just another thing that scared the shit out of Ollie. The Swedish warriors had been buried in a cairn in the middle of the lava field. You could still see it a thousand years later. And as a child, especially on foggy days, Ollie couldn’t help seeing them flitting between the lava pinnacles.
    He felt a sudden yearning for the lush green of the Boston suburbs, his home. And a strong desire to see a tree. Just one fucking tree.
    And there was the farm, coming ever closer through the rain.
    Bjarnarhöfn.
    The scene of the four most dreadful years of Ollie’s life. It wasn’t really the beating that stuck with him. It was the terror. The dark cold cellar half full of rotting potatoes. The fell looming above and lava field surrounding them. The wet pyjamas. The fear that his grandfather had drilled into him as a six-year-old, and which had grown deep inside him to eat up his soul. Hallgrímur’s rage primed to ignite at any moment. The