Sea of Stone

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Keflavík, eh?’ He handed it back. ‘Can’t this wait until I have finished my surgery?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Ingvar. I have some questions I must ask you,’ Adam said, lowering himself into the patient’s chair. He was damned if he was going to let this doctor intimidate him. The Dumpling had gone down to Reykjavík, and Adam was pleased that he had been given this interview rather than Björn from Akureyri. He was determined to make the most of it.

  He took out his notebook.

  ‘You should have that mole on your forehead seen to,’ said Ingvar.

  Adam’s fingers flew to his brow before he could stop himself. A small misshapen mark had appeared there a year or so before. What did he mean, get it checked? It couldn’t be skin cancer, could it?

  ‘Please make it quick,’ Ingvar said. ‘I really need to get back to Bjarnarhöfn to see my mother. Aníta says she is deteriorating.’

  ‘She is,’ said Adam, recovering. ‘I want to speak to you about your father’s finances.’

  Ingvar sat back in his chair and raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I understand that you had been helping your father with his investments?’

  Ingvar nodded. ‘I had. I think I gave him some very good advice, actually.’

  ‘From sources at Ódinsbanki?’

  Ingvar hesitated. Adam realized the doctor was no dummy; he would know all about the insider trading and market manipulation investigations going on in Reykjavík.

  ‘I think I have a good general overview of the financial markets. It’s true that I recommended that my father invest in Ódinsbanki. And again that I told him to sell just before the peak.’

  ‘Very impressive,’ said Adam. ‘And is it also true that you asked him for a loan as a result a few months ago? As an advance on your inheritance?’

  ‘Where did you get this information?’

  ‘Just answer the question please.’

  Ingvar’s disapproval was obvious. He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on the young detective. ‘Very well. Yes, I did ask my father for a loan. Last August, I think. We have quite a lot of debt: a mortgage on our house here and another on our flat in Paris.’

  Adam showed no signs of sympathy. ‘And what did your father say to that?’

  ‘He said no.’

  ‘Did this anger you?’

  ‘Yes, it did.’

  ‘Would you say that there was tension between yourself and Hallgrímur as a result?’

  ‘Yes, I would,’ said Ingvar carefully.

  Adam examined the doctor. He was cautious, but not nervous. He seemed to be in control. And expecting the next question.

  ‘As a result of Hallgrímur’s death, can you expect to inherit a significant sum of money?’

  Ingvar smiled. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ said Ingvar. ‘Does that surprise you? Didn’t your informant tell you that?’

  Adam ignored the question. ‘So what will happen to Hallgrímur’s fortune?’

  ‘He has no fortune,’ said Ingvar. ‘He sold when I told him to. The market fell a bit and one of his old buddies told him it was a good time to get back in. So he did. He bought a lot of bank shares, most of which are now worthless. Oh, he probably has some money, but not enough to bale me out.’

  Ingvar shook his head in disgust. ‘That’s what really made me angry. Not that he wouldn’t give me a loan. I almost expected that from the old bastard. It was that he had been stupid enough to lose it all. He enjoyed telling me that the inheritance I had been counting on had disappeared. You can check this with my father’s lawyer. And his bank.’

  Adam wanted to ask why Ingvar hadn’t told his wife about Hallgrímur’s investment losses, but the question wasn’t important. There were a dozen possible reasons, and he didn’t want to confirm to Ingvar that Gabrielle was the indirect source of his knowledge. But Adam could tell from the way Ingvar was looking at him that he knew.

  ‘I won’t take up any more of your time.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ingvar. ‘Now, please ask my next patient to come in.’

  Adam felt a bit of a fool as he left the hospital. How was he to know that Hallgrímur had blown his profits? He hadn’t actually been with Emil when Aníta had informed him of Ingvar’s money problems, but Adam doubted that either she or Ingvar’s wife knew about the old man’s investment losses. He would verify that with Hallgrímur’s bank, but he suspected that Ingvar was telling the truth.

  The hospital was only two hundred metres from the harbour. Time to check whether Ingvar really was there working on his boat the previous morning when his father was murdered twenty kilometres away.

  Emil had forgotten what a jerk Baldur Jakobsson was. He was in Baldur’s office at police headquarters in Reykjavík, listening to the inspector doing his best to belittle him. Baldur wasn’t being that subtle about it, either.

  Emil was older than Baldur, and had been senior to him when Baldur had started in CID, but Baldur now outranked him. Baldur had stayed on in Reykjavík, whereas Emil had moved to Akranes to be near his wife’s family farm. That was why Emil’s career had been put on hold, yet here was Baldur acting like Emil was a failure.

  ‘So, you haven’t had any support yet from Keflavík?’ Baldur was saying.

  ‘Actually, they sent me a detective. A guy called Adam. Do you know him?’

  ‘I’ve met him,’ said Baldur. ‘But not Thorsteinn? I would have thought he would have the right level of experience.’

  Thorsteinn was an inspector in Keflavík’s CID. Keflavík had more serious crime than Akranes, so Baldur was right, it would be natural for Thorsteinn to take charge. Except Emil knew he had the confidence of Snorri, his former colleague and the current National Police Commissioner.

  ‘Not yet,’ Emil said.

  ‘Soon, I expect,’ said Baldur.

  ‘We do have a suspect in custody,’ said Emil. ‘One of your officers.’

  ‘Magnús is not my officer. He just has a desk here. He reports directly to the Commissioner’s office.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ asked Emil. ‘I hear he has been quite successful.’

  Baldur didn’t like that. ‘It’s true the team have had some successes over the past year. But it’s a team effort. Like the arrests we made on Saturday. A team effort. And Magnús isn’t really a team player.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. He likes to do things his way. Sometimes he gets lucky, but just as often he messes up the investigation. You should know something about Magnús.’ Baldur leaned forward conspiratorially.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s not really an Icelander. Sure, he speaks the language, but he’s a Yank through and through. And a Yank policeman at that.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means he is used to violence. And I mean extreme violence. When he was in Boston he was dealing with violent death all the time. It means he demands to carry a gun, and my guess is if we let him carry one here, he’d use it. It means he doesn’t ask the right people the right questions in the right way. It means he knows all these modern investigative techniques, but he doesn’t know good old-fashioned police work.’

  Baldur shook his head in disappointment at the way things had come to pass. ‘He’s here because the Commissioner thinks that Iceland is beginning to suffer the kind of crime that places like Boston experience every day. But you know what? I think that when the police start behaving like Magnús, the criminals will start behaving like gangsters too.’

  ‘I see,’ said Emil.

  ‘What I’m saying is that an Icelandic policeman couldn’t possibly commit murder. None of us could. But Magnús comes from a more violent world. To him, murder is different. It’s dayto-day.’

  ‘So you think he killed his grandfather?’

  ‘I assume he did, which is why you’ve arrested him,’ said Baldur. ‘What I’m saying is, I’m not surprised.’

  Emil felt almost sorry for Magnus. But maybe Baldur had a point. Maybe viol
ent death was less extraordinary to Magnus than it would be to an ordinary Icelander.

  ‘Do you mind if I question some of the detectives he has been working with? Find out what they have noticed over the last few days?’

  ‘Not at all. He works with two of them, primarily. One is off duty, but the other is right here in the department.’

  Baldur introduced Emil to Árni Holm, and then left them. Emil liked the young detective. He knew of him already – he was Thorkell Holm’s nephew. Thorkell was the chief superintendent in charge of CID, which was no doubt how Árni had got his job in the Violent Crimes Unit. Where Baldur had been disparaging about Magnus, Árni was gushing in his praise. Such innocent, blind loyalty was touching.

  Árni took Emil through everything that Magnus had done over the previous week in the investigation involving the Italian tourist killed on the volcano. Emil couldn’t see a link to Hallgrímur’s death, but unless he asked the questions, he wouldn’t know for sure.

  ‘Did Magnús talk about his family much?’ Emil asked.

  ‘Not really,’ said Árni. ‘He is quite private. I met his cousin once, a lawyer called Sigurbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir, and I knew he had spent time with his grandparents in the Snaefells Peninsula. Also his brother from America is staying with him, but I’m sure you know that.’

  So Sigurbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir was Magnus’s cousin as well as his lawyer? That was interesting. In Iceland’s closed society it wasn’t remarkable that a lawyer should act for her cousin. Unless the cousin had murdered their common grandfather. Now that was strange.

  ‘Did he mention his father’s murder in 1996?’ Emil asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or the murder of Benedikt Jóhannesson in 1985?’

  Árni scratched his ear and shook his head.

  ‘Are you sure, Árni?’

  ‘Yes.’ Árni nodded vigorously. ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘In that case, can you explain why the file is signed out under your name?’

  ‘Er.’

  Árni’s eyes were wide, startled. Emil could see him trying to put together an explanation. Emil almost felt sorry for him.

  ‘Take some advice, Árni. Don’t lie to me. Whatever you do, don’t lie to an investigating officer. Just tell me the truth.’

  ‘I think I’ll stick with “er”,’ said Árni.

  Emil shook his head. ‘Can I have the file please, Árni?’

  ‘Er.’

  Emil raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The file is… somewhere else. I’ll get it to you soon. Very soon.’

  Emil’s tone hardened. ‘I don’t know what you are doing with that file, Árni, or why it isn’t right here on your desk. But wherever it is, I want it here in the next hour. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Árni crisply.

  ‘Good. One last thing. Were you on duty here yesterday morning?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Árni.

  ‘When did you hear that Magnús had discovered Hallgrímur’s body?’

  ‘Some time that morning.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Baldur. He got a call from the Commissioner.’

  ‘Magnús didn’t tell you himself?’

  ‘No.’ Árni noticed the expression on Emil’s face. ‘I mean…’

  ‘Don’t even try to lie about that,’ said Emil. ‘I understand your colleague Vigdís is on leave for a couple of days. I’d like to talk to her. Give me her number.’

  Árni examined his phone and dictated some digits. Emil wrote them down and left.

  The morgue wasn’t far from police headquarters, just up the road on Barónsstígur, but Emil opted to drive. He slumped into the seat of his car, panting, and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. His heart was beating too fast again. He rested for a moment, and then took out his phone and called Björn in Stykkishólmur.

  ‘I know it’s early, but have we got the records on Magnús’s mobile phone yet?’

  ‘Just come in,’ said Björn.

  ‘That was quick.’ Emil had only got the warrant from the judge in Borgarnes earlier that morning. Sometimes the phone company could take days to provide information.

  ‘Told them it was a murder inquiry,’ said Björn, with a touch of pride in his voice.

  ‘Well done. Can you check what calls Magnús made after he discovered the body? That would be roughly eleven-thirty yesterday morning.’

  ‘Sure. Hang on a moment.’ Emil heard the rustling of papers. ‘He called 112 at 11.29. Then nothing until 12.02.’

  ‘What was that number? I bet it wasn’t anyone at police headquarters.’

  ‘Let’s see. An international call. The country code was forty-nine. Where’s that?’

  ‘That’s Germany,’ said Emil. ‘Find out who is registered on that number as quickly as possible and call me back.’

  Emil put down his phone. Who the hell would Magnus want to call in Germany?

  Half an hour later, Emil was in the morgue, kitted out in scrubs, standing over a trolley bearing the pale, wizened body of an old man. The autopsy revealed nothing unexpected. The pathologist confirmed that the cause of death was cerebral bleeding following five blows to the skull. And fragments of wood in the victim’s scalp suggested that these may well have been inflicted by the murderer banging the victim’s head against a wooden floor. There were signs that three strands of hair had been pulled out by the roots.

  There were plenty of other things wrong with Hallgrímur’s body, but nothing that wouldn’t be expected from moving parts that were more than eighty years old. In fact, for his age, he had been in good health. The one thing that caught the pathologist’s attention was a couple of bruises on Hallgrímur’s arm and legs, both a few days old, and signs of pinprick bleeds. The victim wasn’t on any blood-thinning drugs, which suggested a possibility of leukaemia, a suspicion that would be quickly checked by analysis of the blood samples he had taken.

  Afterwards, Emil went on to the house in Njálsgata where Magnus lived, a search warrant in his pocket. Magnus’s landlady, an extraordinary-looking young woman named Katrín, turned out to be Árni’s sister. Funny how the detective had failed to mention it. She was surly, but when Emil showed her his warrant, she gave a brief account of Magnus’s comings and goings over the previous few days. She told him about his brother Ollie, his row with his ex-girlfriend Ingileif, and his departure in a hurry to follow Ollie and his schoolteacher friend north.

  Then she took him upstairs to Magnus’s room. She left Emil taking photographs of Magnus’s wall.

  He was writing up notes when his phone buzzed. It was Adam.

  ‘How did you do with Ingvar?’ Emil asked.

  ‘Looks unlikely,’ Adam said. ‘He admitted that Hallgrímur had made millions on the stock market with Ingvar’s help, but apparently he lost it all later. Ingvar was angry about that, but he doesn’t expect to inherit anything.’

  ‘His wife is in for a bit of a shock,’ said Emil.

  ‘I tried not to let on that was where we got the information, but I think Ingvar guessed. I checked with Hallgrímur’s bank in town, who confirmed he had had a brokerage account there, but that he had closed it down when the shares in it became worthless.’

  ‘What about the will? Do we know how much he had in his estate? And who he left it to?’ The question had to be asked, but under Icelandic inheritance law, two-thirds of the deceased’s estate had to be divided equally among ‘forced heirs’, meaning spouse and children. Only one third could be disposed of according to the deceased’s will.

  ‘I’ll check,’ said Adam.

  ‘Anyone confirm that Ingvar was working on his boat at the time of the murder?’ Emil asked.

  ‘Yes. The harbourmaster. And the captain of the ferry, who is one of his patients and saw him.’

  ‘That’s pretty clear, then,’ Emil said. ‘Did Björn have any luck with the phone number?’

  ‘It’s a mobile phone, and most of those numbers are unlisted.’

  �
�Damn! We’ll have to get on to the German police.’

  ‘No we don’t,’ said Adam. ‘I dialled the number. Got put through to voicemail. It may be a German phone, but the owner is an Icelander, and her name is Ingileif Gunnarsdóttir.’

  Emil studied the woman sitting behind the desk at the back of the small gallery in Skólavördustígur. Her colleague had agreed to leave them for a few minutes and had flipped the sign on the door to ‘Closed’.

  She was slender, pretty, with blonde hair hanging down in a fringe over her eyes. Emil noticed a small scar on her left eyebrow. She seemed cool and controlled but she avoided Emil’s eyes.

  Emil had simply called the number and asked to speak to her immediately. It had taken him less than ten minutes to drive from Magnus’s flat to the gallery.

  ‘You have no doubt heard that Magnús Ragnarsson has been arrested for murder?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ingileif. ‘Of his grandfather. But I don’t believe it. It can’t be true.’

  ‘You were his girlfriend, I understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ingileif. ‘We met about a year ago. But then last autumn I went away to Hamburg, and we finished it.’

  ‘Finished it? Didn’t you spend the night with him last week?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ingileif smiled quickly. ‘Yes, I did. But…’ She glanced briefly at Emil and then away again. ‘It wasn’t a good idea. You see, I have a friend back in Germany, and Magnús didn’t like that. So we had a bit of a row. I stormed out. I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘And when exactly was that?’

  ‘Er, Thursday night, I think. Yes, Thursday.’

  ‘And you say you haven’t seen him since?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ingileif, raising her head.

  ‘Have you heard from him?’

  ‘No.’

  Emil let the silence hang. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked eventually.

  Ingileif’s cheeks reddened. She seemed to feel it, because she rubbed them and then stared down at the surface of the desk.

  ‘Not even yesterday morning?’ Emil asked.

  She looked up. ‘No.’ Stronger this time.

  ‘The phone records show that Magnús called your number at 12.02 p.m. yesterday.’