66 Degrees North

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘He couldn’t wait. Topped himself. Three months ago.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Björn said.

  ‘Yeah. A wife. Two daughters. They will still lose the farm. How are you doing? Have you kept hold of your boat?’

  ‘Had to sell it,’ said Björn. ‘Not much hope of ever getting another one.’

  The two men sat in silence staring at each other. Gulli lit another cigarette.

  ‘We weren’t wrong, were we?’ said Sindri.

  Björn hesitated. Swallowed. ‘No, we weren’t.’

  ‘Look. I’m having breakfast with an old friend of ours tomorrow. At the Grey Cat. Ten o’clock. Do you want to join us?’

  ‘Old friend?’ said Björn.

  Sindri shrugged. Not in front of Gulli.

  ‘OK,’ said Björn. ‘See you then.’

  The Grey Cat was a cosy book-lined café down some steps on Hverfisgata. It lay opposite the Central Bank, also known as ‘The Black Fort’, built in brutalist bunker style, the most hated building in Iceland. Just outside, Ingólfur Arnarson leaned on his shield staring out towards the harbour.

  Björn saw Sindri’s broad leather hat as soon as he walked in. He was sitting in a booth at the back, the bulk of his body wedged between the orange table and the red leather bench. Opposite him was a smaller, trimmer figure. It took Björn a moment to recognize Ísak, the student.

  Björn took a chair next to Ísak and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. Sindri ordered a large American breakfast of pancakes and bacon, the Grey Cat’s speciality, served all day. Ísak ordered a bagel.

  ‘Have you two kept in contact?’ Björn asked. ‘I thought we decided to stay away from each other?’

  ‘No, at least not until last week,’ Sindri said. ‘Ísak dropped by my flat. We had a talk.’

  ‘About what we did last January?’ Björn said.

  ‘More about what we are going to do this autumn,’ Ísak said.

  Björn raised his eyebrows. ‘We?’

  ‘Ísak and me,’ said Sindri. ‘And you. If you want to join us.’

  Björn parked the pickup outside the bakery. He hesitated, glancing across the bay towards the Hallgrímskirkja above downtown Reykjavík. There was no going back now. He took a deep breath and opened the door.

  The place was empty. Harpa’s face lit up when she saw him. She skipped around the counter and fell into his arms.

  ‘Oh, Björn. I’m so sorry I doubted you. Will you forgive me?’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive. I need a cup of coffee. Do you want one?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Björn said. There were a couple of urns containing coffee along one wall. Björn poured himself and Harpa a cup. They sat down at a table.

  ‘So you’ve decided you are going to the police?’ Björn asked.

  Harpa nodded her head.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure? No matter what the consequences?’

  ‘I have to,’ said Harpa. ‘If someone else were to die, I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘I understand.’ Björn relaxed. There was no point in trying to talk her out of it. He was committed now. He sipped his coffee. Harpa didn’t touch hers.

  She smiled at Björn. ‘I’m so glad you do. What I feel worst about is that I might get you in trouble.’

  ‘And Sindri and Ísak. And the kid Frikki.’

  ‘I don’t care about them. Well maybe I care about the boy. I certainly don’t care about me. But I do care about you.’

  Björn smiled. He was touched. He was beginning to think he really could persuade her. Later.

  ‘Can you help me think how to do it? I mean, if there is a way I could warn the police without getting you thrown in jail? I’ve been thinking about an anonymous tip-off, but I’m not sure how I can do that without giving them details that would incriminate you.’

  ‘That’s why I came down here,’ said Björn. ‘To come up with a plan. But first there is someone I want you to meet.’

  He gulped down his coffee. Harpa still hadn’t touched hers. What was wrong with the woman? She always drank her coffee. Especially when she was wound up.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Harpa sipped some of her coffee. Björn took her hand. ‘We’ll figure this out, Harpa. I know we will.’

  Harpa looked up and smiled. ‘God, I hope so.’

  ‘Come on, finish your coffee and let’s go.’

  Harpa hastily emptied her cup. ‘OK. Wait a second. I just need to make sure it’s OK with Dísa to leave early.’

  Björn waited for Harpa as she had a quick word with her boss. ‘All right, let’s go,’ she said. They went outside. Harpa saw Björn’s pickup. ‘No motorbike?’

  ‘It’s being serviced,’ Björn said.

  They climbed in and Björn headed off towards the ring road. He headed east. He didn’t have any specific destination in mind. Just drive. Rohypnol was a sedative and one of the most popular date-rape drugs because it was tasteless and could induce amnesia, especially when mixed with alcohol. The guy who had given it to him had said it was supposed to take effect within twenty minutes to half an hour, but that could only be an approximation. And of course Harpa hadn’t drunk any alcohol. Björn didn’t trust the guy at all. He hoped he’d got the dosage right.

  Björn slipped a CD into his player and turned the music up. Nirvana. He wanted to keep small talk with Harpa to a minimum.

  After fifteen minutes, she yawned. ‘God, I feel sleepy. How far are we going?’

  As far as it takes, Björn thought. ‘Probably another half hour.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me where we are going?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Ten minutes later, Harpa was leaning against the side of the door of the pickup. Five more minutes and she was asleep.

  Magnus sat at the back of the class, listening to the lecturer, a police superintendent, talk about fraud and the Penal Code. Magnus was wearing the uniform of a sergeant in the Boston Police Department. Everyone at the National Police College wore uniform, lecturers and students, unless they were civilians, of course. The superintendent in charge of the college had thought it appropriate for Magnus to wear a BPD uniform rather than that of a police cadet, so Magnus had brought one back with him after his brief trip to the States for a few days back in May to pack up his life and move it to Iceland. Hadn’t taken long.

  He knew he should focus; the last thing he wanted to do was to fail his exam and have to retake. Except now it looked like he would be on a plane back to the States before he even had a chance to take the damn exam.

  Part of him wanted to forget about Harpa and Björn and Sindri. If Snorri didn’t want to listen to him that was his problem.

  Except Magnus couldn’t think like that. If he was right, and he was damn sure he was right, then the people who had shot Julian Lister and killed Óskar and probably Gabríel Örn would go free. And worse, there was a chance some other poor bastard, with a family, perhaps with kids, would end up dead, probably in the next few days.

  The phone vibrated next to his hip. Magnus surreptitiously slipped it out of his pocket to check it. He felt like a schoolboy. Vigdís.

  It was strictly forbidden to take cell phone calls in class, or to leave the class to take them. Magnus quietly headed for the door.

  The superintendent paused. ‘Magnús?’

  ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ Magnus said with a smile. He was out in the corridor before the lecturer could reprimand him.

  ‘Yeah, Vigdís, what is it?’

  ‘We’ve identified the kid who was being treated for tear gas. Fridrik Eiríksson, known as “Frikki”. He used to be an assistant chef at the Hotel 101. Got laid off back in December. We’ve got an address in Breidholt. Shall we pick him up?’

  Magnus appreciated Vigdís asking him. ‘Yes. But check with Baldur first. And let me know how the interview goes.’

  ‘Speak to you later,’ said Vigdís.

  Magnus smiled apologeticall
y as he took his seat in the classroom.

  He was in his car heading back home when he got a text from Vigdís. Frikki was out somewhere with his girlfriend, his mother didn’t know where. They would let Magnus know when they picked him up.

  *

  He bent down to look at the magnified image on the screen of the camera resting on its tripod. The long lens was pointing out across the Tjörnin, the large lake in the centre of Reykjavík and a hub for international bird travel in the North Atlantic. In its pale blue waters, reflecting the pale blue sky, swans, geese, many species of duck, terns, coots and a host of other birds, paddled, glided and swooped, busy, busy, busy.

  There was a particularly noisy cluster down at the far end of the lake, behind the parliament building and the futuristic glass, steel and chrome box that was the City Hall. This was where locals and tourists gathered to feed the birds. Beyond that, the murmur of the crowd gathering in the Austurvöllur square for the Icesave public meeting drifted towards him.

  But despite the appearance he was eager to give, he wasn’t watching the waterfowl. He was examining one of the large white houses on the far shore of the Tjörnin.

  He had been observing the house for a couple of hours already. He was convinced there was no protection, no police cars loitering outside, no men in uniform or out of it patrolling the garden. He was pleased to see that the target’s car, a black Mercedes SUV, was parked up by the side of the house, almost out of sight of the road. Behind it was a hedge and some small trees. A possible entry point. Worth checking out later.

  As he watched and waited a plan settled in his mind.

  The target emerged from the front door of the house and walked around to his car, climbed in, and drove off.

  He unfastened the camera, took down his tripod and left.

  He knew what he was going to do.

  Ingileif pushed through the crowd in the square outside the Parliament building, searching for the large frame of Sindri. There were a few hundred people there. The atmosphere was different to that of the demonstrations Ingileif had attended over the winter. The crowd was more serious. The anger was there, but it was more muted. There were no pots and pans, no foghorns, no anarchists in balaclavas, and very few police. Less excitement, more quiet determination.

  Ingileif soon spotted Sindri’s brown leather hat and grey pony-tail and pushed herself into a space beside him. Sindri was chatting randomly to those around him when he noticed her.

  ‘Ingileif?’

  She turned and gave him a big smile. ‘Sindri! I’m not surprised to see you here.’

  ‘It’s an important issue,’ Sindri said.

  ‘Very,’ said Ingileif. ‘Do you know who the speakers are?’

  ‘Old windbags,’ Sindri said. ‘I don’t know why I bothered to come. They’ll talk about refusing to pay the British, but that’s all it will be, talk.’ He gestured at the crowd. ‘Take a look around you. I was hoping for some revolutionary spirit. People who are prepared to do something. This lot look like they’re at church listening to a sermon.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Ingileif. ‘We need to scare them.’

  Sindri focused on her with interest.

  ‘Scare who?’

  ‘The British, of course,’ Ingileif said. ‘Make them believe that unless they give us a better deal the people will revolt. We’ve done it before. We can do it again.’

  ‘Dead right,’ said Sindri. Ingileif could see he was looking at her with a mixture of admiration and, well, lust. That was OK.

  A woman, one of the organizers, picked up a loudspeaker and made a little speech about how she was speaking for everyone there when she noted the horror the Icelandic people felt about the shooting of Julian Lister.

  ‘We are not terrorists, Mr Lister!’ Sindri bellowed in Ingileif’s ear. The refrain was familiar to the crowd from the previous autumn, but no one took it up. Those standing around him turned to frown. A few people hushed him.

  ‘Pathetic,’ Sindri muttered. Ingileif muttered too.

  There was a series of speeches, some of them inspiring to Ingileif’s ear, but Sindri didn’t like them. He grumbled louder and louder, until finally he said, ‘I can’t stand this any longer.’

  ‘Neither can I,’ said Ingileif.

  ‘This country is so spineless,’ said Sindri.

  ‘You wrote a book about all this, didn’t you?’ said Ingileif. ‘Can you tell me about it?’

  Sindri smiled. ‘With pleasure. Let’s get a coffee.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE HUT STOOD alone in the lonely valley. Björn coaxed his pickup truck down towards it, rattling and jolting over the potholes. The road was appalling, and Björn was amazed that Harpa hadn’t been wakened by the lurching.

  This road had always been bad. For years, no, centuries, it had been the most direct route from Stykkishólmur south to Borgarnes. It wound around twisted volcanic rocks, including the famous Kerlingin troll with her haul of stone babies over her shoulder. But then the government had built a new road in a parallel pass just a few kilometres to the west. There was now no reason for anyone to come this way. The road had deteriorated rapidly.

  The hut was old, perhaps a hundred years old, and had been built to provide shelter for travellers stranded in the pass. Björn had stayed there a couple of times with his uncle and aunt when he was a kid, just for fun. It had been built on a knoll, to remain above snowdrifts, a short distance from what remained of the road. Rocky walls rose up on either side of the valley, down which streams and waterfalls tumbled before accumulating in a larger stream that ran beside the road. There were patches of grass and some moss, but the valley was mostly grit, stone and bare rock. Although there had been clear skies during the drive up from Reykjavík, here in the mountains moisture ruled. Mist swirled around the rocks, the air was full of the muffled tinkle of running water.

  The door to the hut was open; it was never locked in case travellers needed its shelter. Inside it was surprisingly clean. There were signs of recent habitation: a gum wrapper on the floor, an empty half-bottle of vodka on a window sill. Drovers, no doubt: Björn was pretty sure the réttir had taken place the week before around Helgafellssveit. There was a stove, and a ladder led up to a sleeping loft. Björn had driven from Reykjavík straight to his home in Grundarfjördur and loaded the pickup with supplies. He had sleeping bags, bed rolls, wood for the stove, food and other camping equipment. Enough to keep them both going for three days.

  He had also brought plenty of rope.

  He settled the still slumbering Harpa in a sleeping bag in the loft, and lit a fire in the stove. He put some water on to boil for coffee.

  He checked his phone. No signal: hardly surprising. That could be a problem. He would need to communicate with the others in the coming couple of days, and that would involve driving back down the pass towards Stykkishólmur until he got a signal.

  He made the coffee and took it outside. He sat on the step of the hut watching the light seep out of the moist valley as dusk fell. A raven flapped down the valley on the far side of the stream, its croak sinking into the mist.

  The place was eerie. Björn smiled as he remembered the night he and his cousins had slept in the hut when they were kids. The frisson of fear. There was not just the Kerlingin troll waiting for them. There was a story, well known among the kids in the area, of an empty bus being driven through the pass. The driver had felt the presence of something behind him and turned to see the bus full of people.

  Ghosts.

  But Björn felt safe here. More importantly, he felt Harpa was safe. He wished that the two of them could stay here for always, away from the world outside, the world of the kreppa and bankers and corrupt politicians. The world he had decided to stand up and fight against.

  Could he make Harpa understand what he and the others had done? He could try.

  There was no sound from her. In theory the drug was supposed to wear off in eight hours. In practice, Björn thought Harpa would be
out all night.

  The pub in Shoreditch was crowded and there was barely enough room for the eight students squashed around two tables pushed together. Sophie hardly knew most of the others, but when her friend Tori had asked her out for a drink she had agreed to come. She had spent an unproductive afternoon in the library.

  She was worried about Zak. The only response to her texts she had received so far was one line: It doesn’t look good. She wished he would talk to her more instead of clamming up.

  There were three other girls and four guys around the table. She didn’t know the guys very well, although they all studied politics with her. The conversation had moved on from Big Brother to Julian Lister. She was barely listening.

  ‘So is he going to make it?’

  ‘They say he’s going to be fine.’

  ‘I heard he was still critical.’

  ‘No, it was on the radio this evening. They now think he’s going to make a full recovery.’

  ‘So who did it then?’

  ‘Al-Qaeda.’

  ‘But they use bombs not bullets.’

  ‘Al-Qaeda. Operating out of Holland.’

  ‘Holland?’

  ‘Yeah, they saw a motorbike with Dutch number plates hanging about right where he was shot.’

  ‘It’s the Icelanders.’

  That caught Sophie’s attention. The guy talking was tall with longish curly hair. She thought his name was Jeff.

  ‘The Icelanders! Don’t be stupid, Josh. Why not the Greenlanders?’ Not Jeff, Josh.

  ‘No, I’m serious.’ Josh was leaning forward, his eyes alight. ‘I’ve got it all figured out. The Icelanders hate Julian Lister. Ever since the credit crunch. He confiscated all their assets and called them a bunch of terrorists.’

  ‘Yeah, well, loads of people hate Julian Lister. So what does that prove?’

  Josh lowered his voice. ‘You know I was working in the House of Commons as a research assistant over the summer? I was working for Anita Norris who was a junior treasury minister. Well, Zak Samuelsson, you know, the Icelander, asked me where Julian Lister was going on holiday this summer. I mean what kind of question is that?’