Whale Fjord: A Magnus Iceland Mystery Book 7 by Michael Ridpath

Author:Michael Ridpath [Ridpath, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yarmer Head
Published: 2024-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

The radiocarbon-dating report from the Anthropology Department of the University of Iceland was waiting for Magnus when he logged on to his computer in the morning.

The results were frustrating. You needed soft tissue to date time of death, but in this case that had long decayed. Teeth could be very roughly dated to the time they were formed. The age of a skeleton at death was important as was how and in what type of ground it had been buried.

Variables piled upon variables. The only thing the report could state for sure was that the victims had been buried before the 1950s when the prevalence of carbon-14 in the world’s atmosphere had risen dramatically following a spate of nuclear bomb tests.

So 1940 was possible as a date of death. And, more importantly, these were not recent murders.

But they still needed the DNA analysis for a definite ID.

Vigdís arrived, looking worn out.

Was it Erla? Audur? Magnus didn’t know, and, given their conversation about Vigdís’s mother the previous day, he decided not to ask.

He briefed her on the radiocarbon report and his discussion with Louisa Sugarman the previous afternoon.

‘Can we get the British police file on Pybus-Smith’s murder?’ Vigdís asked.

‘I doubt it,’ said Magnus. ‘An investigation in the 1980s? Not just that, but one that was questioned in the press? The investigating officers will have long retired, and if they haven’t, they certainly won’t want to talk to us about it. Europol will take forever and then the Brits will probably just say no.’

There was an international mechanism for sharing such information through Europol and Interpol, but it was cumbersome. Magnus often had better luck using informal channels with a direct phone call to the police officer involved in an investigation overseas, but that wouldn’t work in this case.

‘So, what about these two Scandinavian men? Were they real?’

‘Could be,’ said Magnus. ‘It’s an odd thing to make up. But it’s not clear to me whether they were seen before or after Pybus-Smith was murdered. They could just have been visiting someone else in the building.’

‘Is it worth seeing Gudni again? See if he knows anything?’

Magnus’s phone rang.

Assault outside a house in Kópavogur. A sixteen-year-old boy had been beaten up by intruders leaving his parents’ house on his way to school. He was now in hospital.

Magnus had a sinking feeling about this one as he set off, taking Vigdís with him.

The case was as Magnus feared. The kid had been attacked by a large guy who had knocked him about and trodden on his phone. Not stolen it. Destroyed it.

The boy, who was conscious in hospital with a broken collarbone, swore blind that he had no idea why he had been attacked, that it must have been a mugging. His description of the thug was vague in the extreme: ‘big’ was the only adjective he was confident of.

The boy’s mother, who was with him, was distraught.

Magnus and Vigdís both knew what had happened. The kid owed money for drugs and hadn’t paid. The mother probably didn’t even know that her son took drugs.

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