66° North (17 page)

He was three kilometres from the nearest minor road, four kilometres from the nearest farm, neither of which he could see. He was a long way from any human being, out of sight, out of earshot.

He looked up the lush green flank of the fell. It was still dark, but the edges of the clouds gathering around its upper slopes were tinged with a bluish shade of grey. There was a breeze, but it wasn’t as strong as the day before. He hoped it would be calmer where he was going, and that he would be able to see.

Ten minutes later he was in the cloud. A further twenty minutes and he was out of it again. He was scrambling downhill into a valley, with steep sides but a flat strip of marsh grass running along next to a stream. Isolated. Quiet. And sheltered from the wind. Perfect.

It was definitely dawn now, although the sun was hidden by layers of roiling cloud. He paused and slid the bag off his shoulder. An unseen golden plover emitted a series of peeps nearby.

He unzipped the bag and lifted out the rifle, a bolt-action Remington 700. It was three years since he had fired it, and he was out of practice. He spotted a patch of dryish grass next to a stone,
and laid the rifle to rest there. Then he took the empty petrol container out of the bag and paced out one hundred and twenty-five metres along the side of the stream. The elevation had dropped a few metres that far downstream, so he looked for a likely boulder on which to place the container so that it would be at about the same height as the stone. Then he returned to the rifle.

Tomorrow, he would only get one chance. He would be using a similar rifle, the same model, but not the same weapon. The ammunition was the same, he had checked that, 7 mm Remington. They had examined Google Earth to estimate the range, somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and fifty metres. At two hundred metres the bullet should go pretty much where he aimed it. At one hundred and twenty-five, there would be about a six centimetre rise, meaning he would have to aim a little low, only a little. Six centimetres was not much when compared to the size of a man’s chest.

Since he would be firing an unfamiliar rifle with no time to check that it was zeroed in correctly, he had decided not to use a scope. Plus a scope could get banged about and knocked off zero while the weapon was being concealed. So, open sights. Keep it simple, fewer things to go wrong.

It had been easy with the handgun, even though he had never fired one before that evening. At two metres he couldn’t miss the banker. Everything had been prepared perfectly then: the plan, the weapon, the motorbike. He hoped the preparation would work out as well this time. There was no reason to believe it shouldn’t.

He lay down on the grass, rested the rifle on the stone, and aimed at the petrol container. Then he lowered the barrel a touch to allow for the rise, and gently squeezed the trigger. He felt the familiar kick in his shoulder, heard the shot echo around the little valley, but saw rock splinter just below the container. A pair of golden plovers took to the air, complaining loudly.

He cursed. He had overcompensated for the rise. He operated the bolt mechanism. Aimed. Fired again. This time the container leapt backwards off the boulder on to the ground beneath. He
aimed, fired again. Again the container jumped. And again. And again.

He smiled. He could do this.

‘That was quite a night,’ said Sharon. Magnus and she were sitting in the conference room nursing cups of strong black coffee. She looked like death. ‘It’s a while since I’ve had a night like that.’

‘Traditional Icelandic Friday night,’ Magnus said. ‘Or at least half of one.’

‘Half of one?’

‘Yeah. We went home at about one, I think. A lot of people don’t finish until four or five.’

‘Young people,’ Sharon said. ‘Oh, hi, Vigdís. You don’t look too bad.’

‘
Gódan daginn
,’ said Vigdís with a smile. She was carrying her own cup and took a seat with them. ‘
Og takk fyrir sídast
.’

Sharon laughed. ‘Oh, I get it. It’s like last night never happened, is it?’

Vigdís glanced at Magnus. ‘
Já.
’

‘That means “yes”,’ said Magnus. ‘Where’s Árni?’

‘He’s got the weekend off,’ Vigdís said.

‘Was it my imagination, or was my son arrested last night?’ Sharon asked.

‘I think he was,’ said Magnus.

Sharon winced. ‘Can you remember what police station he was at? Did I say?’

Magnus shook his head.

‘Toot,’ said Vigdís.

‘Tooting? What the hell was he doing in Tooting?’

Baldur appeared at the door. ‘Sergeant Sharon? Magnús? Come to my office.’

Baldur was insistent that Sharon had uncovered all she was going to in Iceland, and Sharon herself couldn’t really argue. So Magnus
agreed to give her a lift back to her hotel, and pick her up in a couple of hours to take her out to the airport.

Baldur pulled Magnus aside and told him that he should go back to the police college on Monday morning unless anything new cropped up from London. Vigdís could do the remaining work on Sharon Piper’s list of Óskar’s contacts. Magnus protested, but he got nowhere.

It wasn’t far at all from police headquarters to the Hotel Reykjavík, Sharon could easily have walked it. As Magnus pulled up outside he took a decision.

‘Sharon, pack your bag and bring it down here. I think we should leave early for the airport. There’s someone I want you to see.’

‘OK,’ said Sharon, her curiosity aroused. ‘I’ll be ten minutes. I need to ring my husband to make sure Charlie is all right.’

A quarter of an hour later, Magnus was driving along the ring road that skirted the city centre towards Seltjarnarnes. He told Sharon all about Harpa and Gabríel Örn and his suspicions about Gabríel Örn’s death. He also told her about Harpa’s dalliance with Óskar in London.

‘Why didn’t you mention any of this before?’ said Sharon. She sounded offended that Magnus hadn’t trusted her.

‘Baldur didn’t want me to,’ Magnus said. ‘He figures there’s no connection. He wants to make sure there is no connection. And Gabríel Örn Bergsson’s death is firmly filed under suicide. It’s politics. Even in this country politics intrudes in police work.’

He explained the background, the pots-and-pans revolution, the fear of violence, the sense of relief that there hadn’t been any, the unwillingness to rewrite history and admit that there had.

‘I get it,’ said Sharon. ‘So then I suppose the question becomes why
are
you telling me all this?’

‘It may be nothing,’ Magnus said. ‘In which case you can just forget it. But if there is a real link it’s important that you know about it in case you come across something in London that fits. I want to nail whoever it was who killed Óskar.’

‘OK,’ Sharon said. ‘Let’s meet Harpa.’

The bakery where Harpa worked was on the corner of Nordurströnd, the road that ran along the shore. The wind had died down from the previous day, but there was a chill in the air, and the warmth of the bakery was welcoming. Harpa was one of two women behind the counter, both wearing red aprons and with their hair tied up under white hats.

She tensed when Magnus walked in.

‘Do you have a moment, Harpa?’ Magnus asked.

‘I’m busy,’ said Harpa, glancing at the woman next to her. ‘Can’t you see I’m working?’

‘Would you like me to talk to your boss?’ Magnus said.

Harpa turned to the woman. ‘Dísa? Do you mind if I speak to these two people for a minute? It won’t take long.’ She glanced at Magnus as she said these words.

Magnus nodded.

‘Go ahead,’ said the woman named Dísa, her curiosity aroused.

Harpa led Magnus and Sharon to a table in the far corner of the bakery.

‘Do you mind if we speak English?’ said Magnus. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Piper of Scotland Yard.’ He didn’t think that Sharon actually worked out of Scotland Yard, but it sounded good.

‘That’s fine,’ said Harpa. Magnus was surprised to note a slight relaxing of the tension in Harpa’s shoulders. ‘I’ve told you I know nothing about Óskar’s murder.’ Her English accent was good: British English.

‘Yes, you have told me that,’ said Magnus. ‘Thing is, we know you and Óskar met at a party in London four years ago.’

‘Oh,’ said Harpa. ‘Well, yes, of course we did. I was working in the London office then. The head of the office used to have quite a few parties. I am sure that Óskar will have come to one or two.’

‘I’ve spoken with María Halldórsdóttir,’ Magnus said. ‘She figures you and Óskar got along very well at one of these parties.’

‘That was just a rumour,’ said Harpa. ‘There was nothing in it. María was jealous, that’s all. She’s imagining it.’

Magnus didn’t say anything.

‘What?’ said Harpa. ‘What is it? Don’t you believe me? I wouldn’t be so stupid as to have an affair with the boss.’

Magnus relaxed and smiled. ‘No, of course not. You got a picture of your son, by the way?’

‘Yes,’ said Harpa. ‘On my phone.’ She pulled out her phone and began searching for the photo. Then she stopped suddenly, and made to put the phone away. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I made a mistake. I don’t have a picture of him.’

‘Come on, Harpa,’ said Magnus. ‘You can’t hide what he looks like from us. Markús is his name, right? Just show us.’

Harpa fiddled with the buttons on her phone and passed across a picture of a little boy smiling next to a football on a beach of black sand.

Magnus took a photograph out of his pocket and laid it next to the phone. Despite the differences in age, it was quite clear that Óskar Gunnarsson and Markús Hörpuson were related. The same cleft chin. The same big brown eyes.

Harpa’s shoulders sagged.

‘Did Óskar know?’ Magnus asked.

Harpa shook her head. ‘I never told him. I made sure he never met Markús. I didn’t want him to know.’

‘Why not?’

‘It really was only one night. I was drunk. So was he. I’m not trying to say he forced himself on me or anything, but it was a mistake. We never mentioned it again. The first couple of times we met in a business situation, it was awkward, but then we both succeeded in ignoring what had happened and so things became easier. Until I realized I was pregnant, of course.’

‘Did he suspect he was the father?’

‘He might have done; we never spoke about it. We really didn’t know each other that well, he had no idea what my sex life was like. In fact it wasn’t that exciting, but he didn’t know that.’

‘But when you lost your job, you weren’t tempted to ask Óskar for money?’ Magnus asked.

‘No,’ said Harpa. ‘I didn’t want Markús to have Óskar for a father, however rich he was. We had no connection. And I suppose I didn’t want to share my son with a man I barely knew.’ She leaned forward. ‘Please don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t want Óskar’s parents to know they are grandparents. It may sound awful, but I don’t want to introduce people I don’t know into Markús’s life.’

‘I won’t tell them for now,’ Magnus said. ‘I can’t make any promises about later. That will depend on what this investigation turns up.’

‘It won’t turn up anything,’ said Harpa, defiantly.

‘In that case you have nothing to worry about,’ said Magnus.

‘You were fired from Ódinsbanki, weren’t you?’ asked Sharon.

‘Yes,’ said Harpa.

‘Did you hold Óskar responsible?’

‘No. Not directly.’

‘What do you mean, not directly?’

‘Well, it was him who led the expansion of the bank. He grew it too fast, borrowed too much money from the bond markets. That’s why it went bust eventually, and why I lost my job.’

‘So who did you hold directly responsible?’ Magnus asked.

Harpa’s eyes held his. She then closed her own. ‘Oh, God, here we go.’

‘Gabríel Örn?’

Harpa nodded. ‘I’ve told you that.’

Magnus glanced at Sharon. It was too early to do a full-blown interview with Harpa. Apart from anything else, such interviews had to be in Icelandic if they were going to provide admissible evidence. Also Baldur would disapprove. But there was one last question he had to ask. ‘Harpa, where were you on the night Óskar was killed?’

Harpa flinched. ‘He was killed in London, wasn’t he?’

Magnus nodded.

‘Well, I was in Iceland.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Yes, of course. Um, I came in to work here early the following morning. You can check with Dísa if you want.’

Three-quarters of an hour later, Magnus pulled up outside the airport terminal.

‘Thank you for introducing me to Harpa,’ Sharon said. ‘I appreciate the difficulty.’

‘Her alibi was good for that night,’ said Magnus. ‘But I do think there is some link. I just thought you should know what her story is. In case something turns up your end.’

‘Óskar was an interesting man,’ Sharon said.

‘The press here hate him,’ Magnus said. ‘And his banker buddies.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Sharon. ‘But the people who actually knew him seemed in awe of him.’

‘I guess that’s how he got people to follow him,’ Magnus said. ‘He had success written all over him. But I can’t help getting the feeling that’s why he died.’

‘Are you suggesting he deserved to die?’

‘No, not at all. That’s not for us to judge, is it? And I’ve investigated the murders of far more unpleasant people than Óskar; I’m sure you have too. He hasn’t actually killed anyone himself, has he?’

‘No, but he bankrupted a whole country. Him and his mates.’

‘Yeah,’ said Magnus. Of course Óskar and his buddies hadn’t destroyed the economy on purpose. It wasn’t what you’d call premeditated, more accidental. Manslaughter rather than homicide. But people went to jail for manslaughter.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Sharon asked. ‘Drop the investigation?’

‘Baldur wants me to. But Gabríel Örn’s suicide just doesn’t sound right to me. I’m off duty this weekend. I think I’ll nose
around, maybe speak again with some of the people we interviewed after his death.’

‘Keep in touch,’ Sharon said.

‘I will,’ said Magnus. ‘And good luck with Charlie.’

H
AFNARFJÖRDUR WAS A
fishing port on the edge of the lava field just outside Reykjavík, on the way back from the airport. Magnus drove past the enormous aluminium smelter at Straumsvík, where Gabríel Örn’s body had washed ashore back in January. A golf course ran alongside the road, winding higgledypiggledy through the lava, each green like a vivid crater. Magnus turned off the highway.