Michael Ridpath - 66 Degrees North

‘Wonder what?’

‘What people like you do all day.’

‘I’m writing a novel,’ Sindri said. ‘It’s a reworking of Independent People by Halldór Laxness for the twenty-first century. I’m finding it kind of tough.’

‘You call that kind of tough?’ said Freyja, her eyes alight. ‘Some of us have worked all our lives. Some of us have other people to feed. I sometimes wish people like you would get up off your fat arses and do something.’

Sindri’s cheeks burned. He felt like he had been slapped. Anger fought with shame and shame won.

Freyja put her face in her hands. Sindri kept quiet. She looked up. Smiled thinly. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, Sindri. I just try so hard not to let all this get on top of me. And I succeed, really I do. I never shout at anyone, not the bank, not my kids, not even the stupid sheep. Of course the person I would really like to shout at is Matti. But I can’t do that.’

She looked Sindri straight in the eye. ‘So I shout at you. I’m sorry.’

‘I probably deserve it,’ said Sindri. He reached over and touched her hand. ‘I’ll keep my ears open. There’s a chance I might hear something about somewhere cheap to live.’

‘Thanks,’ said Freyja. ‘Anyway, I must go. I’m talking to everyone I know in Reykjavík. Something will turn up.’

‘I’m sure it will,’ said Sindri. But he wasn’t.

Long after Freyja had left, Sindri sat at the small dining table staring up at his painting of Bjartur carrying his sick daughter across the moor.

He would do what he could do.

Sharon Piper was frustrated as she returned to CID in Kensington police station on Earl’s Court Road. Virginie Rogeon was out. And her mobile phone was switched off. Sharon had knocked on doors until she finally found someone, another French woman, who thought that Virginie had just left on holiday for India. The husband, Alain, worked for an American investment bank.

Piper thought her best bet was to try to get to Virginie through her husband’s BlackBerry. Which meant she needed to call around the American investment banks in London to find him.

‘How’s it going, Sharon? Anything from Iceland?’

Piper looked up to see a short bald man hovering around her desk. DI Middleton, her boss. He looked worried.

She sighed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. We might have a lead on the courier who was asking for Gunnarsson’s address. An Icelandic student at the LSE named Ísak Samúelsson. He fits the description, but without a firm ID we can’t be sure. I’m trying to locate the French neighbour who saw him, but she seems to have gone on holiday. To India.’

‘Well do what you can. We’re getting nowhere with Tanya and her Russian friends. Have the Icelandic police got anything on this kid?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Piper. ‘Not really.’

‘If you want any help, just ask,’ Middleton said. ‘We need a breakthrough here.’

Piper watched her boss go into his small glass-encased office, and stare out of his window. It was all very well for Magnus to plead for her to keep his suspicions to herself. And he was right, they were no more than suspicions. But her loyalty to her boss must be stronger than her loyalty to the Yank, or Icelander or whoever he was. Besides which, Julian Lister was an important man. It was her duty to pass on any ideas or leads, however far fetched. It might stir up a hornet’s nest: MI5, SO15. Or they might just ignore her. But she had to do it.

She opened the door to his office.

‘Guv’nor. There is one thing.’

MAGNUS GRABBED A beer and turned on the TV. The investigation was swirling around his brain. He was frustrated. He knew there were connections out there but he just didn’t know where to find them. He had had Árni tracking down every bit of video footage of the January protests that he could. He needed to get a better picture of the younger man who seemed to be following Harpa, Björn and Sindri as they walked away from the demo.

He and Vigdís had been going through the police files on some of the so-called anarchists who had been involved in the protests. They had seen some of them on the video in balaclavas throwing flagstones at the police. Most were just troublemakers looking for an excuse to have fun. Some seemed to be following an ideology, but it wasn’t well expressed. One or two were friends of Sindri.

Possible leads to follow up, but Magnus doubted they would come to anything. Unless one of them had been with Sindri, Harpa and Björn that evening. That would be interesting.

He had been hopeful that Sharon would get an ID of Ísak as the courier in Onslow Gardens. She had called explaining that the neighbour had gone on holiday, and how she was trying to get in touch with her.

All they could do was wait. Once the witness’s husband checked in it would be easy for Piper to send the photograph she had taken of Ísak electronically. Once he checked in.

There was a discussion on TV about Julian Lister. The doctors were now saying there was a chance he might pull through. And all the Icelanders were falling over themselves to pass on their good wishes. The nation had been struck by a huge dollop of guilt.

There was no getting away from it, the Icelanders were essentially a peaceful, non-violent people, terrified by the thought that they should appear to be otherwise. Magnus could understand why the authorities would not want the slightest hint of a terrorist investigation. Because if Magnus was right, and there was a little group of Icelanders who had a list of powerful people they wanted to kill, that was what it was.

Terrorism.

His phone rang. ‘Magnús.’

‘Hey, Magnus, you’ve gone all Icelandic.’

‘Ollie! How the hell are you? I got your call yesterday. Sorry I didn’t get back to you.’

‘No problem. How is the land of our ancestors? Still bubbling away?’

‘I guess so. I’ve yet to see my first volcanic eruption. But the hot tubs are nice.’

‘How’s the course going?’

‘OK,’ said Magnus. ‘Although I’m working on a real live case at the moment.’

‘Someone jerked off in the skyr ?’

‘Nice.’

‘Sorry. Hey, you know it was Dad’s birthday yesterday?’

‘Huh?’ Magnus sat up. ‘Was it? Yeah, I guess it was.’ He felt a twinge of guilt. He’d forgotten.

‘Yeah. He’d be sixty. I can’t imagine him at sixty, can you?’

‘I can, actually,’ said Magnus, smiling. His father had been in his mid-forties when he died. His fair hair had been turning quietly grey. The smile lines around his eyes had been deepening. ‘Yeah, I can.’

‘I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently.’

‘So have I,’ said Magnus. He took a deep breath. Ollie had a right to know, or as much of a right as Magnus.

Magnus talked for twenty minutes, telling his brother about Sibba and Unnur. And then about their grandfather’s reaction to Ragnar leaving their mother. And then about the deaths of the families of Bjarnarhöfn and Hraun over the years: Benedikt’s father, their great-grandfather Gunnar, Benedikt himself.

‘Christ!’ said Ollie. ‘So you think Grandpa might have had something to do with Dad’s murder?’

‘I don’t know yet. Unnur says definitely not. I need to do some more digging.’

‘Don’t,’ said Ollie.

‘What do you mean, don’t?’

‘I just don’t want you to.’

‘But I have to know! We have to know.’

There was silence on the phone.

‘Ollie?’

‘Magnus.’ Magnus heard his brother’s voice crack. ‘I’m asking you, man. I’m pleading with you. Just don’t go there.’