66 Degrees North

CHAPTER FIVE

‘GOOD MORNING, MAGNÚS.’

Baldur’s tone was icy as he welcomed Magnus into his office. Two other detectives, Árni and Vigdís Audarsdóttir were already waiting.

It had proved remarkably easy for Magnus to get assigned to the case. The biggest problem had been summoning up the courage to call Chief Superintendent Thorkell back.

Thorkell had been businesslike on the phone, although he did start off the conversation with a dig. ‘Ah, Magnús, you took longer than I had been led to believe.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, Chief Superintendent,’ Magnus began. ‘You see I dropped the phone and-’

‘I want you on the Óskar Gunnarsson case,’ Thorkell interrupted.

‘Good,’ said Magnus.

‘That was what you were calling about, wasn’t it?’

‘Er, yes. Yes.’

‘OK. Be in Baldur’s office downtown at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. He will be expecting you. I’ll square it with the police college director.’

‘Very good. Thank you.’

Thorkell hung up, but Magnus heard the beginnings of a guffaw just before the line went dead. Somehow Magnus thought that Thorkell would not keep his earlier eavesdropping confidential.

Oh, well. Magnus glanced at Árni. No smirk yet: he hadn’t heard. Vigdís, the other detective, was much too professional to betray gossip. And he would soon find out whether Baldur knew.

‘A little tired this morning, are we?’ Baldur said with the tiniest of smiles. He knew. It wasn’t really a smile, more of a twitch on one side of his thin mouth. Baldur had a long lugubrious face and a high dome of a forehead. Not one of the Metropolitan Police’s greatest jokers.

‘Fully refreshed,’ said Magnus, trying not to think too much about Ingileif still curled up in his bed, and more about the task at hand.

‘I spoke to an officer from the British police in London yesterday,’ Baldur said. ‘Her name was,’ he paused as he examined his notes, ‘Detective Sergeant Sharon Piper. At this stage she has no reason to think that there is an Icelandic connection. Which is surprising when you think that the British believe we are all a bunch of terrorists.’

Baldur was referring to the British invocation of anti-terrorist legislation the previous October to seize the London assets of one of the Icelandic banks. It still rankled, a year later, especially with the controversy over the Icesave repayment negotiations.

‘Did she give you any details of what happened?’ Magnus asked.

‘Not much, it is still very early in the investigation.’ Baldur’s English wasn’t very good. Magnus wondered whether he had understood all of what Piper was saying. ‘You should call her this morning, see if she has turned up anything new.’

He dictated a phone number which Magnus wrote down.

‘Árni, Vigdís, what did you find out last night?’

‘Óskar has no criminal record,’ Árni said. ‘I did check with the Financial Crimes Unit and he is under investigation by the Special Prosecutor.’

‘What for?’

‘Market manipulation and securities fraud,’ Árni said, confidently.

‘And what does that mean?’ Baldur asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ Árni admitted. ‘Something about lending money to people who bought their shares. Or sold their shares. Or something.’

Baldur shook his head in despair. ‘Vigdís?’

Vigdís was a conscientious detective of about thirty. She was wearing a white Keflavík basketball sweatshirt, and her disconcertingly long legs were clad in jeans. ‘Óskar is thirty-nine. Until last October he was chairman of Ódinsbanki. He is also a major shareholder, through the family holding company OBG Investments, which is registered in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. As you know, he was one of the most successful of the Viking Raiders, the businessmen who built up big foreign operations for their companies.’

‘And dumped us all into this shit,’ Baldur muttered.

‘He was well respected amongst his fellow bankers, at least until the kreppa broke last year. Since then he has spent most of his time in London. He was forced to resign as chairman of Ódinsbanki last November.’

Magnus noticed that Vigdís had a photograph in the file in front of her.

‘Can I take a look?’ he asked. She slid the print over to him.

A good-looking man with dark floppy hair stared confidently into the camera. He had large brown eyes and a square, cleft chin. He looked successful but approachable.

‘Is he married?’ Baldur asked. ‘Sharon Piper mentioned a girlfriend was with him when he died.’

‘Married Kamilla Símonardóttir in 1999, divorced 2004, two children. He did have a Russian girlfriend, Tanya Prokhorova. Was it her?’

‘She didn’t give me a name,’ said Baldur. ‘Good work so far. I don’t think we need go overboard on helping the British on this, but I do want to make it clear that there is no Icelandic involvement. Of course, if you do turn up anything, let me know.’ He said this in a tone that made clear he was sure they wouldn’t.

They left Baldur’s office. Magnus commandeered an empty desk in the Violent Crimes Unit. He felt invigorated: it was good to be involved in a real investigation, even if he was only on the periphery of the inquiry and a thousand miles from the body. Vigdís and Árni joined him as Magnus made the call to London.

‘DS Piper.’

‘Hi, there. This is Magnus Jonson. I’m with the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police.’

Magnus realized he had introduced himself using his American name. He had two identities. In Iceland he had been christened Magnús, pronounced ‘Magnoos’. His father was Ragnar, and his grandfather Jón, so his father was Ragnar Jónsson and he was Magnús Ragnarsson. So far so simple. Except that when he arrived in the States at the age of twelve the bureaucracy couldn’t cope with the fact that he had a different surname to both his father and his mother, whose name was Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir, and like so many immigrants before him he had changed his name to something easier on the American ear. He became Magnus Jonson. On returning to Iceland he had reverted to Ragnarsson, but that sounded strange when he was speaking English.

‘I’m glad you called,’ said Piper.

‘Do you mind if I put you on the speaker?’ said Magnus. ‘I’m here with two detectives, Árni and Vigdís.’

‘No, that’s fine.’

Magnus clicked the button on his phone and put down the receiver. ‘Inspector Baldur gave us some background on the homicide, but maybe you can tell us some more?’

‘You speak very good English,’ said Piper. ‘Better than your inspector. I wasn’t sure how much he understood.’

Magnus looked over his shoulder at Baldur’s closed office door. ‘Thank you,’ he said, resisting the smart-ass comment. ‘And so do you.’ Piper’s British accent was a local London one, as far as he could tell.

‘Right,’ Piper began. ‘Gunnarsson was killed at twelve forty-five on Wednesday morning. Shot in the chest in the hallway of his house with three rounds from a SIG Sauer P226. He died before the ambulance got there.’

‘Any witnesses?’ Magnus asked.

‘His girlfriend was in bed. She said the bell rang, Gunnarsson answered the door, she heard him talking to someone. The front door shut. A few seconds later there were the three shots and the front door banged again. Then she heard a motorbike start up and roar off.’

‘The neighbours hear it?’

‘Yes. Three of them. They heard the shots. They heard the girl-friend’s screams. And they heard the motorbike, although one of them said it could have been a scooter. Small engine. We’ve got CCTV pictures of several motorbikes at about that time on the Old Brompton Road and the Fulham Road which are the two main streets at either side of Onslow Gardens. We’re trying to trace them all now.’

‘Any Icelandic connection?’

‘Nothing firm. The girlfriend said that she heard Gunnarsson talking with the visitor in a foreign language. It could have been Icelandic. Or Russian. Or anything else that wasn’t English or Spanish for that matter. The girlfriend is Venezuelan, by the way.’

‘Russian? Why do you say Russian?’

‘We found a little yellow Post-It note with Gunnarsson’s address written in Russian letters. What do you call it? Cyrillic. It was screwed up in a ball by the gate to the front garden.’

‘That’s a rookie mistake for a hit man to make,’ Magnus said.

‘Yes,’ Piper agreed. ‘But it might not have been the killer who dropped it. The killer may well have been someone Gunnarsson knew. He did let him in, after all.’

‘In which case the killer could have been an Icelander,’ said Magnus. ‘Is there much of a Russian connection? Óskar had a Russian girlfriend, right, before the Venezuelan?’ Magnus checked his notes. ‘Tanya Prokhorova.’

‘We’ve interviewed her. She claims she dumped him two months ago. She’s a model, skinny, legs up to her armpits, but she’s switched on, all right. Degree in accounting – she claims she realized that Gunnarsson was actually skint which is more or less why she got rid of him.’

‘Does she have Russian friends?’

‘She does. She’s right in with the billionaires’ circle in London. And some of those are pretty dodgy. What about you? Have you turned up a Russian connection in Reykjavík?’

‘Not yet,’ said Magnus. ‘But we will ask around. Óskar was under investigation here for securities fraud and market manipulation.’

‘There are rumours in the City that some of the Icelandic banks got their money from the Russian mafia,’ Piper said.

Magnus raised his eyebrows and looked at his colleagues. Árni looked baffled. Vigdís shook her head. ‘We’ll check that out too,’ Magnus said, aware of his own ignorance. ‘We’ll call you at the end of the day with an update.’

‘Great. Cheers, Magnus.’

Magnus turned to his colleagues. ‘Did you get all that?’ he asked in Icelandic.

He knew Árni would. Árni had studied Criminology at a small college in Indiana, and his English was very good. But Vigdís claimed she didn’t speak it, a claim Magnus didn’t believe. All Icelanders under the age of thirty-five spoke some English, and he didn’t see why she shouldn’t just because of her colour.

For Vigdís had the distinction of being the only black police officer in the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police. She was fed up with Icelanders and foreigners treating her as if she wasn’t an Icelander herself. As she had explained to Magnus, even though her father had been an American serviceman at the US air base in Keflavík, she had never met him, had no desire to meet him, and thought herself as Icelandic as Björk.

Magnus liked her. She was a conscientious police officer, and there was something comforting and familiar for an American cop working with a black face among so many pale ones.

Árni nodded, but Vigdís didn’t respond.

‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Magnus. ‘OK. Let’s figure out who is going to do what.’

The Ódinsbanki headquarters was on Borgartún, a boulevard that ran along the bay, lined with expensively designed glass- and marble-clad buildings. It was not the dense thicket of skyscrapers that you would find in a US city’s financial district, it was more sedate than that and more soulless.

Árni and Magnus pulled up into a car park behind one of the most lavish offices. They walked through revolving doors under the words ‘New Ódinsbanki’. The lobby echoed with the sound of rushing water from the various waterfalls, fountains and streams that flowed around the glass atrium.

They were met by the Chief Executive’s assistant, who took them up in the elevator to the top floor. She led them through a dealing room big enough to seat forty. It was eerily quiet, the screens blank, the chairs empty, apart from a group of a dozen or so men and women lined along the far wall. Behind these survivors was a wonderful view across the bay to Mount Esja, at that moment squatting under a grey cloud.

‘It’s quiet today,’ the assistant said. And then, with a wry smile: ‘It’s quiet every day.’

Eventually, after a couple of twists and turns, they came to the Chief Executive’s office and met the man himself. He was tall, about sixty, with a strong square face, thick grey hair and an ingrained frown. His name was Gudmundur Rasmussen and he had been turfed out of retirement to take over the running of the bank a year ago. His office was ostentatiously plain: simple desk, functional chairs and conference table. A couple of packing cases were stacked in the corner. It reminded Magnus a little of the police headquarters he had just left.

‘Terrible news about Óskar, terrible,’ Gudmundur said. ‘I didn’t really know him well. He was from a younger generation, we did things very differently in my day.’ He shook his head and tutted. ‘Very differently. Of course, I have spent most of the last year trying to clear up the mess that Óskar and his cronies left.’

‘Was he popular within the bank?’ Magnus asked.

‘Yes,’ Gudmundur said. ‘Yes he was. Even after all the mistakes he made came to light. He had charisma, people liked working for him.’ The frown deepened. ‘It has made my job difficult competing with that. The staff all seem to hark back to the good old days when Óskar was in charge. They don’t seem to realize that they weren’t good, they were disastrous. Things have to change. Now the bank is owned by the government we must behave cautiously. Not do anything rash.’

There was a knock at the door, and a man in his late twenties entered. He was self-assured with slicked-back hair and an expensive suit. A hint of cologne entered the office with him. He proffered his boss a single sheet of paper. ‘Can you sign off on this, Gudmundur?’

Gudmundur grabbed the paper and scanned it. ‘But these people are brokers, aren’t they?’

‘Yes. We do a lot of business with them.’

‘No. The bank’s not paying for this. I’ve told you before, if it’s not a client, you pay for your own lunch.’

He stared at the young banker as he returned the paper into his hands, unsigned.

‘But-’

‘I’ve been very clear,’ Gudmundur said.

The banker took back the paper and left the office without another word.

Gudmundur shook his head. ‘Some of these people don’t realize the world has changed. Now. Where were we?’

‘You were saying Óskar was popular. He didn’t have any enemies in the bank?’ Magnus asked.

‘Not that I am aware of. He may well have outside. I mean he is one of the gang of young bankers that has ruined the country, and people blame him for that, along with the others.’ Gudmundur shook his head. ‘They just didn’t have the experience to run a bank. It was irresponsible to let them do it.’

Magnus detected as much pleasure as pain in Gudmundur’s reaction to the comeuppance of the whippersnappers. ‘We understand that Óskar was under investigation by the Special Prosecutor for market manipulation. What was that about?’

‘Lending money to clients and friends to buy shares in the bank, and doing it secretly. At least that is what the allegation is.’

‘Were any of these clients Russians?’

Gudmundur’s frown deepened. ‘I don’t think so, but I can’t be absolutely sure. There is a web of holding companies and subsidiaries in places like Tortola and Liechtenstein and it’s a nightmare trying to figure out who the real owners are. But the bank has very few Russian clients.’ He paused. ‘In fact, none that I can think of.’

‘Presumably some of these offshore companies were owned indirectly by Óskar?’

‘Yes. The main holding company is OBG Investments. As well as Ódinsbanki it has holdings in a major chain of hotels and some retailers in Germany and Britain. And that’s just what is public knowledge. The company is run by Emilía Gunnarsdóttir, Óskar’s sister. Their offices are right here on Borgartún.’

Magnus asked some more questions about the bank and Óskar, and Árni took copious notes, although Magnus got the impression that he wasn’t really following what was going on.

Just as they were about to leave, Árni asked his own question. ‘Didn’t Gabríel Örn Bergsson work here?’

‘Yes he did,’ Gudmundur replied. ‘That was another sad case. It is unfortunate that two senior members of staff died in such awful circumstances, no matter how much damage they did to the bank.’

‘Did Gabríel Örn do much damage?’

‘Yes,’ Gudmundur sighed. ‘Most of the bad loans the bank made were in his department.’

‘What about Harpa Einarsdóttir?’ Árni asked.

‘I didn’t know her well; she left the bank just after I arrived,’ Gudmundur replied. ‘She worked with Gabríel Örn. I think she was his girlfriend. She had a good reputation within the firm, but she was too young. Too optimistic. No sense of what might go wrong.’

‘Was there any connection between them and Óskar?’ Árni asked.

‘Well, yes, obviously. Gabríel Örn was in charge of the leveraged lending group which was an important department. I’m sure that he and Óskar knew each other well. I have no idea about the relationship between Harpa and Óskar, but once again she was a fairly senior executive. And Óskar used to socialize with his staff. You must have read all about the parties in the newspapers.’

Even Magnus was aware that the Icelandic press had had a great time describing the excesses of the bankers, Óskar prominent among them: the parties, the private jets, the apartments in New York and London. To Magnus’s jaundiced eye it seemed nothing beyond the regular corporate excesses which you would expect in the boardrooms of America. It might not be in the Icelandic tradition, but it was certainly in the tradition of Wall Street.

‘What was all that about?’ Magnus asked Árni once they had left the CEO’s office. ‘Who the hell is Gabríel Örn?’

‘A banker who killed himself in January, a few months before you arrived in Iceland. Harpa was his ex-girlfriend who used to work for him. I interviewed her afterwards.’

‘Why did he kill himself?’

‘We’re not absolutely sure. He only left a brief text message as a suicide note. But he was responsible for bankrupting a bank. A few bad days at work, to put it mildly.’

‘And do you think there is a connection with Óskar’s murder?’

‘Um, no.’

‘Are you sure?’

Árni waited for the lift doors to close behind them as they headed down to the lobby.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said.

Magnus looked at him closely. He didn’t believe him.