Michael Ridpath - 66 Degrees North

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.’

MARÍA HALLDÓRSDÓTTIR LIVED in a quiet street in Thingholt, on the other side of the hill from Magnus’s place, facing the City airport. The houses were bigger here, grander by Icelandic standards. The little street was full of Mercedes and BMW SUVs, Land Rover Discoveries and outside María’s house, a white Porsche Cayenne. Magnus’s Range Rover looked quite at home.

The wind had picked up, and Magnus and Vigdís had to lean into it on the short walk from the car to the front door. Magnus rang the bell and María answered in just a few seconds. She was tall, slim, with long dark hair and long legs clad in tight jeans and tan boots.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Ingileif is here.’

‘Ingileif?’ Magnus said, surprised.

‘Hi, Magnús.’ Ingileif appeared from a sitting room and kissed him. ‘Oh, hello, Vigdís. You don’t mind me being here, do you, Magnús? María is my friend.’