Sun on Fire (26 page)

“Where’s Magnús?” Birkir asked.

“They . . . they . . . got him,” Gunnar gasped.

Birkir was on the phone already, calling for help.

“They
who
?” he asked, as soon as he’d confirmed that an ambulance was on the way.

“I . . . I . . . don’t know.”

“Is your neck hurt?”

“I don’t know. It’s difficult to breathe.”

After a while his breathing settled. “It’s getting a bit better,” he said. “But it still feels like I have a lump in my throat.”

“We’ll get you checked out.”

Gunnar’s head drooped. “I was so goddamned scared,” he whispered. “I thought they were going to strangle me.”

“What happened?”

“They jumped into the seats behind us the moment Magnús pulled in. They grabbed the seat belts and pulled them tight around our necks.”

“How many?”

“I only saw three.”

“Did you try to fight back?”

Gunnar found it difficult to talk. “My back and ribs were already killing me,” he whispered. “There was nothing I could do. I gave up immediately, and they tied me up like this with the tape.
But Magnús fought as best he could. I think he eventually passed out because they kept pulling so hard on the belt around his neck. Then they taped his hands and feet. He looked totally limp when they dragged him out of the car.”

“Did you see their faces?”

“They wore wool hats and some kind of cloth covering their faces. I couldn’t see them properly.”

“Could it have been Jón the Sun Poet and Lúdvík?”

“I don’t know. At least one of them was big, like Jón. Why would they do this?”

“They think Magnús lied in his evidence about the Sandgil fire. Same with Arngrímur Ingason. They’re probably going to try to force them to confess it was Arngrímur who caused the fire.”

Gunnar looked at Birkir. “This has turned into a disaster,” he said. “You need to contact the chief of police.”

20:30

At headquarters, pandemonium broke out over the news that the superintendent had been kidnapped, and that the same gang had probably also taken another man. The word
terrorism
was bandied about. Birkir had to detail his business with Magnús from that evening and explain the connection with the events at Sandgil. After much discussion, the consensus was that Jón the Sun Poet was top of the list of suspects. They needed to search his home, and Birkir asked that he and Dóra perform that task. Everyone agreed, provided that a SWAT team accompanied them; the police administration was worried there might be violence. Another group was sent to visit Lúdvík Bjarnason in Mosfell.

Birkir and Dóra headed over to Jónshús with a seven-man SWAT unit. Two special officers went to cover the back of the house, and two took up positions watching the front. The others approached the front door. “Shall we break it down?” the unit leader asked.

“Let’s give them two minutes to answer the door,” Birkir said.

Half a minute after Dóra rang the bell, Rakel opened the door. Dóra handed her a piece of paper and said they had a warrant to search the house.

Rakel stepped aside without glancing at the paper. “Everybody is always welcome here,” she said, not showing any expression. “We’ve got nothing to hide in this house.”

Birkir was the last to enter. “Who’s at home?” he asked.

“Only me and Fabían,” Rakel said. “The other residents are having a get-together. They all went out to a restaurant.”

“Is Jón Sváfnisson with them?”

“No. Jón went out of town.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Do you know what he’s doing?”

“No.”

“Do you know if Lúdvík Bjarnason is with him?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is Jón somewhere with Arngrímur Ingason?”

“I don’t know,” Rakel said. “Look. Fabían is very sick. He hasn’t been able to keep down any food. I had to give him intravenous fluids. If Jón and Lúdvík are somewhere together on some business, they’ve chosen not to get me mixed up in it. I can’t leave Fabían. I took time off from the hospital to take care of him. There’s nothing I can tell you.”

“Why isn’t Fabían in the hospital?”

“They can’t do any more for him than I can. He feels marginally better in his own room, where he can smoke his grass. A doctor stops by twice a week. I follow his instructions.”

“Is it OK for me to disturb him?” Birkir asked.

“Yes, I was sitting with him when the bell rang. He’s awake.”

“Does he know anything about where Jón might have gone?”

“No. Please spare him any questions about Jón,” Rakel said earnestly. “He knows less than I do, and questions would only upset him.”

Birkir went upstairs to Fabían’s room and found the door ajar. He entered, and found Fabían sitting up in his bed, smoking and reading a book by the light of a small reading lamp. A bottle with some fluid in it hung from a bracket above the bed, and a tube connected it to a needle in his arm. Beautiful music wafted around the room. A Mozart piano concerto, Birkir guessed.

“Good evening,” he said.

Fabían nodded and smiled listlessly.

“You’re reading,” Birkir said.

Fabían showed him the book, a collection of translated short stories. “I never start a long book now,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of leaving a story half read. These days I only read short stories—very short ones, preferably. I only manage a few lines at a time.”

“I spoke with Helgi Kárason earlier today,” Birkir said.

“He was well, I trust?” Fabían said. Though soft, his voice was remarkably clear.

Birkir nodded. “He told me you knew more about the fire in Sandgil than you’ve let on.”

“I find that difficult to talk about,” Fabían said.

“I understand. I won’t push you. Helgi told me everything I need to know, I think.”

“That’s good. I’ve smoked too much this evening. I’m a bit high. It dulls my memory.”

“The house is very peaceful tonight,” Birkir said.

“It’s always peaceful here. We try to be quiet after eight o’clock. Most of us go to bed early.”

“Almost no one is at home tonight.”

“They’ve all gone out.”

“But Jón the Sun Poet isn’t with them. Do you know where he is?”

Fabían shook his head and looked away. “Have I told you about Sun?” he asked.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t mind hearing more.”

Fabían looked at Birkir and said, “Sun was the loveliest person it’s been my pleasure to know during my fragile life. There was not a hint of malice in her. She was pure goodness and wished
everybody well.” The words came slowly, as if he had to weigh them, one by one, before committing them to speech.

“What did she look like?” Birkir asked when he judged that Fabían had finished.

“What did she look like?” The question seemed to surprise Fabían. Finally he said, “It would be idle to say that she was beautiful. She had red hair and freckles, a small upturned nose, and a crooked front tooth. But her green eyes and her smile that always went straight to your heart would outshine any beauty queen’s.”

“I hear she was a good singer.”

“Yes, she was. It was a rather deep voice, and so musical and true that it hardly needed accompaniment. But she played her guitar, too, with a kind of innate talent. She didn’t know many chords, but they were enough for her to be able to create songs that would have done the most well-trained composers proud.”

“People have told me that her death was more than you could cope with.”

Fabían responded slowly, “For some unfathomable reason that child of the sun had to die, and we, her friends, have never been the same since. Why did this have to happen? What could we have done to avoid this tragedy? Those questions wake us every morning and send us to sleep every night. No one who has met such a creature and lost her so uselessly will ever recover their former self.”

Birkir didn’t know how to respond to this speech, and for a while neither of them spoke. Finally he asked, “Have you noticed any unusual comings and goings here?”

Fabían looked at Birkir in surprise. “Nothing here is either usual or unusual. Sometimes people turn up and sometimes people leave. Like the moon, waxing and waning.”

“Have you seen Jón Sun Poet this evening?”

Fabían smiled weakly. “All my life people have been asking me questions. ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where are you?’ ‘What is there behind the darkness?’ I think I’ve only given confident answers to one or two of those questions,” he said.

Dóra popped her head around the door. “We can’t find anybody here,” she said. “We’re just finishing in the basement.”

Birkir stood up to leave. “Thanks for the chat,” he said to Fabían.

Outside on the landing, Rakel was waiting for him. “This scares me,” she said. “I know you’re a good man and that I can talk to you in confidence.”

“What are you scared of?”

“I’m scared for Jón. I think he’s having one of his manic episodes, and it bothers me that he’s not at home. He can lose his sense of judgment under these circumstances.”

“You really don’t have any idea where he might be?”

“No. Somebody called him Saturday evening—some guy. Jón doesn’t have a cell phone, so if anyone wants to get ahold of him, they call the landline. He left the house yesterday morning carrying an old cassette recorder, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“Did you hear any of the phone conversation?”

“No. Jón didn’t really say anything. He just listened. Then he scribbled something on a piece of paper and took it with him.”

“What sort of paper?”

“You know, a white piece of paper. Lined.”

“I mean, where did he get the paper?”

“There’s a pad by the phone for messages and stuff. When folks answer and need to pass on a message, they write it down and pin it to a corkboard next to the phone.”

“Can you show me?”

Rakel nodded and led him down the stairs. By the front door was a little telephone table with a chair next to it. Rakel pointed to the small notepad and ballpoint pen on the table.

“Do you use this a lot?” Birkir asked, carefully picking up the pad.

“No,” Rakel replied. “Most of us have cell phones so folks can call us directly, or text us. Or e-mail us. It’s mainly Jón who gets messages here.”

“Has anybody used this pad since Jón wrote on it Saturday?”

Rakel glanced at the corkboard. “No, these are all old messages. There’s nothing new here. I don’t think anybody’s used the pad since then.”

“Can I take this with me?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“Listen.”

“Yes?”

“Please be gentle with Jón if you find him. He’s a good man. He’s just not too well at the moment.”

21:40

The chief of police had instructed them to set up an incident room to coordinate the search for Magnús and Arngrímur. Birkir looked in and saw several people either talking on the phone or examining a large map of Reykjavík. They’d decided on a systematic search of empty houses in the city—there were plenty of them, thanks to the financial crisis—and some on the team were at work making lists of these places. Then there were others who evidently felt it would help to talk loudly or march back and forth waving documents.

In Mosfell, the SWAT team had found a small frightened woman in an apartment that, according to the National Register, was supposed to be Lúdvík Bjarnason’s address. She swore he was abroad and not expected back anytime soon. She was not actually certain that this was his home at all, because their relationship was somewhat vague. Lúdvík came and went, and didn’t tell her much about his movements. The woman was able to show the policemen a few boxes containing Lúdvík’s personal things, as well as some clothes in a wardrobe. That was all.

Birkir found Anna in the forensic lab. She was standing by a sink, and quickly extinguished a cigarette under the tap when she heard someone coming.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, relieved.

“You’re still working,” he said.

“Yes. I’m completing a preliminary report on the Austurbrún case, the dead safe-breaker. We’ll continue tomorrow.” She nodded at some photographs lying on the table. “We have footprints.”

Birkir looked at one of the photos, which showed an indistinct print in something that could be a very fine layer of dust, with a red-and-white ruler laid next to it. The image had been computer-enhanced and the outlines exaggerated with a black line. It was a print from a shoe with a plain sole.

“Pretty ordinary,” he said.

Anna picked up another photo and handed it to him. “This seems to be the other foot.”

Birkir stared at the picture. It showed a smaller print, a shade wider but significantly shorter.

“It looks like a specially made shoe for a crippled foot,” Anna said. “This could be a big help to us.”

“Where do you get shoes like this?”

“We’ll find out tomorrow,” Anna said. “This will do for tonight.”

“Just one more thing,” Birkir said, carefully fishing Jón the Sun Poet’s notepad out of an envelope. “I need to know what was written on the last bit of paper before it was torn out,” he said, laying the pad down on the workbench.

Anna took out a magnifying glass and peered at the pad. “I’ll have a look at it. You go home. It’ll be on your desk tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks,” Birkir said. “But please call me right away if you detect an address or some sort of location.”

Anna nodded.

22:10

Birkir found Gunnar at home in his kitchen. He had a stiff medical collar around his neck, and his mother was helping him eat.

“Want the rest of the meat stew?” Gunnar asked hoarsely.

“Yes, please, just a small amount.”

María fetched a bowl and set it in front of Birkir.

“What did the doctors say?” Birkir asked when he’d taken a spoonful of soup.

Gunnar was having trouble swallowing. “They took an X-ray of my neck,” he struggled to say. “Said it’s just a sprain. A bad sprain, actually, and very inflamed, so I’ve got to wear this thing until it gets better.”

“Oh, well, you got off easy,” Birkir said. “I hope you stay home the rest of the week and try to recover.”

“I’ll come in tomorrow. I’m too restless to stay home while we’re still working this case. I can at least take phone calls.”