This was going to be the most important day of his life. He knew it. He could feel it. This would be the day when he left his mark on the world.

Constable Halld�r�s fingers tightened on the wheel of his police 4x4 as it hurtled through the fog towards the farm by the river where the polar bear had been sighted. The professional hunters in their souped-up Super Jeep were at least ten kilometres away. He would get there first. He would have only a few minutes to make the shot.

The polar bear had been spotted on a beach six hours before by some fishermen, who had immediately called the coastguard. Polar bears were not native to Iceland, but once every couple of years one would pop up along the northern coastline, usually having ridden sea ice that had drifted eastwards from Greenland. Often they swam the last few miles to shore. By the time they reached Iceland, they were tired and hungry. And dangerous.

The fishermen had only caught a brief glimpse because of the poor visibility. But it had been enough for Halld�r to organize a couple of parties to scout for the bear, including the two professional hunters armed with the kind of rifle that could kill a reindeer at a thousand metres. Halld�r had been following on behind when he had been alerted by the call from a young girl � a farmer�s daughter � who had said she had seen the bear. Her mother was shopping in town, and her father was out with the other scouts.

The girl was alone with her little brother on the farm, and Halld�r was closest to her. In the back of the police car was his .22 rifle. It was much too small a calibre to kill a big bear under normal circumstances. But many years before, Halld�r had read the story of some hikers in the West Fjords in the seventies who had come upon a polar bear while carrying only a .22. One of them had waited until the bear had approached really close and then shot it through the eye. That had taken real nerve. And marksmanship.

Halld�r had nerve. And he was one of the best shots in the north of Iceland. As a policeman in Reykjav�k, he had applied twice for the Viking Squad � the Icelandic SWAT team � but been turned down each time. The problem wasn�t his ability to handle firearms, but his physical fitness. And now, aged forty-nine, and after seven years driving his car around and around the small town of Raufarh�fn in north-east Iceland, his girth had grown even greater. But he still knew how to shoot. And he still had nerve.

After a lull of several years, there had been a spate of polar bear invasions from the sea. Each time the bears had been shot, and there had been an outcry from urban do-gooders, people like his daughter Gudr�n, for a national polar bear policy. Anaesthetic darts had been stockpiled, and experts flown in from Denmark. But even then, when the next polar bear had shown up, it too had had to be shot before it harmed any of the sightseers who had driven out to gawk at it. And so the new polar bear policy had been determined: shoot on sight. It was too expensive and too dangerous to do anything else.

The road sloped downward and the police car emerged from the fog into a shallow valley with a fast river tumbling down its middle. A cluster of prosperous farm buildings, with white concrete walls and red corrugated metal roofs, appeared. The farmer made a little money from sheep and quite a lot from leasing fishing rights on the river.

Halld�r scanned the fields and pasture surrounding the farm. A flock of sheep was scattering in all directions; something had spooked them. And then he saw it. A dirty white bear loping along towards the farmhouse. And in front of it, a little girl standing still, staring at it.

Jesus!

Halld�r leaned on his horn, swerved off the road and on to the grass, accelerating towards the girl. The bear stopped to look at the new arrival. The girl, too, turned towards him.

He pulled up between the girl and the bear, which was now only about a hundred metres away.

He lowered the window. �Jump in, Anna!�

The girl opened the passenger door and climbed in.

�What do you think you were doing?� Halld�r said.

�I wanted to speak to the polar bear,� she said.

�Those animals are dangerous!� Halld�r said. �He�s come a long way and he�s hungry.�

�He�s not dangerous. Egill told me about polar bears. They are friendly. They help people.�

Egill was the old man who lived in the run-down farm barely visible at the base of the cloud on the slope on the other side of the river. He was about eighty and had long ago lost his marbles.

�They are not friendly, Anna; they attack people, believe me. Now where is your brother?�

�Back in the farmhouse,� said the little girl.

�Good.� Halld�r looked at the bear, which was staring at the vehicle. �OK, sit tight, Anna.�

Slowly he climbed out of the car and went around to the back to take out his rifle. The bear watched, but the girl couldn�t see him. Once the gun was loaded, Halld�r made his way around the car, rested his elbows on the bonnet and aimed at the bear.

It was smaller than he had imagined it would be, and thinner; he could see its ribs. But it was still a magnificent animal.

It was also a hundred metres away, and had turned its rump towards Halld�r.

A .22 bullet in the arse would do nothing to a polar bear apart from make it really angry.

�You�re not going to shoot it!� shouted the girl.

�This is a dart gun,� said Halld�r. �I�m going to put it to sleep.�

�It�s not a dart gun,� the girl said. �My dad has a gun like that that he uses to shoot foxes. I�m not going to let you kill the lovely bear.�

What happened next would be etched in Halld�r�s brain for the little time that remained of his life.

The girl jumped out of the car and ran towards the bear, shouting: �Look out, polar bear!�

The bear turned and, after a second�s thought, ambled towards the girl.

Halld�r�s instinct was to run after the girl and pull her back. But if he did that, the bear would escape, run off into the mist. Sure, it would be shot eventually by one of the professional hunters. But not by him.

The girl stopped, suddenly aware that a very large animal with teeth and claws was approaching her. She was only a few metres from the police car. There was still time for her to turn and run. There was even time for Halld�r to drag her back. But she froze.

Halld�r took careful aim. The bear was coming directly towards him, its eyes two round black holes staring straight ahead.

At last the girl screamed and turned. The bear was nearly on her, only twenty metres away.

Halld�r took his time. He could make this shot ten times out of ten as long as he kept his nerve. He inhaled, then exhaled slowly and squeezed the trigger. The bear dropped to the ground as the bullet tore through its eye and into its brain.

The two young men, a German and an Icelander, breathed heavily as they climbed the hill. The sky was a pale blue, and there was no sign of the thick low cloud that had settled over the area during the previous five days.

The Icelander, a thin man with straggly long hair, wearing jeans and an �Extinction is Forever� T-shirt, paused and raised the binoculars that were hanging around his neck to scan the ponds and marshes of the Melrakkasl�tta � the �fox plain� that stretched out to the north of the town.

�Nothing,� he said.

�She must have drowned,� said the German in English. He was a few years older than the Icelander, a few years neater.

The bear that had been shot four days before was not yet fully grown, and the theory was that its mother may have landed as well. But now that the weather had cleared up and it was possible to see more than a couple of hundred metres, that seemed increasingly unlikely.

�I�m afraid you have wasted your trip, Martin,� the Icelander said, turning back up the hill.

�Yeah,� said Martin, following him. �It would have been cool to actually see a polar bear. And to stop those bastards shooting it.�

�Here it is,� said the Icelander, whose name was Alex. �The Arctic Henge.�

On the crest of the hill above them stood a half-built giant stone circle, designed in the manner of Stonehenge, with four tall stone gates at each point of the compass. The low sun painted geometric shadows down the eastern slope of the hill.

�Cool,� said Martin again. It was his favourite English word. �You say it acts like some kind of sundial?�

�Apparently.�

They walked around the site, trying to figure out what it all meant. Alex had brought with him a drawing of what the finished henge would look like. The layout was based on an ancient Icelandic poem, but he was confused about what signified what, and Martin�s questions were just confusing him more.

�Well, let�s ask that guy,� Martin said.

�What guy?�

Martin pointed to a black-clad leg sticking out from behind one of the stone pillars of a gate.

As the two men approached the gate, more of the figure came into view.

�Mein Gott!�

It was a man. He was wearing a black police uniform. He was slumped against the pillar. And where his right eye should have been was a bloody mess.

It was a long journey from Reykjav�k to Raufarh�fn and Detective Vigd�s Audard�ttir had decided to drive the whole way, taking the northern route via Akureyri and H�sav�k. She had left before breakfast and it was now mid-afternoon. Raufarh�fn was in the far north-east of the country, and the last stretch of road there hugged the north coast to a point a kilometre south of the Arctic Circle. To her left the sea was a ruffled greyish blue; to her right the land was a ruffled brownish green. Farms were few and far between. It was a fine day; the sun shone down a weak yellow on the eerie remoteness of the Melrakkasl�tta.

She couldn�t see any foxes, but the seashore and the lakes were teeming with bird life of all shapes and sizes. The area was an important hub in the transatlantic aerial migration network.

She felt alone. She felt good.

When Inspector Baldur, the head of the Violent Crimes Unit, had asked for volunteers to travel to Raufarh�fn to help out with a murder investigation, she had jumped at the chance to get out of Reykjav�k. For once she could afford to leave her alcoholic mother for a couple of weeks. Vigd�s knew she should be visiting her, but she wanted to get away from the constant reminder that she had failed in keeping her mother off the booze, and the growing realization that she would always fail: that whatever rehab programmes she went on, however much money Vigd�s spent, her mother Audur would always come back to the drink.

At least her mother was somewhere safe now. Somewhere she couldn�t get hold of a drink. Somewhere where if she hit someone, it was someone else�s problem.

Vigd�s�s mother was in prison.

She had struck one of her boyfriends too hard over the head with a candlestick during a drunken fight. The boyfriend had ended up unconscious and in hospital, and yes he did want to press charges. So Audur was spending two months in prison.

But Vigd�s wasn�t just running away from the unsolvable problem of her mother. She was also running away from her boss, Sergeant Magn�s Ragnarsson.

She turned a corner around a headland and Raufarh�fn came into sight. A classic Icelandic church with white walls and a red metal roof stood by the sheltered harbour, behind which disused fish factories and a ribbon of houses ran along the main road. Raufarh�fn had been a boom town in the 1960s when herring had been harvested from the surrounding seas, but with the disappearance of the herring the town had shrunk, leaving abandoned fish-processing plants and houses, and an oversized graveyard of white dots behind a white wooden fence on a hillside overlooking the town. The Arctic Henge guarded the town from its little citadel on another hill, oddly modern, like a screenshot from a fantasy computer game, especially when compared to the run-down twentieth-century decay of the town itself.

After the peace of the desolate drive, Vigd�s steeled herself for the hurly-burly of a murder investigation. Raufarh�fn may be a sleepy little town, but Vigd�s suspected that the murder of the local policeman had woken it up.

The police station was easy to find � a low white shed by the shore that looked more like a warehouse than a government building, with a number of police vehicles, marked and unmarked, outside it. Inside, half a dozen police officers from H�sav�k and Akureyri milled about the two desks in the cramped quarters, as did two plain-clothes officers: �lafur, the inspector who was head of CID in Akureyri, and Bj�rn, one of his young detectives. Vigd�s had worked with Bj�rn on a case in Snaefellsnes. She hadn�t been impressed � his ambition exceeded his abilities. �lafur she knew little about, having only met him a couple of times when he had visited police headquarters in Reykjav�k.

They knew Vigd�s. She was, after all, Iceland�s only black detective.

�lafur had commandeered one of the two desks, so Vigd�s took a collapsible chair opposite. The detective inspector was in his late thirties, lean, with buzz-cut black hair and small blue eyes under a frown that seemed to be permanent. Although �lafur was significantly senior to Vigd�s, Vigd�s had more experience of murder investigations as part of the Violent Crimes Unit in the Metropolitan Police. There was just more crime in Reykjav�k with its population of 180,000 people than in Akureyri, with 18,000.

�Wasted your time, Vigd�s,� �lafur said. �I called Baldur to send you back, but you were already at least halfway. Mind you, we will still need some help wrapping the case up, so you may as well stick around.�

�You�ve made an arrest?�

�Two,� said the inspector. �Alex Einarsson, twenty-two, from Gardabaer, and Martin Fiedler, twenty-five, a German citizen from a place called Siegen. They are both extreme animal-rights activists who rushed here when they heard about the polar bear getting shot.�

�Have they confessed?�

�Not yet. I�ve interviewed Alex. A nasty piece of work. He denied shooting Halld�r, but he said he was glad he had been killed. Said he deserved to die for shooting the polar bear.� �lafur�s voice was laden with contempt, a sentiment Vigd�s shared.

�Bastard.�

�lafur glanced at her and nodded grimly.

�We are waiting for an interpreter to interview the German. He doesn�t speak Icelandic, of course. She�s coming from H�sav�k, so should be here soon.� H�sav�k was about an hour and a half away.

Vigd�s nodded. The rules were that interviews with foreign nationals had to be conducted in Icelandic through official interpreters. Which was cumbersome since most police officers under the age of forty spoke fluent English, as did most foreign suspects.

Her colleagues disliked the regulation but it suited Vigd�s, whose English was poor. In fact, she refused to speak the language.

�What evidence do you have?� she asked.

�No direct evidence yet,� said the inspector. �But the forensic team have arrived from Reykjav�k and they are at the scene now. You may have seen it when you came into town � the Arctic Henge on the brow of a hill.�

�I saw it,� said Vigd�s.

�I�m sure they�ll find something.�

�If you have no evidence, why have you arrested them?� Vigd�s asked.

�Because they are the only people in town who could have shot Halld�r.�

�I don�t understand.�

�This is a very small town. Halld�r has been here for four years and he is well liked. There are a few people who thought he was a bit officious, but there was no scandal around him, no motive to kill him.�

�How can you be sure?� asked Vigd�s.

�He was shot through the eye. Four days ago, he shot a polar bear through the eye. You cannot tell me that is a coincidence. So we know the motive. And there were two foreigners who showed up in town who were very angry about the polar bear. This isn�t Reykjav�k; we don�t have a couple of hundred thousand people to choose from. It can only be them.�

Vigd�s really didn�t like the complacent Icelandic assumption that it must be the foreigners who had committed the crime, but in this case she had to admit it had some logic. They would need to find some real evidence, though, if they were going to keep the two men in custody for more than twenty-four hours.

�When the interpreter comes do you want to join me interviewing the German? Good cop, bad cop?� �lafur smiled. �I�ll be the bad cop.�

Vigd�s�s head was splitting as she listened to �lafur summarize the case to the assembled police. She had woken up still clothed, and had barely had time to grab a cup of coffee before staggering off to the police station. The morning briefing had already started by the time she got there, and they all turned as she tried to creep in at the back.

The vodka bottle was half empty on her bedside table where she had left it.

�Edda, what did you find yesterday?�

�lafur was addressing the woman in charge of the three-person forensics team that had driven over from Reykjav�k.

�Basically, nothing,� she said. �No casing � the shooter must have retrieved it. No bullet either, which means either the shooter picked that up as well or, more likely, it is still in the victim�s skull. The pathologist should be able to fish it out at the autopsy today.�

Poor Halld�r had been sent back to the morgue in Reykjav�k for examination.

�Nothing of interest at the scene?�

�No. Very difficult to make out footprints on the hard ground up there. There are four cigarette ends and two sweet wrappers, but that�s what you would expect from what�s essentially a tourist site. We�ll send the butts off for DNA analysis. There are a couple of rocks on the far side of the hill from the road � a good place for the shooter to stand. There are several different footprints around there. None of them is clear, and none of them matches either Alex or Martin�s boots. Somebody seems to have been walking a dog.�

�What about the suspects?�

�No immediately obvious signs of gunshot residue on them or their clothes. Nor blood. Once again, we�ll send the clothing back to the lab in Reykjav�k for closer analysis, but I doubt we will find anything.�

�How can you know until they have looked?�

Edda didn�t answer. Vigd�s knew that Edda and her team were both sharp-eyed and accurate and that she didn�t take well to being bossed around by investigators.

�Well, go back up there this morning and widen the search area.�

�Thanks,� said Edda. �Would never have thought of that myself.�

The remark flustered �lafur. Edda flustered men anyway, even when not in sarcastic mode. She was tall, blonde, cool and beautiful, and she treated lustful police officers with a haughty disdain. Vigd�s had tried that approach, but she couldn�t quite pull it off the way Edda could.

The inspector turned to his troops. �Anything interesting from the house-to-house? Anyone see the suspects approaching the henge?�

It turned out that there were two people on the northern edge of town who had heard what they thought was a gunshot that afternoon: one thought it was at five o�clock, another at five fifteen. That gave some indication of the time of death, and suggested, but didn�t prove, that if the two suspects had shot Halld�r, it had been an hour to an hour and a half before they claimed they had found him. Then there were some desultory reports from the policemen who had been detailed to interview the inhabitants of Raufarh�fn. Nothing interesting.

�lafur went through Alex Einarsson�s and Martin Fiedler�s statements, and detailed officers to corroborate their movements. Others were asked to search for a gun � none had been found at the farmhouse where they were staying � and to check up on every licensed firearms owner in the town to make sure that their weapons were secure and had not been taken, and to see if they had been fired two days ago.

�Anything else?�

Vigd�s spoke up. �We should also get a warrant to seize Martin Fielder�s computer.� Her voice croaked. It was the first time she had spoken since she had woken up and the hangover was flexing its muscles. She cleared her throat. �He said he was online that afternoon. We can check.� She was surprised the inspector hadn�t mentioned it.

As the group broke up, �lafur turned to Vigd�s. �Why were you late?�

�I�m sorry, I overslept,� she answered. �It was a long day yesterday.�

The inspector didn�t look impressed, which was fair enough. �I�m going to hold a press conference now, and then we�ll talk to the suspects again. Maybe a spell overnight will have focused their minds. Then I want you to take them to see the magistrate at H�sav�k to issue a warrant to hold them for another week. We�ll get the warrant to seize both their laptops then as well. The prosecutor there is a woman called Mar�a. I�ll get her to meet you beforehand so she can prepare.�

�Me?�

�Yes. Do you have a problem with that? Don�t worry, Mar�a will present the case to the magistrate.�

�But do we have enough evidence?�

�They are our only suspects.�

�I�m sorry, but in my judgement we have no evidence,� said Vigd�s.

�Are you suggesting that we release them?�

�Yes. We can take Martin Fiedler�s passport and request that he stays in town. Seize his laptop and have it analysed.�

�Inspector?� Bj�rn, the young detective, had appeared.

�What is it?� said �lafur, turning towards him.

Bj�rn was with two men. One Vigd�s didn�t recognize, but the other she knew all too well. Kristj�n Gylfason � smooth, silver-haired, and the most expensive criminal lawyer in Iceland.

�Hello, Vigd�s,� said the lawyer, smiling. �Inspector �lafur. I have been requested by the German Embassy to represent Martin Fiedler. This is Wolfgang Eichert from the embassy.�

�lafur frowned, but shook Kristj�n�s hand and that of the young German diplomat, who was wearing a suit underneath his coat.

�Can I see my client?� Kristj�n said.

�lafur glared at the two men. �Wait a moment,� he replied. �I need to talk to the press first.�

Vigd�s returned to town to find �lafur in a very bad mood. Neither Alex nor Martin Fiedler had confessed. In Martin�s case that wasn�t very surprising with his hotshot lawyer sitting next to him. The German Embassy official and the lawyer had protested vigorously, and �lafur�s telephone conversation with Mar�a, the H�sav�k prosecutor, had not gone well. She was young and inexperienced, and unwilling to stand up to Kristj�n. But �lafur had to admit that the real problem was that Vigd�s was right: they had no real evidence. That just pissed him off more.

He knew one or either or both of the tourists were guilty � there was nobody else and neither of them seemed to care about a policeman�s life as much as a polar bear�s. Inspector �lafur was determined not to let them get away with it, especially the smart-arsed German. It would just require a bit of patience. The trouble was, �lafur was not a patient man.

Alex Einarsson had driven their hire car out of town on the long journey back to Reykjav�k. He lived with his parents and assured the police that he would be contactable there. Martin Fiedler remained stranded in Raufarh�fn, and �lafur had taken custody of his passport. Detective Bj�rn had been despatched to H�sav�k to get the warrant to search the two men�s computers.

Vigd�s told �lafur what she had discovered about Halld�r�s family and the shooting of the polar bear, but �lafur didn�t listen closely. If it didn�t help him build a case against the German, it didn�t interest him.

Magnus called Vigd�s from Reykjav�k to report on his investigations of Halld�r�s son, Sveinn. As Gudr�n had intimated, he had a minor criminal record: he had been arrested for possession of cannabis twice and assault once. Magnus had gone to Sveinn�s apartment in Breidholt, where a half-stoned woman � who was probably Sveinn�s girlfriend, although she didn�t admit to it � said that Sveinn was at that moment on his way to Raufarh�fn. She also said he worked in a caf� downtown.

The caf� proprietor, a brisk woman in her thirties, told Magnus that Sveinn was in danger of losing his job because he was so unreliable. But she remembered that Sveinn was working the afternoon shift the day his father had been shot. It had been on the news the following morning, and Sveinn had called her up saying he would not be coming in for the next few days, which she had understood completely.

The owner said that although Sveinn was unreliable, he was a good guy. She clearly liked him.

Vigd�s thanked Magnus and wrote up her report. Then �lafur sent her off to a couple of farms south of town to ask about registered firearms. Both farmers showed her their rifles and said they hadn�t fired them on the day in question.

Back at the police station, �lafur dismissed everyone and went for a run.

Vigd�s returned to the hotel. It was a mellow evening, the sun shining low over the hills to the west, gilding the grassy slopes of the cliff by the harbour entrance a soft yellow. She decided to walk out there. Just as she was leaving her hotel room, she paused. She turned and grabbed the vodka bottle. She wanted peace and quiet and a view of the sea. And a drink.

Vigd�s made sure she was at �lafur�s morning meeting to discuss the case in plenty of time. He glared at her as he arrived. The meeting was inconclusive. There was no forensic evidence linking Alex or Martin to the shooting � none whatsoever. They hadn�t found a gun that the two men could conceivably have used. The autopsy on Halld�r carried out in Reykjav�k had retrieved the bullet in his skull, as Edda had guessed. It was a .22 calibre. That was good news: if they found a rifle that they suspected may have shot him, ballistics analysis should confirm it.

The forensics team had copied the hard disk from the two tourists� laptops and transmitted the downloaded information to the lab in Reykjav�k for analysis. The previous afternoon Vigd�s had told Edda to make sure the technicians checked on Martin�s online activities between three and six o�clock on the day of the murder. As always it was frustrating that she couldn�t just open up the laptop to check for herself, but it was against protocols, and unless everything was done strictly according to those protocols, any evidence they did find could be thrown out in court.

After the meeting, �lafur went outside to talk to the press. The polar bear killing made a good news story not just in Iceland but also overseas, and �lafur did not enjoy admitting that he had released the two suspects.

Once the conference was over, he grabbed Vigd�s.

�Outside. Now.�

They walked around the side of the police station to a patch of concrete overlooking the harbour at the back. No one but the seabirds could see them.

�What were you doing, Vigd�s?�

�I�m sorry, �lafur,� Vigd�s mumbled.

�How long has this been going on for? How long have you known him?�

�I met him yesterday in the police station.�

�And when did you first kiss him?�

�Just then. You saw me.�

�lafur�s anger seemed to have left him. He seemed genuinely perplexed.

�Why? Why, Vigd�s? I don�t understand. You must know that snogging suspects is not professional behaviour?�

�I know,� said Vigd�s.

Suddenly the consequence of what she had done hit her. Somehow, out in the wilderness, away from her mother and the police station and her day-to-day life, she had thought that her actions would not matter in the real world of Reykjav�k policing. But it would. She would be disciplined. She may end up back in uniform, or even losing her job entirely.

But she wouldn�t beg.

�I will have to report this,� �lafur said.

�I understand,� said Vigd�s.

�I am going to get Reykjav�k to send a replacement out for you. In the meantime, I want you to stay clear of Martin Fiedler. In fact, you are off the case. As soon as your replacement arrives, you go back to Reykjav�k.�

Vigd�s went straight to the police station and found �lafur. �What is it?� he demanded.

�I have checked the Facebook group Martin and Alex used. And I have spoken to Magn�s about Gudr�n Halld�rsd�ttir.�

�I told you that you were off the case.�

�I know. But you will want to hear what I�ve got.�

�lafur sighed. He was feeling the pressure � he needed something to break his way. He did want to know what Vigd�s had got.

�So tell me.�

Vigd�s told him and �lafur listened this time. Closely.

�I need to go talk to this girl,� �lafur said.

�Can I come?� said Vigd�s.

�lafur opened his mouth to say no, but hesitated. �All right,� he said, grabbing his coat. �But stay quiet. I�ll do the talking.�

�Hi, Vigd�s!�

Vigd�s looked up from her paperwork to see the large familiar figure of Magnus grinning at her. She grinned back.

�You made it!�

�This is not an easy place to get to. I ended up flying to Akureyri and borrowing one of their cars to drive the rest of the way.�

�At least the weather�s not too bad this time of year,� she said. �The town can be completely cut off in winter.�

Magnus scanned the tiny police station. Two uniformed policemen were also working in there. They nodded a greeting to him.

�Is �lafur here?�

�He�s gone for a run. He could be ages. That man is super fit.�

�What�s he like?� Magnus asked.

Vigd�s glanced quickly at the officers around them. �Old school.�

�Well, since he isn�t here, why don�t you tell me what�s been going on?�

�All right,� said Vigd�s. �Do you want to take a walk? See the sights of Raufarh�fn?�

�Sure, why not?� said Magnus. �I�ve been cooped up in the car for three hours.�

So they left the police station and strolled through the town towards the harbour. The wind had died down, the evening sun was on their faces, and it was almost warm. They found a wall by the harbour. In front of them a fisherman was loading a very large net on to a very small boat.

�What happened, Vigd�s?�

�I don�t know. I was just stupid.�

�But why?�

�I don�t know that either. I was free of worrying about Mum for a few days. I was lonely.� Vigd�s really didn�t want to mention the drink. She was too ashamed. �It feels like you are a long way from real life out here. I was so stupid.�

�Yeah,� said Magnus. They sat in companionable silence for a moment. �It�s the kind of stupid thing I would do.�

Vigd�s smiled. �That�s no recommendation, is it?�

�No,� said Magnus. �Definitely not.�

�My career is screwed now.�

�Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Has �lafur made an official complaint to Thorkell yet?�

�Not yet, but he will. He�s told Baldur, and Baldur will tell his cronies. I don�t think he has told any of the other police officers here.�

�That�s something,� said Magnus.

Vigd�s snorted. She would be a laughing stock back in Reykjav�k once everyone found out. �It is the kind of thing you would do, isn�t it?�

Magnus nodded. �Is he a nice guy, at least?�

�Martin? I think so. That is if he isn�t a cop killer after all.�

Magnus frowned, as if struck by a thought. �Does he speak Icelandic?�

�No,� said Vigd�s.

�Do you speak English to him? Or are you a secret German speaker?�

�He speaks English to me,� said Vigd�s. �And I sort of reply back.�

�Sounds like a perfect relationship.�

�I know,� said Vigd�s. �It�s ridiculous. But I do sort of like him. I am such an idiot.�

Magnus smiled at her. It wasn�t that he disagreed with her; her idiocy was incontrovertible. But he was on her side. They both knew he could be an idiot from time to time too.

They watched the fisherman tidy up the net and lock the boat cabin. He nodded to the two detectives and headed back to the warmth of his home. Presumably he would be out at sea again early the next morning.

�OK,� Magnus said. �Tell me about the case.�

Vigd�s was glad to go over the investigation with Magnus; it straightened it all in her mind. Magnus listened quietly for the most part, just asking the odd question to clarify things.

�So there we are,� she finished. �If the ballistics report comes back tomorrow with confirmation that Halld�r was shot by his own rifle, we have pretty much got Gudr�n.�

Magnus sat silently, his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat.

�Magn�s?� Vigd�s said. �What is it?�

�Do you think it will? Confirm that the bullet came from Halld�r�s rifle?�

�Yes,� said Vigd�s. �Yes, I do.�

�You said Gudr�n denied killing her father,� he said at last. �How did she seem?�

�At the end of her rope. She just broke down. She answered our questions quietly, with tears streaming down her cheeks. It was hard to read her: I couldn�t tell whether she was upset because of all the pressure of the last few days, or whether she couldn�t face what she had done. Inspector �lafur was sure she was guilty.�

�And what about you? What was your instinct?�

Vigd�s hesitated. She wanted to believe that Gudr�n was guilty. She wanted to believe that Martin was innocent. But... �My instinct? I�m not sure.�

Magnus looked at her steadily. He raised his eyebrows. �I know you, Vigd�s. Not being sure isn�t your style.�

�What do you mean?�

�I think your gut feel is that she�s innocent and you don�t want to admit it.�

�Magn�s, that�s ridiculous! We are detectives. We deal in evidence.�

�We deal in people,� said Magnus. �It takes a certain kind of daughter to shoot out the eye of her father. I�ve met one or two of that kind of woman in America. But none in Iceland that I can think of.�

�So are you saying Martin or Alex shot him? Or Sveinn? He wasn�t even in Raufarh�fn.�

�No.� Magnus was quiet for a couple of minutes, staring at the fishing boats bobbing gently by the quayside. Vigd�s let him think. �Has it rained since Halld�r was murdered?�

�No,� Vigd�s said.

�Good,� said Magnus. �I�ll go to bed now. I won�t wait for �lafur � I�d like to delay talking to him if I can. But we�ll meet downstairs in the hotel lobby at five tomorrow morning to take a look at the crime scene. I think I�d like to find out a bit more before I report to him.�

Vigd�s led the way up the hill towards the henge, her long legs making easy work of the slope. The sun had already been up for a while, and the air was full of the sound of birds busy with whatever birds do that early in the morning.

�You know they laid this out according to the �V�lusp�, the first poem of the Poetic Edda?� Magnus said.

Vigd�s�s only reply was to let out something between a moan and a grunt.

�Apparently, there�s a path bearing the name of each of the dwarfs mentioned in the poem. All seventy-two of them.�

�I bet you know all their names,� said Vigd�s.

�Not all of them,� said Magnus.

�When did you read all this stuff?�

�When I was a kid at high school.�

�In America?� Magnus had moved to Boston from Iceland when he was a kid.

�Yes.�

They carried on in silence for a few moments.

�Magn�s?�

�Yes?�

�Did your friends in America think you were a little weird?�

�Thanks, Vigd�s.�

Although forensics had finished with the scene, police tape still flapped in its own geometric circle within the henge. Vigd�s pointed out the spot where Halld�r had been shot, and the two rocks down the hill from where it was possible his killer had stood. While there was a clear view of the gate where Halld�r had been found, the rocks were on the other side of the hill from the road, out of sight.

Magnus examined the ground and then made his way down the hill along a half-trodden path, criss-crossing twenty or thirty metres on either side. He paused every time he came to a patch of exposed mud. After ten minutes or so he halted.

�Vigd�s!�

She came over. �Found some dwarf footprints?�

Magnus pointed to a patch of mud next to a puddle. �Look.�

Vigd�s looked. �I see tracks.�

�Look more closely. And count.�

Vigd�s looked again. �Jesus!� she said, standing up. �Well, well, well.�

�Do you have any spare spent .22 bullets or casings among the evidence?� Magnus asked. �Doesn�t matter which gun they are from.�

�We have a few from the range Halld�r used back at the station.�

�Perfect.�

Magnus stood under the newly hewn arch of the Arctic Henge and looked down at the little town of Raufarh�fn waking up.

A series of clouds were gathering over the Melrakkasl�tta plain, preparing an assault on the stone circle. It was chilly this early in the morning.

Only a few feet away from him, Halld�r had stood and waited for a bullet to thud into his brain, fired from the rifle of a mad old man. Halld�r may have been wrong to shoot the polar bear. He was definitely wrong to risk the little girl�s life. But Magnus hated cop killers. Always.

He saw a police Skoda drive the short distance out of town and park at the foot of the low hill on which the henge stood. A lone man got out and began to jog up the hill. �lafur.

He paused about a hundred metres away. �Magn�s!� he yelled.

Magnus stepped forward. �Yes!�

�Come down here!�

�I want to show you something!�

�I said, come to me!�

Magnus shrugged and trotted down the hill slope. �lafur looked wary, glancing from side to side.

�You know Halld�r was killed coming to a meeting like this right here?� he said.

Magnus held up his hands. �You�re right. I�m sorry. I didn�t think of that. But I do want to show you something.�

�Why didn�t you report to me when you got in last night?� �lafur was not happy.

�It was late and I had had a long journey,� said Magnus. �Come and look at this.� He led �lafur around the hill to where the dogs� footprints were.

�It�s a dog,� said �lafur.

�A three-legged dog,� said Magnus.

�So?�

�So, Egill, the neighbour of the little girl Anna who saw Halld�r shoot the polar bear, has a three-legged dog.�

�lafur stood up and looked up the hill to the henge. The rocks from where the shooter may have fired at the police constable were not far away.

�So?�

�So I think you should take a photograph of these tracks before that rain cloud gets here,� Magnus said, pointing towards the Melrakkasl�tta.

�lafur grunted and then pulled out his phone and took photographs.

�You know we have a suspect?� he said. �Halld�r�s daughter. We are just waiting for ballistics confirmation from Reykjav�k.�

�Which will say that the bullet was not fired from Halld�r�s rifle.�

�lafur frowned. �How do you know?�

�Because it was fired from Egill�s gun � the farmer who owns the dog. He confessed about half an hour ago.�

Anger flashed across �lafur�s face. �Where is Vigd�s?�

�She is waiting at Egill�s farm with him. Waiting for you to go and arrest him.�

�lafur frowned. �Why hasn�t she arrested him? Why haven�t you?�

�Me?� Magnus smiled. �Oh, I think I arrived too late to have any effect on the case. Vigd�s is a very good detective, as you know. Between the two of you, you cracked it.�

�lafur�s frown deepened. He examined Magnus with suspicion. �What do you want?�

�Vigd�s told me that as she was sitting looking at the sea, she was joined by Martin Fiedler. Apparently you were running by and you thought you saw them kissing!� Magnus gave a dry laugh. �She doesn�t know him; they don�t even speak the same language! But I�m sure you were mistaken. You were moving; it was a bit of a distance away.�

�I know what I saw,� �lafur said.

�I don�t think you do,� said Magnus. �Look, �lafur. I have worked with Vigd�s for several years. She is a very good detective. She doesn�t deserve to have her career ruined. It would be humiliating for you if people thought I had turned up here and solved the case in a couple of hours before I had even spoken to you. I have no wish to humiliate you, �lafur.�

�lafur looked at the dog prints in the mud. �How did the forensics people miss that?�

�I was looking for signs of a three-legged dog,� Magnus said. �Kids like Gudr�n don�t shoot their fathers, however angry they are with them. But crazy old men with a soft spot for little girls and polar bears? Maybe. He seemed the most likely of all the people Vigd�s told me about.�

�lafur sighed. �All right.� He stared out towards the cliff at the mouth of the harbour. �I was running fast. It had been a long day and Vigd�s was far away. I must have been mistaken. I�ll tell Baldur that.�

�Good,� said Magnus. He checked his watch. �You may just have time to get to Egill�s farm and arrest him before your morning meeting.�

This is based on a much shorter story under the same title that appeared in Deadly Pleasures (edited by Martin Edwards), an anthology of short stories by members of the Crime Writers� Association.