Free Meltwater (Fire and Ice) by Michael Ridpath Page B

was completely different, he became an American through and through and was happy to do that, but I felt I was different from the other kids, and I liked
that.’
    ‘So what was the problem?’
    ‘When I came back I felt like a foreigner here as well. I spoke Icelandic with a bit of an American accent when I arrived – I don’t know if you can still tell?’
    ‘Barely.’
    ‘Good. But it was more than that. Everyone here knows each other. They have family, friends from school and university. People are friendly enough, but it’s impossible not to feel
like an outsider. So I don’t know who the hell I am. And, yes, sometimes that bugs me.’
    ‘But don’t you have family here?’
    ‘Not on my father’s side – he was an only child. There are loads on my mother’s side, but they don’t seem to like me very much. It’s a family feud in the best
saga tradition.’
    ‘Oh.’
    Magnus laughed. ‘How come you can get me to tell you everything when I can’t get you to tell me anything? We should give you a job in the police department.’
    ‘I think I’ll stick to the Church, thank you,’ said Ásta.
    ‘The side of the angels?’
    ‘Sometimes I wonder,’ she muttered so quietly that Magnus barely heard.
    Half an hour later, Magnus pulled up outside the address at Thórsgata. The lights were off and the curtains drawn.
    ‘Looks like they are asleep,’ he said.
    Ásta thanked him for the lift and got out of his car. Magnus left her dithering whether to ring the bell or not, and drove back to the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police Headquarters on
Hverfisgata. He summoned Árni and Vigdís into the conference room, and gave the assistant prosecutor, Rannveig, a quick call to join them.
    ‘So what was the volcano like?’ asked Vigdís.
    ‘Haven’t you seen it yet?’ asked Árni. ‘I went up there just after it erupted. It’s pretty cool.’
    ‘It had gone quiet this morning,’ said Magnus.
    ‘Really?’ said Árni. ‘That’s a bad sign. It means Katla is about to blow.’
    Magnus paused a moment. He had heard of Katla and the mayhem it had caused when it last erupted in 1918. In fact he had noticed the posters all over the Hvolsvöllur police station detailing
evacuation plans should the volcano erupt again and a jökulhlaup flood the local area. ‘Are you sure about that, Árni?’
    ‘He’s guessing,’ said Vigdís.
    ‘I saw this guy on TV—’ began Árni.
    Magnus held up his hand. ‘The main point is that the overnight snow did a pretty good job of obliterating any signs of what happened last night. Certainly no tyre tracks. If anything was
dropped, we can’t see it.’
    ‘Hey, was Edda leading the forensics team?’ asked Árni. ‘I heard she’s back from Quantico.’
    ‘Er, yes,’ said Magnus. Quantico was the FBI’s academy in Virginia; presumably Edda had just returned from a course there.
    ‘Impressive, eh? She’d keep you warm in a blizzard up a mountain.’
    ‘Oh, please, Árni,’ said Vigdís, rolling her eyes. Whatever those eye muscles were called, Magnus thought, Vigdís got to exercise them a lot working with
Árni.
    ‘I think she has a pretty cold day ahead of her. OK, Vigdís, what did you find out about Freeflow?’
    ‘They have been very active in the last three years. They started in 2007 publishing leaked United Nations documents which suggested that the United States, Britain and France were holding
back from taking action in Darfur because of fears of getting involved in another war. That was followed up with about twenty or so other leaks, some of them big news, some of them less
so.’
    ‘Wait a minute. Was all this information in Icelandic?’ Magnus asked. He was sceptical about Vigdís’s professed lack of English.
    ‘I’ve got a dictionary,’ said Vigdís. ‘And Darfur is the same word in either language.’
    ‘OK, OK,’ said Magnus. For Vigdís, life was a battle to prove that she could be black and an Icelander. Not speaking English was