Sun on Fire

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  On the fourth rung his lumbago caught him with a stabbing, immobilizing pain. “Aargh! My back,” he yelped.

  “Quick, quick!” Magnús cried.

  Gunnar gritted his teeth and closed his eyes as he let go of the ladder. He slid down the ladder on his belly, bouncing on the rungs and crying out, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” as he went. Landing on his feet, he felt sweat cascading from every pore on his body.

  “Put the candle out!” Magnús shrieked.

  With difficulty, Gunnar turned to see the flickering stub of a candle in a bowl in the center of the floor.

  Magnús shouted, “It’s in a pool of kerosene! There’s a fuse connected to that gasoline drum!”

  At that moment, the candle sputtered, and a sheet of flame shot up from the kerosene in the bowl.

  “The fuse is lit!” Magnús screamed.

  Still in agony, Gunnar fell to his knees and crawled like a giant cockroach across the floor. He grasped the burning fuse and yanked it toward him, away from the barrel. Confident now that there was no danger of the place going up in flames, he slumped onto his belly, breathless and exhausted.

  “Thank God,” Magnús gasped.

  Gunnar lifted his head very slowly and saw Magnús sitting, legs outstretched, in one corner of the basement, his back resting against some piled-up sacks of fertilizer. His hands and feet were bound with strong packing tape, and a rope fastened to the wall behind him encircled his neck. Magnús would have strangled himself if he’d tried to get away.

  Arngrímur sat at the other end of the basement. In contrast to Magnús, he was shackled to the floor with a tight steel cuff around his left ankle, attached by a heavy chain to a substantial anchor bolt in the floor. A small handsaw lay next to him. He was in a state of shock, staring in silence at the shallow, bleeding wound on his leg.

  “He was going to saw his leg off when he couldn’t get through the chain,” Magnús said. “But it was no use, he only managed that scratch. You arrived just in time, thank God.”

  Raising himself up on all fours again, Gunnar crawled toward the barrel. He tried to get to his feet using it for support, but it fell over with a loud clang. He peered into the opening where the fuse had gone.

  “This barrel is totally empty,” he said. “There was no gas in it. There wouldn’t have been a fire.”

  Magnús began to laugh—an odd, strangled laugh that changed into a kind of whimpering. “They lied, the fucking bastards,” he stammered between sobs. “They let us squirm here thinking we were going to be burned alive. Goddamned thugs.”

  15:20

  Ten minutes after Gunnar had reached the basement, police officers from Borgarnes arrived at the farmhouse, followed a few minutes later by a fire engine and an ambulance. The police released Arngrímur and Magnús from their restraints and, after the paramedics had dressed the wound on Arngrímur’s leg, helped them up out of their prison. Then they drove the two of them to Reykjavík for medical treatment and to take their statements.

  Getting Gunnar out was more of a problem. The only way was back up the ladder, and there was no chance he could attempt that in his current state. He had to wait for a doctor to come from Borgarnes and give him a couple of painkilling shots in the butt—one of them morphine, the other, Gunnar didn’t know what. When the injections started to take effect, he managed to stand up and, watched and supported by the pair of apprehensive paramedics, he slowly eased himself up the ladder, step by step.

  Back up in the kitchen, Gunnar found his crutches and was able to use them to hobble out to the ambulance, where he laid himself down on the gurney and asked that they take him to Reykjavík. Not to the hospital, but directly to police headquarters.

  “They don’t give you anything to eat in that hospital,” he said by way of explanation.

  One of the paramedics drove the ambulance, and the other took the car Gunnar had used to get to Setberg.

  As they approached the Hvalfjördur Tunnel, Gunnar fished out his cell and ordered a pizza. “Send it to police headquarters and deliver it to Birkir Hinriksson. He’ll pay. Don’t give it to anybody else—if you do, it’ll be gone by the time I get back to town,” he said firmly. “And include a large Coke as well.”

  17:30

  A piping-hot extra large pizza with pepperoni, onions, and mushrooms was waiting for Gunnar as he hobbled into the detective division, along with a two-liter bottle of Coke.

  “I sure as hell deserve this,” Gunnar said to Birkir, taking the first bite. “You want some, too?” he asked with his mouth full.

  Birkir shook his head. “No, thank you.”

  “Oh, well, I’ll have to eat it all myself, then,” Gunnar said, and continued eating while Birkir told him about Fabían’s confession.

  “Does it check out?” Gunnar asked, when he had heard the whole story.

  “Yes. Anna is examining Fabían’s clothing—the shirt and jacket. We also have Helgi’s testimony that Fabían told him at the embassy what he had done, immediately after the event. I think they’ve stopped lying.”

  “What will happen to Fabían?”

  “He’ll stay where he is. Everybody is of one mind about that.”

  “What about the others?”

  “Jón and Lúdvík will presumably be charged with kidnapping, aggravated maybe. It depends on what Magnús and Arngrímur tell us.”

  “Have Jón and Lúdvík been found?”

  “No, but they won’t be able to hide for long. Keflavík Airport is under surveillance, so they can’t leave the country. We’re not worried about that.”

  “What does Magnús have to say?”

  “He offered his resignation immediately when the chief of police called him in. Which probably means that his taped confession is the truth.”

  “So we’ll get a new boss.”

  “Presumably,” said Birkir, and stood up to go. “Want me to take you home?”

  “No,” Gunnar said. “I’m going to finish eating.” He was only halfway through the pizza.

  “And after that I’m going to go have a beer,” he added quietly, after Birkir had said good-bye and left.

  Few people remained in the office. In an incident room, Dóra was clearing the display board of the photographs and evidential notes about the Berlin killing—that case was solved, and they had to move on to the next one.

  “Sorry I didn’t help you earlier today,” Dóra said, as Gunnar hobbled in and plopped into a chair.

  “No problem,” Gunnar said. “I know I can be a bit demanding at times. It all went very well, I think.”

  Dóra pinned up some new pictures on the board. They were from the scene in the apartment on Austurbrún where Búi Rútsson had been found murdered.

  Gunnar watched her with keen interest.

  Dóra explained where the metal rod had come from and how it had been used. “The killer made off with a large sum of euros,” she said. “None of the people living in the other apartments seem to have seen him.”

  “What’s that?” Gunnar asked, pointing at the picture Anna had taken of a footprint.

  “We think the murderer may have hidden in a closet. He left footprints in the dust on its floor. He had a crippled leg, and we’re collecting data on individuals who have custom-made footwear.”

  Gunnar stared at the picture, his mind working. Finally he said, “Give me a photocopy of that picture.”

  Dóra hesitated. “What did you just pick up on?” she asked.

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Anything I can help you with?” Dóra asked as she handed him the copy.

  “Nope,” Gunnar said, folding the paper and putting it into his jacket pocket.

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah, but you can take me to the bar on Smidjustígur. There’s a guy I have to see.”

  18:30

  There was a new bartender. This really irritated Gunnar, because now he had to explain carefully what he wanted—a bottle of Holsten beer and a Jägermeister—and tell the guy where to find these th
ings. And what to charge for them.

  “Bring it to that table over there,” Gunnar said. He’d already spotted Konrad sitting at one of the tables. The waiter followed Gunnar as he hobbled across the room on his crutches and sat down opposite the ambassador without asking permission.

  “Were you in an accident?” Konrad asked, contemplating Gunnar’s scruffy appearance, his bruised eye (now turned dark-blue), and the surgical collar.

  “Several accidents,” Gunnar said. “I have one whenever I leave the house.” He picked up the Jägermeister bottle and drained it in one go. “This helps a little,” he said, as he chased it down with a sip of beer.

  Konrad said, “I just heard from the ministry that Arngrímur’s had some kind of a crisis. Apparently some criminals kidnapped him, but he was rescued today somewhere in Borgarfjördur.”

  “Yeah, I rescued him.”

  “You did? So you were in a fight, then?”

  “Nope. No fight. Just pure genius. My amazing powers of deduction coupled with superefficient procedures. That’s how I do business.”

  “Cheers,” Konrad said, raising his glass. “I also heard that somebody confessed to the embassy murder. That invalid, apparently, who came with Jón the Sun Poet.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you’ve solved all your cases, then?”

  “No,” Gunnar said, and bent down, grabbed Konrad’s leg with one hand and swung it up onto his knee. Konrad was taken completely by surprise, and had to grab the table to stop himself from falling backward.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Holding the leg tightly, Gunnar used his free hand to extract the footprint image that Dóra had given him.

  “What are you doing?” Konrad repeated, as Gunnar compared the short, broad sole of his shoe with the print.

  “Exactly,” Gunnar said, and let Konrad’s leg flop back down to the floor. “As I suspected. You paid a visit to an apartment in Austurbrún a few days ago.”

  Konrad snatched the picture from Gunnar and studied it closely.

  “Where was this picture taken?” he asked.

  “You left this footprint behind in a closet in the apartment.”

  “That can’t be.” Konrad said.

  Gunnar took out his cell phone. “I’ll have to take you in.”

  Konrad lifted his glass and emptied it. “Wait, wait,” he said. “We can come up with an arrangement.”

  “Afraid not,” Gunnar said. “Even if you were to give me half of all the euros you took from Anton’s safe, someone else would soon pick you up. There won’t be any problem figuring out who made this shoe for you, and your name will be in their records.”

  Konrad hesitated and then said, “Let’s have another round before we go to the station to correct this misunderstanding.”

  Gunnar thought about this. “OK. You’re paying.” He waved to the waiter and ordered more of the same for both of them. Then he said to Konrad, “Look, we have this footprint. You can bet we’ll find a hair or something else that will point to you when we do DNA analysis. We’ll be examining your clothes—when you banged that guy on the head, microscopic drops of blood would have sprayed all around him, and a lot landed on you, even if you didn’t see them. We will find those. No doubt we’ll also find some money in your possession.”

  “This is not looking good,” Konrad said after a long silence.

  “No.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Be cooperative. That simplifies things.”

  “Does it?”

  The waiter brought the drinks and set them on the table.

  “Keep the rest,” Konrad said as he handed the waiter a fifty-euro note. “And bring me another glass in ten minutes.”

  Gunnar produced his voice recorder and switched it on “You can begin by telling me what happened. We’ll take a formal statement later. So, what were you doing in the apartment?”

  Konrad was silent for a time. Then he said, “Some years ago Anton entrusted me with the task, should something happen to him, of going to his apartment and removing and destroying certain boxes of papers. Not many people knew about this place of his, but I sometimes visited him there when he was in the country. He gave me keys so I could get in if the need arose.”

  “What were these papers?”

  “Various financial records and some pornographic material—the models seemed to be rather on the young side.”

  “When did you go to the apartment last week?”

  “I arrived in Iceland late Thursday, and went there that night to deal with things. There was no one in the apartment, but I saw that somebody had tried to break into the safe. There were tools there, and one of the locks had been drilled out of the safe door. I guessed that whoever it was had stopped to avoid attracting attention during the night.”

  “Why didn’t you contact the police?”

  “The safe caught my attention. I’m in big trouble financially. I sold our house here a few years back and put the money into bank shares. Everything disappeared in the crash. My wife thinks I invested in safe funds, and I haven’t had the courage to tell her the truth. Now that we’re moving back from Berlin, she wants me to buy her a nice house in Reykjavík.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I took the boxes of papers out to the car I’d rented. Three boxes, rather bulky and very heavy. Then I went back into the apartment and waited till morning. When the guy arrived at about ten o’clock, I hid in the closet.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “I could only hear him, and it wasn’t until, you know—afterward—that I realized that this was Anton’s bodyguard.”

  “How did you manage to overpower him?”

  “I sneaked up on him while he was drilling the second lock out of the door. He was wearing ear protectors and couldn’t hear me. I was only going to knock him out, but the one blow wasn’t enough, and I had to hit him again. Too hard, I guess.”

  “Did he die instantly?”

  “I think so.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I finished drilling the lock out and emptied the safe.”

  “What was in it?”

  “A lot of euros. I haven’t counted them yet. There was some gold, too.”

  The waiter brought Konrad a glass of whisky. He paid with a twenty-euro note. “Keep the change,” he said, just as before.

  Rakel called Birkir’s cell.

  “Fabían died this morning,” she said. “Jón was with him. Starkadur is here, too. They’re ready to turn themselves in. We’d appreciate it if you would come on your own to pick them up.”

  Birkir found the men in Fabían’s room, where the dead man lay on the bed. A beautiful candle was burning on the nightstand. Everything connected with pain and disease had been removed from the room, and an extraordinary peace suffused the scene. Starkadur stood gazing out the window; Jón was seated, and didn’t look up when Birkir came in.

  Birkir sat down opposite him. “You’re going to have to come with me,” he said.

  “In a moment.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  Neither spoke for several minutes. Finally Jón broke the silence. “Did you find the men you were looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they unhurt?”

  “Yes.”

  Jón showed no sign whether he considered this good or bad news.

  Birkir asked, “Can you tell me about your involvement in this case?”

  “You heard the sheriff’s confession.”

  “Yes, I know all there is to know about the historical background, but I need to get a picture of what has happened during these last few days.”

  Starkadur turned away from the window and said, “I’ll tell you about that.”

  “Wait,” Birkir said. He fished out his voice recorder and switched it on. “Please identify yourself,” he said.

  Starkadur did so, and continued, “I planned the arrest, if that’s the right word. I also got L�
�dvík on board, for a fee. Jón knew nothing about it until Lúdvík called him after you arrested me last Saturday.”

  Birkir looked at Jón. “But you knew about the plan for Berlin, right?”

  Jón nodded.

  Starkadur said, “Yes, we all knew what was planned for Berlin. The idea was to corner Arngrímur at the embassy and have him confess then and there. When that didn’t work, Jón and Helgi gave up. They’d reached the end of the road. But I wanted to make one final attempt, and I had the idea of tricking Arngrímur into coming to Iceland. I called the embassy and introduced myself as assistant secretary to the foreign minister. I said we needed Arngrímur in Iceland for a meeting that same day to discuss the embassy’s future, and that he would shortly receive a confirming e-mail. I tried to make the call brief, and hung up abruptly, saying that the minister was calling for me. I knew a way of sending an e-mail that at first glance appeared to come from the ministry. Then I bought the airline ticket with the credit card Fabían took from Anton in Berlin. Lúdvík and I went to the airport not really knowing what to expect. I’d written in the e-mail that a ministry driver would pick up Arngrímur from the terminal.”

  Birkir asked, “Lúdvík pretended to be an official driver?”

  “Yes. He drives a black Range Rover that could be taken for a ministry vehicle.”

  “How did you overpower Arngrímur?”

  “That was the simplest part. I waited at the place where Lúdvík had to stop the car to pay the parking fee. Arngrímur was sitting in the front passenger seat, and I opened the rear door and grabbed his seat belt—it was easy to pull it tight around his neck as I climbed into the rear seat. Arngrímur couldn’t do a thing to defend himself. We had practiced this many times. Lúdvík drove on, beyond the airport area, to a place where we could stop. I tied Arngrímur’s hands and feet with tape, and we put him in the back and covered him with blankets.”

  “How did you get access to that house in Borgarfjördur?”

  “The owner’s someone Lúdvík knows. He lives in Spain and only uses the place during the summer. Lúdvík looks after it in the winter, so he has a key. After capturing Arngrímur, we took him straight there. Lúdvík attached an anchor bolt to the basement floor, and we shackled our prisoner to it with a chain and a steel cuff round his leg. That way we could leave him there while we prepared the next move.”