Far North - Michael Ridpath [50]
He gave a rueful smile. ‘But you can’t just blame the bankers. All of us Icelanders have to ask ourselves what we were doing borrowing money we could never repay. And we’re just going to have to pay it all back.’
Magnus leaned back away from the animated chatter around the table. He felt pleasantly drunk. They had all been drinking for hours. They had started off with a couple of bottles of wine at Ingileif’s place before going out to dinner, and then on to a bar on Laugavegur. The evening would cost him a small fortune, but it seemed like the right thing to take the visiting cop out, especially on a Friday night. In the current atmosphere of cost cutting there was no way he could ask the department to spring for it.
That afternoon, together with Thorkell, Sharon Piper and he had visited Óskar’s parents at their house in Gardabaer. He was struck by how ordinary they were. Whereas Emilía had looked like a wealthy sister of a Viking Raider, their parents were a respectable, unassuming couple. Óskar’s father was still working as a civil engineer for a government department, his mother had retired as an administrator in the tax office. They were both devastated. It was clear that their son had meant everything to them, that they had worshipped him ever since he had been a small boy, given him the self-confidence to succeed.
They were glad of the visit by the police officer from London. Sharon had done a good job of assuring them that the British police were putting everything into the investigation. She also managed to throw in some of her own questions about any personal problems that Óskar might have had, any enemies, but nothing new had emerged. The parents had met both girlfriends: they were overawed by the Russian, and thought the Venezuelan incredibly exotic. They were clearly proud, but a little anxious about their son’s jet-setting lifestyle. The anxiety had turned to guilt: if they had somehow kept their beloved Óskar in Iceland, he would still be alive.
It was frustrating. Magnus could feel himself being drawn into the investigation. He wanted to find Óskar’s killer, the person who had taken their son from them. He’d love to fly back to London with Sharon to see the investigation through at first hand, but he knew that Thorkell and the Commissioner would never authorize it. Why should they?
He wanted there to be an Icelandic link so that he could get properly involved. Perhaps Harpa was that link. His intuition told him that there was more than a common employer and a fouryear-old night of passion connecting Harpa, Gabríel Örn and Óskar. But maybe that was just what he wanted to believe.
It was a shame he couldn’t talk to Sharon about it.
There were five of them at the table in the crowded bar: Magnus, Sharon Piper, Ingileif, Árni and Vigdís. Ingileif had abandoned her party with her fashionable clients to join them, which Magnus appreciated, although he suspected it was curiosity that had drawn her.
As usual, the Icelanders were much better dressed than the foreigners, and when it came to dress sense Magnus was definitely a foreigner. Árni looked cool in a gangly kind of way in a black sweater under a linen jacket. Both Vigdís and Ingileif were wearing jeans, but both looked stunning, with subtle make-up and jewellery, whereas Sharon was wearing the grey pants and pink blouse she had had on all day, and Magnus a checked shirt over a T-shirt and old jeans.
The conversation was animated but slurred. Árni and Magnus had moved on to whisky, but the women had been drinking wine all night. How many bottles, Magnus had long lost count. Vigdís was quizzing Sharon about what it was like to be a woman in the Metropolitan police, with Árni translating frantically and inaccurately.
‘It’s nice to get away for a night or two,’ Sharon said.