Meltwater

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Do any of the farmers still fight each other, Daddy?’ Jóhannes had asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ his father had answered.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because people don’t do that any more. They would go to jail.’

  ‘But what about honour?’ the ten-year-old Jóhannes had asked. ‘And revenge. In the sagas they always have to take revenge. Why not today?’

  Then his father had said something that had stuck with Jóhannes all his life. It was his father’s sudden expression of seriousness tinged with sadness that emblazoned the words in Jóhannes’s memory. ‘Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do.’

  What had he meant? Jóhannes had asked himself that question many times over the years. What had he meant?

  Jóhannes drove down past the Berserkjahraun and on through the ancient farmland to the fishing village of Stykkishólmur, on a spit of land a few kilometres north of Helgafell.

  He remembered his aunt Hildur’s house. It was a few metres back from the harbour. It was tiny, and it was about a hundred years old, ancient by Icelandic standards. It had a red corrugated iron roof and a red-painted picket fence surrounded it. The walls, also of corrugated metal, were painted green. Various elves peeked out behind net curtains.

  Jóhannes had loved visiting his aunt Hildur when he was a kid. There was a particular kind of toffee that she always seemed to possess in large quantities with which she was very generous. She was already a widow – her husband, a fisherman, had gone the way of many local men to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

  Jóhannes was looking forward to seeing her.

  He rang the doorbell. In a moment a tiny woman with a crooked back and bright blue eyes appeared. She had shrunk considerably since the last time Jóhannes had seen her.

  ‘Jóhannes! Come in, my dear, come in.’

  He bent down to kiss his aunt and followed her into a cosy sitting room, stuffed with knick-knacks of all descriptions, among which were a fair few little Icelandic flags. A grey-haired woman of about his own age stood to greet him. He recognized Unnur, who was Hildur’s husband’s niece, if he remembered correctly.

  ‘I asked Unnur to be here when you visited,’ Hildur said. ‘I knew she would want to see you. She has a couple of free periods this morning, so she said she could come along.’

  This surprised Jóhannes. He had a number of cousins scattered around Stykkishólmur and the Snaefells Peninsula, but he wasn’t close to any of them. He remembered being impressed by Unnur. Like him, she was a teacher. And she had been quite beautiful when she was younger; in fact she was still attractive, with her smooth skin, her fine cheekbones and her air of composed gracefulness.

  Hildur fussed over coffee. She must be closer to ninety than eighty, Jóhannes thought, but she was still sprightly. He wondered whether she still had the toffee: he was tempted to ask for some.

  ‘I’ve forgotten what you teach,’ he said to Unnur.

  ‘English and Danish,’ she said. ‘You teach Icelandic, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ said Jóhannes. ‘Or indeed I did until yesterday.’

  Unnur’s eyebrows rose. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You could say I lost my job.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Hildur. ‘How dreadful.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Unnur. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  Jóhannes explained his strong views on how Icelandic literature should be taught and how these did not fit in well with the syllabus. He was gratified with Unnur’s response – she agreed with him forcefully. She was angry that Shakespeare had almost disappeared from the English syllabus at high school – in her day they’d had to study it in the original.

  Jóhannes remembered why he liked her.

  ‘So what brings you up here?’ Unnur asked. ‘Aunt Hildur said you are researching Benedikt’s death?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jóhannes. He recounted his impulsive trip to Búdir and his conversation with Hermann, the head groom.

  ‘I remember Hallgrímur,’ said Hildur. ‘An unpleasant boy. He was our neighbour when we were at Hraun. He and your father were the best of friends when they were little, they used to play together all the time, but then they grew apart. Which pleased me. Your father was a good boy, and Hallgrímur wasn’t. He was stupid and he used to try to bully Benni.’

  She sighed. ‘After your grandfather died, it was hard work on the farm. In the end we sold up and moved here. You remember the shop that your grandmother ran?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Jóhannes. The shop itself hadn’t interested him much, his grandmother sold and mended women’s clothes, but he had enjoyed the warm atmosphere that his grandmother and her friends who staffed the shop gave the place. ‘And what was Hallgrímur like as an adult?’

  ‘He didn’t really grow up well. He was notorious for his bad temper. His wife and children were scared of him. I tried to avoid him; in fact I haven’t seen him for many years. But he is a good farmer, I’ll give him that, and they say that his son is just as good. Bjarnarhöfn has always been a prosperous place.’

  ‘I’ve read Moor and the Man and I’ve heard the rumours that the novel implied Hallgrímur’s father killed my grandfather because he slept with Hallgrímur’s mother.’

  ‘Oh, those,’ said Hildur. ‘There’s no stopping gossip.’

  ‘Do you think they were true?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, dear. People had all sorts of strange ideas about Father’s disappearance. That he went to America. Most people think he must have fallen into the fjord and been swept out to sea. The truth is no one knows.’

  Jóhannes persevered. ‘Is that really the truth?’

  Unnur glanced at their aunt. Jóhannes knew she wasn’t telling him something.

  ‘Did my father ever talk to you about it?’ Jóhannes asked.

  ‘No,’ said the old woman. ‘Not in so many words. But when I read that book, it explained a lot.’ Hildur smiled at her nephew. ‘Benedikt was always an honest boy. I think that was his way of telling the truth.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jóhannes. ‘The groom at Búdir mentioned another story that my father wrote just before he died. He suggested that that might be why Hallgrímur was so upset with him. I think that story might have been “The Slip”. It’s about a boy who kills the man he accused of raping his sister by pushing him off a cliff.’

  ‘I think I remember that one,’ said Hildur.

  ‘Is there any chance that Benedikt might have pushed Hallgrímur’s father off a cliff?’

  ‘No!’ said Hildur. ‘Absolutely no chance at all. I think you are on quite the wrong track. I was Benedikt’s sister. I think I would have noticed if someone had raped me.’

  ‘Yes, of course, sorry,’ said Jóhannes. ‘I meant it was revenge for the murder of your father, not rape.’

  ‘I think you are getting yourself confused, dear.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you could you put me back on the right track?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear. It’s all a long time ago. Won’t you have some more coffee?’ The old lady refilled Jóhannes’s cup. ‘Unnur, would you like some more? And tell me, Jóhannes, how is your sister? It’s years since I have seen her either, and of course I never go to Akureyri. And your little brother?’

  Jóhannes got the message. After half an hour of family chat, he got up to leave. Unnur saw him out of the door and walked him to his car.

  ‘I’m not confused,’ Jóhannes said. ‘She knows perfectly well what I was getting at.’

  ‘I think she’s torn, you know,’ Unnur said. ‘On the one hand she feels she must keep her brother’s secrets; on the other, she really does believe that he was trying to tell the truth.’

  ‘And you?’ Jóhannes asked. ‘Do you know anything about “The Slip”?’

  ‘I have read the story,’ Unnur said. ‘And I can tell you how Hallgrímur’s father Gunnar died.’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘It was in 1940. Gunnar was riding out to Ólafsvík around Búland’
s Head. I don’t know if you remember but the cliff path used to be very narrow there.’

  ‘I know Búland’s Head.’ It was a dramatic headland that reared out of the sea near the fishing village of Ólafsvík further along the coast to the west.

  ‘Well, Gunnar’s horse slipped and he fell into the sea.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Really. And your father Benedikt was coming back from Ólafsvík that same day. Around Búland’s Head. He told everyone he hadn’t seen Gunnar, and of course they all believed him because your father was known for his honesty.’

  Jóhannes felt a shiver of horror run through him as he realized what Unnur’s words meant.

  His father was a murderer. He had killed a man, and a horse, in cold blood when he was only, what, fourteen years old.

  ‘Which is why he chose to write about it forty years later?’ Jóhannes said. An honest murderer, but still a murderer.

  Unnur shrugged. ‘Maybe. Remember, Benedikt knew he was going to die, even if he thought it was from a brain tumour and not a knife in the back. If Aunt Hildur doesn’t want to tell you, then I really shouldn’t. But there was a man who came round here last year and spoke to me – to both of us. He has figured a lot of this out for himself. He’s in Reykjavík. You could talk to him.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘He’s a policeman. Magnús Ragnarsson. He’s Hallgrímur’s grandson.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE HOUSE WAS a mess and that was exactly the way Erika liked it. Empty cups of coffee and cans of Red Bull littered every free surface. It was also beginning to smell, of food, of sweat, of too many people locked inside together for too many days.

  To Erika this was the smell of action, of work, of results.

  She had slept very little for the previous few days, but her brain was firing on all cylinders. Finally things were slotting into place. The video had been downloaded and she and Dúddi were analysing it frame by frame, deciding what to cut and what to keep, and also trying to figure out exactly what all the grey smudges were. Franz was augmenting the resolution as best he could, but this was when they really needed Gareth and his experience of interpreting aerial photography. Ásta was just about to leave for the airport to meet him. Once they had figured out what was going on, then they could work on an edited three-minute version of the attack for maximum impact.

  Zivah had finished a transcript and translation of the radio traffic. It made chilling reading. Although she had seen it so many times and in so many places before, Erika was still shocked by how callous men could be when exposed to violence that should horrify any normal human being. She knew that it was a soldier’s job to kill, and a certain amount of humour and detachment helped deal with that, but she felt utter contempt for the voices on the radio.

  They deserved to be exposed, as did all those in high places trying to protect them.

  Dieter and Apex were establishing the network of websites around the world that would host the video once they published. They could expect distributed denial-of-service attacks from angry supporters of Israel. This was a form of electronic assault: tens of thousands of computers all over the world were directed without their owners’ knowledge to send millions of messages to a certain website, with the aim of overwhelming it. Dieter was setting up a chain of sites which would pop up whenever one of their brethren was taken down by an attack.

  But of course that all relied on them finding the fifteen thousand euros to pay the Swedish ISP. Where the hell was Erika going to find the money? If only Nico was still alive.

  Erika had delayed getting in touch with the Guardian in the UK until Alan had got to Samantha Wilton. But Alan had warmed up his contacts on the Washington Post, who were eager to be involved provided their bosses were happy with the verification of the video. If they were going to publish something that would damage Israel’s reputation they had to be absolutely sure of the source. Fair enough.

  Alan’s contact at Reuters had also come up with the goods: two local journalists in Gaza were on standby to talk to witnesses of the attack the year before. They already knew whom to go to; they were just waiting for the photographs to show to the witnesses. Erika had begun a negotiation with Reuters about how the material was handled, all on Jabber. She had also warmed up Der Spiegel, the German weekly magazine with a publication date on Mondays. This fitted Erika’s timetable perfectly, but meant she needed to give them a few days’ warning to leave space for an article.

  ‘Scheisse!’ The expletive from Dieter was particularly loud, causing Erika to lift her head from her computer.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Gareth’s missed his flight.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He says he has to stay in England today to finish up his current project. He’ll fly in tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Let me see.’ Erika leaned over Dieter’s shoulder to look at the chat. ‘Here, let me in.’

  She shoved Dieter out of the way, took his seat and began typing: gareth, you asshole, how can you do this? we have a whole team here waiting for you. we need you to analyse the images and for verification.

  Gareth: i know, i know. i’m sorry erika. but this is my most important client and i need to finish the job for them. the deadline is this evening. i’ll definitely be on the flight tomorrow morning. i promise.’

  Erika: you’d better be.

  She turned away from Dieter’s computer in disgust.

  ‘It’s never easy,’ said Dieter.

  Erika smiled at him. He was always there, Dieter. Always reliable. He would never miss a flight. He knew Freeflow was the number-one priority. Always.

  She touched his arm. He gave her a shy smile in response.

  ‘Ásta!’ she called out. ‘Hold your horses. Gareth’s not coming. No need to go to the airport today.’

  ‘Actually, I still need to go in a couple of hours,’ Ásta said. ‘To meet Nico’s wife.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Erika. She had forgotten about Teresa Andreose. ‘What are you going to do with her?’

  ‘I’ll look after her,’ Ásta said. ‘I’ll bring her to the house for a little bit to meet you. I know you are busy, but I think it’s important. Then I’ll get her a hotel and take her in to see the police.’

  ‘Thanks for your help, Ásta. I really appreciate it.’

  The last thing Freeflow needed was a hysterical Italian woman under their feet. It turned out there was some point in having a priest on the payroll after all.

  Now, Apex. have you heard? Erika began typing. gareth can’t make it until tomorrow.

  Apex: yeah. dieter told me. that’s bad news. especially since i’m a little doubtful about the video.

  Erika: really? what’s the problem?

  Apex: the helicopter background noise. i don’t think it’s an ah-64 apache. i think it’s something else, but i’m not sure what.

  Erika: and the actual attack was by an apache, wasn’t it? we know that for sure?

  Apex: that’s right.

  Erika: that doesn’t sound good. so are you saying the video’s a fake? are you certain about the noise?

  Apex: no, i’m not certain. there may be reasons why the noise might sound different to other recordings of apache helicopters i’ve listened to. that’s why we need gareth.

  Erika was worried, but only a little. Apex was always cautious. He was bound to find some problem with the video, even if it was genuine. But all doubts needed to be checked out thoroughly before it was released.

  Apex: how are the police getting on with their investigation?

  Erika: it’s okay. they are out of our hair now, viktor saw to that. but there was a question from the press about israel last night.

  Apex: shouldn’t we be helping them some more? i mean Nico is dead. perhaps we should hand everything we have over to them and get them to investigate properly.

  Erika: no! no. nico wouldn’t have wanted that. it sounds like a cliche but i know it’s true. besides, if mossad killed hi
m the icelandic cops are hardly going to be able do anything about it. and if it was a random killing, then there’s not much more we can do to help them.

  Apex: and if it was the italians?

  Erika: i’ve told them all about italy. i am sure they are raiding every pizza joint in the country as we speak.

  The screen was still. Erika let Apex think.

  Apex: ok. we’ll do it your way.

  Erika: good. see if you can work with franz on identifying the objects in the videos. we should get as much done without gareth as we can.

  She sat back from the screen and rubbed her eyes. Dieter was right, things were never easy. But they weren’t usually this hard either.

  But if she could hold herself together, hold the rest of the team together, they would do this. It would be Freeflow’s greatest moment.

  Nico would be proud of them. Of her.

  Magnus dropped Mikael Már off at his house in Selfoss and drove on to Reykjavík. He had made progress of some kind: he was pretty sure he could rule out the snowmobilers after all. And Franz’s story of what he had been doing on the mountain seemed to stack up.

  Which left what? A mysterious man in a red ski jacket who was driving a black Suzuki Vitara up on the glacier. Possibly someone who was upset with what Freeflow had done to them. An Italian, an Israeli, or maybe someone who worked for those people. Or someone else entirely.

  They still had a long way to go.

  His phone rang. ‘Magnús,’ he snapped.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ It was Ollie, his brother. ‘I’ve been at the airport for an hour waiting for you. What’s the story?’

  ‘Hell, Ollie, I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ve been caught up in a case. I meant to send you an SMS and I forgot.’

  ‘Some things never change.’

  ‘Yeah. Look, I really am sorry. I can’t meet up with you until this evening. Get a cab into town and come to my apartment.’

  ‘A cab? How much will that cost?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. You can get a bus right outside the terminal. You’ve got my address, right?’

  ‘Nigelsgate?’

  ‘Something like that. When you get there, Katrín will let you in.’