Meltwater (Fire and Ice) Read online

  ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘But even I could tell that your English accent was very good. Or rather American accent. And you said just now that you came back to Iceland a year ago?’

  ‘I was born here. My dad was an academic – he taught mathematics at the University of Iceland, and then he got a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. My mother died when I was twelve and so I went over there to live with him. Went to the local high school, went to college. Then, after he was . . . after he died, I decided to become a cop. I ended up as a homicide detective in Boston. But no, I never joined the CIA.’

  ‘Are you glad to be back? In Iceland?’

  Magnus hesitated before replying. ‘It’s hard to say.’

  ‘Do you think of yourself as an Icelander?’

  Magnus smiled ruefully. ‘That’s probably why it’s hard to say.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean in the States I definitely saw myself as an Icelander. I read and reread all the sagas, I kept up with the language, I loved coming back here with my father on vacation: this was my homeland. My younger brother was completely different, he became an American through and through and was happy to do that, but I felt I was different from the other kids, and I liked that.’

  ‘So what was the problem?’

  ‘When I came back I felt like a foreigner here as well. I spoke Icelandic with a bit of an American accent when I arrived – I don’t know if you can still tell?’

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘Good. But it was more than that. Everyone here knows each other. They have family, friends from school and university. People are friendly enough, but it’s impossible not to feel like an outsider. So I don’t know who the hell I am. And, yes, sometimes that bugs me.’

  ‘But don’t you have family here?’

  ‘Not on my father’s side – he was an only child. There are loads on my mother’s side, but they don’t seem to like me very much. It’s a family feud in the best saga tradition.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Magnus laughed. ‘How come you can get me to tell you everything when I can’t get you to tell me anything? We should give you a job in the police department.’

  ‘I think I’ll stick to the Church, thank you,’ said Ásta.

  ‘The side of the angels?’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder,’ she muttered so quietly that Magnus barely heard.

  Half an hour later, Magnus pulled up outside the address at Thórsgata. The lights were off and the curtains drawn.

  ‘Looks like they are asleep,’ he said.

  Ásta thanked him for the lift and got out of his car. Magnus left her dithering whether to ring the bell or not, and drove back to the Reykjavík Metropolitan Police Headquarters on Hverfisgata. He summoned Árni and Vigdís into the conference room, and gave the assistant prosecutor, Rannveig, a quick call to join them.

  ‘So what was the volcano like?’ asked Vigdís.

  ‘Haven’t you seen it yet?’ asked Árni. ‘I went up there just after it erupted. It’s pretty cool.’

  ‘It had gone quiet this morning,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Really?’ said Árni. ‘That’s a bad sign. It means Katla is about to blow.’

  Magnus paused a moment. He had heard of Katla and the mayhem it had caused when it last erupted in 1918. In fact he had noticed the posters all over the Hvolsvöllur police station detailing evacuation plans should the volcano erupt again and a jökulhlaup flood the local area. ‘Are you sure about that, Árni?’

  ‘He’s guessing,’ said Vigdís.

  ‘I saw this guy on TV—’ began Árni.

  Magnus held up his hand. ‘The main point is that the overnight snow did a pretty good job of obliterating any signs of what happened last night. Certainly no tyre tracks. If anything was dropped, we can’t see it.’

  ‘Hey, was Edda leading the forensics team?’ asked Árni. ‘I heard she’s back from Quantico.’

  ‘Er, yes,’ said Magnus. Quantico was the FBI’s academy in Virginia; presumably Edda had just returned from a course there.

  ‘Impressive, eh? She’d keep you warm in a blizzard up a mountain.’

  ‘Oh, please, Árni,’ said Vigdís, rolling her eyes. Whatever those eye muscles were called, Magnus thought, Vigdís got to exercise them a lot working with Árni.

  ‘I think she has a pretty cold day ahead of her. OK, Vigdís, what did you find out about Freeflow?’

  ‘They have been very active in the last three years. They started in 2007 publishing leaked United Nations documents which suggested that the United States, Britain and France were holding back from taking action in Darfur because of fears of getting involved in another war. That was followed up with about twenty or so other leaks, some of them big news, some of them less so.’

  ‘Wait a minute. Was all this information in Icelandic?’ Magnus asked. He was sceptical about Vigdís’s professed lack of English.

  ‘I’ve got a dictionary,’ said Vigdís. ‘And Darfur is the same word in either language.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Magnus. For Vigdís, life was a battle to prove that she could be black and an Icelander. Not speaking English was the way she had chosen years ago to prove the point, although Magnus was sure she actually understood the language pretty well. But it was a sore point, so he decided to shut up and pretend not to notice. ‘Sorry. What about these other leaks?’

  ‘Well, there was the publication of Ódinsbanki’s loan book here in Iceland – you probably remember that. Some of the Chinese government’s measures to silence dissidents and a list of the websites they block – the Chinese got very unhappy about that. An investigation into Sabine Dumont, the Belgian Finance Minister, and her dodgy past. An Italian corruption scandal—’

  ‘Is that news?’ asked Magnus.

  ‘Hey, we Icelanders are hardly in a position to complain, are we?’

  ‘True,’ said Magnus. Before the kreppa, as Icelanders called the financial crisis of 2008, Iceland had prided itself on being rated the least corrupt country in the world. Since the kreppa, they knew they were not.

  ‘There was a big scandal about arms exports to Zimbabwe breaking sanctions,’ Vigdís went on. ‘The Luxembourg subsidiary of a German bank laundering money . . .’

  ‘Anything against the United States?’ Magnus asked. ‘Anything that might interest the CIA?’

  ‘Not really, apart from the Darfur leak right at the beginning. And there are the handbooks of a bunch of secret student clubs at colleges in America. They sound very strange.’

  ‘Fraternities?’ said Magnus with a smile. ‘They are very strange. But not really something the CIA would bother themselves with. Nor the FBI for that matter.’

  ‘OK, but I suppose the other stuff would interest them. They are interested in pretty much everything, right?’

  ‘I guess so,’ said Magnus. ‘I imagine someone like Erika Zinn is bound to be paranoid about them.’

  ‘Perhaps with good cause,’ said Vigdís.

  ‘Do you want me to get in touch with them?’ asked Árni.

  ‘With the CIA?’ Magnus couldn’t hide his surprise.

  ‘Sure. I could call the US Embassy in Reykjavík. Ask to speak to someone.’

  ‘No, Árni, I do not want you to indulge your espionage fantasies. I think it would be a thoroughly bad idea to get in touch with the CIA; it would just make things more political. But if we do, we will do it through official channels.’ Magnus turned to Vigdís. ‘What about Erika Zinn herself? Anything from Interpol?’

  ‘Yes. I mentioned the Italian corruption case. In 2007 there was a judicial investigation in Rome into the takeover of a company called Gruppo Cavour. The investigation was dropped, but then Freeflow published details of discussions between government ministers about bribing judges. The Italians didn’t like that. Erika spent a week in jail there three months ago: it looks like she has pissed off some pretty important people in Rome. She was released, but she is still officially under investigation.’
/>   ‘No outstanding warrant for her arrest?’

  ‘No,’ said Vigdís.

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘But Dieter Schroff has a couple of convictions for hacking into computers. Been to jail twice, once in 1991 and once in 2000. Let out in 2003 and nothing since then.’

  The door opened and Rannveig, the assistant prosecutor, came in. She was a red-haired woman in her late twenties, hardworking and effective.

  ‘Did you get the warrant?’ Magnus asked.

  ‘No,’ said Rannveig. ‘At least not yet. The judge is thinking about it.’

  ‘Thinking about it?’ Magnus was surprised. Icelanders didn’t like to think about things. They took quick decisions. Sometimes with good results, sometimes with bad, but as a rule they didn’t like to dither. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Viktor Símonarson got to the District Court the same time I did,’ said Rannveig. ‘He objected to the search warrant, in particular to the warrant to search Freeflow’s computers. It’s the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.’

  ‘But from what I understand that’s just a resolution before Parliament. It hasn’t changed the laws yet, has it?’

  Rannveig shrugged.

  ‘I hope the judge told him to piss off?’

  ‘He didn’t, I’m afraid. He needs to consult. But we should hear soon.’

  ‘We need to know what Freeflow is working on!’ cried Magnus in frustration. ‘Why they are in Iceland. Doesn’t he get that?’

  ‘Oh, he gets that all right, Magnús,’ said Rannveig reprovingly. ‘It’s just that he also gets the rights of journalists to protect their sources.’

  ‘OK, Rannveig, I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. ‘What about arresting them?’

  ‘On what charge? We don’t have any evidence to suggest that any of them committed the murder, do we?’

  Magnus paused, thinking. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘What about obstruction of justice? Article one hundred and twelve.’ The Icelandic Penal Code was still fresh in his mind after the six months he had spent learning it.

  ‘Difficult,’ said Rannveig.

  ‘But can’t we just bring them in and hold them for twenty-four hours before we go to a judge?’ That was the way that Icelandic law worked as far as Magnus understood it. He had seen it in action many times before over the last year. For all their relative leniency with convicted criminals, suspects had fewer rights than in the US.

  ‘In this case you would have to be very careful before you do that,’ said Rannveig.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Magnus conceded. ‘We need to see Baldur.’

  ‘Here he is,’ said Vigdís.

  Inspector Baldur Jakobsson strode into the conference room. A tall, bald man, with a bit of a stoop and a long lugubrious face, he did not seem happy to see Magnus. He took a seat at the conference table.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Good. Because I wanted to talk to you,’ said Baldur. ‘That was a right mess of things you made last night. It never makes sense to assault politicians.’

  ‘Árni was provoked,’ said Magnus.

  ‘You shouldn’t have let the situation get out of hand,’ said Baldur. ‘None of you should. Tell me about the crime scene.’

  Magnus told the inspector about the lack of likely clues, given the fresh snow.

  When he had finished, Baldur nodded. ‘Well, let’s hope the forensics people find something. Now, I’m sorry, I know you have been driving around all night, but I want you back in Hvolsvöllur. We need someone there to liaise with the local police on the ground.’

  ‘Hey, hold on right there,’ said Magnus. ‘The key information we need is in Reykjavík in that house on Thórsgata. I’m waiting for Rannveig to come up with the warrant. And I want to interview them again. Especially Erika and Franz, the kid who was by himself on the volcano for a while.’

  ‘I can do that with Vigdís and Árni,’ said Baldur.

  ‘But I’m in charge of this investigation!’ said Magnus.

  ‘No you’re not,’ said Baldur, one corner of his thin lips twitching upwards. ‘I am.’

  ‘But you don’t speak English!’ protested Magnus. ‘The witnesses are foreigners, or at least most of them are. I need to talk to them.’

  ‘I speak reasonable English,’ said Baldur. ‘And Árni can help me. Look, if you get bored in the police station you can go back to the crime scene, see what you can do to help there.’

  ‘I’m sure Edda could use the help,’ Árni said with a wink. Everyone around the table ignored him.

  Róbert, one of the other detectives in the unit, put his head around the door. ‘The Big Salmon has been on the phone. He wants to see you in his office, Magnús. Now.’

  The twitch on Baldur’s lips spread to both sides. Magnus sighed and stood up. He wanted to focus on who had killed Nico and why, not on defending himself and his detectives. He was tired and he was getting grumpy.

  The National Police Commissioner’s office was close to police headquarters, on the other side of a busy junction. It was in a modern building with a great view over the bay. Magnus could see Mount Esja basking in the sunshine and, way over to the north-west, the white cap of the Snaefells Glacier floating above the sea.

  The Commissioner, Snorri Gudmundsson, was an energetic man in his late fifties, short with thick grey hair brushed back in a Soviet-style bouffant. Magnus had a lot of time for him. It was he, after all, who had requested Magnus’s presence in Iceland. Although Magnus had had some successes over the last twelve months, they had not been trouble-free, and Snorri had stood by him. He was perhaps too concerned with politics for Magnus’s tastes, but that’s what you expected from a police commissioner.

  As he entered the Commissioner’s office, Magnus prepared himself for the inevitable bawling out.

  The Commissioner looked stern. ‘I’ve had Viktor Símonarson on the phone,’ he began.

  ‘I guessed as much,’ said Magnus.

  ‘He says Detective Árni assaulted him.’

  ‘Is he pressing charges?’

  ‘No. Is it true?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  And so Magnus did. The Commissioner listened closely, wincing at the word ‘nigger’.

  ‘Magnús, you let things get out of hand. Viktor is a troublemaker, but an extremely well-connected troublemaker. He has many friends in the government.’

  ‘Yeah, I figured that,’ said Magnus.

  ‘We are going to have to launch a disciplinary inquiry into Árni’s actions.’

  ‘I don’t think you should do that, Snorri.’

  Magnus would much rather call the Big Salmon ‘Commissioner’ or, at the very least, ‘sir’: the Icelandic custom of using first names, however important the person, was hard to get used to.

  ‘We can’t just stand by while our officers assault parliamentarians.’

  ‘No. And I will speak to Árni. What he did was unacceptable. But he was standing up for a fellow officer. That kind of racism cannot be left unchallenged, in my opinion. If you discipline him you will be condoning it.’

  ‘That’s absurd. Árni broke the rules. He should get punished.’

  Magnus realized he had gone a bit too far. ‘OK, frankly sometimes he’s an idiot. But Árni took a bullet for me a year ago. He stood up for Vigdís last night against someone much more powerful than him. I admire the guy.’

  The Commissioner shook his head.

  Magnus didn’t give up. ‘If Viktor was pressing charges I agree you would have to do something. But he’s not. And there’s a reason for that. He knows he’s in the wrong.’

  The Commissioner smiled. ‘OK, OK. But have a word with Árni. And as for you, Magnús . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Here it came. Magnus wondered if he would get by with a ticking off, or whether he was in for something worse. He had already got a result with Árni, though.

  ‘I want you to lead this investigation. Reporting to Chief Superintendent Kristján
.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look surprised, Magnús?’ The Commissioner was smiling.

  ‘Actually, I am,’ said Magnus. ‘What about Baldur?’

  ‘The crime was not committed in the Metropolitan area, it’s in Hvolsvöllur’s jurisdiction. Chief Superintendent Kristján is a very capable man – I think you and he will work well together. And this is exactly the kind of case for which we have you here. Baldur will support you with any inquiries you make in the Reykjavík area. My understanding is that this Freeflow group are staying in town?’

  ‘Yes. On Thórsgata.’

  ‘I have every confidence in you as an investigating officer, Magnús,’ the Commissioner went on. ‘But so far I haven’t been impressed by your political sensitivity.’ The Commissioner’s blue eyes twinkled. ‘I’m sure you know what I mean. You do need to tread carefully here. Viktor could make life very difficult for you. For all of us.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Magnus. His instinct was to burst into the house on Thórsgata, preferably with the ‘Viking Squad’ SWAT team breaking down the doors, and cart everyone off to the cells until they broke down and told him everything. But even he realized that that was not exactly what the Commissioner had in mind. ‘Given that, can I ask your advice?’

  ‘By all means.’ Snorri looked pleased. Like many senior officers he missed the excitement of a live case.

  ‘I don’t understand what the problem is with this Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. Parliament hasn’t actually changed any of the laws yet, has it?’

  ‘That’s true. But Parliament will pass the resolution in a couple of months and then the laws will be changed. The problem is that the sponsors of the initiative, and it’s not just Viktor, there are lots of others, would love a cause to rally around, and if we are not careful we could give them just that. So the judge is being very careful.’

  ‘OK,’ said Magnus. ‘But I would like to talk to Rannveig about taking the Freeflow team in for questioning. If not on suspicion of murder, at least then for obstruction of justice. What do you think?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to find out what they are working on. Who their enemies are.’

  ‘I don’t think bringing them in is a good idea. With Viktor Símonarson acting as their lawyer, I think it is highly unlikely they will tell you anything, don’t you?’ said Snorri. ‘They’ll just sit tight.’