66° North

by Michael Ridpath

  Suddenly the cloud seemed to lift and they were in a valley of rock and moss. There, on the left, was the hut, its door wide open. And on the right was a pickup truck, its nose pointing down towards the stream, one of its front wheels wedged in a hole, and one of its back wheels raised off the ground. The driver’s door was hanging open.

  ‘Slow down! You take the hut, I’ll take the truck!’ said Magnus. He jumped out of the car before it had come to a halt, ran to the truck and looked inside. Nothing. He scanned the hill. A short distance up the far wall of the valley he saw a body splayed out on the ground.

  He forded the freezing stream and ran uphill. It was Björn. Stab wound to the chest. It didn’t look good unless they could get rapid medical attention.

  At least he was conscious. His eyes flickered up at Magnus.

  Magnus asked the key question. ‘Who did this?’

  Björn tried to speak, but was finding it difficult. Magnus lowered his ear towards Björn’s mouth. He heard one word. ‘Ísak.’

  ‘Where’s Harpa?’ he asked.

  Björn couldn’t answer, but he flicked his eyes upwards.

  ‘She’s gone up the hill?’ Magnus asked.

  Björn nodded, just a brief downward movement of the chin.

  ‘And Ísak’s after her?’

  Another nod.

  Magnus tried for one more question. ‘And who is Ingólfur Arnarson?’

  Björn closed his eyes and moved his head to the side.

  Magnus waved at Páll who was trotting heavily towards the stream. ‘Get an ambulance!’ he shouted.

  Páll raised an arm in acknowledgement and ran back to his car and the radio.

  Magnus turned and looked up the hill. The cloud seemed to be lifting, moving off to his left down the valley. But he couldn’t see either Ísak or Harpa. He closed his eyes and listened. He could hear running water, the croak of a raven, Björn’s laboured breathing, and somewhere above, the clatter of falling stones.

  He set off up the hill into the fog.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  HARPA RAN AS fast as she could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough. Her wrists were a real problem; because they were tied together she couldn’t use her arms to help her balance. And she was wearing the wrong shoes, they kept slipping on the scree, sending torrents of stones falling down behind her. She fell every few seconds, it would only be a matter of time before she twisted something. Her heart felt like it was going to explode.

  The fog was dense around her. Above the crescendo of the blood in her ears and her own panting, she could hear the rattle of stones below as Ísak caught up on her.

  Then suddenly the mist lifted. Above her was blue sky. To her left and right was rock. And behind and in front was a thick carpet of grey. She was at the top, on the ridge between one valley and the next.

  She stopped for a second. She could hear Ísak close behind. Summoning up a renewed burst of energy she sprinted downhill towards the cloud. She slipped and fell, twisting one knee and grazing the other. She couldn’t stop herself emitting a cry of pain. The fog was only a few metres away. She limped towards it.

  She felt an enormous sense of relief as once again she was enveloped by the blanket of moisture. Although the slope was broadly downhill, her knee was giving out.

  The fog was thick now. She spotted a cluster of boulders to the left. If she just lay down there and kept quiet, Ísak would never find her.

  She changed direction and headed for the rocks.

  Suddenly she heard the regular thump of Ísak’s feet hitting the ground. She couldn’t see him, but it sounded as if they were going to collide. She took the decision to keep going for the rocks.

  She threw herself at them and lay still, huddled between two boulders. Except she wasn’t exactly still, her chest was heaving and her heart pounding.

  Seconds later she heard Ísak lope past. She could see his legs. He was barely five metres away from her as he stopped to listen. She tried to hold her breath, but she could only do it for a few seconds. Her lungs needed the air. The sound as she exhaled seemed loud to her, but Ísak appeared not to notice. He walked cautiously forward into the mist.

  She stood up, and made her way as quietly as she could laterally along the slope of the hill, putting distance between her and Ísak.

  But then the fog rolled away, revealing a valley glistening in the pale sunshine.

  Ísak was a hundred metres away to the left, slightly below her. He stopped, scanned the hillside below, to his right. He turned towards her.

  She ran downhill as fast as her jellied knee would let her.

  Magnus plunged into the fog. The slope was tricky, rocks that were sharp in places, slick in others, moss, dirt and the odd patches of grass. Occasionally he would pause to listen out for the sounds of dislodged stones. He couldn’t hear any.

  The fog was good. Provided Harpa kept quiet it would be impossible for Ísak to find her. In fact, if she had any sense, she would just lie low and wait.

  Magnus’s situation was different. He was a big lumbering target making a lot of noise, whose adversary had a knife and had just used it. And he was unarmed. If only he had a firearm. According to the manual he should hold off and wait for back-up.

  Screw that. Apart from anything else the back-up wouldn’t be armed either.

  He pressed on.

  His heart pounding, he found himself in a shallow dip between two wind-eroded rocks. He had the impression that he was on the ridge between the two valleys.

  He heard the sound of someone falling and a cry. It sounded as if it was coming from ahead and to the right but lower down, not too far away.

  Magnus altered direction towards it. He was going downhill. A few seconds later he emerged from the clouds. Below him was a new valley, grassier than the bleak one they had just left, with a road of pristine black asphalt running up the centre of it.

  And a couple of hundred metres down the slope of the valley, he saw Harpa sliding down the hill, Ísak close behind her. She was finding it hard to keep her balance with her hands tied in front of her.

  Magnus hurried after them. In dismay he could see Harpa heading for the top of a rocky outcrop perhaps fifty feet high. She obviously couldn’t see the drop. ‘To the left!’ he shouted. ‘Run to the left!’

  But she ignored him. It looked for a second as if she was going to propel herself off the cliff, but she stopped just in time. Turned. Saw Ísak close behind her and slid down a crevice.

  She came to rest on a narrow ledge and began to work her way awkwardly along the rock face, her back to the cliff, hands in front of her.

  Ísak hesitated at the top of the outcrop. He turned to see Magnus approaching down the hill.

  ‘Wait, Ísak!’ Magnus shouted.

  Ísak looked down, and slid down the crevice as well.

  It took Magnus a minute to get to the rock. Below him, Harpa had run out of ledge. Ísak was inching towards her, knife outstretched. There was still some of Björn’s blood on the blade.

  ‘Put the knife down, Ísak!’ Magnus shouted. ‘There’s no point in killing Harpa now!’

  Ísak hesitated. He was listening.

  ‘Sindri has talked. We know you stabbed Björn. It doesn’t matter what Harpa tells us now. So let her go!’

  For a moment Magnus thought Ísak would do the rational thing. But then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You back off! Back off or I will kill her!’ He continued making his way carefully along the ledge.

  A hostage situation. It was some progress. At least Ísak wouldn’t kill Harpa right away.

  But hostage situations were inherently uncertain. Magnus had been involved in a couple back in Boston where people had died when they shouldn’t.

  Although Ísak was desperate, he wasn’t high and he wasn’t a psycho. And yet, you never knew what might happen with hostage situations.

  There were still a few seconds before Ísak reached Harpa. Magnus weighed the options. Ísak and Harpa were prob
ably twenty feet below him. Below them was a further twenty to thirty feet to a steep grassy slope.

  If Magnus slid down the rock face he could take Ísak with him in a tumble all the way to the bottom. A dumb thing to do. Magnus would probably break something, possibly his neck. And Ísak might easily stick him with the knife.

  Whereas if Ísak reached Harpa the situation might resolve itself with nobody getting hurt.

  Or not.

  Ísak closed on Harpa. She had nowhere to go. She screamed.

  What the hell. Magnus jumped.

  He slid down the near-vertical smooth rock on his ass. Ísak turned and raised his knife, jabbing upwards. Magnus twisted. The knife caught his arm, but Magnus’s legs knocked into Ísak’s and the two of them rolled and bumped their way to the bottom of the slope.

  Magnus hit his back, his chest and then his head on a rock.

  Everything went black.

  He had no idea how long he was out. It must only have been a few seconds, because when he opened his eyes, he saw Ísak scrambling towards him, clutching the knife, blood running down one of his cheeks.

  Magnus tried to heave himself on to his elbow, but his head swam. His body was receiving mixed signals, his confused brain was unable to make use of the adrenalin flooding his system.

  Ísak reached him. Swayed. Two Ísaks.

  Magnus tried to force his brain to tell his legs and arms to cooperate, but they wouldn’t.

  Ísak raised the knife. Magnus couldn’t even cry out.

  Then he saw a grey stone come crashing down on the back of Ísak’s skull and the kid crumpled.

  Two Harpas came into Magnus’s vision and slowly merged into one.

  Finally he managed to pull himself onto his elbows.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘What shall I do?’ said Harpa, looking down at the prone body of Ísak. A stone a bit bigger than a baseball still in her bound hands.

  ‘If he moves, hit him again with that,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Do you think I’ve killed him?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Just then a police car came roaring up the road, its lights flashing. ‘Give them a wave, will you?’

  Magnus’s head hurt, and his forearm stung where Ísak’s knife had grazed it. He was leaning against the police car which had pulled over on the verge of the road up through the pass. There had been two officers in it. One was watching over Ísak who was still unconscious, the other one was summoning an ambulance from the hospital in Stykkishólmur.

  ‘I’ve killed him, haven’t I?’ Harpa said.

  ‘Not yet, unfortunately,’ said Magnus. ‘He’s still breathing.’

  ‘After Gabríel Örn, I couldn’t handle knowing I had killed someone else.’

  ‘Harpa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A bit of advice. From now on, don’t talk to anyone, especially a policeman, about what happened to Gabríel Örn. Not unless you have a lawyer present.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Harpa. ‘I don’t care.’ She winced, and bent down to rub her knee. ‘That hurts.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Magnus. ‘For Markús’s sake.’

  She smiled quickly. ‘OK. But I thought you were trying to get me to confess?’

  ‘Yeah. But that was before you saved my life. Don’t worry, we’ll figure out what happened. I just don’t want you to screw up your defence.’

  She smiled. ‘Thanks. And thanks for coming after me.’

  Magnus’s brain was beginning to clear. ‘There are a load of questions we need to ask you, but I guess the most important is, do you know if they have another target?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harpa. ‘Yes, they do.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  ‘I asked Björn, but he wouldn’t say.’

  ‘Ingólfur Arnarson? Did he mention the name Ingólfur Arnarson?’

  ‘The first settler? No. He did say there’s someone else out there. Someone who actually does the killing. But I don’t know who that is.’

  ‘Do you have any clue? Think, Harpa.’

  ‘No. I tried to make him tell me, but he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Did he say when it’s going to happen?’

  ‘Yes. Kind of. What did he say?’ Harpa frowned, trying to remember. ‘How did he put it? “This afternoon maybe. Maybe this evening. Certainly by tomorrow morning.” Something like that. That’s where he was going. To receive a text from the killer on his phone. He couldn’t get reception in the hut so he went back up the pass. Have you found him? Have you arrested him?’

  Magnus realized that Harpa didn’t know what had happened to her boyfriend. She had to know; he may as well be the one to tell her.

  ‘Yeah, I found him. He had been stabbed. By Ísak.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Harpa put her hand to her mouth. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘He was in a bad way when I left him to go after you. A chest wound.’

  ‘You left him?’

  ‘Yes. With another police officer. He was going to call an ambulance.’

  ‘Do you know how he is?’

  Magnus raised an eyebrow at the uniformed policeman who had finished on the radio. ‘I’ll check,’ the constable said.

  He left the car door open as he called Páll on the radio. Magnus considered asking Harpa to step back, but there wasn’t much point. She would want to know.

  ‘Do you have Björn Helgason there?’ the officer asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Magnus heard Páll’s voice. From his tone, he knew what was coming next. ‘But he’s dead at the scene.’

  Magnus heard a short gasp from Harpa. He took the radio mike from the constable. ‘Páll, it’s Magnús. Did you get a chance to ask him any questions?’

  ‘No. He lost consciousness as soon as I got to him.’

  ‘Damn!’ Magnus was focused on the next victim. Ingólfur Arnarson, whoever that was, did not have long to live, unless they figured something out. He had an idea. ‘Páll?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘See if you can find Björn’s phone. Then check “last number called”.’

  ‘Roger.’

  Magnus straightened up as he waited for Páll to get back to him. The colour had drained from Harpa’s face, but her eyes were dry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Magnus said.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Harpa said. ‘It will probably hit me soon. But in the hut back there I realized what Björn was doing was wrong. He killed other people. He brought this on himself.’

  The radio crackled into life. ‘Magnús?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I tried redial. It didn’t just have the number it had the name of the contact.’

  ‘And who was it?’

  ‘Einar.’

  Behind Magnus, Harpa let out a cry. ‘No! No, no, no, no, no!’ There was pain and desperation in her voice. ‘Don’t believe him, Magnús. He must have made a mistake!’

  But Magnus knew Páll had got it right. And so, he thought, did Harpa.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  ÁRNI WAS DRIVING back to Reykjavík from Hafnarfjördur, having spoken to both of Ísak’s parents and learned nothing. They were as mystified as the police as to their son’s whereabouts. The mother especially had sensed that something was seriously wrong, but Ísak had been totally uncommunicative.

  Árni was almost back at police headquarters on Hverfisgata when his phone rang. It was Baldur. ‘Árni, get over to Seltjarnarnes right away. We know who the assassin is. Harpa’s father. Einar.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  ‘OK. Don’t make an arrest until the uniformed back-up is there.’

  ‘What am I arresting him for?’

  ‘The murder of Óskar Gunnarsson. We’ll start with that and work up from there.’

  Blue-light time. It took Árni longer than he would have liked to fix it to the roof of his unmarked Skoda, but then he was off. He put his foot down and sped through the Reykjavík traffic, a tense grin on his face. He swerved as he almost caught a motorbike he hadn’t seen in the oncoming lane. H
e checked the mirror. The guy had come to a stop but hadn’t actually fallen off.

  He slowed down as he approached the Bakkavör turn-off. It was lucky he did, because he caught sight of Einar stepping out of his Freelander and going into his house.

  Árni slowed to a stop, just as two patrol cars swerved into the road behind him, sirens off, fortunately. Árni waved them down.

  ‘The suspect has just gone into his house! Come on!’

  ‘Hold on a moment.’ One of the officers was on the radio. ‘They want us to hold off. They think he’s armed. We wait for the Viking Squad.’

  So Árni waited in his car fifty metres along from Einar’s house. He had the front door covered: there was no way Einar could leave without Árni spotting him. The two patrol cars were joined by another one, and they retreated around the corner to lurk.

  Everyone was waiting for the Viking Squad, Reykjavík’s SWAT team made up of volunteer officers from across the Metropolitan Police. Árni was disappointed not to make the arrest himself, but it would be cool to see the SWAT team in action.

  Then his phone rang. It was Baldur. ‘Árni? I want you back at the station.’

  ‘But Einar—’

  ‘The Viking Squad will arrest him as soon as they get there. I want you back here now. We need to figure out who the next target is. Róbert will relieve you.’

  Árni saw his colleague approaching in another unmarked Skoda. Reluctantly, Árni turned his own car around and headed back to the station.

  They had almost reached Helgafell when Magnus’s phone rang. Baldur.

  ‘Árni has spotted Einar. He has just returned home.’

  ‘Has he arrested him?’

  ‘We’re calling in the Viking Squad. Einar is probably armed.’

  ‘Now you’re talking,’ said Magnus. ‘I could have used some of their help an hour ago.’

  ‘Any luck on the next victim?’

  Magnus glanced at the woman next to him. She was staring out of the window at the little hill of Helgafell coming ever closer, her hand to her mouth, her face stricken with anguish.

  ‘Harpa doesn’t know. Ísak is still unconscious so he hasn’t talked.’ Magnus was about to add that they wouldn’t hear anything more from Björn, but with Harpa listening he decided not to.