Sun on Fire

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  Fabían stood up and walked out onto the grass. Birkir followed.

  “This house has benefited from Jón’s excellent choice of lodgers,” Fabían said, looking fondly at his home. “The folks here are all artistic eccentrics, men and women of different ages, and the house is really a living academy. I’ve stayed here ever since I got out of the mental hospital—and I’ve been very happy, socially.”

  “But how’s your health been?” Birkir asked.

  “The cancer has recurred twice. They managed to arrest it the first time, but now it’s become chronic and it has metastasized. I’m on medication to slow its progress, but other than that the aim of the treatment is just to ameliorate the symptoms. I don’t have much time left, which is sad, because I really appreciate the life I have now.”

  “How have you spent your time here?”

  “I collect my disability pension and draw pictures. Whenever Jón brings out new editions of his verse, I do the book design in my own—some say peculiar—style, and also draw illustrations to accompany the poems.”

  Birkir’s cell phone rang as Fabían spoke. He answered it and listened for a moment. The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and Fabían prepared to return inside.

  “Can I offer you a cup of coffee or something?” he asked when Birkir had finished his call.

  “No, thank you. It looks as if I have to go check out another guy. Thanks for the chat.”

  15:00

  Birkir’s call had been from Dóra. She and Anna and two uniformed cops had gone to David and Starkadur’s home with a warrant to take their prints. It had taken a deal of persuasion to get the two to comply, but they succeeded. Anna immediately compared the palm prints with the print found on the ambassador’s desk and got a positive result: The palm print on the desk belonged to Starkadur. Dóra arrested him then and there. She was in the process of taking him to the police station when she called Birkir.

  Birkir relayed this information to Gunnar, and they decided to conduct the interview with Starkadur together. They figured it might just turn out to be a very important conversation.

  Dóra and the prisoner were waiting for them in an interview room. Starkadur looked like thunder and said nothing when they greeted him. “You know why we’ve brought you here,” Gunnar said once he’d switched on the audio and video recorder and listed those present.

  “Yes, and it’s harassment and illegal arrest,” Starkadur replied. “My husband is arranging for a lawyer to get me out of here.”

  “Would you like us to suspend this interview until your lawyer arrives?” Birkir asked.

  “It’s all the same to me,” Starkadur replied. “I have nothing to hide.”

  “In that case, we’ll press on,” Birkir said, and nodded to Gunnar, who was trying to sit up straight.

  Gunnar spoke loudly and clearly for the benefit of the recording, “This is in connection with the murder at the embassy in Berlin. We have your palm print on the ambassador’s desk in a position consistent with the attack on the victim. Can you explain this?”

  “I told the cops who broke into my home how that might have happened,” Starkadur replied.

  “Would you please be kind enough to repeat that account?” Birkir asked.

  “I said that I’d been in the ambassador’s office once that evening for a meeting with the ambassador. When the ambassador left, Anton plopped himself down at the desk and prepared to make a phone call. As David and I left, we let him know what we thought of him and his so-called business. I may well have leaned on the desk as I told Anton in no uncertain terms what a revolting piece of shit he was. I admit that I leaned over him as I spoke. At that point he put the phone down and fled from the room. I didn’t kill him then, and I didn’t kill him later. I have an alibi for the whole evening—David and I were together the whole time.”

  Birkir had printed out stills from the embassy security-camera footage, and the photographs that Lúdvík took during the party. The CCTV images included pictures of David and Starkadur walking with the ambassador toward the embassy after the poetry reading, and again when they left the building later that night. Starkadur was dressed in a light suit and dark shirt. Though Birkir studied the images closely, he couldn’t detect whether stains were visible on the jacket; the resolution wasn’t good enough.

  Birkir passed Starkadur the best picture he could find. “This suit you were wearing that evening—do you have it at home?”

  Starkadur looked at the picture. “No, it went to the dry cleaner after we got back home. It was supposed to be ready yesterday after five o’clock, but I haven’t had time to pick it up.”

  “What about the shirt?”

  “I washed all my shirts during the week. I don’t remember which one I wore that evening.”

  “If there is blood from the victim on your clothing, it’s very likely that our forensic scientists will be able to find traces of it, even after cleaning.”

  “That’s not something I need to worry about.”

  Birkir asked Starkadur the name of the dry cleaning store he had taken his suit to. As he noted down the reply, he asked, “Are you happy for the police to take these garments in for examination?”

  “Yes, assuming you pay the bill and return the clothes in the same good condition you got them in,” Starkadur replied.

  “We’ll do our best,” Birkir said.

  Now Gunnar took over. “Did you take a knife with you to the embassy that evening?”

  “A knife! Why on earth would I do that? No way.” Starkadur shook his head.

  “Was any other guest carrying a knife that evening?”

  Starkadur again shook his head. “No, of course not.”

  Birkir said, “You told me yesterday that you had met the other guests before. How well did you know them? Have you had any communication with them since the murder?”

  Starkadur leaned back in his chair. “I’ve already said I didn’t kill that guy Anton, and that’s the truth. That’s all you need to hear. I want to speak to my lawyer before I answer any more of your questions. This interview is going all over the place, and I’m not going to risk saying something you can misinterpret and use to get me into trouble.”

  “That’s fine,” said Gunnar. “We’ll keep you in custody until we’ve examined all the evidence properly. It might take a day or two, and we’ll try to make you comfortable meantime.”

  Starkadur said, “I’ll sue. This time is going to be expensive for you.”

  “You have every right to do that, but it would help speed things up if you could make a written statement of what you have told us,” Gunnar said, pushing a piece of paper across the table.

  With a sigh, Starkadur picked up the pen with his right hand and began to write.

  Gunnar and Birkir stood and left the room; Dóra remained with the prisoner.

  When they had sat down at their desks, Birkir said, “So Starkadur is right-handed and therefore possibly our man, but we have to find more evidence if we’re going to nail him.”

  Gunnar rummaged in his drawer for something to eat. “I think we have the right guy,” he said, triumphantly contemplating a half-eaten chocolate bar he had found among the clutter of pencils and paper clips.

  Birkir shook his head. “I’m not so sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” Birkir shrugged.

  “Whatever, we need to break this thing down. There seems to be an astonishing solidarity within the group—the fact that every single one of them refused to let us take prints suggests collusion. I think they all know more than they’re admitting, and if we take one of the bunch and make things a bit uncomfortable for him, it might all disintegrate. Even if he’s not the right guy—or perhaps because he’s not the right guy.”

  “You think that’s a good idea?”

  “No, of course it’s a lousy idea, but it’s all we’ve got. We have the palm print and we can use that. We’ll get a custody order and try keeping Starkadur locked up for a few days.”r />
  “Isn’t that misuse if that’s all we’ve got?”

  “Yeah, no, I mean it’s a last resort thing. The palm print’s the only thing we’ve got to go on. Otherwise we’d better just give up.”

  “I don’t like it,” Birkir said.

  “All right,” Gunnar said. “Leave it to me. We’ll let him go after a couple days, and if anybody complains I’ll apologize and say I wasn’t thinking straight because of my cold and back pain. Which is, in a way, the truth.” He blew some dust off the chocolate bar and took a bite, smiling.

  Birkir said good-bye and left. He had to go find the suit Starkadur had been wearing in Berlin.

  16:40

  Birkir got the contact details of the manager of the dry cleaner’s from the company website, and arranged to meet him at the store for the handover of one freshly pressed suit belonging to Starkadur Gíslason, which Birkir took straight to Anna in the forensic laboratory.

  “If there’s even the tiniest trace of blood, we’ll find it,” she said. “We’ll get deep down into the seams, where the cleaning process can’t have reached.”

  “I hope that won’t damage the suit at all,” said Birkir.

  “We’ll see.”

  “I’d prefer if it didn’t.”

  “Listen,” Anna said. “It’s a murder investigation. One man’s suit is not a big deal.”

  “Even so,” Birkir said. He appreciated a nice, well-made suit cut from good material, and he fully understood that Starkadur would be unhappy if it was ruined.

  “Go out for a breath of fresh air if you can’t bear to watch.” Anna smiled.

  Birkir left—not because of what Anna was about to do to Starkadur’s suit, but because he wanted to find Helgi, the ceramic artist, to ask about his past friendship with Jón. There was more linking those two than first met the eye, and Birkir needed to investigate all possible angles to the case. He stopped by a small downtown gallery whose owner he knew; after making a few phone calls, the guy was able to give him the address he was looking for.

  Located on the second floor of what had once been a netmaker’s workshop on Reykjavík’s west harbor, Helgi’s studio was a room of considerable size—necessarily so, since over the years he had progressed from making small items, such as candlesticks and tableware, to creating large-scale works like sculptures and murals. Finished and half-finished works by him more or less filled the space.

  Birkir knocked on the door. There was no response, so he tried the handle, and when the door proved to be unlocked, he let himself in. The place reverberated with loud music from massive speakers. Birkir recognized Janis Joplin, a genuine rock classic from the seventies, though he rarely listened to this type of music. Perhaps too rarely, he thought in awe, as Janis thundered, “Cry-y-y baaaby.”

  Helgi stood before a three-meter-long triptych, fitting a small piece into position; the pieces were made of fired clay of various colors, and as the artist set them in place within the picture, expressive figures emerged.

  “Good afternoon,” Birkir yelled, holding up his police badge. “I’m from the detective division.”

  “You what?” Helgi looked up, cupping a hand to his ear.

  “From the detective division. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  Helgi went over to the sound system and turned the music down so it became barely audible. “Right,” he said.

  “Is that OK?” Birkir asked.

  “What do you want to ask about?”

  “I’m investigating the Berlin murder. There are some things we need explained.”

  “I’ve already given a statement.”

  “Yes, but we need further information. You can expect a few interruptions like this over the next few days, I’m afraid. It’s unavoidable.”

  “Oh, all right.” Helgi put aside the piece he had been working on.

  Birkir said, “I know that you were living with Jón, Fabían, and others in a commune in the early seventies. Can you tell me a bit about your friendship?”

  “You mean my friendship with Jón and Fabían?”

  “Yes.”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “It’s relevant to the murder case. I’m trying to form a picture of the connections within the group that visited the embassy Sunday evening.”

  “Oh, well, that story is no secret. Lots of people know about it, so you’ll have no problem sniffing it out somewhere, and it’s probably best I explain it myself so there won’t be any misunderstanding.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where shall I start? It was a long period of time.”

  “Start at the beginning. I’ll listen.” He held up the recorder for Helgi to see, and the artist expressed no objection to it.

  “OK, listen carefully. I’ll carry on working while I tell you about it. It’s a long story and I need to use my time well, so if you have any questions, please keep them until after.”

  Birkir nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I’ll keep quiet.”

  “Let’s see now—Jón and I met in our teens, and we hung out together all the time until our paths parted after the fire out in Fljótshlíd. We originally got to know each other when we were in the same class at high school. I’d had a difficult childhood; I was unsettled, and only just scraped through the eighth-grade exams. We got along well—we were both very rebellious and challenged everything around us. After one year at high school we decided to ditch the petty bourgeois world of Reykjavík, and headed off for Europe. That was the summer of 1969, and for the next three years we dropped out, broke and crazy, mainly in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and Spain. We either hitchhiked or conned our way onto trains. All we had were a few clothes in a duffel bag, but it was amazingly easy to get around by begging or even stealing, if necessary. The beginnings of the hippie culture were everywhere, and these groups would always share their food with you provided your hair was long enough. Sometimes we managed to get into a commune and stay there until they got tired of us. We experimented with everything that was offered, every substance. The effects were variable, but this was a chemistry class we enrolled in wholeheartedly.

  “We spent summers down by the Mediterranean, sleeping on the beach, never indoors, and when we were in Spain, we got to know some guys who grew cannabis, and we agreed to sell it for them. We’d mess around in the beach bars by day and the clubs at night. Kids with money to spend flocked south in the summer, and we made a good profit. Our system was perfect. I had all the gear wrapped in a towel and lay there sunning myself while Jón looked for buyers. Because the cops sometimes raided the beach, he never carried much stuff with him. When he’d done a deal, he’d sit down nearby me and light a cigarette. While he smoked, he dug the cash into the sand while I buried the merchandise next to where I was. Then we got up and changed places, I dug out the cash, and he collected the stuff. We did this right under the cops’ noses, but nobody spotted the pattern. Everyone on the beach knew Jón as the Weed Man, but nobody knew me or about our connection. We used a similar system in the clubs at night.

  “We also learned how to grow cannabis, which came in handy later when we were living on the farm at Sandgil. But in Spain we didn’t just sell the stuff, we also smoked it, a hell of a lot of it. Most of our commission went to fund our own consumption, but then getting rich was never the idea. Our European adventure was more or less a total mess, apart from a couple of things that significantly benefited both of us. I met two girls who made pottery that they sold at the hippie markets, and they taught me to work with clay; and one summer Jón met an Icelandic high school teacher, who spent three weeks on the beach teaching him prosody in return for some very good grass. Then Jón started writing poetry, all correctly metrical—he definitely wasn’t into modernist verse styles—and produced some really good poems there, some of which are classics today. But in the end we got bored of traveling, and as soon as we had enough money for the tickets, we came home.

  “We decided we’d better get some cash together before our nex
t trip, which was to be to the United States. Jón went up north and began working at a home for handicapped people—I’m sure he was a lively addition to the staff. But while there he met Sunna, and that put our trip on hold. She had hardly even been to Reykjavík and had no urge to go to America with a couple of penniless crazies. She loved Jón, but she wanted to keep both feet on the ground.

  “Then, in the spring of 1973, Jón had this brilliant idea of moving to Fljótshlíd and squatting in the house at Sandgil. It had been deserted for two years, but his father, who owned it and rented out the hayfields for horse grazing, intended to use it as a summer house. Jón didn’t ask permission, he just stole the keys off his old man and off we went, inspired by the squatters movement that had spread out from London in the late sixties. Based on homeless people occupying unused buildings and living together in peace and happiness, it had become part of the hippie culture, and we had encountered it as part of many of the communes we stayed in on our travels around Europe.

  “Jón’s father pretended he knew nothing about the squat, and I think the truth is he was petrified of his son at that time. But he did stop paying for the electricity, so in the end we were cut off and had to scrape together the cash to pay the bill, and Jón made a deal with the utility company. Otherwise, we managed well enough initially, even though the money we had at the start soon began to run out. We kept a few chickens, and we had a small, fenced-off vegetable patch. Horses grazed in the field next to the house, so we couldn’t make hay or keep other animals—not that we would have known how to go about it. We were all busy making various kinds of art. I’d acquired an old rough-and-ready ceramic kiln that was good enough for the simple hippie artifacts I was producing at that time, the things I’d learned how to make in Europe. The kiln went in an outbuilding, where there was also space for me to do the rough work on my pieces. Otherwise, we all worked together in the living room of the farmhouse—Jón wrote his poems, Rakel was writing a novel, Fabían practiced his drawing, Sun composed music and made candles, I did my pottery. We were going to make a living of this.