66 Degrees North

by Michael Ridpath

  Sindri was naïve hoping that the time of revolution was now. It would come, it might take years, but civil society would eventually break down under the weight of the contradictions of capitalism. And when it did, Ísak would be ready for it. He would spend the coming years building up an elite cadre of revolutionaries, a true vanguard of the proletariat who would be able to lead people like Björn to a better world.

  It would come. He was young. He could be patient.

  Everything would be fine as long as they all stayed quiet. He thought he could trust Björn and Sindri to do that. But not Harpa. Harpa would talk.

  He would have to be careful. Killing Harpa would of course lead to its own inquiry and he would be a prime suspect. He would have to be sure not to leave any forensic evidence in the Honda. It would be important to dispose of the body miles away from Grundarfjördur, or anywhere he had been seen.

  He wouldn’t be able to set up a perfect alibi, but he had spent the previous night in a small campsite just outside Reykjavík on the road to the south-east, taking care to give the owner his name. He had got up early that morning and doubled back, driving north. Once Harpa was out of the way, he planned to drive across Iceland, through the night if necessary. If he was seen camping in Thórsmörk, well to the east of Reykjavík, the morning after Harpa’s death, the police might believe that he had spent the whole time in the area.

  Ísak trusted his own intelligence. He would be able to figure it out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  VIGDÍS LOOKED AT the nineteen-year-old boy opposite her. His eyes were rimmed with red and he looked miserable.

  He hadn’t talked after his night in the cells, and Vigdís was surprised. She had done her best to coax something out of him, to make him feel good about confessing to whatever he wanted to confess to. She had mentioned Gabríel Örn, Sindri, Björn and Harpa. Nothing.

  Ingólfur Arnarson. Nothing.

  Then Árni had tried. His histrionics, including a bit of shouting at Frikki and banging on the table had been, quite frankly, embarrassing. For a moment Vigdís thought that she had exchanged a half-smile of amusement with Frikki, but then it was gone. She fervently hoped that they wouldn’t have to play back the videotape. There was no doubt about it: Árni watched too much TV.

  There was a knock at the door and one of the duty constables from the front desk appeared. ‘Vigdís? There’s someone to see you.’

  Vigdís left Árni to it and followed the constable into an adjoining interview room. There sat a dark-haired woman of about twenty.

  ‘I am Magda, Frikki’s girlfriend,’ she said in English.

  Vigdís remembered that Árni had mentioned a girlfriend when he had picked Frikki up from his mother’s house. ‘Do you speak Icelandic?’ Vigdís asked.

  ‘A little. Can I talk to him?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. We are interviewing him in relation to a very serious incident.’

  ‘Please. Just for five minutes.’

  Vigdís shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. But perhaps you can help. Do you know anything about the death of Gabríel Örn in January this year?’

  Magda shook her head. ‘I was in Poland then.’

  ‘Has Frikki spoken to you about it?’

  Magda hesitated. There was silence in the small interview room. Vigdís waited. She could almost see the wheels turning in Magda’s head as she tried to come to a decision.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, he has. But it is better if he talks to you directly about it.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Vigdís. ‘But he won’t.’

  ‘Let me talk to him, then,’ said Magda. ‘Alone.’

  Vigdís considered it. As a rule, it was best to keep witnesses separate, pin down the differences in stories, prevent them from conferring. But this case was different. She nodded.

  Ten minutes later Magda knocked on the door of the interview room. Vigdís opened it.

  ‘Frikki wants to talk,’ Magda said.

  Vigdís was sitting at a table at the back of the coffee shop on Hverfisgata, just a few metres from the police station. At moments like this, outside the police station, Magnus had trouble remembering she was Icelandic and not American. An attractive black woman in jeans and a fleece, she could easily be one of the detectives from the Boston Police Department.

  After seeing Ingileif he had walked the streets aimlessly. He had nowhere to go: he couldn’t face the classroom at the police college, and it was clear Baldur wouldn’t welcome him at the station. His thoughts bounced between Ingileif and the Óskar Gunnarsson case. Both depressed him. He came up with no great ideas about either problem.

  There seemed an inevitability about Ingileif’s decision. The case involving her father’s death in the 1990s had been very painful for her. Although it had brought Magnus and her together, he could see how she associated him with it. He could understand how she might want to run away. Start again somewhere new. She was doing what she felt she had to do.

  But the Óskar Gunnarsson case was different. Although he had been sidelined, he was confident that he was right.

  And he could never let a case go.

  So when Vigdís had called him on his cell phone, he had hurried to the café.

  ‘What have you got?’ he asked her.

  ‘Frikki talked.’

  ‘The night in the cells did its stuff?’

  ‘More his girlfriend. She persuaded him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And you were right. Gabríel Örn’s death wasn’t suicide.’

  ‘Who killed him? Björn?’

  ‘Possibly Frikki. Probably Harpa.’ Vigdís explained everything that Frikki had told her. About the night in January. The drinking at Sindri’s flat. Harpa calling Gabríel Örn, tempting him out. The scuffle, Harpa hitting him over the head. And the plan to cover everything up, a plan which Frikki had little directly to do with.

  ‘Got them!’ said Magnus in triumph. ‘What about Óskar? And Lister?’

  ‘Frikki didn’t know anything about them,’ Vigdís said. ‘He suspects something, much as we do, but he has no evidence.’

  ‘Any clue about the identity of Ingólfur Arnarson?’

  ‘He has never heard of him. We checked the phone directory, by the way. There are a dozen real Ingólfur Arnarsons listed. Róbert is checking them out now.’ Róbert was another detective in the Violent Crimes Unit.

  ‘Has Frikki seen any of the others since Gabríel Örn’s death?’

  ‘Only Harpa. He bumped into her in the bakery in Seltjarnarnes. He told her his theory that Sindri and Björn might have shot Óskar and the British Chancellor. She wasn’t impressed.’

  ‘Meaning she’s involved?’

  ‘Frikki didn’t think so. Neither did his girlfriend, for what it’s worth.’

  ‘So are you arresting them now?’

  ‘Baldur’s dithering. He’s in with Thorkell discussing it.’

  ‘But surely there’s a case for murder here? Or manslaughter at the very least. Baldur can’t hide from that.’

  ‘Yes, the Gabríel Örn case will definitely have to be reopened. But there’s also the question of whether you were right all along. Whether there is a link with the Óskar investigation.’

  ‘We can’t prove that until we get the ID on Ísak from London,’ said Magnus. ‘But we should get these people in custody right away. Before anyone else gets killed.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Vigdís. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back. If they do take a decision to make some arrests, they’ll be looking for me.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Magnus said. ‘Well done, Vigdís. And thanks for keeping me in the loop.’

  Magnus finished his coffee as Vigdís left the café, leaving hers untouched. He smiled to himself. It felt good to be vindicated, there was no denying it. And he was absolutely sure now that there was a link between this little group and the recent shootings.

  His phone rang. Sharon Piper.

  He picked it up. ‘Hey, Sharon. Ísak’s ID come through?’


  ‘Soon,’ said Sharon. ‘The witness’s husband has been in touch with his office and we’ve just e-mailed the photo to him. We haven’t heard back from his wife yet.’

  ‘Why the hell not? Tell her to pull her finger out. It’s important.’

  ‘Steady on, Magnus, hold your horses. There is some news from Normandy.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘A girl in a bakery in a village a few kilometres from where Lister was shot served a customer the morning before the shooting. He was wearing a light blue jacket and he drove a motorbike with Dutch licence plates.’

  ‘The same guy the farmer saw?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘Did she give a better description?’

  ‘Yes. But the really interesting thing is the coin the man gave her for change. At first she thought it was twenty cents, but then it turned out to be something else.’

  ‘Let me guess. Icelandic krónur?’

  ‘You’re right. A fifty-krónur piece.’

  ‘Jesus. So what’s the description?’

  ‘Good-looking guy. Dark hair, unshaven. Blue eyes. Slim but strong. About thirty, thirty-five. Fairly tall, maybe one metre eighty-five. That’s about six-foot one.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s not Ísak,’ said Sharon. ‘But is it Harpa’s boyfriend, Björn?’

  ‘Could well be,’ said Magnus. ‘The description fits.’

  ‘OK, I’ll tell SO15 that.’

  ‘SO15?’

  ‘The Counter Terrorism Command. There’s a lot of people getting very excited over here. I think your guys are going to hear from our people pretty soon. Or from the French. Can you send over a photo of Björn?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Magnus thought it through. ‘I’m technically off the case and out of the police station. The Icelanders are going to be real sensitive about this. You know what cross-border cooperation can be like once things get political.’

  A year before, in Boston, Magnus had been investigating a case involving a Canadian citizen in Montreal. The RCMP had been much less helpful than usual. The Canadians had taken exception to their informal help in another case leading to a terrorist suspect being arrested and taken to Guantánamo Bay. Since then everything had had to go through official channels. A pain, but Magnus could see their point.

  ‘Your guy can expect to hear from someone shortly,’ said Sharon.

  ‘Thanks, Sharon.’

  So it was Björn who went to Normandy. Via Amsterdam, probably. Hired a motorcycle there, or stole one. Or borrowed one. Got hold of a rifle. Drove to Normandy and buried it.

  And it had been Ísak who had done similar legwork in London. Located Óskar’s address. Perhaps got hold of the gun, the motorbike.

  But for whom? Neither of them had shot anybody. Nor had Sindri: he was in Iceland the whole time. There was someone else. Someone who could use a gun, who wasn’t afraid of killing, but who wasn’t able to make his own preparations. Perhaps wasn’t well travelled enough. Perhaps didn’t speak English.

  Who could it be? Magnus had no idea.

  It should be straightforward to check whether Björn flew to Amsterdam the previous week, though.

  Magnus had to see Baldur right away. He hurried out of the café and into the police headquarters.

  ‘Where’s Baldur?’ he asked Vigdís.

  ‘With the Commissioner. I think Thorkell is in there too. They are discussing whether to arrest Björn and Sindri.’

  ‘I’ve got to see him.’

  ‘I don’t know how long he’ll be.’

  ‘Then I’ll interrupt him. Árni, check and see whether Björn was on any flight to Amsterdam last Thursday and Friday, and if he came back to Reykjavík on Saturday.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He’s the guy the farmer saw the day before Lister was shot. The Dutch guy. Except he wasn’t Dutch, he had Icelandic coins in his pocket. Vigdís, come with me. I may need your help.’

  Magnus noticed a thin file on his desk. He glanced at it. The pathologist’s report on Benedikt Jóhannesson’s murder. He left it there and headed for the door.

  The Commissioner’s office was only a couple of hundred metres away, over a busy intersection in a modern building on the road that overlooked the bay. On the way, Magnus told Vigdís more about Sharon’s call.

  They were dodging through the traffic when Magnus felt his phone vibrate. He took a quick look. Sharon Piper.

  ‘Hi, Sharon.’

  ‘Things are really hotting up. Just got a call from a student at the LSE, a friend of Ísak’s. This student was a research assistant for a junior treasury minister over the summer. Anyway, Ísak asked him over the summer if he knew where Julian Lister went on holiday. The student thought it a little strange at the time, but he told him about the place in Normandy.’

  ‘Jeez. Are you arresting Ísak?’

  ‘I expect so. Haven’t told SO15 yet, I thought I’d give you a heads-up first. They are going to go crazy over there. Oh, and we finally got the ID through from the French woman in India. It was Ísak she saw asking for Óskar’s address.’

  ‘Big surprise. Thanks, Sharon. Before you go, I’ve been thinking. Seems to me that Ísak and Björn were both acting as point men for someone else. The guy who actually pulled the trigger. Ísak in Kensington and Björn in Normandy.’

  ‘Who’s the guy?’

  ‘No idea. But I bet he’s an Icelander. And I’d guess one who doesn’t speak English.’

  ‘Worth a thought. I’ve got to go now, Magnus.’

  Magnus hung up and ran into the Commissioner’s office building. The Commissioner’s office itself was guarded by a secretary. As she picked up the phone to tell her boss about Magnus, he pushed past her and burst in, Vigdís trailing behind.

  There were four people in the office: Baldur, Thorkell, the Police Commissioner and a silver-haired man whom Magnus recognized as the Prosecutor, the senior lawyer within the Police Department.

  Snorri Gudmundsson glared at Magnus as he entered. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing?’

  ‘I’ve had a call from London. Björn Helgason has been identified in Normandy the day before Julian Lister was shot. And Ísak Samúelsson asked an intern who worked in the British treasury about Lister’s vacation plans. I’m sorry to barge in, but I thought you ought to know before the British police call. Or the French.’

  Snorri breathed in. Thought for a moment. ‘Is it a firm ID of Björn?’

  ‘Not yet. But it will be once we send a photograph.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that,’ said Baldur.

  Snorri raised his hand to quieten his inspector. ‘This changes things. Baldur, I want Björn and Sindri arrested immediately. And Harpa Einarsdóttir.’

  ‘On what charge?’ said Baldur.

  ‘Gabríel Örn’s murder for now,’ said Snorri. ‘Once they are in custody we’ll see if we can expand it to the other two cases. I need to be up to speed for when the British call. Magnús, you stay here.’

  Magnus stayed as Baldur left with Vigdís. He took Baldur’s chair. Thorkell and the Prosecutor were listening closely.

  ‘OK, Magnús. If there was a conspiracy to shoot Óskar and Lister, and I emphasize the word if, what does it look like?’

  ‘Assuming Frikki’s story is correct, a group of five of them all met at the demonstration in January. That’s Sindri, Björn, Harpa, Ísak and Frikki. At that stage they were all strangers and they were all fired up over the kreppa and who caused it. They drank a lot, Harpa lured out her ex-boyfriend Gabríel Örn, they beat him up and killed him. Probably accidentally, but we need to establish that. They planned a cover-up to dress up the death as suicide. That worked.’

  Snorri was listening closely.

  ‘Now, later, we don’t know when, some of them got together and decided to take things further. Having killed once, they wanted to kill again, once again people they thought were responsible. Óskar Gunnarsson. And Julian Lister.’

  ‘So w
ho was involved at this stage?’

  ‘Of the original five, probably just Björn, Sindri and Ísak, who was in London. But I’m convinced that another conspirator joined them. The guy who actually pulled the trigger.’

  ‘And who is that?’

  ‘We have no idea. My bet is that he’s an Icelander who doesn’t speak any foreign languages, but that’s just a guess. Ísak speaks English, I wouldn’t be surprised if Björn does too, and I think they prepared both hits.’

  ‘And is it just the two targets?’

  ‘I think there’s another. A, um, contact of mine spoke to Sindri.’

  ‘By contact you mean girlfriend?’ said Snorri. ‘Baldur told me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Magnus admitted. ‘They were both drunk, but Sindri suggested that there is another target, someone he called Ingólfur Arnarson.’

  ‘The first settler?’

  ‘I thought one of the Viking Outvaders.’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘And even if we pick up Björn and Sindri, the assassin, whoever he is, will still be at large. So they are in danger.’

  ‘You think we should warn the Outvaders?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘All of them. Or at least the highest profile ones.’

  Snorri blew through his cheeks as he thought through the consequences of all this. ‘These men are terrorists. Icelandic terrorists.’

  Magnus could see the impending national shame. ‘Seems to me they are criminals,’ he said. ‘A bunch of three or four individuals, not a political movement. We’re talking nutters here, not terrorists.’

  Snorri gave him half a smile. ‘Maybe. But if we are not very careful this is going to get caught up in the Icesave negotiations.’

  ‘We don’t have to cooperate with the British,’ said the Prosecutor. ‘We could force them to make a formal application for assistance. And of course the Lister shooting is in French jurisdiction.’