Cage

by Lilja Sigurdardóttir

  ‘Nothing special. Just chat, y’know,’ she said, her eyes questioning.

  He could no longer hold back.

  ‘No, I don’t know what you could have been talking to that guy about. How old is he, anyway?’

  There was a stronger note of accusation in Anton’s voice than he had intended.

  Júlía pushed her food from her and folded her arms.

  ‘How should I know how old he is? Twenty-something, probably.’

  ‘And where’s he from?’

  ‘He’s from Syria.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Anton hissed. ‘You’ll end up married to some Muslim.’

  He could hear that his voice sounded angry, furious, even, but in reality he was struggling to hold back tears. Júlía stood up, took her coat from the back of the chair and walked out. Anton sat still for a moment, took a couple of deep breaths, and leaped to his feet to hurry out after her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Júlía,’ he said as he caught her up. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’

  She walked in silence, staring straight ahead. He reached for her hand, but she didn’t do it – didn’t give him her little finger to hook into. Instead she pulled her hand away and wrapped her coat more tightly around her.

  ‘Let’s just go see the film and forget this, OK?’

  His voice was wheedling.

  She stopped and faced him.

  ‘You’re going to have to stop this,’ she said as tears streamed from both eyes, down her cheeks and onto her upper lip. She wiped them away with a swipe of her coat sleeve. ‘Stop going on about me ending up married to a Muslim. I don’t know who I’ll get married to. In any case, it won’t be you if you behave like this.’

  Anton felt his heart melt inside him as he was consumed by regret. He couldn’t stand it when she cried.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he mumbled, and could feel tears on his own cheeks. ‘Let’s go see the movie,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy loads of sweets.’

  Now Júlía’s face broke into a smile and he laughed with relief. She extended her hand with the little finger cocked at an angle to hook it into his.

  18

  ‘Look at the dog,’ Agla said, leaning forwards to speak, as her voice still felt strange, as if she had a throat infection. ‘Back in the past the dog and the wolf were cousins who were starving because man was catching all their prey. The wolf continued to compete with man, trying to beat him to the best food. But the dog decided to join with man, to follow him and get the bones when man had finished with them. Gradually, the dog started helping the man hunt, and was rewarded with better pieces of meat, and now he gets fed and petted, and sleeps at the man’s feet. Wolves are dying out all over the world while the dog is the evolutionary winner as there have never been as many dogs as there are now.’

  María had sat and listened to Agla’s speech in silence, and now she stared at her with eyes wide.

  ‘And you’re comparing me to the dog?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Agla said calmly. ‘I’m comparing you to the wolf.’

  ‘Meaning that I and those like me are dying out?’

  ‘I’m pointing out that in this instance, it might be more to your advantage for us to be on the same side.’

  María smiled bitterly. Now all that remained for her was to become Agla’s ally. This was the Agla who had prompted the disaster that had engulfed her. This was the Agla she had dreamed of nailing, the Agla who deserved to spend the next hundred years behind prison walls but who would undoubtedly waltz out of here in a few weeks with an ankle tag, leaving her free to go back to her usual tricks.

  ‘You could get an explosive story out of this. I’ll pay all the costs and whatever you ask for on top.’

  Under normal circumstances María would have stood up and walked out, ignoring the temptation. It wasn’t the offer of cash that triggered her curiosity, more the hint of supplication in the last sentence. After that arrogant lecture about the animal kingdom, it was as if all the wind had been taken from Agla’s sails, leaving her adrift. There was a vulnerability in her eyes that María had never seen before and the hand that held the paper coffee cup trembled slightly.

  Agla was wearing a blue-grey cashmere sweater that María had seen before and been envious of; this time she wore it over a roll-neck top and tracksuit bottoms, and the sweater was creased and stretched, as if it had been slept in.

  ‘I’m looking for information,’ Agla said. ‘Information that could be useful to both of us.’

  ‘Information that you want me to get hold of illegally,’ María said firmly.

  ‘You must still have contacts at the special prosecutor’s office,’ Agla said. ‘All I’m talking about is someone doing you a small favour by getting hold of data that’s partly in the public domain already.’

  ‘I’m not interested in hearing more unless you tell me honestly why you need to know this,’ María said.

  ‘That should be obvious,’ Agla said. ‘I’m in prison. So my ability to find out what I need to know is limited.’

  ‘I mean, what are you going to do with this information? It surely doesn’t happen that all of a sudden, up here in Hólmsheiði, you decide that you need information about the financial status of particular companies.’

  Agla sighed and stared searchingly at her for a moment. María could tell from the look in her eyes that she was turning things over in her mind.

  Eventually Agla sighed again and sat up straight in her chair.

  ‘You have to give me your word that you won’t publish anything until I give the word. And you have to keep my name completely separate from any media coverage of all this. OK?’

  ‘Then this has to be something juicy,’ María said. It would have to be something big to make up for sacrificing an opportunity to write about Agla.

  Agla looked her in the eye, and María saw a smile appearing a little at a time on her face, until it reached her eyes.

  ‘Believe me,’ she said, giving María a conspiratorial wink. ‘This is as juicy as it gets.’

  19

  ‘This is fucking ace!’ Gunnar crowed in delight at the sight of the boy’s stock of fireworks.

  They had sneaked out of gym class to meet the boy who called himself Mr Firecracker online, and who seemed to stock up on fireworks around New Year and then sell them at triple the price over the subsequent months. He was a head shorter than either of them and at least a year younger. He must attend another school as Anton had never seen him before.

  ‘What school do you go to?’ Anton asked.

  The little guy shook his head.

  ‘No names,’ he said gruffly and folded his arms. ‘I don’t ask for names or which school you go to, and you don’t ask me.’

  Anton wasn’t sure whether to laugh or let his temper show. The boy kept the fireworks in a shed in a garden in the Hlíðar district, so Anton guessed that he lived in the house in front of them, and went to school somewhere close by. The boy was just playing at being the big man.

  ‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it?’ Gunnar said, weighing a large cherry bomb in his hand.

  Anton grunted without answering. He couldn’t see why Gunnar was so excited about a few fireworks when the dynamite in his basement at home easily had a thousand times more explosive power.

  ‘It’s too big,’ he said, taking the cherry bomb from Gunnar’s hand and showing him an ordinary rocket. ‘We need a few of these.’ Gunnar’s excitement dried up as he picked up a few similar rockets.

  ‘Would you like a bag?’ the boy asked, as if he was serving in a shop.

  Anton shook his head, laid the rockets out in his backpack and handed the boy the money.

  ‘Special celebration?’ the boy asked cheerfully, stuffing the bundle of notes into a back pocket without bothering to count them.

  ‘We’re going to use them as—’ Gunnar began.

  Anton quickly interrupted him.

  ‘My girlfriend’s birthday,’ he said and Gunnar immediately nodded in agreement, as this was in fact true. The expl
osion was supposed to be a birthday present for Júlía.

  ‘Where next?’ Gunnar asked on the pavement outside as he started the moped.

  ‘A builders’ merchant,’ Anton said, taking his place behind him. ‘Or an electrical place.’

  This was the serious stuff. He had watched a few videos on the internet that showed how to make a detonator. He needed some wire and other components. This fireworks business was just indulging Gunnar, who really thought that it would be cool to set off the dynamite using a firework. They would do a few trial runs to figure out what the best method would be, and they would only have to sacrifice a few sticks of dynamite doing tests. There would be more than enough left for a powerful explosion; a seriously big bang.

  20

  Presumably, George Beck and his associates expected her to go straight to Ingimar. But that would have been precisely the wrong approach. Ingimar would do everything in his power to keep her away from this. She needed a clearer picture of what was going on before going anywhere near him. She needed more background. Maybe it hadn’t been all that clever to come over all David Attenborough on María, but that TV programme about the development of species had sprung into her mind as she watched María in the visitor’s room, howling like a wolf about the world’s corruption. So it was a good comparison.

  ‘You’re working?’ asked Elísa, who all of a sudden appeared in the library with a questioning look on her face.

  ‘Yes. I can work through the computer.’

  The girl’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  ‘So you get unlimited computer time? On the net?’

  ‘Yes. Or rather, no. I have an exemption: I can have a couple of hours a day. But they track all my online traffic so I can’t go on Facebook and things like that.’

  Agla didn’t understand why she felt she needed to be apologetic; maybe it was because of the endless debate in the media about financial criminals getting better treatment in prison than other convicts.

  ‘Too posh for the laundry, are you?’

  Elísa had undoubtedly heard the same debate at some point.

  ‘I work for an accountancy firm, completing tax returns for individuals and small companies. Just tax returns. It’s not exactly exciting.’

  ‘Hey, then you can do my tax return!’

  Agla shook her head in surprise. In a matter of seconds this person could go from downright accusatory to amiable. She couldn’t figure her out. Perhaps she was simply the kind of person who came out with the first thing that entered her head.

  ‘I could do that,’ Agla said. ‘But then you’d have to be nice to me.’

  A broad grin spread across Elísa’s face and she leaned against the bookshelf, tugged her T-shirt free of her waistband and lifted it to reveal a strip of bare belly, rocking her hips provocatively.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, fluttering her eyelashes. ‘How nice do you want?’

  Agla shot to her feet, hurried to the door and rang the bell repeatedly.

  After the warder had come to take Elísa back to the female wing, Agla sat back down at the computer, wracked with sobs. Somehow Elísa’s joke had hit her badly, like a punch to an already sore belly. Thoughts that she had long kept in check flew through her mind in a series of flashing images – all showing a tangle of sorrow and suppressed desires. Underneath it all, like a deep bass note, was the hollow, echoing emptiness that had filled her heart ever since the day she sat on a box in the empty house, trying to understand Sonja’s message.

  I’m sorry. I can’t do this <3.

  After the numbness of the first few days had come the disbelief that made her want to laugh the whole thing off; laugh at her own foolishness in buying a house for them; laugh at the joy she had allowed to grow in her heart; and laugh coldly and cruelly at her own stupidity. Then there had been the time when the heart Sonja had tacked onto the end of her message – a clumsy left arrow and a three – began to take on new meaning. Agla had begun to wonder if one day Sonja would call her from the airport, as she had once done, begging to be fetched. Then there had been the time when Agla searched for Sonja. It had ended with the terrible moment when she found her in London.

  Elísa’s provocative joke had stirred up this emotional turmoil, and her thoughts again turned to the noose.

  The computer pinged an alert to let her know that a message had arrived in her inbox. Agla wiped her face with her sleeve and took a couple of deep breaths to bring her sobs to an end. The email was from María, and Agla felt relief as she read it, as well as the spark of excitement that always took root inside her when she had a complex piece of work ahead. María agreed to her offer to co-operate. So maybe there were alternatives to the noose – other ways to free herself from this misery.

  21

  Ingimar relished taking Jón, the smelter’s financial director, to places outside his comfort zone. Kaffivagninn had long been one of Ingimar’s favourites, with its view over the Reykjavík harbourside, small fishing boats at the pontoons, the city skyline beyond, and the fishermen around the tables sipping coffee through lumps of hard sugar brought back pleasant memories. Jón looked thoroughly ill at ease in these surroundings, however. He ran a finger along the back of a chair, as if checking it was clean before he laid his neatly folded overcoat over it. Ingimar got to his feet and pointed to the counter, and Jón followed hesitatingly.

  While he wasn’t exactly hungry and didn’t make a habit of eating at this time of day, Ingimar couldn’t resist treating himself to an open shrimp sandwich, if only to see Jón’s reaction. This vulgar Icelandic version of a Danish smørrebrød appeared to upset this bony man’s sensibilities to such an extent that he could hardly bring himself to look at the sandwich, instead glancing at it occasionally from the corner of an eye, seeming to be deciding what to say.

  ‘That’s a mountain of mayonnaise,’ he observed.

  Ingimar reached for the pepper, shaking it generously over the contents of his plate. Jón ordered an espresso from the new machine that looked to have been installed more for tourists than locals. Ingimar would also have liked a stronger brew, but he helped himself to filter coffee from the urn just to get a reaction from Jón.

  Ingimar made a start on his sandwich as soon as they had taken their seats, sipping grey coffee from a mug between mouthfuls.

  ‘What’s new on the aluminium front?’ he asked, slicing off a piece of the canned pineapple that graced the pile of shrimp and popping it into his mouth.

  ‘Much as usual,’ Jón replied, lifting his espresso cautiously to his lips.

  The tiny cup was somehow perfectly in keeping with his slim fingers, while the heavy mug almost disappeared in Ingimar’s fist. They were complete opposites and Ingimar’s thoughts somehow strayed to dogs. Jón was a chihuahua, no question at all, and while he would have liked to have seen himself as some kind of slim greyhound, he was probably more of a bulldog. He was solidly built, and getting thicker as the years passed. A lump of a man, as Rebekka never got tired of calling him.

  ‘Anything special going on?’ Ingimar asked. They didn’t meet often, so there had to be something behind Jón’s suggestion that they get together over coffee. For security reasons, they made a point of not speaking on the phone. If there was something that needed to be discussed, they’d meet in person.

  ‘There’s this Squirrel website,’ Jón said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Ingimar pushed the plate and the remains of his sandwich away. There was a third of it left, but there was too much, and the mayonnaise was too thick. It was more than he could manage, even though he was enjoying seeing Jón shudder. ‘María doesn’t change, does she?’

  ‘She’s been calling our press officer constantly, and sends emails with all kinds of questions.’

  ‘That’s nothing new.’

  ‘No. But just to be sure, it might be worth seeing her credibility damaged a little.’

  ‘That would be sensible,’ Ingimar said, wiping his mouth with a serviette. ‘Especially if she keeps this up.’

>   ‘It shouldn’t be difficult,’ Jón said.

  Ingimar nodded his agreement. He could easily update Wikipedia, adding an entry about her departure from the special prosecutor’s office, and including a link to the media speculation at the time.

  Then there was the guy on the journalistic ethics committee who owed him a favour. Knocking holes in María’s credibility would be almost too easy. She was just one of the puppets on a stage, and he was the master.

  Ingimar finished his coffee and pressed himself back into his chair, feeling the pain in his back.

  Remember you are mortal, the heat in his scourged back told him. Remember you are mortal.

  22

  What surprised María the most was that Agla appeared to be telling her the truth. Although there was something unreal about a drinks giant, an aircraft factory and a computer manufacturer joining forces to offer a convict in an Icelandic prison a massively well-paid consultancy, there was something about Agla’s demeanour that convinced her it was all true. Having interviewed the woman at least twenty times while she was working for the special prosecutor and having made endless failed attempts to interview her since turning to journalism, María felt she knew Agla well. She had become familiar with the arrogance, the evasions and the tricks, and also the rare moments when Agla would drop her defences and tell the truth. On top of that, she had badgered the right people and been allowed access to Agla’s visiting schedule, and there she found George Beck’s name. A Google search had confirmed that he worked for a drinks manufacturer, just as Agla had said.

  What tipped the balance of her decision was the electricity at The Squirrel’s office going off. It had been quite a few months since she had last paid a bill and now the power company had cut off the supply. If she didn’t bring in some cash soon, the same would happen at home before long. All her doubts were pushed aside, and within a few minutes she had persuaded herself that the best thing to do was join Agla’s team – for the moment at least; she would be able to nail her later on. The ease with which she made this decision shocked her slightly; but she realised it was chiefly because like most people, when cornered, she looked for the simplest solution.