66° North (7 page)

‘Was there any connection between them and Óskar?’ Árni asked.

‘Well, yes, obviously. Gabríel Örn was in charge of the leveraged lending group which was an important department. I’m sure that he and Óskar knew each other well. I have no idea about the relationship between Harpa and Óskar, but once again she was a fairly senior executive. And Óskar used to socialize with his staff. You must have read all about the parties in the newspapers.’

Even Magnus was aware that the Icelandic press had had a great time describing the excesses of the bankers, Óskar prominent among them: the parties, the private jets, the apartments in New York and London. To Magnus’s jaundiced eye it seemed nothing beyond the regular corporate excesses which you would expect in the boardrooms of America. It might not be in the Icelandic tradition, but it was certainly in the tradition of Wall Street.

‘What was all that about?’ Magnus asked Árni once they had left the CEO’s office. ‘Who the hell is Gabríel Örn?’

‘A banker who killed himself in January, a few months before you arrived in Iceland. Harpa was his ex-girlfriend who used to work for him. I interviewed her afterwards.’

‘Why did he kill himself?’

‘We’re not absolutely sure. He only left a brief text message as a suicide note. But he was responsible for bankrupting a bank. A few bad days at work, to put it mildly.’

‘And do you think there is a connection with Óskar’s murder?’

‘Um, no.’

‘Are you sure?’

Árni waited for the lift doors to close behind them as they headed down to the lobby.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ he said.

Magnus looked at him closely. He didn’t believe him.

E
MILÍA GUNNARSDÓTTIR HAD
poise. She was in her mid-thirties, slim, with her dark hair tied back. She was wearing an elegant black trouser suit and expensive but discreet gold adorned her ears and neck.

The offices of OBG Investments took up one floor of a five-storey building a hundred metres along Borgartún from the Ódinsbanki headquarters. Magnus saw from the directory in the lobby that the other occupants were firms of lawyers and accountants, plus the odd enigmatic financial company, like OBG itself. It was obvious when they had reached OBG’s floor: the reception area was dominated by a life-size sculpture in bronze of a Viking in full warrior gear riding a Harley Davidson.

Emilía led Magnus and Árni through to her office: thick white carpet, black leather armchairs and sofa, a broad black desk, uncluttered with papers, but bearing a sleek computer screen. The contrast with Gudmundur’s office was stark. ‘I am very sorry about your brother,’ Magnus began.

For a moment, a second or so, the poise cracked. But then with a purse of the lips it was back. ‘Thank you,’ was all Emilía said. ‘Sit down. I hope you don’t mind waiting a couple of minutes. I’ve asked my lawyer to be present. She works in this building so she won’t be long.’

Magnus was surprised. ‘I don’t think there’s a need for a lawyer, Emilía. You are not a suspect.’ Or not yet, he thought. Asking for a lawyer this early in proceedings certainly raised alarm bells.

‘Not for this crime, perhaps. But don’t forget that our company is under investigation.’

‘I’m not interested in the Special Prosecutor’s case,’ Magnus said. ‘I just want to find out more about your brother.’

‘Which I will tell you once my lawyer is here. Would you like some coffee?’

Just then the door opened and a woman came in.

A woman whom Magnus recognized. He couldn’t keep the shock from registering on his face. The woman seemed just as surprised herself.

‘This is Sigurbjörg Vilhjálmsdóttir, my lawyer,’ Emilía said. ‘But it seems that you know each other already.’

There was a brief pause as both Magnus and the lawyer struggled for something to say. ‘Yes,’ Magnus said, eventually, clearing his throat. ‘We do know each other. Sigurbjörg is my cousin.’ He hesitated and then stepped forward to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Oh, I see,’ Emilía said, unsurprised at the connection. This was Reykjavík, after all. But she could tell there was something strained between them, although she could not possibly know what. ‘Is there any reason why you shouldn’t advise me on this matter, Sigurbjörg?’

‘No,’ said Sigurbjörg. ‘No, there will be no problem.’

‘We aren’t close,’ said Magnus, and then regretted it. While true, it sounded unnecessarily rude.

‘OK,’ said Emilía. ‘Well. Let’s begin, shall we?’

‘Can you tell me a bit about Óskar?’ Magnus asked. Árni pulled out his notebook, a look of intense concentration on his face as he prepared himself for more financial gobbledygook.

‘He was a very special person.’ Emilía hesitated. It was as if the simple question threatened to unleash emotion, which had been Magnus’s intention. But once again she was back in complete control in an instant. ‘Very bright. Energetic. Funny. People liked him. People loved him. Especially the people who worked for him.’

‘What about his enemies?’

‘He didn’t have any enemies.’

‘Oh, come on, Emilía. How could someone like him not have enemies?’

Irritation flared in Emilía’s eyes. She didn’t like being contradicted.

‘Well, there were business rivals, I suppose. But they didn’t
hate
him. The press loved to gossip about him, but they needed him for their copy. During the demonstrations some of the speakers were asking for his head, but they didn’t really know him.’

‘Clients of the bank? Depositors? Shareholders? A lot of people must have lost money when Ódinsbanki was nationalized.’

‘Yes, that’s true. But I don’t think most people blamed my brother. All the Icelandic banks collapsed: Ódinsbanki was probably the best run of all of them.’

‘What about his personal life? His wife? Or rather ex-wife?’

‘Kamilla? She was devastated when they broke up. He was having an affair and she found out about it. But that was five years ago. More. They’ve got along fairly well since then. He sees the children regularly, or did until this year when he was holed up in London.’

‘He had a Russian girlfriend? Tanya Prokhorova, a Russian model.’

Emilía shuddered. ‘She may have been a model but she certainly wasn’t dumb. Óskar was besotted with her. She was cool and beautiful and played him along. I never liked her. And then of course she dumped him when she realized that he wasn’t quite as rich as she thought he was. He was much better off with Claudia.’

‘The Venezuelan?’

‘Yes. She is much more like him. She has money from her own divorce. She’s actually a year older than him, although she wouldn’t want anyone else to know that. Óskar was much more relaxed around her. I only met her twice, in London, but she was good for him.’

‘Did he know many Russians? Apart from Tanya?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Emilía said. ‘He probably met friends of hers socially.’

‘What about clients of the bank?’

Sigurbjörg, the lawyer, coughed.

Emilía glanced at her. ‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on clients of the bank.’

‘Were there any Russian clients that Óskar dealt with personally?’

Emilía didn’t answer.

Magnus persisted. ‘Any money laundering? Russian businessmen who lost money dealing with Ódinsbanki?’

Sigurbjörg interrupted. ‘These are sensitive issues. The Special Prosecutor is examining the files of all the bank’s customers. Emilía doesn’t want to prejudice that examination.’

Magnus ignored her. ‘Your brother is dead, Emilía. Someone killed him. I want to help the British police find out who that person was. We need to know if there was a Russian connection, especially one via Iceland.’

‘Don’t worry, Sigurbjörg,’ Emilía said. ‘There were no Russian clients. Maybe one or two small ones, but nothing major. Óskar didn’t trust them, it was as simple as that. It was a bank rule: no Russian exposure.’

‘Could Tanya have introduced him to some dodgy businessmen looking for places to park money?’

‘Possibly. Not that I know of. And I would rather doubt it. Those are exactly the kind of people that Óskar would have avoided. I said he was besotted with Tanya, but he never really trusted her.’

‘OK.’ Magnus was half convinced. ‘And your family? Any tensions there?’

‘Oh, Óskar was the golden boy as far as our parents were concerned.’ Emilía said this without rancour or jealousy.

‘Even after the
kreppa
struck?’

‘Even then. I have another brother and a sister. My brother is pretty tense about suddenly realizing that he isn’t as rich as he thought he was. But he basically idolizes Óskar.’ She swallowed, realizing her mistake. ‘I mean idolized.’

She closed her eyes. A tear ran down her cheek. The cool façade crumbled in front of Magnus. She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Is that everything?’

Suddenly an image of Latasha, a sixteen-year-old girl from the projects in Mattapan came into Magnus’s mind. Her fifteen-year-old brother had been shot in the face on the street just behind their building a few hours before Magnus interviewed her. She was proud, she wasn’t going to help no cops. She was brave. She was cool. Her mother was off her head on crack in the bedroom, her sister needed her diaper changing. It was only when Magnus was about to leave the apartment that a tear ran down Latasha’s cheek and she asked Magnus to find whoever had killed her little brother.

It didn’t take Magnus long: it was her brother’s fourteen-year-old best friend. An argument over a stolen iPod.

Whether it was a kid from the projects, or a cool Icelandic businesswoman, Magnus sympathized with the victims’ relatives. Always.

‘Thank you, Emilía,’ he said. ‘We might come back and ask some more questions later.’

Emilía nodded, tears leaking from both eyes now, and Magnus and Árni left.

Sigurbjörg caught up with Magnus by the lifts. She was several years older than him, about forty, with short red hair and a broad face. Although the hair was a different colour, she reminded him a little of what he remembered of his mother, but she looked older. His mother had only been thirty-five when she had died.

‘Is he your client too, Sibba?’ Magnus asked, nodding at the Viking on the Harley. ‘At least
he
doesn’t say much.’

‘I’m sorry about my intervention in there,’ Sigurbjörg said in English. She had been brought up in Canada, and like Magnus had returned to the land of her parents when she was an adult. ‘The Special Prosecutor’s investigation into Ódinsbanki is crucially important to OBG.’

Magnus shrugged. ‘You were only doing your job.’ That’s what lawyers did, impeded police investigations. That was the way the
system worked and Magnus had given up railing against it long ago.

‘Look, here’s my card,’ Sigurbjörg said. ‘I know I kind of ran off last time we met. But give me a call, eh? Come and have dinner at my house. I would love to introduce you to my husband.’

Magnus took the card and stared at it. The law firm he recognized, and the address was the building they were in, of course. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I will.’

He didn’t mean it. He wanted to keep that part of his life safely locked away in its box. Sigurbjörg could tell he didn’t mean it. She looked disappointed.

She took the first lift heading up.

‘Family feud?’ Árni asked, as he and Magnus entered the next one going down.

‘I don’t know,’ Magnus replied, frowning. ‘You could say that.’

‘H
ERE THEY COME!’

Sindri looked up at the mountainside and saw a stream of white burst over the ridge, as first a few dozen, then a hundred, and then more than a thousand sheep hurried down the slopes towards the pens. On either side of the flow were the black shapes of the dogs darting, crouching and running to keep control. In a moment a horseman appeared, and then another, and then some more.

It was a magnificent sight.

The crowd, mostly made up of the families of farmers in the dale, pointed and waved. The drovers had been away for three days scouring the highlands for sheep who had spent the summer roaming wild over the fells, gorging themselves on sweet grass. It was the annual
réttir
, or sheep drive, one of the biggest events in the farming calendar. It was the first time Sindri had attended since he had left the farm at sixteen, but the memories came flooding back.

He himself had been a drover three times from the age of fourteen. The first couple of times he had been filled with excitement as he had followed his father and his neighbours on horseback over the fells, looking for the ewes and lambs. The third time had been a disaster. The weather was bad, he had got horribly drunk in the rest hut on the last night, and his father had shouted at him for not pulling his weight on the drive.

Two weeks later he had left home to go to Reykjavík. Music, drugs and alcohol, and later London and more drugs and alcohol. His father’s disappointment in him was deep and unyielding.
Which wasn’t quite fair. At twenty, Sindri had been the charismatic lead singer of the band Devastation, whose jumbled anarchic screams had reached number two in the UK charts. He was a sensation in his home country and in Europe.

But it lasted less than a year. The money meant the drugs were endlessly on tap. The songs lost any semblance of tune, and Sindri returned to Reykjavík.

He lost a decade of his life. Eventually he managed to pull himself together and got a steady job in a fish factory. He channelled the urge to rebel, tamed it and gave it focus. He joined environmental groups in Iceland opposed to the exploitation of the Icelandic landscape for economic gain. He wrote a book,
Capital Rape
, which contrasted the simple hard-working life of the Icelandic farmer who nurtured his resources and lived with nature, with the exploitation by the desk-bound urban capitalists who extracted resources and destroyed nature. Capital raped the world around it.

The book was big in Germany, and Sindri earned a bit more money. His father disapproved and Sindri very rarely came home. The truth was that Sindri was as distant from the farm of his childhood as the urban capitalists he ranted against.