Trap

by Lilja Sigurdardóttir

  Now she allowed the chocolate cake to melt in her mouth, one mouthful at a time, while William and his assistant, who had arrived and sat on a rickety chair with a laptop on his knees, put together the figures for the loan paperwork. Once this was done, she would take a look through everything herself. And then there was only London left.

  36

  Sonja much preferred the buzz of being active over sitting still. Being busy brought down her stress levels. It also shrank the ball of longing that always formed in her belly when she had been away from Tómas for too long.

  She had been shopping and had brought all the pickled gherkins she could carry in two carrier bags back to the rental flat, and now she was busy pouring out the contents, washing the jars and drying them. She had drawn the curtains across every window, which was a shame, as outside the kitchen window was a little patch of greenery packed with tulips about to burst into red-and-yellow flower. It was a compact apartment, and it was clear that young people lived here, occasionally renting the place out to travellers to supplement their income.

  The pick-up had been straightforward. A black-haired young woman had wordlessly handed her the bag as she had sat waiting on the wall under the statue of Spinoza, then turned on her heel and walked away. Sonja had quickly glanced around, making sure none of the people walking or cycling over the canal bridge had paid any attention to this encounter, but she didn’t look inside the bag until she was back at the rented flat. She was amazed at how poorly the shipment had been packed. It was in powder form in two ordinary plastic bags tied with hair bobbles. The goods could hardly have come from South America like that, so it must have been a larger shipment that had been split.

  She stripped off, put on a pair of latex gloves, picked up the merchandise and placed it on the kitchen table. Once the jars were lined up, she gently snipped the hair tie from the first bag and began carefully spooning the powder into the first jar. It was tempting to hurry the process along by pouring the powder, but hurrying was one of the things that would put her in danger, so Sonja continued to fill the jars, one spoonful at a time, taking care not to let even a single grain go astray. A tiny amount on the outside of a jar could cause all kinds of problems. It didn’t make any difference that she had Bragi on her side, there was still no reason to take any risks and the shipment needed to be as close to dog-proof as possible.

  The ninth jar was almost full when she scraped the final remnants of powder from the second plastic bag. She pulled off the gloves, washed her hands carefully at the kitchen sink and cautiously but firmly screwed tight the lids of the jars. Then she lined them up in the dishwasher, and set it to run for a quick wash.

  In the bathroom she turned on the shower and saw that her phone, lying on the bathroom cabinet, was blinking. She looked at the screen and saw that it was Agla – for the third time. She turned the phone face down and in her mind went over every stage of what she had to do. Once she had showered, she would pack each of the jars in a thick plastic envelope and use the vacuum machine to seal them up. Then she would wrap each one in clothes and pack them in her suitcase so that there was no chance that any could be broken. Glass was the only material that the smell of cocaine could not permeate, making it the ideal packing material. Its fragility was the downside. It would be disastrous if one of the jars were to crack. Then there was the danger that the electronic surveillance systems customs used would identify the contents, even from a distance. And that would mean relying completely on Bragi, which was uncomfortable to contemplate. It had been a long time since she had relied on anyone at all.

  37

  To be on the safe side, Bragi had set the phone Sonja gave him to silent and put it in his staff locker. It had seemed a good idea to keep it there, but when he went to the staff room for the third time to check on it, his knees were starting to complain. He was getting older faster than he was prepared to admit, and any extra walking was becoming a greater effort. Now he found it most comfortable to sit.

  He checked the phone and opened the messages folder to see if anything had come in. And now, the third time that he had checked, there was something: a heart. That meant Sonja would arrive on the evening flight, as he had already seen on the passenger list. He sent a heart in reply, confirming that everything was ready for her.

  He had given one of the women on his shift a day off, suggesting that she ought to take an extra day, knowing that she had her son’s confirmation to prepare for. The woman had been taken entirely by surprise by his suggestion and wasn’t inclined to take him seriously, which was understandable, as Bragi had always been strict about attendance; but she had then thrown her arms around him and planted a kiss on his cheek. She said she could hardly tell him how much it meant to her.

  He could have replied that it was very convenient for him that she was busy preparing a confirmation party. The Analysis team had also been conveniently forthcoming: they wanted customs to check on two Poles due to arrive on the same flight as Sonja, so he allocated that job to Atli Thór and a student from the customs training programme, while Bragi himself would look after the arrivals hall.

  He pushed the phone to the back of the locker, locked it and left the room. His knees were very painful, but that would be all right. By now Sonja would be in the air and there would be three uneventful hours before her flight was scheduled to land. He could sit quietly and keep an eye on the windows.

  He wondered if he ought to send her a message suggesting they should meet. He ought to tell her about Greenland. But straightaway he doubted himself. Maybe he was seeing a pattern in something that was a complete coincidence. Perhaps he was losing his touch, starting to imagine things. And even if his conclusion was correct, there was no certainty that the merchandise was making its way regularly through Greenland; what he’d witnessed could have been a one-off. He pulled up a chair and took a seat at the window overlooking the arrivals hall. It would be best to wait before speaking to Sonja about Greenland. He preferred to be sure of his ground first.

  38

  Sonja switched on her pay-as-you-go phone as the aircraft landed. It was practically an antique and took a while to connect, but as the stewardess welcomed travellers home, as was the airline’s custom, the phone chirped to let her know there was a message. She sighed with relief at the sight of the heart on the screen, the heart that told her everything was ready for her. Bragi had sent it a little late and she would have preferred to have had confirmation before boarding – if there had been a warning exclamation mark, it would have been too late to do anything about it. Next time they met she would emphasise the importance of a prompt response.

  As the aircraft came to a standstill and the passengers waited to be let out, Sonja went through her false persona in her mind, as she always did. This was her preparation, surrounding herself with the protective shell that she needed to help her become invisible. This would allow her to vanish into the throng of passengers without it being obvious that she was hiding. She was a businesswoman, she told herself, owner of software consultancy SG Software, and the reason for her frequent journeys was to sell and manage software installations in various countries. She repeated these statements to herself like a mantra and took care not to let her mind dwell on the reality that she was a lowly mule who knew next to nothing about computers.

  The doors opened, the fresh air flooded into the aircraft cabin and people began to move. Sonja took her hand baggage from the overhead locker, slung it over her shoulder and folded her chequered woollen scarf over her arm. She was ready to face the airport jetway with all its cameras, through which the customs officers would be watching. The queue inched forwards, past the stewardesses who stood by the door to bid each passenger goodbye; Sonja smiled and said ‘thanks’ as she passed them. She stepped out into the jetway and after only a few steps was ready to faint. Three broad-shouldered customs officers stood there waiting.

  Weak at the knees, she felt her heart melt inside her. Had Bragi betrayed her? Had his conscience become too m
uch for him? She coughed and swallowed to try to banish the feeling that she was being suffocated, then forced herself to walk along the gangway, one foot at a time, steady, acting as if nothing was wrong and keeping her cool. She told herself to maintain the persona, the fake version of herself, play the part for as long as she could of the innocent passenger, the professional woman who travelled to sell and maintain software systems.

  She kept going, heading along the jetway, acting as if she had not seen the customs officers. But as she reached them, the biggest one took a step forwards.

  ‘Please step aside for a moment.’

  In an instinctive movement, she shrank back from him, and although her mouth opened, no sound came from between her lips. She had been rendered both lame and mute, unable to speak the words of astonishment that she had so often practised in her mind for just this moment.

  It took only two or three seconds to shut her mouth and continue along the jetway as she realised that the customs team were speaking not to her, but to the man who had been behind her in the queue leaving the aircraft.

  She was out of the jetway, had gone along the corridor and down the escalator and was inside the terminal when she felt the endorphin rush and the infinite feeling of relief that came with it.

  39

  Agla put the phone down again. Sonja clearly wasn’t going to pick up. Every time she called, it just rang and rang, and there were no replies to the voicemail messages she left. Her refusal to answer the phone was infuriating. But she could cope with that, as long as Sonja did not disappear again. That had been pure hell. Weeks had gone by with no sight of her; it had even been hopeless to sit in the car outside Sonja’s place hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

  Agla could feel the apprehension starting to grow inside her, so she quickly shifted her thoughts to money, the work she was here to do. It wasn’t a good idea to be depressed when dealing with finance. It was as if optimism, and even arrogance, made the money flourish. A dose of self-confidence helped business go smoothly. It’s important to believe in yourself and the business, she reminded herself. It was almost as if that was the starting point.

  With hindsight, though, she saw that had been precisely what had gone wrong for them before the financial crash. Adam’s nerves had been shot and stress had made Jóhann ill; he’d thrown up into a bin during every meeting.

  ‘If we look at which of our customers will give us a loan with no questions asked, then there’s one obvious candidate,’ Jóhann, the bank’s manager, had said when the three of them had met around two years before the crash. His complexion had been pale and there was a bead of sweat on his upper lip: his usual indicator of stress. Adam had protested, having a minor bout of hysterics at the thought of the trouble they would all be in if knowledge of what they were doing were to get out. These were his customers and he was sure he could predict how they would react if some of their cash were to disappear. Agla had sat quietly through the whole meeting, silently plotting.

  ‘I can get William in Paris on board,’ she had said as the meeting came to an end, ‘but it’s best if you don’t know the details and I don’t know where the cash comes from. That’s the safest way.’

  Then she had risen to her feet and walked out. Doing so had been no more than a formality, as they knew perfectly well that she was aware where the money had come from. It came from contacts of Adam’s who every week paid in large volumes that Adam then laundered for them via a fake company account. She didn’t know precisely what the origin of the money was, but it wasn’t difficult to make a guess that it was linked to Adam’s astonishingly easy access to cocaine.

  That alone should have set all kinds of alarm bells ringing, but the coke in question had undoubtedly affected the judgement of all three of them present in that meeting.

  After that they had been able to borrow a substantial amount every week, to send it on a journey around the world. As the money came back via some of her companies, they used it to buy shares in the bank itself. The strategy worked well to begin with, and the shares jumped in value, but as things went sour across financial markets and share prices went into free-fall these amounts were no longer enough. On top of that, the shares couldn’t be sold because, by then, they were worth less than the debt, and putting them up for sale would have reduced the bank’s value even further.

  That was the time, when Adam was sweating out three shirts a day and Jóhann was puking into the bins, that the idea had been floated to do something radical for the bank; something much bigger; something huge.

  And that was how the awkward debt had turned into the massive debt – with Ingimar’s help.

  40

  Sonja admired Ríkharður’s new scar. It was still livid, with freshly healing skin around the dark marks left by the stitches. He limped over to her, across the pier. Sonja felt as if the cries of the squabbling seagulls provided a mocking soundtrack as he made his way over to her with obvious difficulty. He silently put out his hand for the case.

  ‘Not so full of yourself now?’ she asked, as a way of saving face and not showing fear. She had been nervous about meeting Rikki to hand over the shipment, as there was no doubt he would still be furious about the last time they had met. He had to know that she was the one who had framed him – making him look like the grass who had leaked information to the police so that Adam and Thorgeir would have him beaten to a pulp. But Adam had assured her that Rikki would not be a problem.

  Ríkharður said nothing in reply, but turned and marched away with the case. He obviously had no intention of talking to her. Sonja let out a long, relieved breath. Silence was just fine. Silence could be their new way of dealing with each other. It had to be better than the insults and filth to which he had previously treated her. And it was much better than having his rock-hard fingers around her throat or his fist thrust in her face. She could get used to silence.

  She stood on the dock and watched him drive away. This was the first time that he had not had an Armani-clad gorilla cub at his side as a show of strength. She had the impression that she was now the one calling the shots. It was a feeling she liked.

  She sat in the car and turned up the heater. She was chilled through after standing, waiting for Ríkharður in the cold drizzle. She counted to ten, took three deep breaths and punched Adam’s number into her phone.

  ‘Rikki has the gear,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ Adam said, and she could hear that he was about to hang up.

  ‘We have to talk about Tómas,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Tómas isn’t up for discussion,’ he said, and ended the call.

  Sonja took three more deep breaths to try and keep her emotions under control, but failed. The tears began to flow and the image of Tómas at the airport, being led away by his father, filled her mind. The helplessness in his eyes and his little body shaking as he looked over his shoulder at her broke her heart all over again. She knew perfectly well that Adam was bluffing; he was just punishing her, and sooner or later she would get to see Tómas, but waiting for that to happen was almost unbearable. There was nothing for it but to persevere. Her fate was tightly bound to Adam’s; she was as guilty as he was having smuggled tens of kilos of cocaine into the country, so becoming a whistleblower was not an option. If she were to do that, there was no question that Adam would drag her down with him, and then Tómas would be left with no parents.

  May 2011

  41

  María straightened the knot of her scarf before she left her office. She had no idea what to expect. Finnur, the prosecutor who was deputising while the special prosecutor was on leave, had just said that they needed to meet, just the two of them. She went to the larger meeting room, but found it empty, so she looked around the door of the smaller room, but there was nobody in there either. She checked the time. She was early. He had said half an hour, and now it was precisely half an hour since he had called.

  ‘María?’ a deep voice called from behind her. She turned. Finnur’s dark mop of hair appe
ared around the door of one of the interview rooms and he beckoned to her with an index finger. She followed and he gestured towards a seat by the window, as if she were a suspect.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, looking him in the eye.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said. There was something in his tone of voice that she found irritating. He talked as if the place was all his, as if somehow he was the one with the power over her. Officially, he was – being the special prosecutor, although only for a few weeks. When that was over, and the real special prosecutor returned, she and Finnur would be back on equal terms. The special prosecutor had promised that next time he was away, she would be the one to step into his shoes.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she repeated, without sitting down. She had learned on an assertiveness training course to repeat questions and wishes in a relaxed and measured way, until notice was taken of them.

  ‘I have something that you need to listen to,’ he said. His voice was low, practically a whisper. He jerked his head once more towards the chair, indicating that she should sit – he had been on the same assertiveness course. She gave way and sat down, even though she felt uncomfortable. Normally, she was the one who showed suspects to a chair in this room.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘A secret?’

  He smiled, and lifted a finger to make her wait for a moment, then took his phone from his pocket. He fiddled with the screen and finally placed it on the table between them. First there was a hiss of interference, then the sound of a phone ringing, and finally a voice was heard from the phone; a voice she knew well.

  ‘I just wanted to make you aware of something,’ the voice said. It was Agla’s voice, familiar to María from endless interviews and statements.