‘Rósa’s murderer was Fjalar Reynisson, the brother of the man who originally fished the doll out of the sea. Fjalar’s a businessman who rents out summer houses and campervans to tourists here in Iceland, and a holiday apartment in Spain to Icelanders.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘I’ve got all the time in the world.’
Huldar smiled at this, then went on: ‘Fjalar was a very ordinary guy with a small business based around these assets. When it didn’t bring him the big bucks he’d been hoping for, he started importing drugs from Spain. He got the idea when some people he’d rented his apartment to were caught by customs trying to bring opioids into Iceland. Bergur won’t be released from custody any time soon either, because he’s believed to have assisted with the distribution of the drugs. We haven’t worked out all the details yet but the bigger picture is more or less clear.’
‘How did the police find out?’
‘We tracked down the air tickets the young British couple had used to get here. They had been purchased in the names of an Icelandic couple who live in Spain. When we spoke to them, they turned out to be very eager to cooperate. Or, rather, they were once they’d been threatened with extradition … But the upshot is that they agreed to work with us. That’s when the ball really started rolling.’
‘How? How would an Icelandic couple living in Spain know what had been going on?’
‘They’re not exactly pensioners who retired there for a life in the sun. They’re drug addicts who’d found a local doctor who was relaxed about writing them prescriptions for opioids. The amount he prescribed for them is unbelievable. The pills were then imported to Iceland, often by the couple themselves. But back in the spring they relapsed and after that they weren’t in a fit state to do any smuggling. Customs would never have let them into Iceland without taking them aside for a thorough inspection, it was that bad. That left Fjalar with a problem, since the market was crying out for the stuff and supplies were running low.’
‘So what happened? Did Bergur go out there to find someone to act as a mule?’
‘No, not exactly. Fjalar went apeshit and sent Bergur over to talk sense into the Icelanders when it became obvious what had happened. He was supposed to force them to clean up their act, and, if that didn’t work, to bring the drugs home himself. Since Bergur had originally been responsible for recruiting the couple, Fjalar saw it as his problem. Bergur also took care of recruiting dealers at this end, by virtue of his position as manager of a home where a lot of young addicts were placed. In other words, he used those poor kids to distribute the drugs, and from time to time drafted in members of their families as well, if they were addicts too. The young man in Spain was actually on the list of witnesses who Sexual Offences wanted to talk to, because he’d been a resident at Bergur’s home.’
‘Christ!’
‘Yup. You can expect to attend more witness interviews next week, because now we’ll have to question all the kids again. This time we need to ask them all whether they sold dope – or were approached about selling dope – for Bergur. I reckon he knew which ones would be receptive, so I’m hoping it was the exception rather than the rule that the kids got mixed up in it. He’s unlikely to have bothered trying to recruit the ones who were clean. But the kids who did drugs would have had useful connections.’
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand. It sounds as if Bergur was a lot more active than Fjalar in the business. What on earth can have induced him to take on all the dirty work? And what exactly did Fjalar do?’
‘Bergur was under Fjalar’s thumb. You see, Fjalar had something on him that he used to blackmail him into working for him. Meanwhile, Fjalar’s role was just to look after the finances. Oh, and to allow the Icelandic couple to live in his Spanish apartment. Before that a young addict had lived there, another member of Bergur’s drug mule academy. And before him, another kid in the same boat.’
Huldar paused for a sip of wine. He sucked it through his teeth, making a bit of a face. When Freyja asked if he’d prefer a beer, he accepted eagerly. Once he had the glass in front of him, he took a long draught, then carried on with his story.
‘But Bergur only had to visit the couple in Spain once that spring to realise that they wouldn’t be getting on a plane any time soon. Since he had no intention of smuggling the drugs himself, he saw his opportunity when he got talking to a young Brit at his hotel. The guy was joking that he and his girlfriend should have booked a trip to Iceland instead because they were dying of heatstroke in Spain. When Bergur offered him the tickets, he jumped at the chance. Bergur claims the man was aware that the tent he gave them contained a bag of illegal drugs, but of course we only have his word for that. It’s possible the young Brit accepted the tent without having a clue what he was getting himself into. Information from the Spanish police suggests that the guy ditched the pills before flying to Iceland, so presumably he did know about them but got cold feet. If he’d come across the dope by chance, he’s more likely to have called the police and reported it.’
‘Why were they killed? Because they’d thrown away the drugs?’
‘Yes. Probably. And maybe to make sure they didn’t talk.’
‘What was the original plan?’
‘Bergur says the British guy was supposed to hand over the dope at the campsite in Laugardalur, the day after the couple arrived in Iceland. Not the same day, because Bergur wanted to keep an eye out in case there were any signs of a police operation in the area. He didn’t see anything, so he assumed they hadn’t been rumbled and the coast was clear. But the Brits weren’t at the campsite. Bergur claims he told Fjalar and that Fjalar went mental. He hunted the couple down and killed them both in a fit of rage when the young man couldn’t hand over the dope.’
‘Hunted them down? Weren’t they in a tent? How did he find them?’
‘Bergur had fixed a tiny GPS transmitter to the tent so he could keep track of the couple as they came through customs. If they spent a suspiciously long time at the airport or the tent went from there to the police station, he would know to keep away from Laugardalur. But, in the event, he’d chickened out of using it for fear that if the police confiscated the tent, they’d find the transmitter and might be able to trace the person who was monitoring it. But Fjalar forced him to activate the transmitter when he couldn’t find the couple, and discovered that they were in Sudurland, near Hveragerdi. Fjalar waited until dusk, then went after them. He caught Leonard outside the tent, the girl inside.’
The lead weight in Freyja’s stomach grew even heavier at the thought of the poor young tourists being slaughtered like that. She gulped down some wine but it didn’t help. ‘I don’t need to hear the details.’
‘No. I can understand that. Anyway, there was no sign of the transmitter when the tent was found. Bergur claims he removed it when he disposed of the camping gear in the ditch. Fjalar had taken the bodies away with him the night he killed them but left all their belongings behind. They’d been camping just off the Ring Road, at the foot of a mountain not far from Hveragerdi. Bergur went and removed all trace of them, afraid the crime would be discovered and the camping gear traced to him. I can’t say he did a very good job of it. But he claims he panicked.’
‘How did the bodies end up in the sea?’
‘Fjalar took them out in the boat that same night. He weighted the bodies down with rocks and threw them overboard. He chose the brothers’ favourite fishing spot in case anyone wondered what he was doing out there in the middle of the night. If anyone asked, he could claim he’d gone out fishing because he couldn’t sleep. He was careful to sail the same course as he usually did, in case anyone spotted the boat on the radar. And the bodies sank straight down, right in the spot where the doll had once been lying.’
Freyja let out the breath she’d been holding in. The red wine was starting to have an effect and she had to focus hard to follow the thread.
‘What did Fjalar have on Bergur tha
t could possibly be worse than all this?’
‘Well, for starters Fjalar witnessed the fight Bergur had with Rósa’s father, Thröstur, that led to Thröstur drowning.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, you heard right. Rósa’s father and Brynjólfur – that’s Binni Briefcase – and Bergur were all salmon fishing in the Brunná river in Öxarfjördur, where Fjalar happened to be fishing as well. The three men were sharing two rods; Fjalar had a third. They didn’t know each other. When the friends arrived, Fjalar was already there, and Binni and Bergur got into conversation with him. They were drinking and invited him to join them. While this was going on, Thröstur was sitting in the car.’
‘In the car?’
‘I’ll explain why in a minute. Anyway, Binni soon left Bergur and Fjalar and went back to the car to try and persuade Thröstur to change into his angling gear and join them in the river. He was partly successful. Thröstur changed his clothes and put on his waders. But instead of fishing, he went over to Bergur and pulled him away from Fjalar to settle an argument they’d been having. They started quarrelling and it ended with Bergur knocking Thröstur into the water, where he drowned. It can’t have helped that the three friends had been drinking in the car on the way there and were all half-cut.’
‘The driver too?’
‘Yep. Bergur, too, who was driving. That’s why he got scared when Thröstur drowned. He was terrified of being charged with manslaughter. Brynjólfur was pissed as usual, but Fjalar still had his head screwed on and took control of the situation. He sent Bergur back to town, while he and Brynjólfur pretended they had been the only people there to witness the accident. Thröstur had slipped and fallen while crossing the river, and drowned as a result. They didn’t have to change many details of what had actually happened and the story sounded perfectly plausible. Bergur got away with it, but if he’d known how much it was going to cost him, I bet he’d rather have faced charges. Fjalar saw his chance; he’d been fantasising about importing opioids from Spain but was hampered by having no contacts on the home market – until he met Bergur, who had told him what he did for a living.’
‘What about Brynjólfur? Why did he go along with it?’
‘Because Bergur and Thröstur hadn’t been quarrelling over nothing. They were in deep shit and couldn’t agree on what to do about it. The thing is, Bergur had run over a child on their way to the river. A six-year-old girl, who had died. Thröstur wanted to ring the police; Bergur didn’t. Perhaps Rósa’s father wanted to do the right thing because he had a daughter the same age. Or because the little girl had died in his arms after the accident.’ Huldar let out a long breath. ‘Remember the accident I told you about? The one the Húsavík police were busy with when the drowning was reported? It was that accident.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t say anything about a hit-and-run.’ Freyja felt sick to the stomach. ‘And why the hell don’t I remember this? A hit-and-run resulting in a child’s death? Surely I’d remember that, even if it was ten years ago? Wasn’t it in the news?’
‘Yes. It was. It happened in the north-east, on the road between Húsavík and Kópasker. Remember the map of traffic fatalities? Ironically, this was one of the accidents I mentioned to you when you asked me what the map showed. But the men engineered it to look quite different. The little girl was called Adalheidur. Her father had left her sitting in their car at the side of the road after it broke down. He was going to walk to Húsavík for help and told her to wait for him. His phone battery was dead.’
‘Oh yes! I do remember that. But wasn’t she run over by her father’s car? That’s how it was reported, if I recall correctly – that the girl had got in the front seat, fiddled with the controls and accidentally released the gears. Then she got out for a pee or something and the car ran over her?’
‘Yes, that’s how it appeared. But it seems the truth was different. The girl apparently saw them coming, got out and tried to wave them down. Why, no one knows, unless it was to ask them to turn round and drive her to find her father. They spotted her too late, but Bergur stopped and started to reverse towards the car she was standing beside. They were in a big pick-up, the kind with a camper shell on the back, so he couldn’t see that she’d started running towards them. He reversed over her. The wheel ran over her head.’
Huldar took another mouthful of beer but didn’t seem to enjoy it this time, perhaps because he had a bad taste in his mouth.
‘They put her in their car, intending to call for an ambulance and drive to meet it. But she died in Thröstur’s arms in the back seat before they could even close the doors, and they lost their heads. Bergur snatched the phone away from Brynjólfur before he could make the call, saying there was no way he was going to prison. He was drink-driving and it would make no difference that it had been an accident. He’d be sentenced and would probably have to do time. Rósa’s father was in shock. He froze and didn’t protest; just sat there in the car while Brynjólfur and Bergur laid the girl on the ground behind the broken-down vehicle, took it out of gear and positioned it so it ran over her head – it actually stopped on top of her. She was lying there dead when her father came back accompanied by a mechanic. It never crossed anyone’s mind that the girl hadn’t caused the accident herself by fiddling with the gears.’
Huldar took a long swig of beer. ‘It wasn’t until the men reached the river that they realised the doll the girl had been clutching had been left on the floor of the pick-up. She hadn’t let go of it until her grip slackened when she died. Thröstur was in such a state that he had just sat there, unable to speak, with the doll at his feet.’
‘Oh my God.’ Freyja wanted to knock back the rest of the wine in her glass to make listening to the story more bearable but she resisted the temptation and made do with a sip. She was torn between longing to know what had happened and dreading hearing about the grisly details.
Huldar carried on when it became clear that she had nothing else to say. ‘Of course, Bergur and Binni weren’t particularly pleased to see a stranger on the riverbank but they thought he might find it suspicious if they reversed down the track. So they got out, determined to behave as if nothing had happened. Thröstur couldn’t do it, though, and when Binni tried to coax him into copying their nonchalance, the whole thing ended like I told you – with Thröstur dying.’
‘How can people behave like that? Like those three?’
‘Not everyone would be capable of it. Look at Thröstur, for example. He couldn’t do it.’
‘The doll you mentioned, was it the one that was fished out of the sea?’
‘Yes. The girl’s parents say it is. The doll was still wearing the necklace their daughter had put on it, though its clothes had rotted away. At the time, the father hadn’t thought about the doll’s disappearance. When he reached the scene of the accident, he had too much else on his mind, understandably. It was only when the mother wanted to put the doll in the coffin with their daughter that he went back and searched along the side of the road. That was several days after the accident. When he couldn’t find the doll, he assumed someone must have seen it and taken it away with them, not realising why it was lying there. What else was he supposed to think?’
‘Why’s Bergur confessing to all this now?’
‘Oh, he’s not. We got the story from Fjalar. They’re competing to put the blame on each other and Fjalar probably wants to make sure that Bergur comes out of it as badly as him. Otherwise there’s a risk Bergur will get the lighter sentence. Apparently Fjalar got the story from Brynjólfur, who was forced to accept a lift to town with him as Bergur had left in the pick-up. Fjalar had noticed that Brynjólfur was acting suspiciously, hiding something in a bag, and he saw that it contained Thröstur’s blood-stained clothes – the ones he’d changed out of when he put on his fishing gear. Binni admitted the whole thing when Fjalar put pressure on him. Fjalar had witnessed Bergur’s quarrel with Thröstur, so he knew something was up. He demanded to know what was going on and refused to lie for
Bergur unless he told him everything. So Brynjólfur apparently decided to confide in him. Or maybe he was too drunk to lie convincingly. After they got back to town, Fjalar offered to dispose of the doll for them. He took it out to sea with him the next time he went and threw it overboard in the brothers’ favourite fishing spot. Brynjólfur held on to the blood-stained clothes; that came to light when we spoke to his ex-wife again. She’d found them in the storage unit with Binni’s things but hadn’t handed them over to us. When she heard the story I just told you, she admitted that she’d found them. She was probably afraid that if she didn’t, we’d get a search warrant for her flat, and she’d be found guilty of concealing a crime. The blood on the clothes will be analysed to confirm that it belonged to Adalheidur, though I assume that’s pretty much a given.’
Freyja topped up her glass again, then rose and fetched another beer for Huldar. He must need one. ‘Didn’t the police find it odd that Binni didn’t have a car of his own? How did he say he and Thröstur had got there in the first place?’
‘The police who attended the scene don’t appear to have noticed, or else their minds were on the fatal accident that had happened nearby. It wasn’t the Húsavík force – they were busy dealing with the little girl’s death. Maybe Binni claimed they’d come by bus or hitched a lift, and nobody bothered to make a note of it in the report. Like I said, the officers would probably have been more preoccupied with the other, even more tragic accident.’
‘And the doll?’
‘It vanished for five years, until Frikki caught it in his net in the exact same place Fjalar had chucked it overboard. Rósa’s mother put a photo of it on Facebook, where Bergur happened to spot it. Some mutual friend of his and Rósa’s mother had shared the post. In a panic Bergur rang Fjalar, who claims he ordered him to go and get it and delete the woman’s Facebook status before the little girl’s parents stumbled on it. What happened next is unclear.’
The Doll Page 36