Unconcerned with his visitor, Anton picked up the telephone receiver and dialed a long number, reading it from a piece of paper on the desk. After a brief wait, he introduced himself in English. He was speaking to a hotel employee in some city or other, booking a room for a few nights. He read out his credit card number and had to repeat it twice.
Meanwhile, the other man licked his right thumb and index finger and pinched out one of the candle flames.
While consuming his second roll at the Bank Street café, Gunnar tried Birkir’s cell number a few times, but all he got was voice mail, so eventually he called Dóra.
“Get a car and pick me up,” he said.
Dóra protested. She was busy examining evidence related to the murder in the apartment on Austurbrún. “Call a cab and go home and rest,” she said. “You need to give yourself a chance to get better.”
“Please,” Gunnar said. “I have to test a theory. If it works, it’ll lead us to Magnús.”
“Listen, the chief is in charge of that. He’ll send the SWAT team with you if you know something.”
“I don’t know if I know something. It’s just a hunch. I need to check it out. Then I’ll brief the chief. I promise.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know I’m crazy,” Gunnar said, but Dóra had already said good-bye and hung up.
“Fuck,” Gunnar said, and looked at Emil. “Hey, buddy. You got a driver’s license?”
The writer laughed. “Driving a car is the lowliest activity the human species has ever indulged in. Besides which, I never go outside zip code 101 in this godforsaken city. So, no, I do not have a driver’s license.”
11:20
When Birkir entered his room, Fabían was sitting up in bed, smoking. “Good morning,” he half whispered.
“Good morning,” Birkir replied, and sat himself down in a chair next to the bed. He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Rakel gave me the envelope with your confession and the cassette tape.”
“That’s good. It was beginning to weigh heavily on me. Were you able to listen to the recording?”
“Yes, but I need more detail. Do you feel able to talk?”
“I’ll try.”
Birkir dug out his voice recorder, switched it on, and put it on the nightstand. Having dictated the usual formalities, he said, “Tell me how you found Anton in the ambassador’s office.”
Fabían put his joint in the ashtray. “I’ll attempt to tell you everything that happened. I’ve tried to put that evening out of my mind, but I still remember it pretty clearly.”
He took a tissue from a box on the nightstand and held it against his mouth as he coughed several times, and then wiped blood from his lips and threw the tissue into a wastebasket. When he started speaking, his voice was weaker than before.
“Late that evening in the embassy, I needed to take a leak and empty my colostomy bag. The bathroom on the second floor was occupied, so I went upstairs. I was feeling too weak to walk up the stairs to the third floor, so I took the elevator. Once I was in the elevator, I thought I might as well go on up to the fourth floor, that maybe the bathroom up there would more likely be free. But I found Anton there. The door was half open and he was washing his hands, just as if everything was fine and dandy, and I was standing there with a full colostomy bag and a cancer eating up my insides, all because of that man. I asked if he recognized me.”
Fabían’s voice trailed off.
“And did he recognize you?” Birkir asked after a while.
“Yes.”
“Did he apologize for what he’d done?”
“No. Admittedly, I didn’t have the stomach to detail the injuries he’d inflicted on me. And he just went on talking, wanting to convince me that what he did to children was a pleasure and satisfaction for them. I couldn’t take it. I visualized scared little boys looking at this fat, disgusting man who didn’t even speak their language or understand when they begged him to leave them alone. For the first time in my life I had the urge to hurt someone. I knew about the knife in Helgi’s candlestick—I’d been there when they’d hidden it, seen how it was done. And I knew which candlestick had the knife in it. Although they look alike, they’re not identical. Anton lit the candles when we moved into the ambassador’s office . . . I’ve no idea why. But once he started rambling on about his kindness and sensitivity, I’d had enough. I took some coins from my pocket and made a little stack of them on the table. Then I snuffed out the candle and wrapped my handkerchief around the candlestick before picking it up.”
Fabían reached for a bottle of water and started to take a sip from it, but then grimaced and put it down, saying, “I can’t keep anything down.”
He resumed his narrative. “Helgi had told us that it would take a certain amount of force to break the base, so I took great care as I banged the candlestick down on to my stack of coins. Anton was talking on the phone and hardly seemed to notice the noise. When I lifted up the candlestick, the knife lay there on the table, and I picked it up and concealed it with my arm. I moved toward the door, but then turned and approached Anton, who was still on the phone, looking out the window. When I was almost on top of him, he looked up with a weird look of surprise. I grasped the knife with both hands and plunged it into the center of his belly and pulled downward, letting go when I felt something warm splashing my hands. Anton let out a kind of howl and tried to stand up, but I gave him a push and he slumped back down again, staring at his lap as if unable to understand what all this mess was. I saw that this man would not hurt any more children, and all I could feel was relief. I turned away and went to the bathroom. It took me a while to clean up and change my colostomy bag. Also, I tried to clean the sink so as not to leave any evidence. I rinsed my shirt sleeve the best I could, and I scrunched up my jacket. Then I began to feel cold. I went downstairs and told Helgi what I had done. He took charge and got me back to the hotel, where I gave him the whole story. We flew home to Iceland later that day.”
Birkir asked, “Did you take a credit card from Anton?”
Fabían hesitated. “Yes,” he finally said. “I took the credit card he’d put on the table. He was on the phone booking a hotel room, and he’d read out the number on the card.”
“Why did you take it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe as a kind of symbol. It all seemed so unreal that I had to take some form of proof that it hadn’t been a dream. Or a nightmare, rather. The blood on my clothes should have been enough, but I put the card in my pocket nevertheless.”
“Who took the credit card from you?”
“I can’t remember. I showed it to Helgi while telling him what had happened. Then to Jón and Starkadur when we met later. Maybe it’s around here somewhere. Maybe Jón took it. I don’t know. Do you need it?”
Birkir shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “The credit card isn’t important anymore.”
12:30
Back at headquarters, Birkir reported to his superiors that someone had come forward with a credible confession to the embassy murder, and he requested that the forensic department analyze the frozen bundle of clothing Rakel had handed over to him. Then he dispatched a couple of cops to pick up Helgi Kárason—Birkir needed him to confirm the role he’d played in the case, but was fed up with visiting his studio and having to bang on the door.
Birkir asked Dóra to be present during Helgi’s interview in case they wanted to charge him with concealment—after all, he’d known all along who’d killed Anton Eiríksson but had kept quiet. So when Helgi arrived at the station, Birkir informed him that he had the legal status of defendant and, accordingly, had the right to call his lawyer or to refuse to answer questions.
“No, I don’t want an attorney,” Helgi said. “I have nothing to hide. I want to tell everything I know.”
Birkir said, “On the evening of Monday, October twelfth, you countersigned—as witness—a confession made by Fabían Sigrídarson. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”<
br />
“Fabían Sigrídarson wrote this confession and signed it of his own free will.”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve confirmed the authenticity of that document. Do you have any further information regarding the case Fabían confessed to being involved in?”
“Yes.”
“Will you please give the details of what you know?”
Helgi said, “As far as the party at the embassy is concerned, I made a statement about that on a previous occasion, to which I have nothing to add. But at the end of the evening, when we were about to return to our hotel, Fabían suddenly sat himself down next to me and said he’d just killed Anton in the ambassador’s office, using the knife I’d hidden in the candlestick. I was totally astonished, as Fabían hadn’t previously exhibited such forcefulness. But I didn’t want anything to come out that night. We would have to find a way to move forward, and preferably get back to Iceland, because no way was Fabían well enough to survive custody in a German prison. The ambassador’s wife created a commotion when she couldn’t find her shoe, which worked very well for us—and in fact I did my best to make the shoe even harder to find.
“Fabían was shivering with distress—and with cold, because he’d taken off his jacket and bundled it up, and his sleeve was soaking wet where he’d rinsed off the blood. I made him put on Jón’s jacket, and told Starkadur to take David out to one of the taxis waiting outside. Then I woke Lúdvík, who’d fallen asleep in one of the restrooms, and I told the ambassador and his wife that the four of us were leaving. Konrad asked about the other guests, and I said they’d gone off together in a taxi. He and his wife came outside with us, and Konrad had to help Jón in his argument with the night guard over his lost guest pass—we were supposed to hand them back in exchange for our passports.
“Back at the hotel, I made Fabían tell me the whole story. We already knew that something dreadful had happened to him when he was a young boy, but it really shocked me to hear him describe exactly what Anton had done. All things considered, you could hardly blame him for bumping off the guy who’d destroyed his body and his whole life, especially after he’d bragged about continuing to abuse children.
“Fabían and I agreed we would go back to Iceland together later that day. We didn’t tell Jón or Starkadur anything about what had happened until we all met in Iceland last Thursday. That’s when Jón and Starkadur decided to make one final attempt to finish things with the ex-sheriff, Arngrímur. But I said I’d take no part in that. The whole thing had become too much for me. Before, I’d been prepared to deal with Arngrímur and accept the consequences—be convicted and maybe have to serve a sentence. But now I’d had enough. My nerves can’t take stuff like this.”
Birkir said, “We suspect that Jón Sváfnisson and Lúdvík Bjarnason have taken two men prisoner and are holding them somewhere. Do you know anything about that?”
“No.”
Birkir continued, “You told me on a previous occasion that you and Jón and Starkadur had made plans to kidnap Arngrímur. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Helgi nodded. “I guess that’s correct.”
“Where were you planning to keep him captive?”
“We didn’t know. We planned to find a suitable place if and when we needed it. It never got that far.”
“What sort of place did you have in mind?”
“An abandoned house somewhere. Somewhere remote.”
“Out in the countryside?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, but not too far from Reykjavík, though.”
“Do you know what will happen to Arngrímur after he has admitted his part in Sunna’s death?”
Helgi was silent, and Birkir repeated his question.
“I don’t know,” Helgi finally said, “but I think you should try to find him as soon as possible.”
“Why?”
“At some point someone suggested we should chain Arngrímur by one leg, near a burning candle. When the candle burned down, it would set the house on fire.”
“He was to be burned alive?”
“He was to be given a chance to escape, which was more than Sun got.”
“How?”
“Within his reach would be a saw so he could cut off his leg and free himself from the chain.”
Birkir’s cell phone rang. He saw on its screen that it was Gunnar.
“Hi,” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m stuck in a snowdrift up in Borgarfjördur.”
“What in the hell are you doing there?”
“I think I’ve found the place.”
“What place?”
“The one that the directions refer to. The numbers Jón wrote on the notepad.”
“How?”
“I got a car and then headed up to the Vesturlandsvegur ring road.”
“Are you actually driving?”
“Yeah, I’m not doing too badly. I just can’t look to either side.”
“How do you manage to go through an intersection?”
“I unfastened the rearview mirror and use it to see right and left.”
“My God. Where did you get the idea for all this?”
“Just came into my mind—you know how it is.”
“OK, but what’s this place you’re talking about?”
“So . . . I went up to Vesturlandsvegur and set the odometer to zero where the ring road begins. Then I drove sixty-three kilometers north to Borgarfjördur, where I came to Route 50, the third number on the list.”
“I get it. So, then you drove seventeen kilometers along that road?”
“Well, not immediately. First I crossed the bridge to Borgarnes and had a bite to eat. You know how hungry I always get when I see Borgarnes.”
“OK. And then what?”
“Then I went back and turned up Route 50, and drove for seventeen kilometers till I arrived at the exit for Route 52, just like it said on the list. I made a left and continued for twelve kilometers and came to a driveway. The house is called Setberg—there’s a sign down where the driveway meets the road. Everything’s covered in snow up here, and my car got stuck. You’ll have to send backup.”
“I’ll do that,” Birkir said. “Can you see the house?”
“Yeah, up on the hill. About five hundred meters.”
“You’ve got to get up there right away. There may be an incendiary device on a timer. We don’t know when it’ll start the fire. It could happen at any moment.”
“I’m supposed to switch it off?”
“Yes, but be careful. I’ll have the Borgarnes police hit the road immediately.”
“I’ll try to investigate the house.”
“Call me before you go in.”
14:10
The tightly packed snowdrift in which Gunnar was stuck reached nearly halfway up the side of the car, and it took him some time, and all his strength, to heave the door open far enough to squeeze out, all the while trying not to strain his already painful back and neck. At last he was on his feet, and able to fish his crutches out from the backseat.
The house on the hill looked lifeless and abandoned—he saw no light in the windows, despite the overcast skies and waning day. This old farm had clearly not been worked for a long time. Though the house had been restored, probably for use as a summer house, the outbuildings were small and in bad shape—definitely not an establishment that would satisfy a present-day farmer’s needs. The fences around the miserable fields had all collapsed, and there were no signs of livestock anywhere. The only vehicle in sight was an ancient rusty tractor standing in the farmyard.
He moved off up the driveway, step by step. Something big had driven there recently, and he was able to walk in the tire tracks, but his crutches sank into the snow under his weight; the frost gnawed at his face, his swollen eye was sore, and, apart from the surgical collar protecting his neck, he wore only an old suit and a thin shirt.
From time to time he looked up, scanning the house for signs of life. Or signs of fire. Smoke or flames.
He saw nothing, and the house—a single-story with an attic, and standing on a concrete basement—seemed totally deserted.
When he finally reached the farmyard, he called Birkir as promised. “I’m by the house.”
“Great,” Birkir said. “The Borgarnes police are on their way, and a fire engine is about to mobilize. Can you get into the house?”
“Hang on,” Gunnar said. “Let me check.” He struggled up the few steps and tried the front door. It was unlocked.
“I’m inside,” he said, still on the phone.
Birkir said, “Use your best judgment, but stay in close contact with me.”
Gunnar was now in a narrow foyer and saw a hallway beyond. At first he thought of sneaking from room to room to check the place, but then reflected that a well-shod horse had more chance of moving quietly around the house than he did in his present condition, and so decided to tackle the situation head-on. “Hello!” he shouted as loudly as his husky voice could manage. “Anybody here?”
He listened, and immediately heard the faint response, “Help, help! We’re in the basement.”
“Coming!” he called in reply. From where he was standing, he could see stairs leading up to the attic, but no entrance to the basement. He proceeded along the hall.
“How do I get down?” he shouted.
“Help, help!” was the only reply he could make out.
He entered the living room but couldn’t see any way down. He turned back and moved to the kitchen at the other end of the house.
“Help, help!” He heard it clearly now.
“How do I get down?” he repeated.
“There’s a hatch in the kitchen,” someone shouted.
Gunnar spotted a trapdoor in the corner. Throwing aside his crutches, he got awkwardly to his knees, hooked his finger through the loop set into the trapdoor, and lifted it.
“Hello!” he called.
He heard Magnús’s voice saying, “Hurry! The fire’ll start any minute.”
Gunnar looked dubiously at the ladder leading precipitously down into the basement. “I’m coming!” he hollered. He sat down and swung his legs into the hatch, feeling forward with his foot for a rung to step on, and began his descent.
Sun on Fire Page 24
