Michael Ridpath: 66 Degrees North

‘You were hiding!’ Magnus protested.

‘Pathetic.’

She straddled him. Her familiar, delightful breasts shook inches away from his face as she laughed, her blonde hair falling loose over her face.

‘How did you get a key?’

‘Oh, do be quiet, Magnús. I’ve been waiting here half an hour for you. And you have far too many clothes on.’

‘But-’

She kissed him. Deeply. He raised his hands to her bare hips. He didn’t care how she had got in. He wanted her. Now.

A muffled crackling came from his phone, which had dropped to the floor. Ingileif broke away and picked it up.

‘Yes?’

‘Give it to me!’ Magnus cried, reaching for the phone.

Ingileif turned away. ‘I am sorry, Sergeant Magnús is busy right now. He’ll be with you as soon as he has finished. He probably won’t be more than a couple of minutes. Doesn’t usually take him longer than that.’

‘Ingileif!’ Magnus pushed her off his lap and on to the floor. Ingileif triumphantly hit the red disconnect button just before Magnus could grab the phone.

‘That was a Chief Superintendent someone or other,’ Ingileif said. ‘Don’t worry, he said he quite understood.’

Magnus picked her up off the floor and threw her down on to the bed.

It is extremely difficult to make love to a woman who won’t stop laughing.

‘Can I watch LazyTown now?’

Harpa glanced at her son’s plate, which was empty.

‘Did you watch TV at Granny’s house?’

‘No.’ Markús shook his curly head and looked straight at her with his big clear brown eyes. Harpa knew that small children often lied, but not Markús. He never lied, at least not to her. Where did he get that honesty from? Not from his father, that was for sure.

And not from her.

‘All right, off you go.’

Harpa followed her child as he scampered into the living room and she slotted the DVD into the player.

She went back into the kitchen and stacked their dishes in the dishwasher. She liked to eat with her son, even though it was early.

From out of the kitchen window she looked out over Faxaflói Bay. To the right, behind the oil storage tanks, was the city of Reykjavík, a jumble of brightly coloured houses overlooked by the Hallgrímskirkja, its majestic sweeping spire boxed in by scaffolding. Straight across the bay squatted Mount Esja, a horizontal rampart of granite, still free of snow at this time of year. And to the left lay the small town of Akranes, stuck on the end of a peninsula, a thin trail of smoke emerging from its tall cement-works chimney.

Her little house was right on Nordurströnd, the road that ran along the north-eastern edge of the prosperous suburb of Seltjarnarnes, which was perched on its own promontory sticking out into the bay. The house had been expensive because of the view, but Harpa had been able to take out a big mortgage to cover the cost, a mortgage that she had been easily able to service with her banker’s salary. She should have taken a straightforward repayment mortgage, but like many other Icelanders she had chosen a loan where the principal was linked to inflation. The advantage was that the monthly payments were lower.

The disadvantage was that when inflation was high, for example after a massive devaluation of the currency, the value of the loan soon overtook the value of the house.

She had no banker’s salary any more so she couldn’t afford the payments. The house was now worth less than the mortgage. She was going to lose it, that was inevitable. The only reason she hadn’t lost it already was the government’s temporary edict that the banks had to delay foreclosures until November.

What would happen then? Perhaps the bank would be lenient. Or perhaps she and Markús would end up living with her parents like some teenage mother just out of high school.

If her parents could keep their own house, that is. She knew they had financial difficulties – she was after all responsible for them – she just didn’t know how bad they were. And she was too afraid to ask.

Why had she taken out that stupid mortgage? She had an MBA from Reykjavík University. She knew there was a theoretical risk. She had just been sucked up in the mindless optimism of jam today, jam tomorrow that had swept Iceland.

She switched on the news. Something about ministers threatening to resign over the agreement the government had made to repay the four billion euros it had borrowed from the British government to bail out depositors in Icesave, the London Internet operation of one of the Icelandic banks.

Then she heard a name that was all too familiar.

‘The Icelandic banker, Óskar Gunnarsson, former chairman of Ódinsbanki, has been murdered in his house in London. He was shot.’

Harpa froze, the hot water running over the dish she was rinsing.

‘Óskar Gunnarsson was under investigation by the authorities in Iceland over alleged fraud at Ódinsbanki prior to its nationalization nearly a year ago. It is not clear yet whether his murder had anything to do with the alleged fraud.’

Harpa grabbed her laptop and opened it up, looking for more information. As she waited for the computer to boot up, she thought of the charismatic banker. But she also thought of Gabríel Örn. One murdered banker. Another murdered banker.

Would there ever be a time when she didn’t think of Gabríel Örn?

She checked the BBC website. There were a couple more details. The house was in Onslow Gardens in Kensington. Harpa remembered Óskar buying it just before she finished her two-year stint in London in 2006. At that time he was based in Reykjavík, but spent a lot of time in Britain. Someone had entered the house the night before and shot him. His girlfriend was in the house at the time, but was unharmed.

‘Hello?’ Her front door opened with a clatter. ‘Harpa?’

‘I’m in the kitchen, Dad!’

A moment later her father came in. There was a scampering of feet as Markús rushed into the room and leaped at his grandfather. ‘ Afi !’

Einar Bjarnason swung the boy around like a feather, laughing as he did so. ‘Hey, Markús! How are you? Pleased to see your old grandfather?’

‘I’m watching LazyTown , Afi , do you want to come see it with me?’

‘In a moment, Markús, in a moment.’

The hard weather-beaten face crinkled in a smile. Einar was a fisherman, and when he was still taking his boat out to sea he had had the reputation as one of the toughest captains in the fleet. But not where his grandson was concerned. Or his daughter.

He opened his arms to hug her. With difficulty she pulled herself away from the computer and went over to him. They were the same height, but he was broad and strong, and it was comforting to feel his big meaty hands on her back.

He had always been tender towards her, but he never used to hug her as much as he had over the last few months.

He knew she needed it.

To her surprise, safe in his arms, Harpa began to cry.

Einar broke away to look at her. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

‘The boss of Ódinsbanki has been murdered. Óskar Gunnarsson.’

‘He probably deserved it.’

‘Dad!’ Harpa knew that her father disliked bankers with a passion, especially those who had fired his beloved daughter, but that was a bit callous, even for him.

‘I’m sorry, love, did you know him?’

‘No, not really,’ Harpa said. ‘A bit.’

Einar was looking straight at her, his blue eyes seeing right into her soul. He knows I’m lying, Harpa thought in panic. Just like he knew I was lying when I talked to the police about Gabríel Örn. She felt herself blush.

She stepped back and collapsed on a kitchen chair and started to sob.