Far North - Michael Ridpath [112]
‘Did she believe you?’
‘She knew I was acting a bit weird, but she didn’t know why and I didn’t tell her. That’s the best way to deal with parents. Never explain. Keep them guessing.’ Ísak sipped his coffee and glanced at Björn. ‘So, Sindri tells me there’s a problem with Harpa?’
Björn didn’t like Ísak, never had. He was too cool. Too self-possessed for a student. Sindri wore his passion on his sleeve. Ísak’s was in there, it had to be to do the things they were doing, but it was a cool, calculated determination to follow a carefully worked out plan. It was as if Ísak was trying to win an intellectual argument and willing to go to any lengths to prove himself right. Björn wasn’t trying to prove anything: he was just bringing justice upon those people who had destroyed his life and the lives of so many other Icelanders.
‘Yes,’ he said, turning to Sindri. ‘She’s got this idea that we, or rather you, Sindri, are behind the shooting of Óskar and Lister. She spoke to the kid Frikki the other day; he was the one who put the idea in her head. She suspected me as well, but she seems to believe my innocence now. Anyway, she wants to go to the police.’
‘You have to tell her not to,’ said Sindri. ‘She’ll just get herself locked up.’
‘She thinks there might be another victim,’ said Björn. ‘She wants to stop us before we get to one.’
‘She thinks, she doesn’t know,’ said Sindri.
‘Yes. But she’s going to talk to them. I know she is.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Ísak quietly.
Björn took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to take her away for a couple of days. There’s a hut I know in one of the mountain passes near Grundarfjördur. It’s totally isolated. If I can keep her there for tomorrow and the day after, that will be long enough.’
‘Until we’ve dealt with Ingólfur Arnarson you mean?’ said Sindri.
Björn nodded.
‘How are you going to persuade her to go there?’ Ísak asked.
Björn winced. ‘Charm. Persuasiveness. And if that doesn’t work, Rohypnol.’
‘Rohypnol? Where did you get that?’ asked Sindri.
‘A mate in Reykjavík. A fisherman.’
‘You have dodgy mates.’
Björn shrugged. ‘Don’t we all?’
‘OK,’ said Ísak. ‘That’s fine for the next couple of days. But what happens after that?’
The student was really irritating Björn. But that was the key question. ‘Ingólfur Arnarson is our last target, right? The climax. Once he has been dealt with I can persuade Harpa there is no point in going to the police. There will be no one left at risk. All she will be doing is putting herself and the rest of us in jail.’
‘Do you think she’ll go with that?’ asked Sindri.
‘She might.’
‘And if she doesn’t?’ Ísak asked.
Björn shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It seems to me the police are going to catch us anyway. They are getting closer. They’ve started asking questions about Ísak. Once we’ve got Ingólfur Arnarson maybe we should just accept what’s coming to us.’
‘No!’ said Ísak. ‘When we started this we never intended to give ourselves up at the end. That’s why we chose to operate abroad. The aim was always to walk away once we were finished.’
‘Maybe we’ll start something,’ said Sindri. ‘You know, a real revolution, not a pots-and-pans one.’
‘I think it will take more time,’ said Ísak. ‘It seems to me that the people are too busy apologizing to the British.’
‘How do you know?’ said Sindri. ‘You’ve been in London.’
‘I can read the Icelandic news sites on the Internet.’
‘Yeah, well, there’s other stuff on the web. Some people are getting really angry. There’s an Icesave meeting this afternoon. We’ll see what happens there.’
‘Are you going?’ said Ísak.
‘Of course I’m going,’ said Sindri. ‘I want to be there when it happens.’
Ísak leaned forward. ‘Look, Sindri. I believe that capitalism is dead as much as you do. But whereas Marx and Engels thought it would die through oppressing the workers, it turns out that it is strangling itself through debt. And it’s here in Iceland where there is way too much debt. We’ve OD’d, we’re the first to