66° North (36 page)

He had also brought plenty of rope.

He settled the still slumbering Harpa in a sleeping bag in the loft, and lit a fire in the stove. He put some water on to boil for coffee.

He checked his phone. No signal: hardly surprising. That could be a problem. He would need to communicate with the others in the coming couple of days, and that would involve driving back down the pass towards Stykkishólmur until he got a signal.

He made the coffee and took it outside. He sat on the step of the hut watching the light seep out of the moist valley as dusk fell. A raven flapped down the valley on the far side of the stream, its croak sinking into the mist.

The place was eerie. Björn smiled as he remembered the night he and his cousins had slept in the hut when they were kids. The frisson of fear. There was not just the Kerlingin troll waiting for them. There was a story, well known among the kids in the area, of an empty bus being driven through the pass. The driver had felt the presence of something behind him and turned to see the bus full of people.

Ghosts.

But Björn felt safe here. More importantly, he felt Harpa was safe. He wished that the two of them could stay here for always, away from the world outside, the world of the
kreppa
and bankers and corrupt politicians. The world he had decided to stand up and fight against.

Could he make Harpa understand what he and the others had done? He could try.

There was no sound from her. In theory the drug was supposed to wear off in eight hours. In practice, Björn thought Harpa would be out all night.

The pub in Shoreditch was crowded and there was barely enough room for the eight students squashed around two tables pushed together. Sophie hardly knew most of the others, but when her friend Tori had asked her out for a drink she had agreed to come. She had spent an unproductive afternoon in the library.

She was worried about Zak. The only response to her texts she had received so far was one line:
It doesn’t look good
. She wished he would talk to her more instead of clamming up.

There were three other girls and four guys around the table. She didn’t know the guys very well, although they all studied politics with her. The conversation had moved on from
Big Brother
to Julian Lister. She was barely listening.

‘So is he going to make it?’

‘They say he’s going to be fine.’

‘I heard he was still critical.’

‘No, it was on the radio this evening. They now think he’s going to make a full recovery.’

‘So who did it then?’

‘Al-Qaeda.’

‘But they use bombs not bullets.’

‘Al-Qaeda. Operating out of Holland.’

‘Holland?’

‘Yeah, they saw a motorbike with Dutch number plates hanging about right where he was shot.’

‘It’s the Icelanders.’

That caught Sophie’s attention. The guy talking was tall with longish curly hair. She thought his name was Jeff.

‘The Icelanders! Don’t be stupid, Josh. Why not the Greenlanders?’ Not Jeff, Josh.

‘No, I’m serious.’ Josh was leaning forward, his eyes alight. ‘I’ve got it all figured out. The Icelanders hate Julian Lister. Ever since the credit crunch. He confiscated all their assets and called them a bunch of terrorists.’

‘Yeah, well, loads of people hate Julian Lister. So what does that prove?’

Josh lowered his voice. ‘You know I was working in the House of Commons as a research assistant over the summer? I was working for Anita Norris who was a junior treasury minister. Well, Zak Samuelsson, you know, the Icelander, asked me where Julian Lister was going on holiday this summer. I mean what kind of question is that?’

‘So what are you suggesting? That Zak shot him?’

‘Or told one of his mates back in Iceland.’

Sophie felt her ears redden. Everyone around the table was looking at her, apart from Josh, who clearly was the only one who didn’t know she was going out with Zak.

‘What?’ Josh said, aware that something was wrong.

‘You’re such an arsehole, Josh,’ said Tori.

‘What do you think, Sophie?’ It was one of the other guys, Eddie. The question was well meant, he was trying to give Sophie a chance to defend her boyfriend.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Sophie. ‘Icelanders don’t do that sort of thing.’

‘I bet Zak was pleased about what happened to Lister,’ said Josh, still not quite getting it.

‘He wasn’t,’ said Sophie. ‘I know him, you don’t, and he had nothing to do with it.’

‘Yeah, Josh,’ said Tori. ‘You talk a lot of shit. Don’t mouth off about stuff you know nothing about.’

The penny dropped. Josh glanced around the group. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours,’ he said to Sophie.

She smiled weakly. ‘That’s OK,’ she said.

But as soon as the conversation moved on she finished her drink and slipped away. She was desperate to get out of there.

Magnus paced up and down in his tiny room. He felt imprisoned. Árni had been waiting for Frikki, and when Frikki eventually returned home with his girlfriend, Árni had whisked him back to the station. He and Vigdís were interviewing the boy at that very moment. Magnus wanted to be there too. And if that wasn’t possible, he wanted to know what Frikki was saying. But he couldn’t disturb them; he just had to wait.

He had called Sharon Piper to find out if there was any news on the French couple holidaying in India. Nothing yet. Magnus swore as he hung up. Matching a verbal description was not conclusive. Magnus really needed a positive ID on Ísak if he was to get himself back on the case. Without it, any attempt to link Óskar’s death to Iceland was just speculation. As Snorri and Baldur would make very clear. Having called Sharon once, Magnus couldn’t very well call her again.

It was getting dark and he was hungry. He grabbed his coat and headed outside. Around the corner and up the hill towards the church was Vitabar, the nearest thing the neighbourhood had to a diner. Magnus ordered a burger and a beer. He wolfed the burger down too quickly.

Rather than go back to his apartment he wandered the streets. Any call would come through to his cell phone. He found himself in the square in front of the Hallgrímskirkja. The church rose tall above him, illuminated against the night sky. Beneath it the statue of Leifur Eiríksson, the first European to discover America, stared out over the city to the west.

Sending Magnus home, perhaps.

His phone rang. It was Vigdís.

‘Hi. Did he talk?’ Magnus asked her.

‘No,’ Vigdís said.

‘What do you mean, no? Didn’t he say anything at all?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘What, has he got a lawyer or something?’

‘He doesn’t want one. It’s weird. He just sits there looking miserable. Not arrogant or cocky, you know the way they sometimes are when they think they can keep quiet and you can’t touch them. It looks like he’s just about to cry.’

‘So? Didn’t you make him cry?’

‘Hey, Magnús, cool it,’ said Vigdís.

‘All right.’ Magnus realized Vigdís had a point. He knew she was a good detective. He had to trust her. And there was no harder suspect to interview than one who said nothing at all. ‘Sorry, Vigdís. What’s your gut telling you?’

‘He’s guilty as hell. He knows what we are talking about. I asked him about Gabríel Örn and Óskar and Julian Lister and he showed no surprise at any of it. He knows the names of Harpa and Sindri and Björn. And it seems like he knows he is going to jail.’

‘Then why isn’t he talking?’

‘I don’t know. I think the softly-softly approach will work best. And if that doesn’t do it, we can always try keeping him in overnight.’

‘Is Baldur OK with that?’

‘I’ve squared it with him.’

‘A night in the cells can work wonders,’ Magnus said. ‘I wish I could be there too. Call me if you get anywhere, will you?’

Magnus returned to his apartment, waiting for Vigdís to call again. None came. Nor did he hear from Ingileif. That was strange. The Icesave meeting had taken place in the late afternoon. What was she doing afterwards?

In the end he found solace in a saga, the tried and tested medicine from his adolescence. He picked the
Saga of the People of Eyri
. Within a few minutes he was lost in the world of the Norse settlers, of Ketill Flat Nose, Björn the Easterner, who had built the
first farmhouse at Bjarnarhöfn, Arnkell, Snorri Godi, and Thórólfur Lame Foot. The countryside around Bjarnarhöfn seemed closer and more real in the saga than in his own memory.

At about eleven o’clock his doorbell rang. It was Ingileif.

‘Hi,’ she kissed him as he answered the door. ‘Hi, Katrín.’ She waved at Magnus’s landlady as she climbed the stairs to his room. She tripped on a step. ‘Whoops-a-daisy.’

When they got into his room, she kissed him again. ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she said.

‘That’s OK.’

‘I’m
so
drunk.’

Magnus had guessed. ‘Where were you?’ he asked, trying to keep any hint of accusation out of his voice.

‘Solving your case.’

‘What do you mean?’

Ingileif began to unbutton his shirt. ‘I’ll tell you afterwards.’

‘What do you mean, solving my case? Did you see Sindri at the Icesave meeting?’

‘Yup.’ Ingileif smiled. Magnus’s shirt was undone now. Her hands moved down to his pants.

‘You planned to see him all along?’

‘Yup.’

Magnus felt the anger rise. He had specifically told Ingileif not to do that. He backed away.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ Ingileif said. ‘You’d have been so proud of me. He told me everything.’

‘What? What did he tell you?’

Ingileif sat on Magnus’s bed. ‘Everything. How he shot Óskar. And the British Chancellor. Everything.’

‘
He
shot the chancellor?’

‘Well, not him, exactly. Him and his friends.’

Magnus sat down next to her on the bed. Angry though he was with Ingileif, he was desperate to know what she had found out. ‘Who are his friends?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. But there’s a group of them.
He’s the leader. They think capitalism is all wrong. I can tell you
all
about what’s wrong with capitalism, I listened to hours of it.’

She swayed on the bed, and seemed about to keel over, when she straightened herself up. ‘I placed myself next to him at the Icesave meeting in Austurvöllur. He started talking to me. We went for some coffee. Had some more coffee. Went to his place. Had something to drink. Had some more to drink. Had some
more
to drink. Then he started to take my clothes off.’

‘And then?’

Ingileif giggled. ‘And then I came home to you, what do you think? He was a little upset. I think he thought I had taken advantage of him.’

‘He might have been right,’ said Magnus.

‘Hey! He admitted that they planned to kill the people they thought were responsible for the
kreppa
. The chairman of a bank. The British ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer. And other people.’

‘Other people? Like who? Did you find out?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Ingileif. She giggled. ‘I got him to tell me. Ingólfur Arnarson.’

‘Who’s he? Apart from the guy who discovered Iceland.’

‘I don’t know. I suggest you look him up in the phone book and tell him to lock his door. And then you arrest Sindri.’

‘I can’t arrest Sindri,’ Magnus said.

‘Why not?’ Ingileif said. ‘He confessed, didn’t he? I can stand up in court and tell them what he told me.’

‘As evidence that’s useless,’ Magnus said harshly. ‘What do you mean, useless? You’re just jealous.’

‘Jealous? Why would I be jealous?’

‘Yes, jealous. Because I found out more in one night than you’ve been able to find out in a whole week.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ said Magnus. What really riled him was that there was a germ of truth in what Ingileif said. He
was
jealous. And she had used illegal methods: she had cheated, not just the law but him. ‘We can’t use any of that evidence. And if the defence attorneys discover there is a link between you and me, which they
will, then there is a good chance that the case would be thrown out for entrapment.’

Actually Magnus had no idea whether that would apply in Iceland. But it would certainly have been one hell of a problem in America.

‘How can you be angry with me when I helped you like that?’ said Ingileif. ‘Can you imagine how creepy it is to talk to that lecherous old man for hours, have his hands all over me, when all I’m trying to do is help you?’

‘His hands all over you?’ Magnus asked.

‘You see you
are
jealous.’

‘Yes, I damn well am jealous!’ Magnus shouted. ‘I didn’t ask you to do all that. I didn’t ask you to seduce Sindri.’

‘I didn’t exactly seduce him. And anyway, I can talk to whoever I want.’

‘Talk, yes. But everything else?’

‘Are you accusing me of sleeping with other men?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Magnus. But it was a question that always nagged at the back of his mind with Ingileif. ‘Maybe. Do you?’

Ingileif stared at him. ‘Do up your shirt. I’m off.’

For a moment Magnus thought of asking her to stay, but only for a moment. Under her rules she could come and go as she pleased. Then so be it.

She went, banging the door behind her.

H
ARPA SMELLED THE
coffee. She opened her eyes. Blinked.

Her head was heavy with sleep and she was confused. Above her, not very far above her, were wooden beams and a roof. She was lying in a sleeping bag. Next to her was another sleeping bag, empty.

But it had the familiar smell of Björn: male sweat and a hint of fish.

She leaned on her elbow. The coffee smelled good.

She was in a hut. Grey early morning light slipped in through the top of a window. She could hear someone moving about below.

‘Björn?’

‘Good morning.’

She slid over to the top of a ladder. She realized she was in a raised sleeping loft in some kind of hut. Panic overtook her, but disappeared when she saw Björn’s reassuring smile. ‘Here. Come down and have a cup of coffee. Do you want some breakfast?’