Free Edge of Nowhere by Michael Ridpath Page B

blocked in winter by avalanches and rockslides, which is why they built the tunnel.’
    ‘When will the tunnel be finished?’
    ‘It is finished. But the landslide blocked the road on the other side. It would only take half an hour to clear it, but Tómas insists it’s a crime scene and won’t allow them to touch it.’
    ‘Good for Tómas. I bet that doesn’t make him popular.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. There’s quite a few people in town who think the road should stay blocked.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Magnus.
    ‘The hidden people.’
    Magnus checked to see whether Eyrún was joking, but she wasn’t. Baldur excepted, many Icelanders, if not most, took the hidden people seriously.
    Traditionally, Icelanders believed that their country was populated by a parallel society of human-like beings known as huldufólk , or hidden people. They generally kept themselves to themselves, but occasionally interfered in the lives of their more visible cousins. Every farm and village in the country had its tales of hidden people seducing young men or women, punishing wayward farmers, or providing helpful advice. The hidden people lived in rocks, the locations of which were passed down to their human neighbours through the generations. It was common for a hidden person to appear in the dream of the mother or grandmother to suggest a name for a new born child.
    Hidden people were important people. Even well educated and sophisticated Icelanders like Eyrún wouldn’t deny their existence, although they usually wouldn’t characterise themselves as whole-hearted believers either.
    Eyrún saw the way that Magnus was looking at her. ‘I tell you, up here in Bolungarvík it’s much easier to believe in the hidden people than it is in Reykjavík. The town is so isolated, the mountains are so big. It’s dark. There are storms, avalanches, strange things happen.’
    ‘Like road workers being buried under rockslides?’
    ‘That’s what people in Bolungarvík are saying.’
    ‘So the hidden people killed Ágúst?’
    ‘Gústi everyone called him. And I guess that’s something for you to find out.’

 
    2
     
    ‘There it is,’ said Eyrún. ‘Bolungarvík.’
    They had skirted a headland and in front of them, across a bay in the fjord, crouched the village. It was wedged on to the western edge of a small, flat plain, surrounded on three sides by steep mountains, and on the fourth by the sea. A cluster of white buildings clung tightly to the foot of the tallest mountain, a great block of snow-covered rock at the mouth of the fjord, towering above the town. A harbour wall stretched out into the sea, and beyond it, and beyond the great mountain, lay the Atlantic Ocean, swelling with power and danger.
    The wind was blowing the clouds away behind them to the east, leaving dark blue sky tinged with pink. The sun was lurking somewhere behind the mountains to the south-west. At this time of year, dawn and dusk crowded out the daytime.
    ‘It’s a beautiful spot,’ said Magnus.
    ‘It’s beautiful from a distance,’ said Eyrún. ‘Up close it’s a different matter. The town’s architecture isn’t going to win any awards.’
    They passed a squat orange lighthouse and then came to the junction with the road from the tunnel. Eyrún drove past the ‘Road Closed’ sign and pulled up next to a police car with its lights flashing, parked in front of a scattering of loose rocks not far from where the tunnel emerged out of the hill.
    A tall figure dressed in the practical black uniform of an Icelandic policeman approached them.
    Magnus and Eyrún got out. The cold wind slapped Magnus’s face and he zipped up his coat.
    ‘This is Tómas, Bolungarvík’s constable,’ Eyrún said.
    Tómas was the same height as Magnus, about six-foot-four, with fair hair peeking out underneath his black cap, and bright blue eyes. For someone so large he had surprisingly delicate features. He held out his hand and greeted Magnus with a grin.
    ‘I’ll leave you