Far North - Michael Ridpath [113]
Björn watched the two of them argue. He had no views on a revolution. The idea had appealed briefly at first, but all he had really wanted to do was to make sure that the bastards who had ruined his country were brought to justice. Not all of them, that was impossible, but enough of them to make the point.
‘Which brings me back to Harpa,’ Ísak said. ‘We need a better plan.’
‘Like what?’ said Björn. ‘You’re not suggesting we kill her, are you?’
Ísak held Björn’s eyes.
‘Of course Ísak isn’t suggesting that we kill her,’ Sindri said. ‘Are you, Ísak?’
‘No,’ said Ísak, without conviction.
‘Because she’s a totally innocent bystander,’ Björn said. ‘I mean Julian Lister deserves it. Óskar deserved it. Even Gabríel Örn deserved it. But not Harpa.’
‘Of course not,’ said Sindri. ‘Let’s figure it out once Ingólfur Arnarson has been dealt with, eh?’
They agreed to leave the Pearl one at a time. Björn went first, he had things to do.
Sindri and Ísak stared out over the airfield and the Atlantic beyond.
‘You know we are going to have to do something about Harpa,’ Ísak said. ‘Once he drugs her and drags her off somewhere, she’s not going to keep quiet.’
‘She might,’ said Sindri.
‘She won’t,’ said Ísak. ‘You know she won’t.’
‘We can’t kill her, Ísak. Björn’s right. She’s innocent. I can convince myself that killing Óskar or Julian Lister is necessary, that they deserve to die. But not Harpa. She was just the wrong person at the wrong time.’
‘Sindri, it would be nice if the world worked like that, but you know it doesn’t. If a revolution is to be successful, its leaders must be ruthless. You know that. You’ve read your history. Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, even the Africa National Congress in South Africa. There are times when innocent people have to die for the revolution to succeed. Sure, you keep those deaths to a minimum. But you don’t back away from them. Because if you do, you are letting down the people.’
‘Yeah, but this is Iceland, not Russia.’
‘Sindri, I’ve read your book. Three times. It’s good, it’s very good. My father is a member of the Independence Party. He was a Minister. I’ve seen the complacency of the establishment in Iceland, the way they have been seduced by the capitalists, the way that what was one of the most decent, egalitarian societies in Europe has changed into one of the most unequal. My father and his mates were responsible for that. Capitalism is a sickness, and our country has got that sickness very bad. We’re close to death.’
Sindri frowned.
‘You can’t be squeamish, Sindri. You of all people should know that. You taught me that. From the moment that banker Gabríel Örn died, we crossed a line. We can’t go back over it now, not after Óskar Gunnarsson. We’re committed. But at least we are doing it all for a purpose. Don’t sabotage that purpose now. Otherwise everything else we have done becomes a waste of time. Then we really will have been murderers.’
Sindri shook his head and folded his arms. ‘I won’t be a part of killing anybody.’ He corrected himself. ‘Anybody who’s innocent.’
Ísak smiled. ‘Fair enough. I’ll take care of it. I’ve got to disappear anyway, I may as well go up to Grundarfjördur. If I don’t do it there will be no revolution. Capitalism will crush Iceland. And it will be our fault. We will be responsible. Are you going to stop me?’
Sindri didn’t say anything. He avoided Ísak’s eyes.
‘I’m going now,’ said Ísak. ‘You leave in another ten minutes.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
IDENTIFYING THE NURSE was easy. Árni showed the photograph to the woman at reception in the National Hospital. ‘Oh, that’s Íris,’ she said. Within a couple of minutes Árni was in a quiet corner of one of the endless corridors, talking to the woman with the round face and the snub nose.
‘I remember him,’ the nurse said. ‘He’d got tear gas in his eye. He was in quite a lot of pain, that stuff is no joke. He had this