Where the Shadows Lie Read Online Free PDF

morning.’
    ‘The house with the Range Rover out front?’ asked Magnus.
    Baldur nodded. ‘They fetched their father and he dialled 112.’
    ‘When was he last seen alive?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘Yesterday was a holiday – the first day of summer.’
    ‘It’s Iceland’s little joke,’ said the Commissioner. ‘The real summer is a few months off yet, but we need anything we can get to cheer ourselves up after the long winter.’
    Baldur ignored the interruption. ‘The neighbours saw Agnar arrive at about eleven o’clock in the morning. They saw him parkhis car outside his house and go in. They waved to him, he waved back, but they didn’t speak. He did receive a visitor, or visitors, that evening.’
    ‘Description?’
    ‘None. They just saw the car, small, bright blue, something like a Toyota Yaris, although they are not precisely sure. The car arrived about seven-thirty, eight o’clock. Left at nine-thirty. They didn’t see it, but the woman remembered what she was watching on TV when she heard it drive past.’
    ‘Any other visitors?’
    ‘None that the neighbours know of. But they were out all afternoon at Thingvellir, so there could have been.’
    Baldur answered Magnus’s questions simply and directly, his long face giving an air of serious intensity to his responses. The Commissioner was listening closely, but let Magnus do the talking.
    ‘Have you found the murder weapon?’
    ‘Not yet. We’ll have to wait for a post-mortem. The pathologist might give us some clues.’
    ‘Can I see the body?’
    Baldur nodded and led Magnus and the Commissioner past the side of the house down a narrow earth pathway to a blue tent, erected on the edge of the lake, about ten metres from the house. Baldur called for overalls, boots and gloves. Magnus and the Commissioner put them on, signed a log held by the policeman guarding the scene and ducked into the tent.
    Inside, a body was stretched out on the boggy grass. Two men in forensic overalls were preparing to lift it into a body bag. When they saw who had joined them they stopped what they were doing and squeezed out of the tent to give their senior officers room to examine the corpse.
    ‘The paramedics from Selfoss who responded to the call dragged him out of the lake when they found him,’ Baldur said. ‘They thought he had drowned, but the doctor who examined the body was suspicious.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘There was a blow on the back of his head. There are some rocks on the bottom of the lake and there was a chance that he might have struck one of them if he had fallen in, but the doctor thought the blow was too hard.’
    ‘Can I take a look?’
    Agnar was, or had been, a man of about forty, longish dark hair with flecks of grey at the temples, sharp features, stubble of the designer variety. Under the bristle, his face was pale and taut, his lips thin and a bluish-grey colour. The body was cold, which was no surprise after spending the night in the lake. It was also still stiff, suggesting he had been dead more than eight and less than twenty-four hours, which meant between four o’clock the previous afternoon and eight o’clock that morning. That was no help. Magnus doubted whether the pathologist would be able to come up with anything very precise about time of death. It was often difficult to be certain of a drowning, whether the victim had died before or after immersion in water. Sand or weed in the lungs was a clue, but that would have to wait for the autopsy.
    Gently Magnus parted the professor’s hair and examined the wound at the back of his skull.
    He turned to Baldur. ‘I think I know where your murder weapon is.’
    ‘Where?’ Baldur asked.
    Magnus pointed out to the deep grey waters of the lake. Somewhere out there the rift between the continental plates at Thingvellir continued downwards to a depth of several hundred feet.
    Baldur sighed. ‘We need divers.’
    ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said Magnus. ‘You’ll never find it.’
    Baldur