Black Skies

31

Patrekur looked up, shamefaced, as Sigurdur Óli entered the cafe and sat down opposite him. It was the same place as they had met before but now it was busier and the hubbub of conversation and other noise made it hard for them to talk without raising their voices. Realising how unsuitable the venue was, they agreed to go elsewhere and, since they were in the town centre, they started to drift slowly in the direction of the docks, past the old Icelandic Steam Ship Company headquarters, across the coast road and over towards the eastern harbour, the intended site for a giant concert hall and conference centre. They had been walking in silence but now started to talk in a desultory way about the plans.

‘We’re doing the groundwork,’ Patrekur offered, stopping to survey the site. ‘I’m not sure people realise the scale of this thing — just how massive it’s going to be.’

‘All this, when there are barely a thousand music lovers bothered enough to turn up to concerts in Reykjavík?’ exclaimed Sigurdur Óli disapprovingly, though he could hardly even spell the word ‘symphony’.

‘Search me.’

They had not yet touched on the subject of Patrekur’s lie. Sigurdur Óli wanted to wait and see what Patrekur said, but guessed that he was almost certainly thinking the same thing.

Work had started on demolishing the old buildings to make way for the new concert hall. Sigurdur Óli remembered reading a critical newspaper article by an economist who expressed dismay at the project’s vulgarity and said the building was the dream child of a nouveau-riche country desperate to raise a monument to Icelandic greed. Across the road, fortress-like, loomed the Central Bank headquarters, clad with heavy, pitch-black gabbro from the East Fjords.

Patrekur agreed with the economist, dismissing the concert hall as a typical white elephant, born of small-country syndrome. The man who had abandoned neoconservatism for radicalism during his school years still lurked not far beneath the surface.

‘I think our financiers are losing the plot,’ he added.

‘That’s rich coming from you,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Haven’t you lost the plot yourself?’

The silence stretched out between them.

‘Have you heard from Hermann at all?’ asked Sigurdur Óli eventually.

‘No,’ replied Patrekur.

Sigurdur Óli had glanced over the transcripts of their interviews and noted that both had adhered to the story they had first told him. There was every chance that Finnur would call them back for further questioning. Patrekur had categorically denied knowing Lína or having any sort of relationship with her. Both had disclaimed all knowledge of a van driver called Thórarinn and denied any responsibility for the attack on Lína.

‘How did you come to know Lína?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

‘I thought you could just make this disappear,’ said Patrekur. ‘I was going to tell you the truth when it was all over. You may not believe me, but that was my intention.’

‘Just answer the question,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Didn’t I go over all this with you? Don’t avoid the issue.’

‘I feel bad about lying to you.’

‘Get to the point.’

‘I went on that glacier trip a year ago,’ Patrekur explained. ‘With some foreign clients. There were several groups: one from our firm, another from Lína’s firm and some bankers. Ebbi took care of all the preparations and organisation. It was your typical boozy excursion to entertain the foreigners by showing them the scenery, the glaciers. We drove up on to the Vatnajökull ice cap and held a barbecue there. Then — it was a weekend trip — we spent the second night out east in Höfn.’

‘Did Hermann go along?’

‘I invited him but in the end he could only make it for one of the days. He introduced me to Lína. She came over and he seemed oddly flustered. Now I know why he couldn’t stay for the whole trip — he already knew her, of course.’

Patrekur hesitated.

‘And?’ prompted Sigurdur Óli.

‘And I slept with Lína.’

Patrekur looked mortified as he met Sigurdur Óli’s eye.

‘You slept with Lína?’

Patrekur nodded. ‘Ebbi wasn’t there. He stayed somewhere else and she … we … anyway, we ended up in bed together.’

‘Jesus.’ Sigurdur Óli was completely thrown.

‘I should have told you at once.’

‘Do you make a habit of cheating on Súsanna?’

‘I’ve done it once before,’ said Patrekur. ‘Two years ago. Similar circumstances, different woman. When I was out east on the big dam project. I wasn’t exactly sober but of course that’s no excuse. Lína was a lot of fun and very forward, and naturally I was up for it in the end.’

‘Naturally?’ said Sigurdur Óli.

‘What can I say? It happened. I have no excuse, it just happened.’

‘Did she tell you how she knew Hermann? That she was planning to blackmail him?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘So she didn’t want to take pictures of you?’

‘Give me a break.’

Sigurdur Óli shrugged.

‘You can’t imagine how shocked I was when Hermann and my sister-in-law came round the other day and started asking about my mate in the police,’ said Patrekur. ‘When he explained what it was all about and who was involved, I nearly lost it. My biggest fear was that he would let the cat out of the bag about me and Lína — that she might have told him. I couldn’t think about anything but myself.’

‘You haven’t got the nerve for it,’ said Sigurdur Óli, who was having difficulty feeling any sympathy for his friend, though Patrekur did sound genuinely repentant.

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’

‘What about all Hermann’s talk of swingers’ parties? His claim that they met purely by chance?’

‘I believe all that,’ replied Patrekur. ‘I don’t think Hermann’s lying. We didn’t have a clue that they went in for wife-swapping. Súsanna was speechless — she can’t understand that game, but then she doesn’t understand about lies and infidelity and all that stuff either. We wanted to help them. After all, it’s Súsanna’s sister, as I keep telling you. To react any other way would have been out of the question. So I agreed to talk to you and ask you to put pressure on Lína and Ebbi, to put an end to it all before it got out of hand. Of course, I should have told you the whole story. It was cowardly and selfish of me not to. To deceive you. I do realise that. I was involving you. But the whole mess was just so embarrassing. Then she was attacked and suddenly it was deadly serious and I just clammed up even more, and — I’m being completely honest — I’m so shit-scared I can hardly breathe.’

‘It didn’t occur to you to have a word with Lína yourself, seeing as you knew her?’

‘I hadn’t had any contact with her since that night in Höfn and there was no way I was going to talk to her.’

‘Do you think she might have got the idea from you? About blackmail?’

‘Christ, no, I don’t think so.’

‘Did you tell her Hermann’s wife was an up-and-coming politician?’

‘No, I don’t think so, I really can’t remember.’

‘So why on earth did you have to drag me into this?’

‘It was never meant to become official,’ Patrekur said. ‘You were supposed to deal with it, to make the problem disappear. They were threatening God knows what: the tabloids, the Internet. Hermann had clearly got mixed up with a couple of nutters. I didn’t want to get embroiled; it didn’t occur to me to approach them myself. I just assumed that you were the right person to cut them down to size and make them see sense, threaten them with the law, like we discussed. I know you would have pulled it off. They were unbelievably brazen but I was convinced that it wouldn’t take much to talk them out of such a crazy plan.’

‘Were they heavily in debt? Do you know anything about that?’

‘Hermann reckons they must have been, and that’s why they went so far. And I’m not necessarily talking about bank loans. They’ll be blacklisted for those. They were both into drugs. Hermann’s convinced they’re in debt to a bunch of dealers and that that’s why she was attacked.’

‘Are you sure? About the drugs?’

‘Hermann told me they offered him something, Es or speed, probably. He didn’t even know what it was called, but they had plenty of it.’

‘Did he know where they got it?’

‘No, he didn’t ask,’ Patrekur said.

‘So you didn’t meet Lína again after what happened?’

‘No. Well, yes, she did call me once. Rang me at work and asked how things were. We chatted for a bit, then I asked her not to contact me any more; it had been a mistake and I didn’t want to see her again.’

‘Did she want to see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you said no?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Does Ebbi know you slept together?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Patrekur. ‘At least I assume not, though given the sort of life they lived, I suppose she could have told him. But if so I’m not aware of it.’

The conversation lapsed. Eventually, Patrekur sighed and added, ‘I should have told you immediately. About me and Lína, I mean. I was shit-scared all along that you’d find out somehow. But I didn’t want to destroy our friendship. And I really hope I haven’t.’

Sigurdur Óli did not reply and they stood watching what was happening on the dockside. Sigurdur Óli’s thoughts ranged from Ebbi and Lína, to threats, blackmail, debt collectors, glacier trips and accountants; his colleague Finnur and the wretched youth Pétur who had been beaten up behind the police station; Súsanna who was ignorant of her husband’s infidelity; Hermann and his wife who wanted to make it in politics; Bergthóra and their last conversation, and his father in hospital.

‘Are you going to tell Súsanna?’ he asked at last.

‘I already have,’ said Patrekur. ‘I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I told her everything.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t know. She’s thinking it over. She was angry, of course. Completely lost it, more like. She reckons everyone’s gone crazy, at it like rabbits all over the place.’

‘Perhaps it’s all this money,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

He studied his friend.

‘You didn’t do anything to her, Patrekur? To Lína?’

‘No way.’

‘You didn’t want to shut her up?’

‘No. By killing her, you mean? Are you mad? I haven’t been within a million miles of this. For Christ’s sake, it wasn’t like that.’

‘What about Hermann?’

‘No, I don’t think so — definitely not. But you’d have to ask him. I’ve told you what I know.’

‘All right. Who else was on this trip with you? I didn’t recognise any of the names.’

‘Foreigners,’ Patrekur replied, ‘engineers like me, bankers. I don’t know them very well. They were Americans, here to learn about geothermal energy, renewable energy. I was sent with them because I did my postgrad degree in the States and we’ve been doing a lot of research into alternative energy sources. Then …’

‘What?’

‘Oh, one of them died in an accident not long afterwards, one of the Icelandic bankers; I don’t remember his name. He was on a trip with some of the others and went missing. He wasn’t found until last spring. What was left of him, that is.’