Far North - Michael Ridpath [124]
But rather than be braced by this thought, it depressed him.
Ingileif was part of the life he was building in Iceland. Unpredictable, beautiful, untameable.
Mind you, he had been right to be angry at her. A defence lawyer in the States would run rings around a prosecution if they ever found out what she had done. Iceland had a less adversarial system, it would be a judge who would question the evidence and how it had been obtained. But if the whole case collapsed because of Ingileif’s activities, Magnus would be buying a one-way ticket back to Boston.
Yet she had found out something. There was to be another victim: Ingólfur Arnarson.
There was a slight chance that this might be the target’s real name, a very slight chance. Much more likely it was a codename.
Ingólfur Arnarson was famous as the first settler in Iceland. He had sailed there from Norway in 874, and as he approached the island he had cast his wooden ‘home pillars’ into the sea, vowing to settle wherever they washed up. It took three years for his slaves to find them, but eventually they were discovered in a smoky bay, Reykjavík: reykur meaning smoke and vík bay. A fine statue of the Viking stood on a mound downtown.
The question was, who did the name Ingólfur Arnarson represent in the twenty-first century?
There were a number of obvious candidates. The young men who had built up business empires overseas in the previous decade were known in Iceland as útrásarvíkingar – literally ‘Outvasion Vikings’. They recalled the great Vikings who had set forth from Norway a thousand years before to use their youth, vitality and aggression to make their fortunes. Men like Ingólfur Arnarson.
And like Óskar Gunnarsson. As he himself had recognized by commissioning the sculpture of a Viking riding a Harley Davidson in the lobby of his family office.
The trouble was there were several other candidates for Ingólfur. But which one did Sindri have in mind?
People would have to be warned, which meant that Magnus was going to have to admit how he came upon the information. He could imagine Baldur’s ridicule, quite justified, of Magnus’s investigative techniques. For a moment Magnus thought about claiming that the information came from a confidential informant. But that wouldn’t wash.
He made himself a cup of coffee and called Vigdís at the station. She had just got in. He told her what Ingileif had been up to the previous night.
‘Impressive work,’ said Vigdís. ‘Unconventional.’
‘Damn stupid, if you ask me,’ said Magnus.
‘And probably if you ask Baldur,’ said Vigdís. ‘But at least we know for sure Sindri is involved.’
‘Any ideas who Ingólfur Arnarson might be?’ Magnus asked. He outlined his own view that it might be one of the Outvaders.
‘I think you are right,’ said Vigdís. ‘I don’t know whether one of them is more like Ingólfur than any of the others. I don’t know them well enough, they all seem like a bunch of greedy fat cats to me. The Special Prosecutor might have an idea.’
‘Yes, I remember him talking to me about them. Or there’s Óskar’s sister Emilía,’ said Magnus. ‘She probably knows them all personally. Find out what she thinks.’
‘OK. We should also go through the phone book, just in case. There are bound to be some people whose real name is Ingólfur Arnarson.’
‘Worth checking. And you could ask Frikki when you speak to him again this morning. Let’s hope he’s more talkative after his night in the cells.’
‘We’re going to have to tell Baldur,’ said Vigdís. ‘These people are in danger. Or at least one of them is. And we don’t know which one.’
‘Leave it with me,’ said Magnus.
‘Before you go, I saw Björn’s brother yesterday. He was in Tenerife for a week with his girlfriend, came back Monday. Iceland Express confirms it. They both flew out, they both flew back.’
‘Well, that pretty much rules him out,’ said Magnus. ‘Speak to you later.’
He took a deep breath and called Baldur. He told him about Ingileif, Sindri and Ingólfur Arnarson. He got the ridicule he expected, but not for the reason he expected