‘You don’t look like a Tamsin,’ says Pharaoh. She gestures at the seat opposite. ‘I thought you’d be a Moon-Unit. Azalea Wildflower, or something. Tamsin. Bit normal, isn’t it?’

  Tamsin looks at her, a little taken aback. ‘I’m in the right place, yes? You’re the police officer from England? I hope you didn’t think I was being rude when I came in – my friends, they wanted to catch up . . .’

  ‘You’re in the right place.’ Pharaoh nods, looking up at her. She gestures at her notes as if they are official identity papers. ‘Sorry, it was a long drive and I’m a bit out of sorts. I don’t know the Icelandic for “discombobulated”.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ says Tamsin, sitting down. ‘But in Canadian it’s the same.’

  ‘You’re Canadian? I didn’t pick up on that.’

  ‘I haven’t been home in a while. I speak pretty good Icelandic. A little French.’

  ‘We’ll stick with English.’ Pharaoh smiles. She puts both hands behind her head and sits back in her chair. ‘I’m grateful you came to talk to me. As I explained in my email, you don’t have to. You’ve been through a lot and the last thing you need is to have to go through it again but the man you found – there’s a connection to a case at home.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Tamsin solemnly. ‘I don’t have anything to add but I can tell you it all in person.’

  ‘Please.’

  Tamsin takes a sip from her drink. Licks her lips. An expression of distaste flickers across her face as she replays the images in her head. ‘I’m a photographer, as I told you. I had a residency at the art centre three years ago and never went home. I’m not one of the resident artists there now but I still exhibit, here and abroad. I feel very at home here. There’s something about the wilderness that speaks to me, I suppose.’

  Pharaoh smiles encouragingly. Tamsin nods, clearly relieved to be understood.

  ‘My last exhibition was sort of, well . . . out there.’ She gives a sudden flash of teeth. ‘A bit wacky, you might say. Lots of effects and digital enhancements. It went well, but this time I wanted to go back to what drew me here. Find a way to capture the feeling of this place; to turn a set of emotions and flavours into an actual picture that could be hung on the wall.’

  Pharaoh tries to keep her expression warm and open as she fights the urge to tell Tamsin that she’d like her to get to the point. She’s interviewed hundreds of witnesses over the years and has found it best to let each tell their stories their own way.

  Tamsin pushes on, warming to her favourite subject. ‘I know every tourist who comes to Iceland is after a shot of craggy cliffs and spurting geysers and the aurora borealis glinting off the lava field. I thought I could make fun of that while embracing it. A post-modern embracing of the kitsch, if you want it in layman’s terms.’

  Pharaoh takes a sip of wine. Takes a gulp, too.

  ‘You know that New Year is a big deal here? Iceland comes to a stop. Reykjavik is a controlled riot. Fireworks exploding, everybody drinking like they’re guests at a Viking wedding. I was invited to a party in Akureyri and didn’t want to miss it but I’d also been told that there was a good chance of the Northern Lights appearing some time around the turn of the year. There was a shot I had in my head – the lighthouse on the headland. It’s a magnificent building casting this perfect shadow onto the remains of an old village. Every amateur photographer who comes to this part of the world tries to get it in a new light and I had this image in my head of how it would look emerging from the green lights of the aurora.’

  ‘But you didn’t want to miss the party,’ says Pharaoh, nodding.

  ‘Well, no,’ says Tamsin. She puts her hands together on the table. Pharaoh notices a black bracelet poking out of her sleeve, patterned with scraps of scaly, silvery leather. Tamsin notices the direction of her gaze. ‘Cod leather,’ she says, by way of explanation. ‘Incredibly expensive in the stores in the capital but I have a friend who makes bags and bracelets with the cut-offs for a fraction of the price. They sell them at the Witchcraft Museum and some of the little boutiques between here and Blonduos. Quite popular.’

  ‘You were telling me about how you found the body, Tamsin,’ prompts Pharaoh. ‘The corpse who spoke to you.’

  Tamsin swallows. ‘I’d set up a camera. Time-activated. Linked it to my iPhone so I could see the images as they were taken. I set it up early on the thirty-first. The weather was terrible and I was concerned it would be blown away but I managed to secure it under the eaves of the shelter and it seemed pretty secure with a good view across the headland to the lighthouse. I kept checking on it up until a little before midnight.’ She chuckles, embarrassed. ‘I was a bit out of it from then on. Like I say, we have a drink. A smoke.’ She flashes Pharaoh a look. ‘Sorry, I forgot, you wouldn’t approve.’

  ‘Couldn’t give a shit, love. Proceed.’

  Tamsin rubs a hand across her mouth. ‘I didn’t even think about the camera on New Year’s Day. I was half drunk, half hung over. It was the next day before I even had the strength to pick up my phone. I got a bit of food down myself and drank some of the strongest coffee you’ve ever tasted and finally plugged in and had a look at what I’d got.’ She stops, reaching into her pocket. She starts flicking through pictures, talking rapidly. ‘The lights hadn’t been as bright as I’d been promised but there were still some terrific images. The gale was absolutely howling and you got a real sense of movement – the clouds all bunched up at one end and the glare of the lighthouse like another moon in the sky. I felt pretty good about it. Then I saw this.’ She angles the phone. ‘I thought somebody was playing a trick.’

  Pharaoh looks at the image. It’s blurry and out of focus. But there is no doubt that the camera has captured a figure, dark as a burnt match, hair flowing out like pondweed. They stand on the snowy headland beneath the lighthouse, arms outstretched; a Christ-like effigy seared onto a canvas of luminescent green and the frothing quicksilver of the sea.

  ‘You get pagans here, I’m told,’ says Pharaoh, folding her arms when she notices that the hairs have started to rise. ‘Some kind of ceremony.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ says Tamsin, looking down. ‘Either way I wanted to see. If there was somebody up there they might have taken the camera. That was the last image that it got. I took some painkillers and waited for a gap in the weather and drove up to the cliffs.’

  ‘And this was?’

  ‘Mid-afternoon on the third,’ she says. ‘There wasn’t much light and my friends said I was crazy to go when there was still partying to do but this is important, isn’t it? It’s not an easy drive. You’ll have seen bad roads on the way up here but it gets so much worse as you head north. The cliffs are amazing but frightening too.’

  ‘And you saw a car,’ prompts Pharaoh. ‘A little red hatchback.’

  ‘Like the one out there,’ she says, nodding at the car park. ‘Suzuki Swift. It was up there on the clifftop, maybe a mile or so from the lighthouse and the earthworks.’

  ‘You didn’t stop?’ says Pharaoh, pretending to look at her notes.

  ‘I didn’t see any need to. It was pretty dark and it’s not that unusual to see a car up on the cliffs and if I’m honest, I didn’t have it in my head that there was anything to be worried about.’ She shrugs, though not unkindly. ‘And maybe I was a bit focused on my camera.’

  ‘Tell me what you found,’ says Pharaoh. ‘I know it’s hard, but . . .’

  ‘I parked where I normally do,’ says Tamsin, looking out of the window, her reflection shimmering as the rain beats down upon the hard, white snow. ‘The village was pretty much abandoned in the 1930s and really, there are only a few mounds and foundations still in place. Even so, it’s popular with tourists. The last farmhouse has been converted into a shelter. They’re all over Iceland. Places to escape to if the weather turns or if you’re a fisherman who’s had to put ashore. It’s one of the areas where boats and bodies wash up, you see.’

  Pharaoh nods, saying nothing. She glances beneath the table. Checks that her phone is still recording.

  ‘The camera was gone.’ Tamsin scowls. ‘The twine I’d used to secure it in the eaves had been cut clean through. Whoever was dancing about on the headland had taken themselves a lovely belated Christmas present.’ The angry expression fades to sadness and she rubs her cheeks with the heels of her hands. ‘I don’t know why I walked down to the lighthouse. I suppose I was pissed off and the only place I’d seen the person who stole my camera was down towards the sea. I went to see if, maybe . . .’

  ‘They’d dropped it. They were still there. You wanted to do something. I understand.’

  Tamsin nods, her braids becoming untangled. ‘It’s wild up there. Timeless. Even the lighthouse seems like some ancient monument. And the columns – these big, black basalt columns, stacked together like logs, the sea crashing over them, the sky pressing down. It’s beautiful, in a terrible sort of way. I trudged down past all the earthworks and over the snow to where I’d got the picture of the person with the dark hair. And I saw him.’ She gulps. Fiddles with her necklace. ‘There in the little inlet. On the stones. There were birds overhead. I can see them now. Gulls and crows. A bright orange buoy had washed up. There were green nets, all tangled up. And him. The man.’

  Pharaoh reaches across and squeezes Tamsin’s hand. Feels the texture of the fish-leather bracelet and banks the information. ‘You thought he was dead?’ she asks kindly.

  ‘He was dead,’ snaps Tamsin. She shakes her head, mumbling an apology. ‘Half his face was gone. His leg was missing at the knee, his trouser leg flapping. His skin was white, like he’d been bleached.’

  ‘But you went to check,’ says Pharaoh. ‘You didn’t run back to your car. You were brave. You tried to help.’

  ‘It was automatic,’ says Tamsin, brushing over the compliment. ‘I did it because that’s what I’ve seen people do. On TV, in films. I ran to the body and bent down. He was face-down. Sort of in the recovery position. The nearer I got the more I saw. There were holes in him. Tiny perforations in his skin. A huge gash in his head . . .’

  Pharaoh alters her position so she can look into Tamsin’s eyes. ‘And you’re sure,’ she says softly. ‘Sure what happened next isn’t the result of a hangover and an artistic imagination.’

  ‘No,’ splutters Tamsin angrily, slamming her palm down on the table. ‘I put my fingers on his neck. He was cold as meat from the freezer. I jerked back as soon as I touched him. And I swear, that’s when he shuddered. That’s the only way I can describe it. He shuddered as if a current had gone through him. And all this water gushed up, spewing out from the holes in his face and his neck.’ She demonstrates, throwing fistfuls of imaginary water into the air. ‘I fell backwards, terrified out of my skin. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’

  ‘You said he spoke,’ whispers Pharaoh. ‘In the statement you gave, you said he spoke.’

  Tamsin nods, definite in her reply. ‘Even over the storm and the waves and the birds, I know what he said. I don’t know what it means or how he was alive but it was definite. He barely had any face left but this horrible, strangled sound came out of him. And he said it. He truly did.’

  Pharaoh closes her eyes. Looks at her notes and the witness statement Tamsin had given the Icelandic Police a few hours after her gory discovery.

  ‘He said “McAvoy”. Like the actor. He said it twice, as if to be sure. Then his body just went still. I’ll never unsee that, Detective. It was like watching his soul leave his body. They didn’t believe me when I told the local police but what is there for me to gain? I don’t know what it means. I don’t know who he was. I’m telling you because you said it was important but I don’t understand what I’ve seen or why I’ve seen it.’ She stops, glancing towards the counter, clearly weighing up whether another drink will have medicinal benefits. ‘This McAvoy,’ she asks quietly. ‘Is he a suspect? I mean, it looks like he went into the water and washed up and that’s that. I don’t see how there could be any foul play. Have they even identified him yet? I sort of feel responsible. Like, maybe I should write to his family or something. What can you actually tell me?’

  Pharaoh pushes the vodka bottle across the table and urges Tamsin to help herself. She closes one eye, a headache starting to grind above her left eye. ‘The police haven’t had the prints back yet,’ she says softly, as if imparting a secret to a trusted friend. ‘There was no wallet in his clothing. No identifying paperwork, either on his person or in his vehicle.’

  ‘It was definitely his car?’ asks Tamsin. ‘Suicide or an accident, then . . .’

  ‘The local detectives have done a good job,’ Pharaoh says, ignoring the interruption. ‘Been through passenger lists, flights and shipping logs. Took a little while but they worked out that Albert Jonsson had several aliases. One of them was Russell Chandler. And Russell Chandler was an awkward sod who nearly cost a friend of mine his life.’ Pharaoh sighs. Pushes her hair back and shakes her head. ‘He didn’t deserve this, though. He was a good investigator. Might have made a decent copper.’

  Tamsin pours herself a vodka. Meets Pharaoh’s eye and pours her a drink too. They clink glasses.

  ‘What’s Icelandic for “cheers”?’ asks Pharaoh, stopping her phone from recording.

  ‘Skal,’ says Tamsin. ‘But in Canada, we say “sociable”.’

  ‘Fuck off, no you don’t.’

  ‘We really do,’ says Tamsin apologetically. She swallows her vodka and pours another. They both relax, now the unpleasantness seems to be out of the way. ‘Are you going to tell me who this McAvoy is?’ she asks.

  Pharaoh stops with her glass halfway to her mouth. She feels a little blurry around the edges. Feels a bit tired and a bit pissed and a long way from home. Wonders, for a moment, whether it would be so very terrible to share a confidence with this stranger.

  ‘Sociable,’ she says, under her breath. She can’t wait to get home and tell him a fact he might not know. ‘Fucking hell.’

  Chapter 15

  Alfred Gelder Street, Hull

  10.46 p.m.

  Vidarr is leaning against the damp wood of the boarded-up pub. He doesn’t remember coming to a halt at this place. Can’t recall what came before. He has grown accustomed to these moments; of returning to himself without any recollection of where he has been.

  Vidarr has spent the last half an hour staring at a golden statue in the middle of the road. King William on his horse, splendid and elegant. Black railings and a marble plinth. It looms out of the black air and the grey mist and makes him think of Greek myths and old movies, of Argonauts and gilded calves.

  He has a sudden memory. A blanket over his knees, hot chocolate and jam sandwiches on a tray, listening to the gale buffet the campervan – his face only a few inches from the fuzzy pixels of the boxy portable TV. He remembers the sense of sanctuary. Of respite. A friendly hand in his own. Remembers Mam, a bruise on her cheek. His aunt, sitting on the grass. The boy in the mirror, smiling back . . .

  He turns his face away from the recollection. Refuses to look too closely. He doesn’t want to think about sanctuary in case he remembers what they were fleeing. Doesn’t want to remember the blood, or his mam pressing frozen peas to her bruised cheek, or his mirror image, folded in on himself, arms girdling his knees, rocking back and forth in the outdoor toilet.

  He licks his teeth. He has smoked one of his cigarettes, his trembling fingers turning colder with each drag. His mouth tastes like his stepfather’s: that reek of bile and wet tobacco. He works his jaw in circles, listening to the click, click, click as the cartilage snaps against the bone. His jaw has been like this since he was nine. The bad man slammed his face between the refrigerator door and the cold metal frame, squeezing his skull until something snapped and everything went white and orchestral and numb. He had used too much milk, according to the bad man. Deserved everything he fucking got . . .

  Despite his promises to himself, Vidarr drifts into memory. Mam sitting on the hard-backed chair at the kitchen table, huffing hair out of her eyes, the oven door open to let some heat into the cold, damp room. Slicing onions. Peeling potatoes . . .

  Roberta. Drunk. Drunk, again. Drunk and roaring. Each drink she tipped down her neck was gasoline on a fire. She came through the door like a thunderstorm. Mam had tried to shush her. Pleaded with her. The bad man woke to the sound of smashing glass and screaming. His temper took no rousing. He back-handed Mam so hard that her earring ripped through the earlobe and stuck into the blue ink on the back of his hand.

  He took Roberta by the neck. Shook her like a dog with a rat. A light came on in his eyes. He dragged her to the cooker, his fingers about her throat. There was blood on her teeth, puke on her chin and in her hair. He might have just been planning to scare her. Might have left it at that if she’d just kept her mouth shut. Instead she managed to work up enough blood and saliva to spit in his face. He stuffed her head in the oven and held her there, his hand in her dark hair.

  Vidarr closes his eyes. He raises his hand to his jaw and feels the splintered bone beneath his stubble and skin. He remembers waking up on the floor, blood dripping from his ear, explosions of black and white, purple and vermilion, turning his vision into a scream. He didn’t expect ever to hear such sounds again. Didn’t expect to see such terrible things.

  Vidarr looks at the length of braided hair around his wrist and feels something stir within him.

  Feels the raven unfolding its wings.

  He reaches into his pocket and feels the cold, unyielding certainty of the hook.

  Smiles, even as the tears freeze against his cheeks.

 

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