Sun on Fire (12 page)

Gunnar sat down, and indicated to Jón to do the same. They drank without speaking, then took out two more bottles when they’d finished the first ones.

Finally Gunnar asked, “How well do you know the guys who were at the embassy Sunday evening?”

“Everybody knows me, and I know everyone who can be bothered to drink with me,” Jón said. “What’s your name?” he added, evidently having forgotten Birkir’s introduction—if he’d heard it at all. Gunnar told him his name and asked, “Were they buddies of yours from Reykjavík?”

“Buddies! Konrad and I often have a drink together both at home and abroad. He doesn’t get poetry, but he likes to hear limericks—especially if they’re smutty. I know some good ones. Wanna hear them?”

“Later. How do you know Fabían?”

“Fabían is my foster son.”

“Your foster son?”

“Yeah, or foster brother or maybe foster father, even. I took him under my wing when he was a kid, and he’s lived with me since—when he’s not in the hospital. He’s probably more mature than me. He sometimes gives me good advice. I certainly need it.”

“Why has he been hospitalized?”

“He was in the loony bin. At the beginning he suffered from some extremely peculiar type of depression—a mental narcosis—that’s what Doctor Psycho said. He was away with the fairies and didn’t look after himself at all, then he became totally helpless. He had to be fed and have his butt wiped. Then things got better. He came back to earth and was reasonably with it, but then he got cancer. He’s been fighting that goddamned monster for some years now.”

Jón raised his empty bottle. Gunnar reached for another one from the icebox, opened it, and handed it over.

“Did you know Anton?” Gunnar asked.

“I’d heard of him.”

“Were you on speaking terms?”

“No.”

“Do you think that Fabían was alone with Anton at any point that night?”

“You mean do I think that Fabían killed Anton?”

“You could put it like that.”

“I don’t think so. How was he killed?”

Gunnar didn’t answer the question, asking instead, “Did Fabían know Anton at all?”

“No.”

“The other guests—Helgi, Lúdvík, David, and Starkadur. Did you know them in Reykjavík?”

“Everybody knows everybody in Reykjavík. It’s a small place.”

“Are they old buddies of yours?”

“Whether people want to admit they know me depends on the circumstances.”

“Do you think that any of those guys is likely to have killed Anton?”

Jón gave a belly laugh. “I think Anton was the sort of guy who could have turned anybody into a killer. I don’t know who the lucky person was who actually did it. I don’t want him to be found. He did what had to be done.”

“Why?”

“This business Anton was involved in. It was nothing but slave trade—human trafficking and exploitation. A maniac like that is no loss.”

“How do you know that?”

“Word on the street, my friend. Word on the street.”

“Does that really mean it’s true?”

“No, the guy was probably just a relief worker helping the poor out there in East Asia. But why the fuck are you asking me? It wasn’t my job to arrest him or mess with him or anything. He was none of my business, dead or alive.”

Before Anna had headed off back to Iceland, she’d left her fingerprinting equipment with Gunnar. He now fished out the case containing this stuff and said, “I need to take your fingerprints so we can remove you from our suspect list.”

“Fingerprints?” Jón sprang up and shook his fist. “In your dreams, buddy. Nobody gets anything like that from me.”

“But it’ll help us with our inquiries.”

“I couldn’t care less what will or won’t help you. I’m not going to let you mess with my person. My dandruff and finger grease are nobody’s business but my own.”

“It’s not like this is dangerous.”

“It’s harassment. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Right. Where can we get hold of you over the next few days?”

“In Iceland, for fuck’s sake. There’s nothing for me here. Nobody wants to talk, and Konrad canceled the reception he was going to hold. Change of plans, he said. My poems will find their
readers in another place and another time. Probably not until I’m dead, though. A living poet is considered dangerous. He might tell the truth.”

Gunnar got up to say good-bye.

“Get lost,” the poet said, and stormed off along the aisle.

Gunnar heard him chanting at the top of his voice, “Poems, poems—Icelandic poems for sale! Dear friends, get yourselves a book of poems!”

Gunnar heard a woman in the next booth say to her colleague in German, “Oh my God. The Icelander is off again.”

Birkir was not in the cafeteria, and Gunnar had to call his cell to find where he was in the exhibition. Birkir gave him the aisle number, and when Gunnar had at long last muddled his way to the right place, he found Birkir looking at books on classical music in a large display booth.

“I’ve got lots of publishing offers,” Birkir said. “China is guest of honor at the Book Fair this year, and everybody thinks I’m one of their publishers. Maybe this is the right moment for a career change.”

“I think I’m getting a cold,” Gunnar said, sniffling.

“What did the Sun Poet have to say?”

Gunnar rehashed his conversation with Jón Sváfnisson. “We’re not getting anywhere,” he said finally, and sneezed into his sleeve. “Fucking foreign countries.”

“Well, we’re going home tomorrow,” said Birkir. “The embassy has confirmed our booking. It’s a direct flight from here.”

As Gunnar and Birkir headed for the Book Fair’s exit, they spotted two security guards escorting Jón, one on each side of him, toward the gate. They stopped and watched as the poet said good-bye, shaking hands with both guards before climbing into the cab they’d hailed for him. Evidently, the Sun Poet’s business at the Frankfurt Book Fair was done.

B
irkir wasn’t as reluctant to travel abroad as Gunnar, but it certainly wasn’t one of his favorite activities. The journey itself always took a whole day, or at least used all the energy Birkir had at his disposal for one day. He’d heard that the soul couldn’t fly across the ocean as fast as the body, that it always took a few days for it to completely “arrive.” He understood this theory well. It usually took him a week after getting home to return to biorhythmic equilibrium. The only foreign travel he really enjoyed was when he went abroad to participate in marathons; then he would travel in the company of like-minded folks and have the clear goal of running 42.2 kilometers along with several thousand fellow runners—preferably in under three hours, which he’d not yet achieved. Running filled him with a special energy that lasted for weeks, whereas sitting on a plane for a similar length of time left him completely drained for the rest of that day.

So, after the flight from Frankfurt to Reykjavík, he was cooked, but his sense of duty drove him to report immediately to the office of his superior, Magnús.

“I finished writing this on the flight home,” Birkir said, putting his comprehensive Berlin-trip report on the desk.

“Where’s Gunnar?” Magnús asked as he leafed through the papers.

“At home in bed. He came down with a cold yesterday and then he got lumbago.”

“Lumbago? How come?”

“He sneezed violently.”

“He gave himself a backache by sneezing?”

“Yes, on the plane. Those seats are much too narrow for him.”

“Goddamned bag of lard.”

Birkir shook his head. “He isn’t just fat, he’s big. That’s not his fault.”

“Maybe not.”

“It took him a half hour to get out of the plane after we landed. I borrowed a wheelchair to help him out to the taxi. I wanted to get an ambulance, but he wouldn’t let me. He also used a lot of very bad language.”

“Did he now?”

“Yes, he wanted to fly Saga Class, but they wouldn’t let him upgrade.”

“He thought he needed Saga Class?”

“Yes—he’d flown Saga Class on the outward journey and was more comfortable in that seat. There’s more room.”

“How did he get the seat?”

“Our traveling companion from the embassy was kind enough to switch with him.”

“Well,” Magnús said. “Tell him to see the doctor and get something for his back. We need to get this case wrapped up ASAP.”

“I took him to the emergency room. They gave him a couple injections and his back seemed to improve a little after that. The cold didn’t get any better, though, nor did his mood.”

“What an asshole. But enough about Gunnar, we’ve got to press on. Who were the main characters out there in Berlin?”

Birkir produced a list and read out the names. “They’re all in their forties and fifties,” he added. “Anton and the ambassador are the oldest.”

Magnús took the paper and scrutinized the names. “The media are pissed that we didn’t let them have the names right away. I’m afraid this’ll start to leak out soon, and then these guys will get no peace. We’ve gotta fix this stat.”

He paged through Birkir’s report again. “What’s your opinion?” he finally asked.

“There’s something very strange going on here,” Birkir said. “Everything seems to indicate that Anton decided at the last minute to visit the ambassador. But somehow the murderer had this knife ready.”

“Couldn’t there be some perfectly reasonable explanation?”

“Who would carry a weapon like that to a poetry reading and an embassy reception?”

“Not many people, I guess. No chance some other party was involved?”

“No. The security systems rule that out.”

“What clues have we got?”

“We have the two candlesticks, one with its base broken open, and we have a palm print from the ambassador’s desk. That’s all.”

“So, our priority is to get prints from everyone on the list. If we’re lucky, that’ll give us the solution. What’s your feeling about these guys?”

“We’ve only spoken to the ambassador and his wife—and one of the guests, Jón Sváfnisson. It’s hard to know what to make of him.”

Magnús nodded and said, “I’ve seen him in the street. His behavior is gross, to say the least.”

Birkir said, “We watched him get kicked out of the Frankfurt Book Fair yesterday for stirring up trouble. And then he was on the same flight as us today. This time he was sweet as candy—just sat and read Günter Grass’s
The Tin Drum
the whole way. Didn’t even have a single beer. And yet he’s even bigger than Gunnar and you could see he wasn’t comfortable in his seat.”

“I don’t think he’s violent,” Magnús said, “but I wish he were more conscientious on the home front. His house isn’t far from where my wife and I live, and it’s not exactly an asset to the neighborhood, to be honest. He inherited it from wealthy parents, a big luxury villa, but he doesn’t take care of it. The yard is completely neglected and full of junk. He rents out rooms, and some of his tenants are, shall we say, unusual.”

“Unusual in what way?”

“Oh, all kinds of artsy types and eccentrics. Really rowdy mob when they all get together. There are also tons of birds in the yard.”

“Birds?”

“Yes, they’re attracted by the food he puts out for them. The neighbors’ cars get covered in droppings, and folks find the screeching very annoying. The residents’ association has been trying to find ways to get the situation under control, but it’s difficult because it’s a private house.”

“Any illegal activity in the house?” Birkir asked.

“Nothing actually illegal, no, but it’s a blot on the landscape, and it could be lowering property values for the whole area.”

Birkir said, “I’ll take a look at it tomorrow. I need to talk to Fabían, and he’s one of the tenants.”

“You won’t have any trouble finding the house,” Magnús said. “It’s got ‘Jónshús’ painted in large letters on the front. One of the many things that make it a dump.”

20:30

Before Birkir finally went home, he finished off the paperwork from Berlin. Nobody had told him to do it right away, but he didn’t want it waiting for him at the start of the next workday; there would be plenty of other things to do. Don’t leave till tomorrow what you can do today—he’d learned that from old Hinrik, his foster father, when they used to tend the few sheep the old man kept in a shack by the coast on Vatnsleysuströnd, west of Reykjavík.

Birkir’s home was on the second floor of a quaint building in Bergstadastræti, in the old center of town. The apartment was cramped and oddly laid out, but he had lived there for many years and was used to it. He found it cozy, and he’d made it his home.

He began by unpacking his suitcase. Dirty clothes went straight into the washing machine, everything else to its proper place in the closet. The only thing he’d added to his luggage in Germany was a small, attractively framed, black-and-white photograph of a woman playing the violin. He’d bought it in an antique shop in Frankfurt while waiting for the flight to Iceland. He walked around the apartment with the photo, trying to find a good place to hang it. The walls were covered with pictures, all devoted in one way or another to the same subject—people or figures with string instruments: violins, cellos, double basses. There was a mixture of photographs, oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings—large works and small—and, on shelves here and there, a few figurines mirroring the same theme.