66° North

by Michael Ridpath

  Sounds drifted across the snow towards Magnus from the farmhouse, his grandfather’s deep roar, the high pitched scream of his little brother. Poor Óli. Even though there was nothing much he could do, Magnus stood up and ran back towards the house, hoping that his presence might distract his grandfather.

  When he reached the kitchen, his grandmother was scouring a large pan over the sink. The shouting seemed to have stopped.

  ‘Where’s Óli?’

  ‘In the cellar, I think,’ Grandma said, without turning around.

  ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘He is being punished.’

  ‘What’s he being punished for?’

  ‘Don’t be so impertinent,’ Grandma said. But she said it without force. She often said those words. It was her code for ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know, so don’t ask me about it.’

  Magnus ran down the stone steps to the cellar. It was cold with cement walls lit by a single bulb. It was used for storage, there were a couple of individual rooms, one filled with animal feed supplements and one with potatoes, most of which had rotted. The door to this last one was shut. Behind it he could hear Óli sobbing.

  Magnus tried the door. It was locked. The key was upstairs on the door of the broom cupboard outside the kitchen, in plain view of their grandmother. ‘Óli! Óli, are you OK?’

  ‘No,’ said Óli between sobs. ‘It’s dark and its cold and the potatoes are slimy and I’m scared.’

  ‘Can’t you turn on the light?’

  ‘He’s taken away the bulb.’

  Rage boiled up inside Magnus and he pulled at the door, hoping somehow to shake the lock loose. It didn’t work of course, so he began kicking at it.

  ‘Stop, Magnús, stop! He’ll hear you.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ shouted Magnus. He stood back and took a run at the door, throwing the entire weight of his nine-year-old body at it. He bounced off and fell on to the floor. He stood up, rubbing his shoulder.

  ‘Magnús.’

  The growl was familiar. Magnus turned to see his grandfather. A fit sixty-year-old with a strong granite jaw, steel grey hair and hard blue eyes. A tough, angry man. Magnus’s nostrils caught the faint whiff of alcohol layered on top of the aroma of snuff which perpetually surrounded Hallgrímur.

  ‘Magnús, go back upstairs.’

  ‘Why have you done this, Grandpa? Is it because Óli wet himself? Óli can’t help that. It’s just because he is scared all the time. Let him out.’

  ‘I said, get back upstairs.’

  ‘And I said, let him out!’ Magnus’s voice was shrill.

  His grandfather’s nostrils flared, a sure early sign of an explosion. Magnus braced himself but held his grandfather’s eyes.

  ‘Let him out.’

  Hallgrímur looked around him for the nearest weapon. His eyes alighted on an old blunt axe. He picked it up and took a step towards Magnus.

  Magnus wanted to run, but he stood firm outside the door to the potato storage room, feet apart, as if guarding his brother. His eyes were fixed on the blade of the axe.

  Hallgrímur jabbed the blunt end of the axe handle into Magnus’s ribs. It wasn’t especially hard, but Magnus was only a small boy. Winded, he doubled up. Hallgrímur swung the axe and hit Magnus on the side of his thigh with the flat of the head.

  Magnus fell. He looked up and saw his grandfather raising the axe above his head, his eyes burning with anger. Magnus started to cry. He couldn’t help it. As he lay there on the cold stone, he could hear Óli’s sobs through the door.

  ‘Up to bed! Now!’

  Magnus limped up to bed. What else could he do?

  *

  He lay there for hours, his eyes wet with tears and anger, staring at his little brother’s empty bed. Although his thigh hurt, there was nothing broken, so no humiliating trips to the hospital this time.

  How could his grandfather leave a seven-year-old boy in the cold and dark all night? If Óli had wet his bed occasionally before, he would definitely wet it every evening now.

  Magnus waited until he heard the sounds of his grandfather going to bed. Then he waited some more. Finally, after what seemed to him to be hours, but was probably much less, he slipped out of bed, pulled on a jersey, and crept downstairs.

  He knew where the key would be, hanging on the door to the broom cupboard. He could see it in the moonlight reflected off the snow which seeped into the kitchen. He had to stand on his tiptoes to reach it. He crept down the stairs into the dark cellar, felt his way to the door to the potato storage room, and unlocked it.

  The room smelled of rotten potatoes and little boy’s urine.

  ‘Óli? Óli? It’s Magnús.’

  ‘Magnús?’ The voice was small, faint.

  ‘Come out.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, Óli.’

  ‘No. Don’t make me do that. He’ll find me and be angry.’

  Magnus hesitated. He couldn’t actually see Óli. He moved towards the direction of his voice, hands outstretched, bending down, until he felt an arm. He felt small hands clasping his. He grabbed hold of his little brother and held him tight.

  ‘Why did he do this to you, Óli?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Yes, you can. I won’t tell anyone else.’

  Then Óli began to sob. ‘I can’t tell you, Magnús. I won’t tell you. Please don’t make me tell you.’

  ‘OK, Óli. OK. I won’t make you tell me anything. And I won’t make you leave this room. I’ll just sit with you.’

  And Magnus sat with his brother, who soon fell asleep, until he guessed it was close to morning and he crept back to his own bed.

  Tuesday 22 September 2009

  Magnus fell silent, lying on his back in Ingileif’s bed.

  ‘God. That’s dreadful,’ she said. ‘How did you cope?’

  ‘I was a tough little kid, I suppose,’ Magnus said. ‘I used to think about my father. I knew he would want me to stand up for Ollie, so I did. And I knew that one day he would come over from America to rescue us. And one day he did. But only after my mother had driven her car into a rock.’

  ‘It’s amazing you are not totally screwed up.’

  ‘No one goes through that kind of thing unscathed,’ said Magnus. ‘Like my mother and my grandfather I have tendencies to drink, which worries me. And sometimes I get so angry I just want to beat the shit out of people. Bad people.’ He paused. ‘I have got myself in trouble for that a couple times. It’s not the kind of thing you should do if you’re a cop. I scare myself sometimes.’

  ‘Ollie must have been a mess. He must still be a mess.’

  ‘He was pretty bad when he came to the States. My father did his best. Took him to see a shrink – that helped a lot. But Ollie’s had problems all through his life, with relationships, with jobs, with drugs. I think he still sees a shrink.’

  ‘Did you?’ Ingileif asked.

  ‘See a psychiatrist? No. No need.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Magnus said. ‘That I should get help with my issues. But frankly I’m quite happy burying all this stuff. I managed very well for twenty years without thinking about it.’

  ‘Sure. You obsessed about your father instead.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Magnus. ‘I set him up as my saviour. He was my saviour. And then some bastard killed him.’

  For the first time, Magnus’s voice faltered.

  ‘Come here,’ said Ingileif. ‘Come here.’ He rolled over into her arms and she held him tight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  MAGNUS, VIGDÍS AND Árni were crowded around Árni’s computer. With some difficulty, Árni had managed to get hold of footage from RÚV, the national TV company, of the demonstration.

  They were looking at a segment taken in the dark. Faces were indistinct.

  ‘OK, that’s the three of them there,’ said Árni. ‘You can see Sindri’s ponytail silhouetted against the flare.’

>   Magnus squinted at the figures – a big man, a thinner man and a woman. ‘Yes, you can see the curls on Harpa’s hair. And that must be Björn.’

  ‘And you see there’s a guy next to them, with no shirt on, talking to Sindri?’

  ‘Yes, but you can’t make anything out of his features. It’s not Ísak, though, is it? Too tall.’

  ‘No, it’s not Ísak,’ said Árni. ‘But let’s go back a bit.’

  ‘OK.’ Árni played the footage in reverse. Harpa and Björn walked backwards away from Sindri and the tall newcomer, who plunged his head into a bucket of water and put on his football shirt. Then he stretched himself out on the ground in front of the camera. A nurse was treating his eyes. The TV crew’s lights picked up the features here. The man was not much more than a kid, eighteen or nineteen perhaps. He had spiky red hair. The nurse treating him had a round face, pink cheeks and a button nose. You could just make out Sindri in the crowd surrounding them. He seemed to be shouting encouragement to the kid.

  ‘I see,’ said Magnus. ‘But we know Sindri spoke to lots of people at the demo. He says he always does. What’s so special about this guy?’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Árni. ‘And you will see.’ He tapped away at his keyboard and called up the police surveillance video. ‘OK. Here are the three of them leaving the demonstration, and I think that’s Ísak with them.’

  ‘You can’t really see, can you?’

  ‘No, but the build and the hairstyle is right when you compare it with the picture Sharon took.’ Árni held up a print of the photograph she had taken of Ísak outside his house in London.

  ‘OK, it’s possibly Ísak,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Probably,’ said Árni. ‘But look just a couple of feet behind him. There’s the kid with the spiky hair. He’s taken his shirt off and he’s waving it around his head.’

  ‘Are you sure he’s with them?’ Magnus asked. ‘And not just walking along near them.’

  ‘Not absolutely sure. He pauses here and shouts something to someone. The others get away from him, which is why we didn’t notice they were together before. But then he turns back, realizes that they are moving off, and jogs after them.’

  ‘Show me that again,’ said Magnus.

  It wasn’t conclusive. Indeed, without the earlier footage of the kid talking to Sindri and walking off with him, it wouldn’t arouse suspicions at all.

  ‘OK, so who is this kid?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Árni.

  ‘I don’t recognize him from those anarchist files,’ said Magnus. ‘Do you, Vigdís?’

  ‘No. But I can go back and look again.’

  ‘We might have more luck with the nurse. Get the best still you can from that, Árni, and go off to the National Hospital. See if you can track her down. Maybe she got the kid’s name.’ Magnus smiled. ‘Well done, Árni. Good work.’

  As Vigdís returned to her desk, Magnus thought of something. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in New York?’

  ‘I cancelled,’ said Vigdís.

  ‘Why?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘This.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. There was no need to follow me on my wild goose chase.’

  ‘This is no wild goose chase.’

  ‘What about the poor guy in New York?’

  Vigdís shrugged. ‘That’s what you get for dating a cop.’

  Magnus went back to his desk, feeling guilty. Vigdís could have gone on her vacation, they would have coped. But he was pleased that she didn’t seem to think it was all a wild goose chase. And they were making progress. If they could find another conspirator, everything would begin to slip into place, although the kid looked a little too immature to be an international assassin.

  The more he thought about it, the more Magnus was convinced there was another conspirator. The other alibis were just too convenient. Supposing Ísak was the man the French woman had seen in Kensington, asking for Óskar’s precise address. He must have been preparing the ground. Ísak lived in London, he knew the city, he could do the necessary reconnaissance, perhaps watch Óskar, confirm his habits, his routine, perhaps get hold of the gun and the getaway motorbike. Get everything ready for someone else. Someone who flew in from Iceland just to do the job.

  The man who actually pulled the trigger. The assassin.

  And who the hell was that? The kid with the spiky hair? Or someone else.

  Magnus remembered Björn’s brother, Gulli.

  ‘Árni! Before you go!’

  Árni paused on his way out. ‘Yes?’ Vigdís looked up from her files.

  ‘Do you remember much about Björn’s brother Gulli from when you interviewed him?’

  ‘No,’ said Árni. ‘Just that everything he said about Björn and Harpa staying with him that night seemed to stack up. Why?’

  ‘I tried to see him on Saturday. He wasn’t in. A neighbour said he was away on holiday and had been for a while.’

  ‘You think he might have gone to London?’ Vigdís asked.

  ‘Or Normandy?’ said Árni.

  ‘Or both,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Do you want me to see if he is back?’ said Vigdís.

  ‘Yes.’ He checked his notebook and gave Vigdís the phone number from Gulli’s van. ‘And if he is back, find out where he has been. If he isn’t, have a word with all his neighbours. See if any of them have a better idea of where he went.’

  Magnus scanned his computer. There was an e-mail from Boston. His buddy in the Homicide Unit had been in touch with the USCIS and the State Department. There was no trace of an Icelandic citizen named Hallgrímur Gunnarsson entering the United States in June or July 1996.

  Magnus was surprised to feel a surge of relief. On the one hand he desperately wanted to find who had killed his father. On the other, especially after his conversation with Ollie, he was relieved it wasn’t his grandfather. Too much pain.

  ‘Sergeant Magnús?’ He looked up. A solid woman of about forty was holding a sheaf of old dusty files. Quite thick. ‘You asked for this? The Benedikt Jóhannesson murder, 1985?’

  ‘That’s right, thanks for bringing them up.’

  She gave him a form to sign, and left the files with him.

  He knew he should wait, but he couldn’t help leafing through the pile of paper.

  As was his habit, he looked for the pathologist’s report first. It was missing, with a note that it had been signed out to an inspector whom Magnus recognized as a fellow lecturer at the police college.

  He debated whether to call the inspector, whom he knew vaguely, to ask him for the file, but decided it would raise less attention if he went through Records. He made a quick call; they said they would track the report down and get back to him.

  He had just begun to leaf through the rest of the file when his phone rang.

  *

  The moment Magnus entered the National Police Commissioner’s office he could tell he was in trouble.

  Baldur, Thorkell and the Commissioner himself all looked at him with undisguised hostility.

  ‘Take a seat, Magnús,’ ordered the Commissioner.

  Magnus sat. Outside, over the bay, Mount Esja was bathed in soft morning sunshine. Not a cloud in sight. Inside the Commissioner’s office the mood was distinctly grimmer.

  ‘I have just had a call from a Chief Superintendent Trevor Watts. He’s with the Counter Terrorism Command of Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Magnus.

  ‘He was curious to know what leads we had regarding Icelanders who had been planning the assassination of Julian Lister. I said we had none. He said that one of my detectives was pursuing that line of inquiry. I said I would get back to him. When I asked Baldur which was the most likely detective Watts was referring to, he suggested you. Was he right?’

  ‘Yes, Commissioner.’ Magnus reverted to using his superior’s title. Calling him ‘Snorri’, as was the Icelandic convention, no matter how important he was, seemed all wrong.

  ‘We thought so. Now Baldur informs me tha
t while he did give you permission to investigate possible connections between Gabríel Örn Bergsson, Óskar Gunnarsson and Julian Lister, he made very clear that you were to do it quietly. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes it is.’ Magnus glanced at Baldur. To be fair to the man he looked more angry than gloating. Magnus didn’t know a chief who wouldn’t be angry in those circumstances.

  ‘All right. Now, do you understand that alerting a foreign government to the possibility that this country’s nationals were trying to kill one of its leading politicians does not constitute “quietly”?’

  Magnus sighed. ‘Yes, I do. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Snorri said, the anger rising in his voice.

  ‘It was just a hunch. Sergeant Piper was about to interview a possible Icelandic suspect in London, and I wanted her to check if the suspect was in France when Lister was shot.’

  ‘A hunch! You started an international incident over a hunch!’ Snorri’s face was going red. His bright blue eyes, which normally twinkled, glinted. He looked dangerous. ‘And was he in France?’

  ‘No,’ Magnus admitted. ‘But I did ask Piper not to tell anyone else.’

  ‘Well at least she had some loyalty,’ Snorri said. ‘She told her superiors.’

  ‘It’s hardly an international incident, is it?’ Magnus said. ‘There’s no proof, no evidence, no firm line of inquiry.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Snorri slammed his hand down on the desk. ‘And if you were a real Icelander you would know that this is precisely the last thing we want to raise with the British government. You know about the Icesave negotiations that have been going on all summer. We’re talking about billions of euros of debt that every one of us owes to the British. And what you’ve done is throw a hand grenade into the discussion. How do you think the British will react when they think they are dealing with a bunch of real terrorists? This country has been humiliated enough without this getting out.’

  ‘I said it was a hunch, but it is a hunch with merit,’ Magnus said. ‘We can’t turn a blind eye to any links just because it is politically difficult. What if there are a bunch of Icelanders who wanted to kill Óskar and Lister? What if they have their eyes on someone else as we speak? We have a duty to check that possibility out.’