Michael Ridpath - 66 Degrees North

He was reading from one of a pile of files on his desk. There were several piles more behind him. Electric cables ran between the papers over the floor, connecting up to a mess of computer equipment. The office had a feel of haphazard industry to it.

They spoke in English.

‘Can you tell us something about your investigations into Óskar Gunnarsson?’ Magnus began.

‘Certainly,’ said the Prosecutor. ‘We haven’t narrowed down our focus on to him specifically yet, but we are looking closely at Ódinsbanki, as we are all the other banks.’

‘Fraud?’ Magnus said. ‘Money laundering?’

‘Nothing that straightforward, I’m afraid. It’s more market manipulation: lending money to related companies and individuals to buy shares in the bank.’

‘Is that illegal?’ Piper asked.

The Prosecutor shrugged. ‘That is the big question. It’s certainly wrong, and in many countries it would definitely be against the law. But Iceland doesn’t have very sophisticated securities legislation. It partly depends how many of these transactions were publicly disclosed.’

The Prosecutor picked up a pencil and drummed it on his desk. ‘It’s also how the Icelandic banks managed to grow so big so fast. One investment company borrowed money to invest in another, which borrowed yet more money to invest in a third, which borrowed money to invest in the banks that were lending them the money in the first place. Before you know it a hundred million krónur has become ten billion.’

‘Sounds complicated,’ said Piper.

‘It is. Especially when it’s all done through a web of holding companies in the Virgin Islands. It’s going to take us years to unravel it all.’

‘Years? So it wasn’t the case that Óskar Gunnarsson was just about to be prosecuted for something?’ Piper asked.

‘No. Certainly not yet. Perhaps down the line. We are not going to be rushed. The public may want blood, but if we do bring a prosecution, I want it done properly.’

Although he was wearing a dark suit, the Special Prosecutor looked uncomfortable in it. It didn’t fit quite right. Magnus thought of Colby’s investment banking and hot-shot lawyer friends back in Boston. They would run rings around this guy. But he knew better than to underestimate the value of patient, dogged police work. It would be interesting to see what happened. And he admired the Icelanders for going outside the establishment for their prosecutor.

‘We have put together a list of Icelanders who we believe Gunnarsson saw in the last few months in London.’ Piper handed the Prosecutor the list. ‘Do you recognize any of the names?’

The Special Prosecutor peered at the names through his glasses. ‘Yes, I recognize nearly all of them. Businessmen, bankers, lawyers. It’s Iceland’s business elite.’

‘How do they operate, this business elite?’ Piper asked. ‘Do they all gang up together to protect their own, or are there rivalries?’

The Prosecutor laughed. ‘Rivalries would be putting it mildly. Some of these guys bear grudges going back decades. Look, I’m not part of this world, which is why I have this job, but I am beginning to understand it.

‘There are the old establishment families, sometimes known as “The Octopus” for the tentacles they wrapped around Icelandic businesses throughout the twentieth century. They owned the shipping companies and the importers and distributors. They are powerful, but low key. Then there are the new guys, the young Viking Raiders who built up the big network of companies over the last decade. They are the guys who bought all those businesses in your country: Hamleys, House of Fraser, Mothercare, the supermarket chain Iceland, Moss Bros, even West Ham United. There are three groups of them and they ended up owning stakes in three of the big banks. And then there is our former Prime Minister, Ólafur Tómasson. Some of these businessmen were his friends, some his enemies, he held serious grudges against some of them, gave others preferential treatment in privatizations.’

‘And how does Óskar Gunnarsson fit into all of this?’ Magnus asked.

‘He did a good job of being friends with just about everyone. Ódinsbanki wasn’t allied with one group or the other, it did deals with all of them.’

‘So he didn’t have any specific enemies?’

The Prosecutor shook his head. ‘You know, people sometimes talk about the Icelandic mafia. And it’s true that all the big families here in Iceland know each other. But there is absolutely no violence. We are not talking about the Italian mafia here, or the Russian. I suppose it’s always possible that an individual could be violent or a murderer, that’s possible in any society. But as a group, these guys don’t kill people.’

‘And what about the Russians? There are rumours in London that the Icelanders were using Russian money.’

The Prosecutor shook his head. ‘A couple of these Viking Raiders made their money from a bottling plant in St Petersburg in the nineties. That’s perhaps how those rumours started. They probably still have Russian contacts. But the rest, no.’

Piper sighed. ‘Thank you very much. Let us know if you turn up anything on any of those names.’

‘We’ll keep a close eye on Ódinsbanki,’ the Prosecutor said. ‘And if anything like a motive for Óskar’s murder emerges, I’ll let you know. But there is nothing there at the moment.’

‘One last question,’ said Magnus.

The Prosecutor raised his eyebrows.

‘Was Óskar a crook?’

The Prosecutor sighed. ‘He didn’t steal from anyone. He didn’t hurt anyone physically, at least not that I’m aware of. But if he and his friends did set up a web of offshore companies to invest in each other’s companies secretly, he broke the rules. And that is more than just a technicality, it matters. It means the whole edifice of Iceland’s boom was built on deceit.’

He gave a rueful smile. ‘But you can’t just blame the bankers. All of us Icelanders have to ask ourselves what we were doing borrowing money we could never repay. And we’re just going to have to pay it all back.’

Magnus leaned back away from the animated chatter around the table. He felt pleasantly drunk. They had all been drinking for hours. They had started off with a couple of bottles of wine at Ingileif’s place before going out to dinner, and then on to a bar on Laugavegur. The evening would cost him a small fortune, but it seemed like the right thing to take the visiting cop out, especially on a Friday night. In the current atmosphere of cost cutting there was no way he could ask the department to spring for it.

That afternoon, together with Thorkell, Sharon Piper and he had visited Óskar’s parents at their house in Gardabaer. He was struck by how ordinary they were. Whereas Emilía had looked like a wealthy sister of a Viking Raider, their parents were a respectable, unassuming couple. Óskar’s father was still working as a civil engineer for a government department, his mother had retired as an administrator in the tax office. They were both devastated. It was clear that their son had meant everything to them, that they had worshipped him ever since he had been a small boy, given him the self-confidence to succeed.

They were glad of the visit by the police officer from London. Sharon had done a good job of assuring them that the British police were putting everything into the investigation. She also managed to throw in some of her own questions about any personal problems that Óskar might have had, any enemies, but nothing new had emerged. The parents had met both girlfriends: they were overawed by the Russian, and thought the Venezuelan incredibly exotic. They were clearly proud, but a little anxious about their son’s jet-setting lifestyle. The anxiety had turned to guilt: if they had somehow kept their beloved Óskar in Iceland, he would still be alive.