Meltwater

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Katrín?’

  ‘Yes. She’s my landlady. You’ll like her.’

  ‘Does she speak English?’

  ‘Don’t you remember any Icelandic?’

  ‘No. You know that.’ Ollie had worked hard over the years to blank out his Icelandic past: he was all American now.

  ‘Yes, she does speak English. See you later. And I am sorry.’

  Magnus hung up with the feeling of guilt so familiar after any conversation with his brother. He quickly called Katrín, Árni’s sister, from whom he rented his room. Fortunately she was at home, and even more fortunately she was happy to stay home to let Ollie in.

  Then he rang Ingileif.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘How’s the case going?’

  ‘Just went up to Eyjafjallajökull,’ Magnus said.

  ‘Wow. Did you see the eruption?’

  ‘Too cloudy. But I caught a couple of jökulhlaup.’

  ‘A couple?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘At lunch, I hope?’

  ‘Sorry. I can’t make that – too much to do on the case.’

  ‘That’s a shame, but never mind.’

  ‘Ollie has arrived in Iceland. Do you want to meet us for dinner tonight?’

  ‘I’m having dinner at Rakel’s house. Anna Kristín is coming.’ Magnus recognized the names but couldn’t remember who they were. ‘It’s kind of business – I need some of Anna Kristín’s chairs for the gallery in Hamburg. I’ll see you later on tonight.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘So am I.’

  Magnus smiled as he hung up. He knew that Ingileif meant it, and he was really looking forward to seeing her later on.

  But it was all so matter-of-fact. He remembered Colby, his former girlfriend of several years in the States. She would have gone apeshit if he had stood her up for lunch after being apart for a few months. Ingileif was a definite step forward from that.

  But then he had thought that his relationship with Ingileif was finished in November when she had gone off to Hamburg. It obviously wasn’t.

  Which was nice.

  Magnus drove straight to police headquarters to drop off the cigarette butt at the Forensics Unit. Edda promised to get a DNA analysis done as soon as possible, but Magnus knew it would take days, possibly even a couple of weeks. The sample had to be sent to a lab in Sweden. Magnus didn’t understand why this was the case when Iceland had the most comprehensive genetic database of its citizens in the world. The whole population’s DNA had been analysed and stored by a private company, who hoped to sell the results for research into genetic diseases. So the labs were there, the database was there, the police just couldn’t access them.

  He had asked whether the analysis could pick up any Jewish or Italian matches in the DNA. Edda said she would ask for a detailed haplogroup breakdown, which should be a good guide to the origin of the subject’s ancestors. Magnus took her word for it. Waiting for DNA results was a feeling familiar from his days at the Boston PD.

  Back at the station, Árni, Vigdís and the other detectives were ploughing through Israeli and Italian citizens in Iceland. There were only a handful of Israelis, mostly tourists, so that wasn’t too difficult, although Vigdís pointed out that when Mossad agents had assassinated someone in Dubai the previous January, they had used passports from Britain, Ireland, Germany and France. Italians were a different problem. According to the Italian consulate, there were 158 permanent residents with Italian citizenship in Iceland, including the father of the famous Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini; he ran a restaurant in Laugavegur. Then there were temporary workers including engineers and other technical staff, plus all the tourists. Although April was not a big month for tourism in Iceland, the volcano had attracted a higher number than usual.

  And of course once they had been identified, the Israelis and Italians needed to be interviewed. Priorities needed to be set: tourists rather than permanent citizens; males under fifty; Israelis first, then Italians. If the Israelis were travelling under false passports, the police were stuffed: they couldn’t interview every foreigner in the country.

  Magnus gave Árni a break from calling hotels and asked him to investigate the Heathrow café receipt, and to contact car-hire companies to check who had rented a black Suzuki Vitara on or in the week before the day of the murder.

  ‘Hey, Vigdís,’ Magnus said. ‘I thought you were supposed to be in Paris? I hope you haven’t cancelled.’

  ‘Just postponed it for a day.’

  ‘I told you not to.’

  ‘Davíd’s got some kind of business meeting in Paris tomorrow, that’s why we’re meeting there. It’ll be OK if I don’t see him till the evening. And we’ll have Friday and the whole weekend together.’

  ‘All right, but you get on that flight tomorrow, do you hear?’

  ‘Yes sir!’ But Vigdís grinned.

  Árni was hovering. ‘Magnús?’

  ‘Yes, Árni?’

  ‘I’ve had a thought. It might be a bit far-fetched . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Magnus had a theory that far-fetched ideas were always to be encouraged – difficult cases were sometimes solved by fresh thinking – but he hesitated to encourage Árni.

  ‘What about these fraternities?’ Árni said in a whisper.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, there’s a secret society I read about at Harvard or somewhere that George Bush is a member of. The Crossed Skulls, I think it’s called.’

  ‘The Skull and Bones,’ said Magnus. ‘And it’s Yale.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, maybe Freeflow posted their secret initiation ceremony or something and they are angry about it.’

  ‘They might be angry. But angry enough to go to Iceland to kill someone?’

  ‘Maybe the CIA are involved. Maybe the head of the CIA is in this crossbones club as well. Maybe there’s something secret about George Bush. We don’t know.’

  ‘No, Árni, we don’t know. Tell you what. Take five minutes to look at the Freeflow website and check out whether it has busted the Skull and Bones society. If it has we’ll talk some more. If not, forget it and get on to the Heathrow café.’

  ‘You’re not a member of it, are you, Magnus?’

  ‘No, Árni, I’m not. I went to Brown not Yale. And I wasn’t a member of any fraternity; they wouldn’t have had me.’

  Back in the real world, Magnus picked up the phone and called Rannveig, asking her to meet him at the house on Thórsgata.

  ‘That wasn’t part of the deal,’ she said.

  ‘We’re making a new deal,’ said Magnus.

  Magnus arrived first and approached the cop sitting in his car watching the yellow house. ‘Seen anything?’

  ‘A bunch of journalists were here earlier this morning. They seem to have given up now.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘There’s a guy over there reading a newspaper. On that bench.’

  About fifty yards down the road there was indeed a man sitting on a bench facing the house reading what looked like the International Herald Tribune.

  ‘Bit cold to be sitting outside reading a newspaper, wouldn’t you say?’ said Magnus.

  ‘I would say,’ said the cop. ‘He’s been there about an hour. I wasn’t sure whether to speak to him: I thought I’d wait for you.’

  ‘OK – I’ll have a word with him later. Keep your eyes peeled.’

  Rannveig’s car pulled up and Magnus greeted her before ringing the doorbell. The door was answered by the Israeli student, Zivah.

  ‘Hi,’ said Magnus. ‘Can I speak to Erika?’

  ‘I’ll see.’ They were left waiting for a couple of minutes before Erika arrived at the door.

  ‘We had a deal. We’re busy working. If you tramp around the house we will be seriously disrupted. So will you leave, or shall I call Viktor?’

  ‘I understand that. I just want to speak to you. But we had better do it inside the house. You shouldn’t take risks outside.’r />
  ‘What about?’

  ‘Israel.’

  She hesitated. ‘All right, come in. But make it quick. Just wait a moment.’

  Erika turned and yelled into the living area. ‘OK, everyone. Turn your monitors off. There’s a cop coming in – I don’t want him to see what you’re working on.’

  Magnus and Rannveig followed Erika to the kitchen table. Magnus pushed aside a plate dusted with toast crumbs.

  ‘How do you know about Israel?’ Erika said.

  ‘The press,’ Magnus replied. ‘They asked you about Israel and you evaded the question.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it means that we have had to check on every Israeli that was in Iceland the day Nico was killed.’

  ‘And what if I were to tell you that what we are working on has nothing to do with Israel?’

  ‘Then I wouldn’t believe you,’ said Magnus.

  Erika shrugged. ‘OK – that’s your problem. But we have a deal: leave us alone.’

  ‘I’m suggesting another deal. Or shall we call it an appendix to the original deal?’

  ‘No new deals,’ said Erika. ‘I am going to call Viktor.’

  ‘Sure, you can do that if you want. But look at it from my point of view. A murder has been committed and a possible line of inquiry is Israel. I have to investigate that now, whatever you say, even if you say nothing. Now, I can do this noisily – talk to the consulate, call the Israeli police, their secret service, make an appeal on TV. Or I can do this quietly. Which I am prepared to do, if you tell me what you are working on and who it might piss off.’

  Erika picked up a table knife and fiddled with it. Magnus and Rannveig waited.

  Her eyes flicked up towards him. Magnus was struck again by their intensity. ‘You promise me you have no connection to the CIA?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’

  ‘And you won’t discuss what you see with the Israeli authorities?’

  Magnus hesitated.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep,’ Magnus said. ‘I certainly won’t contact them now. If we find a genuine suspect, we may need to talk to the Israelis. It would be impossible to arrest an Israeli citizen without that.’

  Erika blew air through her cheeks. ‘OK. OK. Let me get my computer.’

  She grabbed a small netbook computer and opened it up on the kitchen table. Magnus and Rannveig watched as a grey image flickered into life. As the death of Tamara Wilton and her colleagues unfolded, Erika gave a rough translation of the radio traffic.

  It took sixteen minutes. When the video footage eventually froze at its end, both Magnus and Rannveig were still staring at the screen.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Erika asked.

  ‘I think it’s appalling,’ said Magnus. ‘Especially when you hear the radio commentary.’

  ‘So do we. That’s why we want to publish it.’

  ‘Is it genuine?’ Rannveig asked.

  ‘We think so. But we’re not one-hundred-per-cent sure yet. That’s part of what we are doing here. Verifying it.’

  ‘Who did it come from?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Erika. ‘That’s the whole point of Freeflow. Our sources’ identities are protected: even we don’t know who they are.’

  ‘Does the Israeli government know about this?’

  ‘We don’t think so. But of course the press seemed to know. How they got it is a mystery. It worries me.’

  It didn’t worry Magnus, of course, but despite Erika’s candour he had his own sources to protect.

  ‘OK. Well, thank you, Erika. As I promised, we will leave you alone. And we will investigate as quietly as we can.’

  ‘Are you making progress?’

  ‘Some. We can rule the snowmobilers out. But there does seem to have been another jeep up on the mountain, a black Suzuki Vitara, driven by a guy in a red ski jacket. Do you remember seeing him, or his vehicle?’

  ‘No,’ said Erika. ‘Unless of course he was the man who attacked us. You think he might be, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s the most likely theory at the moment.’

  ‘Wait. I think I do remember noticing headlights behind us on the way up the glacier. The other jeep with the couple in were ahead of us, weren’t they? So if there was someone following us, it could be your guy. You should ask Dúddi – he was driving our jeep.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  Just then the door opened and Ásta walked in, followed by a tall woman dressed in an expensive cream leather jacket, designer jeans and high black leather boots. She had long brown hair; her face was lined, her eyes dark under her make-up.

  Erika got up from the kitchen table and moved over to her, holding out her arms. ‘Teresa! I am so sorry.’

  The room was silent. The woman stopped a few paces away from Erika. Her face was ravaged with emotion; she was shaking with the tension.

  Erika took a step forward, her arms still outstretched.

  ‘Keep away from me, you whore!’ the Italian woman roared. Erika took a step back.

  ‘I know all about you and Nico. I know you were fucking my husband!’

  Erika let her hands fall to her sides. She stood up straight, facing her adversary. Calm.

  ‘It’s your fault he’s dead. You know that, don’t you?’ Teresa’s voice had dropped, making it if anything more menacing. ‘You are the reason he came here. The man who killed him was trying to kill you, when Nico stopped him. Why he did that, I do not know. I wish he hadn’t. I wish it was you who had been killed on the volcano.’

  ‘I know,’ said Erika quietly.

  ‘You know! How can you stand there and say you know! I am his wife, for God’s sake! The mother of his children.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You took their father away from them. Not only did you fuck him, but you snared him with all this Freeflow crap. You tempted him to the North Pole and yes, you caused his death. May you rot in hell! I flew to Iceland to tell you this. I’m going now and I never want to see you again. Don’t you dare come to his funeral!’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Erika.

  ‘Puttana!’ spat Teresa. She turned on her heel and left the house, banging the front door.

  Ásta followed her.

  Erika’s face was motionless, cold. She turned to the assembled team, who were staring back at her, their expressions frozen in shock. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Dieter,’ she said. ‘Back to work, everyone.’

  She walked past Magnus and sat down in front of her computer.

  ‘Erika?’ Magnus said.

  Erika paused, closed her eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You didn’t tell me anything about your relationship with Nico. I specifically asked you about it.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was relevant to your investigation,’ Erika said. ‘And I didn’t want to cause his widow distress. Although it looks like I needn’t have worried about that.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it now?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Erika said. ‘Yes, we had an affair. Yes, I slept with him. Yes, I am upset that he is dead. What do you want? The dates? Let me see . . .’ She tapped on some keys. ‘Yes, just checking my calendar. The last time I slept with him was two months ago. February fourteenth. Valentine’s Day. Stockholm. Got that?’

  There were tears in her eyes. Finally, there were tears in her eyes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘WOW,’ SAID RANNVEIG, once they were outside. She took a deep breath of fresh air.

  ‘Yeah. Wow.’

  ‘Lucky we’ve got someone watching the house. I wouldn’t want to be unprotected if I was Erika with that woman on the loose.’

  ‘No,’ said Magnus. He was glad Ásta had informed Teresa: it was something that he should really have done himself. But just then Baldur’s words came back to him. The first place to look was always the husband or the wife or the boyfriend. It was true in Boston. It was true in Reykjavík.

  Something to think about.

&
nbsp; ‘See you later, Rannveig,’ Magnus said, and he trotted over to Ásta’s small Peugeot. She had just started the engine.

  He stooped down on the passenger’s side. Teresa was weeping. Ásta pressed a switch to wind down the electric window. ‘Signora Andreose,’ Magnus said. ‘I know you are upset now, but I would really like to speak to you at the police station.’

  The woman nodded. Magnus glanced across to Ásta, who nodded also, mouthing in Icelandic, ‘I’ll bring her when she is ready.’

  Ásta drove off and Magnus looked down the hill to where the guy was still reading his paper on the bench. Magnus nodded at the cop in the police car and strolled down towards him. The bench was in front of a tiny grass playground, with swings and a multicoloured little elf house.

  The man lowered his paper. It was the International Herald Tribune.

  ‘Hi, Magnus, how are you?’ he said in English. ‘My name’s Tom. Tom Bryant. I’ve got my car here. Do you want a ride?’

  ‘Can’t we just talk here?’

  ‘It’s a bit cold. It might be better to be in the car.’

  Magnus shrugged and followed Bryant to a bland saloon crammed into a space between a van and a BMW four-by-four.

  Bryant started the car. He was about forty, neatly dressed in a bland kind of a way: jeans with a belt, decent shoes, plain zip-up jacket. Not really a businessman, but not a tourist either.

  ‘I take it you work for the CIA?’ Magnus said.

  Bryant smiled. ‘I’m temporarily attached to the US Embassy here in Reykjavík.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. Are you following Erika Zinn?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She says the CIA is following her.’

  ‘Well, she’s wrong,’ said Bryant.

  ‘Really?’

  Bryant smiled. Good American teeth. ‘Yeah, really. It’s not the CIA. Different department. It’s actually the Diplomatic Security Team.’

  ‘Oh, right. That’s OK, then.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘We are just driving around. I thought we should have a little chat.’

  ‘I’m not sure there’s any point in that,’ said Magnus in Icelandic.

  ‘What?’