66 Degrees North

CHAPTER TEN

November 1934

HALLGRÍMUR LOOKED OUT over the snow as he made his way to the barn where the sheep were huddled together for the winter. He had to check on the hay.

It was ten o’clock and just getting light. The snow, which had fallen a few days before, glowed a luminescent blue, except at the top of the far mountains where the rising sun painted it red. He could still see the dark shapes of the twisted rocky waves of the Berserkjahraun. The warmth of the lava stone meant that the snow always melted there first.

A cold wind whipped in from the fjord. Hallgrímur saw a small figure tramping his way across the snow towards the little church. Benni.

Hallgrímur hadn’t seen much of his friend over the past few weeks, but he felt sorry for him. Benedikt’s father’s disappearance had taken everyone by surprise. His mother had not the faintest clue where her husband might have gone. Search parties went out everywhere: over the Bjarnarhöfn Fell in case he had been looking for a lost sheep, along the shore in case he had fallen into the sea, over the Berserkjahraun, into the towns of Stykkishólmur and Grundarfjördur. When nothing turned up, the search went further afield: over the mountains to the south and the Kerlingin Pass, along the coast to Ólafsvík, the sheriff down in Borgarnes was informed.

There was no sign of him anywhere.

Hallgrímur had joined in the search parties, sticking closely to his father wherever he went. He was amazed and impressed by his father’s determination to help, the long hours he spent on the fells looking for a body he knew lay at the bottom of a lake only a few kilometres away.

The atmosphere at Bjarnarhöfn was awful. His father and mother didn’t talk. The hatred was palpable. Hallgrímur’s brother and sisters assumed it was grief and shock. Only Hallgrímur knew the real reason.

The boy hated his mother for what she had done with Benni’s father. And, although he knew it was wrong, he couldn’t help admiring his father for doing something about it.

Of course things were much worse at Hraun. Benni’s mother had been demented with worry, but she was a strong woman and she didn’t let the farm slip. Neighbours were eager to help.

Where had Benedikt’s father gone? The theories became more and more wild. The two wildest were that he had emigrated to America with a woman, and that the Kerlingin troll had got him.

More sober heads assumed he had somehow fallen into Breidafjördur and been swept away into the ocean.

Hallgrímur walked over the snow-covered home meadow down to the church. It was little more than a hut, with black painted wooden walls and a red metal roof. There was no spire, just a white cross above the entrance. It was surrounded by a low wall of stone and turf, and a graveyard of a mixture of old grey headstones and newer white wooden crosses. Hallgrímur’s ancestors lay there. One day, in the far off future, perhaps in the twenty-first century if he was lucky, Hallgrímur would join them.

There was no pastor of Bjarnarhöfn. The pastor at Helgafell, the small bump in the distance near the town of Stykkishólmur, held services there once a month.

Hallgrímur opened the door. Benni was sitting in the front pew, staring at the altar. He had a book on his lap. Hallgrímur recognized it, it was Benedikt’s copy of the Saga of the People of Eyri.

‘Hello,’ said Hallgrímur, joining him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I am trying to pray,’ said Benedikt.

‘What for?’ said Hallgrímur. ‘They won’t find him.’

‘For his soul.’

‘Ah,’ said Hallgrímur. He had never quite got to grips with the concept of soul. ‘Are you all right, Benni?’

‘No. I feel so bad for my mother. She has no idea what happened to Dad and she will never find out. Unless I tell her.’

‘You can’t do that,’ said Hallgrímur.

‘Why not?’ said Benedikt. ‘I think about it all the time.’

‘It will get us into trouble.’

‘Not very much trouble,’ said Benedikt. ‘We didn’t kill him.’

Hallgrímur frowned. ‘It would get my father into a lot of trouble.’

‘Perhaps he deserves it.’ Benedikt glared at Hallgrímur.

‘And your father, too. I know he’s dead, but everyone thinks he’s a hero. They won’t think that if they know what he did.’

‘Maybe.’

The two boys stared at the altar and its simple cross.

‘Benni?’

‘Yes?’

‘If you do tell anyone, I will kill you.’ Hallgrímur didn’t know why he made the threat: it just came out of nowhere. But he knew he meant it. And the fact that he had uttered it in the church gave it greater meaning.

Benedikt didn’t answer.

‘Tell me a story from in there, Benni,’ Hallgrímur said, tapping the book on Benedikt’s lap.

‘All right,’ said Benedikt. He was still staring ahead at the altar, not looking at Hallgrímur. ‘Do you remember Björn of Breidavík?’ Benedikt didn’t need to open the book: he knew all the stories.

‘The one who went to America and became a chieftain?’

‘Yes. Do you want to know why he went there?’

‘Why?’

‘There was a beautiful woman called Thurídur who lived at Fródá. It’s near Ólafsvík.’

‘I know.’

‘Even though she was someone else’s wife, Björn kept on going to see her. He loved her.’

‘Oh.’ Hallgrímur wasn’t sure he liked the sound of this story.

‘Thurídur’s brother was a great chieftain called Snorri who lived at Helgafell.’

‘Yes, you have told me about him.’

‘Well, Snorri was angry with Björn and had him outlawed so he had to leave Iceland.’

‘That was then,’ Hallgrímur said. ‘My father couldn’t have got your father outlawed. That doesn’t happen any more.’

Benedikt ignored him. ‘A few years later Björn returned to Breidavík and went back to seeing Thurídur. This time Snorri sent a slave to kill Björn, but Björn caught the slave and had him killed instead. There was a big battle between the families of Björn and Snorri on the ice below Helgafell. In the end Björn left Iceland of his own accord. He ended up in America with the Skraelings.’

‘Perhaps your father should have gone to America,’ said Hallgrímur.

Benedikt turned away from the altar to look straight at Hallgrímur. ‘Perhaps Björn should have killed Snorri.’

Friday, 18 September 2009

Magnus carried the two cups of coffee from the counter and sat down opposite Sigurbjörg. They were in a café on Borgartún. He had called her early, catching her just as she arrived in her office, and she had agreed to see him for a few minutes before the working day began in earnest.

He had woken up at four-thirty thinking about what Sigurbjörg had told him back in April, and had been unable to get back to sleep. Denial wasn’t going to work. He had heard what he had heard and he was going to have to make sense of it. The sooner the better.

The café was busy with office workers loading up on caffeine, mostly to go, so there were a few seats available.

‘I’m glad you called,’ said Sibba in English. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

‘Neither did I,’ said Magnus. ‘It was kinda weird seeing you yesterday.’

‘OBG is a good client of our firm’s, as you can imagine. Do you want to ask me about Óskar Gunnarsson? That might be tricky.’

‘No, no.’ Magnus took a deep breath. ‘I wanted to talk about our family.’

‘I wondered,’ said Sibba. ‘Have you seen any of them since you’ve been here?’

‘Only you that once.’

‘I can understand why you would want to avoid them, especially after the way Grandpa treated you last time you were here.’

Magnus had summoned up the courage to travel back to Iceland when he was twenty, just after his father died. He had hoped to achieve some kind of reconciliation with his mother’s family. It hadn’t worked: the trip was as painful as he had feared.

‘Have you been up to Bjarnarhöfn recently?’ Magnus asked.

‘Yes. I took my husband and the kids to stay in Stykkishólmur for a few days in July with Uncle Ingvar. He’s a doctor at the hospital there. But we visited Grandpa and Grandma a few times.’

‘How are they?’

‘Very good, considering their age. They both still have all their marbles. And Grandpa still potters about on the farm.’

‘But Uncle Kolbeinn does most of the work?’

‘Oh, yes. And he lives in the farmhouse. Grandpa and Grandma have moved into one of the smaller houses.’

Bjarnarhöfn was made up of a number of buildings: barns, three houses and of course the little church down towards the fjord.

‘Has he changed much?’

‘No. He’s pretty much set in his ways.’

‘The old bastard,’ Magnus muttered.

Sibba looked sympathetic. ‘You didn’t enjoy your time at Bjarnarhöfn, eh?’

‘No. You were lucky growing up in Canada, away from them.’

‘I remember visiting when I was a child,’ Sibba said. ‘In fact, I remember staying at Bjarnarhöfn when you and Óli were there. You were both very quiet. Like you were scared of Grandpa.’

‘We were. Especially Óli.’ Magnus winced. ‘It’s still difficult to think about it now. You know Óli and I never talked about it after we went to America? It’s like the whole four-year period was blanked out of our minds.’

‘Until I came along?’ Sibba said. ‘I’m sorry. I should never have told you about your father and the other woman. It just didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t know, it’s all that the rest of the family ever talked about. But of course I was older than you: you and Óli were just little kids.’

‘I’m glad you did, Sibba. In fact, that’s what I want to ask you about.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sibba said.

‘Yes.’ Magnus nodded. ‘I need to find out what happened in my parents’ lives. It’s been nagging at me ever since Dad was murdered.’

Sibba’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘This doesn’t have anything to do with that, does it?’

‘I doubt it. But I’m a cop, I like to ask questions until I get answers. You are the only member of the family I think I could talk to. Grandpa has turned the others pretty much against me.’

Hallgrímur, Magnus’s grandfather, had three sons and a daughter: Vilhjálmur the eldest, who had emigrated to Canada in his twenties, Kolbeinn, Ingvar and Margrét, Magnus’s mother. Sibba was Vilhjálmur’s daughter who had grown up and been educated in Canada, but had moved to Iceland after university, gone to law school and then on to a career as a lawyer in Reykjavík. Magnus had always liked her the most of his mother’s family.

She looked at Magnus closely. ‘So, fire away. I’m not sure how much I can help you.’

Magnus sipped his coffee. ‘Do you know who the other woman was?’

‘I did, but… no… I forget her name,’ Sibba winced, struggling to remember. She shook her head. ‘No. It will come to me. She was Aunt Margrét’s best friend from school. She lived in Stykkishólmur. They both went to teacher training school in Reykjavík.’

‘Was she teaching at the same school as Mom?’

‘No idea.’

‘Did you ever meet her?’

‘No. But I heard about her. I could ask my father, if you like?’

‘That would be great. But do me a favour. Don’t tell him that it was me asking.’

‘OK,’ said Sibba, reluctantly. She checked her watch. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting in five minutes.’

She stood up and kissed Magnus on the cheek. It was a nice gesture. Magnus was short of family in Iceland: there were none left on his father’s side. This was the closest he got.

‘Are you sure you want to know all this?’ she asked.

Magnus nodded. Ingileif was right. ‘I’m sure.’

Björn rode his bike the short distance from Seltjarnarnes down to the harbour. Harpa had left early for the bakery, dropping Markús off with her mother on the way. Björn had told Harpa he was going back to Grundarfjördur to join a trawler that was going out for a couple of days. He had an hour or two to kill, so he went down to his favourite place in Reykjavík.

He parked his bike and strolled along the quayside. There were not many boats around: a large Russian trawler, and a couple from the Westman Islands, plus a few much smaller vessels. The Old Harbour in Reykjavík was of course much larger than Grundarfjördur, but these days it seemed quieter. The concentration of fishing quotas in fewer and fewer hands over the previous twenty-five years meant that there were fewer boats, and those boats that were around spent more time at sea. It was all much more efficient, and Iceland was one of the very few countries in the world whose fishermen made money rather than consuming government subsidies. But this profitability had come at a cost: boats scrapped, fishermen losing their jobs, sometimes whole communities shut down.

Until the kreppa, Björn had been a beneficiary of all this. His uncle in Grundarfjördur had been one of the original recipients of a quota, which had been granted to those men who were fishing between the years 1980 and 1983. The quota represented the right to fish a certain proportion of a total amount of catch set each year by the Marine Research Institute and the Ministry of Fisheries, depending on the level of fish stocks. The fortunate ‘quota kings’ as they soon became known, had either continued to fish, or sold out to larger companies for millions, or sometimes hundreds of millions of krónur. Einar, Harpa’s father, had done just that. Björn’s uncle had sold his quota and his boat, Lundi, to Björn at a low price, but even so, Björn had had to borrow heavily from the bank.

Björn had been fishing with his uncle since the age of thirteen. He was a natural, they said he could think like a cod, and he was also quick to understand and make the most of the new technology that was becoming available for mapping the sea bed and locating shoals of fish. Soon he had paid down most of his debt. Then he borrowed more to buy the quota of another small fisherman in Grundarfjördur. The quota applied to the proportion of a catch and not to a particular boat, so the secret to profitability was to own as high a level of quota as one boat could sustain. Then, in 2007, he took down another loan to buy a third small quota and some state-of-the-art electronics for Lundi.

His old school friend from Grundarfjördur, Símon, who had become a banker rather than a fisherman, and who had just left one of the Icelandic banks to join a hedge fund in London, advised him. The thing to do was borrow in a mixture of Swiss francs and yen, because the interest rates were low and the Icelandic króna would stay strong. It was what Símon was doing on a major scale at his hedge fund, and he was making a fortune.

Björn took his friend’s advice and for a while things worked out fine. Then the króna began to depreciate, and although the interest rate was still low, the size of his loan in krónur was growing fast. The kreppa came in earnest, the Icelandic banks went bust, the króna collapsed and Björn’s loans ballooned way above any amount he could ever possibly repay.

He received a good offer for his quota and his boat from a large company in Akureyri in the north. He took it, and paid down the bank as much as he could. And now he was begging for work from anyone who would take him on. He had an excellent reputation as a fisherman, but he found it difficult to shut up and take orders when he had his own views on where the fish were and how to catch them, so some of the captains, like Gústi, saw him as a threat. But Björn could still just about make a living and he could still go out to sea.

He had lost his boat and his dreams. All he had wanted since he was a boy was to own a fishing boat and hunt the fish. And now it was denied him.

When he had seen Símon one Friday night in Reykjavík a month after the banks collapsed, his friend was surprised at Björn’s misfortune. Símon had unwound that trade the previous spring and gone the other way. His fund had made millions.

Bastard.

Björn hadn’t seen Símon since then.

Now the politicians were talking about joining the European Union. They promised that Icelandic fish would be kept safe for Icelandic fisherman, but Björn knew that within a decade the Spanish, the French and the British would have helped themselves to his country’s carefully husbanded stocks, leaving nothing for the Icelanders.

And all this had been caused by a bunch of speculators sitting on their fat arses in overheated offices borrowing money they didn’t have to buy stuff they didn’t understand.

Bastards.

Björn’s father, a postman and a lifelong communist, was right after all. They were all bastards.

The wind was picking up. Small clouds skipped across the blue sky above, and even in the sheltered harbour the little fishing boats bobbed, creaked and rattled. Björn walked back down the quay to Kaffivagninn, the café used by the fisherman. It was almost empty. He glanced around, looking for Einar who often hung around there, eager to share a yarn with anyone who would listen, but he couldn’t see him. He bought himself a coffee and kleina, sat at a table by the window and thought of Harpa.

He was glad he had come down the night before. There was no doubt she needed him. He treated her well. Unlike Gabríel Örn. Harpa spoke about him sometimes in the middle of the night. That man was scum. He had taken her for granted, mistreated her, in a way that Björn would never have done.

Björn was worried about how Harpa would handle further police questions. It would put a lot of pressure on her, especially since they both had thought that they had got away with it in January. They had made some mistakes when they had covered up Gabríel Örn’s death. Sending the suicide text message from Gabríel Örn’s phone was one: Björn had regretted it as soon as he had pressed send. It drew unnecessary attention to Harpa.

He had done all he could to bolster her courage, make her believe in herself. He blamed the others: Sindri, the student, the kid. They were the ones who wanted to attack Gabríel Örn. They had used her, manipulated her to reel in a banker for them to abuse. It wasn’t her fault.

Their stories had hung together under the initial police investigation: there was no reason why they shouldn’t now. All they needed was their luck to hold and Harpa’s courage not to fail her.

Magnus, Vigdís and Árni were in the small conference room in the Violent Crimes Unit, the papers from the Gabríel Örn Bergsson file spread out on the table in front of them. Árni had been involved in the initial investigation, but Vigdís hadn’t, and Magnus appreciated her independent point of view.

‘So, what do you think?’ Magnus asked her.

‘I don’t like the bed,’ Vigdís said. ‘It was unmade when we checked Gabríel Örn’s flat the next day. He had already been sleeping in it when Harpa called. She woke him up, he got dressed, and went out to meet her.’

‘Except he didn’t go to meet her,’ Magnus said. ‘He went off to the sea two kilometres away and drowned himself.’

‘And why would he do that?’ Vigdís asked. ‘It seems to me one of two things happened. Either Harpa told him something on the phone that so upset him that he felt an immediate desire to drown himself, or he didn’t kill himself at all. Someone else put him in the water.’

‘The pathologist’s report is inconclusive,’ Magnus said. ‘He wasn’t shot and he wasn’t stabbed and it didn’t look like he was strangled. But he could have been struck somewhere – the body was so battered by its time in the sea that the pathologist couldn’t tell.’

‘The report doesn’t say whether Gabríel Örn was breathing when he went in the water,’ Vigdís said.

‘To be fair, that’s a hard one to figure out,’ Magnus said. ‘You get water in the lungs either way.’

‘What if Harpa had told Gabríel Örn something about Ódinsbanki?’ Árni said. ‘Maybe she was going to cooperate with the authorities. Put him in jail. Maybe he couldn’t face that?’

Magnus glanced at Vigdís. She was frowning. So was he.

‘There’s nothing from his parents or his new girlfriend that suggests that he was any more worried about what was going on at Ódinsbanki than anyone else. He hasn’t been implicated in anything apart from a few bad loans. No fraud. No gambling debts. Some drugs use, but nothing out of control. Why him? Why not any of the other bankers in this town?’

Árni shrugged.

‘And let’s say he suddenly decides at midnight to kill himself. There are many quicker and easier ways of doing it.’

‘Perhaps he went for a walk,’ Árni said. ‘Got more and more miserable the further he went. Found himself near the sea. Decided to end it there and then.’

‘Possible,’ said Vigdís.

‘But unlikely,’ said Magnus.

‘The witnesses’ stories stack up,’ said Árni. ‘Ísak Samúelsson, the kid who had the fight with Harpa. And Björn Helgason, the fisherman.’

‘Who has a criminal record.’

‘Two assaults when he was nineteen and twenty,’ Vigdís said. ‘On a night out in Reykjavík both times. There is nothing unusual about a fisherman getting drunk and into a fight.’

‘What about this motorcycle gang he’s a member of. The Snails?’ Magnus smiled. ‘Is that the Icelandic for Hell’s Angels?’

Vigdís shook her head. ‘Some of them would like to be, but they are much tamer than that. A lot of them are fishermen, but they have all kinds of people as members, even some lawyers and bankers. They just get dressed up in leathers and ride around the country together.’

‘And his brother? Who he was supposed to be staying with?’

‘He’s credible,’ Árni said. ‘His name is Gulli: he runs a small decorator’s business. He was out all night. Came home in the morning, saw Harpa as she was going out. He said Björn stays with him regularly when he comes down to Reykjavík for the weekend, but they often go out separately. ’

‘That leaves us with Harpa,’ Magnus said. ‘The weak link.’

Baldur stuck his head into the conference room. ‘What time does the British policewoman arrive?’

‘Her flight gets in at one-thirty,’ Magnus said. ‘I’m going to meet her at the airport.’

‘I’d like to see her when she gets here,’ said Baldur. ‘And so would Thorkell.’

‘I’ll bring her in.’

‘Good.’ Baldur picked up a report on the conference table and examined it. ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘The Gabríel Örn investigation from January?’

‘That’s right,’ said Magnus.

‘What has this to do with Óskar Gunnarsson?’

‘They were both senior executives at the same bank.’

‘And you think Óskar’s murder had something to do with Gabríel Örn’s suicide? How can that be?’

Magnus took a deep breath. ‘We don’t think Gabríel Örn killed himself.’

Baldur frowned. ‘That’s absurd.’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course it is. There was an investigation. We examined all the evidence. Case closed.’

‘Do you think it was suicide?’

Baldur pursed his lips. ‘I said, case closed.’

Magnus examined Baldur closely. There was anger in his eyes. Despite their disagreements, Magnus didn’t underestimate Baldur. He was a smart enough cop to know that suicide didn’t stack up. So why did he want to sit on the case? Magnus needed to find out.

‘I think we should reopen it,’ Magnus said. ‘It smells. Harpa Einarsdóttir, Gabríel Örn’s former girlfriend who was supposed to meet him that weekend, was lying.’

‘Have you proof of that?’ Baldur said.

‘Not yet.’

‘Or any hard connection to Óskar, beyond them all working in the same bank?’

‘No.’

‘Then drop it.’

‘Why?’ Magnus said.

‘Because I tell you to.’ Baldur stared at him. Vigdís and Árni sat motionless.

‘I need to have a better reason than that to drop a case that is crying out to be reopened,’ Magnus said carefully. ‘Especially if it involves murder.’

‘Are you suggesting something?’ Baldur asked in little more than a whisper.

Magnus folded his arms. ‘I guess I am. This looks like a cover-up to me. Where I come from, cover-ups happen from time to time. I guess I just didn’t expect to see them in Iceland.’

‘You don’t understand the first thing about this country, do you?’ said Baldur, his voice oozing contempt.

‘I think I do,’ said Magnus, but he couldn’t hide his uncertainty.

‘Have you any idea what it was like here last January?’

‘I guess it was pretty hairy.’

‘Pretty hairy?’ Baldur almost shouted. ‘You don’t have a clue.’ He shook his head and sat down opposite Magnus, leaning forward towards him. The muscles in his long face were tight, anger seeping out of every pore. ‘Well, let me explain.’

‘OK,’ Magnus said, taken aback by the emotion in Baldur’s normally dry voice, but trying not to show it.

‘In January the Metropolitan Police faced the biggest test of its history. By far. We were all working double shifts, every man and woman we could get our hands on was wearing riot gear, we were defending our parliament, our democracy.

‘And we were angry too.’ He glanced at Vigdís. ‘We are citizens and taxpayers. We don’t get paid very much and we never made out during the boom years apart from some of us who spent too much, took on too much debt. Many of us sympathized with the demonstrators. But we had a job to do and we did it as well as we could.’

Magnus listened.

‘We used the most conciliatory tactics we could. We didn’t hit people. We didn’t corral them and beat them up like the British police did a few months later in their anti-capitalist demonstration in London. No one was killed. Then one day it all looked like it was going wrong: the anarchists got the upper hand and started attacking us. They threatened us, they threatened our families. And then do you know what happened?’

Magnus shook his head.

‘They formed a line. The people formed a line to protect the police from the anarchists. You don’t see that in any other country but Iceland. A few days later the government resigned: it all happened without violence.

‘And it was all down to the way we policed the demonstrations. I’m proud of that. The Prime Minister wrote a personal letter of thanks to every police officer who played their part.’

Magnus was impressed. Policing riots was notoriously difficult; it was so easy for one officer to go too far, to make a bad judgement call in the heat of the moment, to panic. He had never faced a riot; he wasn’t at all sure how he would cope with angry protesters throwing stuff at him. He would probably hit them back.

‘You see, if right in the middle of all that a young banker had been murdered, it might have been just the spark that could have set this country on fire.’

Magnus hesitated. He could see Baldur’s point of view. But on the other hand… ‘We don’t know yet whether Gabríel Örn was murdered,’ he said. ‘But it looks very much like he might have been. His family, his parents, his sister, have a right to know. We have a duty to tell them.’

‘Don’t lecture me on what my duty is,’ Baldur growled. ‘You don’t live here, this isn’t your country. I decide what our duty is. And I am telling you to drop Gabríel Örn. Forget about him. And above all don’t mention him to the British police. Do you understand?’

Baldur’s words were like a slap in the face to Magnus. Iceland was his country, dammit. That was a thought, a belief he had clung to through all his years in America. And yet. And yet he hadn’t been in Iceland in January. He hadn’t taken part in the pots-and-pans revolution, either as a participant, or as a policeman or even as an observer. In fact he had scarcely noticed what had been going on – he was deeply involved in a police corruption investigation back in Boston at the time. And what the Icelandic people had achieved, the overthrow of a government through entirely peaceful protest, was impressive, in a typically Icelandic way.

What right had he to mess all that up?

He nodded. ‘I understand.’