Sun on Fire (31 page)

Birkir asked, “Did you take a credit card from Anton?”

Fabían hesitated. “Yes,” he finally said. “I took the credit card he’d put on the table. He was on the phone booking a hotel room, and he’d read out the number on the card.”

“Why did you take it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe as a kind of symbol. It all seemed so unreal that I had to take some form of proof that it hadn’t been a dream. Or a nightmare, rather. The blood on my clothes should have been enough, but I put the card in my pocket nevertheless.”

“Who took the credit card from you?”

“I can’t remember. I showed it to Helgi while telling him what had happened. Then to Jón and Starkadur when we met later.
Maybe it’s around here somewhere. Maybe Jón took it. I don’t know. Do you need it?”

Birkir shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “The credit card isn’t important anymore.”

12:30

Back at headquarters, Birkir reported to his superiors that someone had come forward with a credible confession to the embassy murder, and he requested that the forensic department analyze the frozen bundle of clothing Rakel had handed over to him. Then he dispatched a couple of cops to pick up Helgi Kárason—Birkir needed him to confirm the role he’d played in the case, but was fed up with visiting his studio and having to bang on the door.

Birkir asked Dóra to be present during Helgi’s interview in case they wanted to charge him with concealment—after all, he’d known all along who’d killed Anton Eiríksson but had kept quiet. So when Helgi arrived at the station, Birkir informed him that he had the legal status of defendant and, accordingly, had the right to call his lawyer or to refuse to answer questions.

“No, I don’t want an attorney,” Helgi said. “I have nothing to hide. I want to tell everything I know.”

Birkir said, “On the evening of Monday, October twelfth, you countersigned—as witness—a confession made by Fabían Sigrídarson. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Fabían Sigrídarson wrote this confession and signed it of his own free will.”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve confirmed the authenticity of that document. Do you have any further information regarding the case Fabían confessed to being involved in?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please give the details of what you know?”

Helgi said, “As far as the party at the embassy is concerned, I made a statement about that on a previous occasion, to which I have nothing to add. But at the end of the evening, when we were about to return to our hotel, Fabían suddenly sat himself down next to me and said he’d just killed Anton in the ambassador’s office, using the knife I’d hidden in the candlestick. I was totally astonished, as Fabían hadn’t previously exhibited such forcefulness. But I didn’t want anything to come out that night. We would have to find a way to move forward, and preferably get back to Iceland, because no way was Fabían well enough to survive custody in a German prison. The ambassador’s wife created a commotion when she couldn’t find her shoe, which worked very well for us—and in fact I did my best to make the shoe even harder to find.

“Fabían was shivering with distress—and with cold, because he’d taken off his jacket and bundled it up, and his sleeve was soaking wet where he’d rinsed off the blood. I made him put on Jón’s jacket, and told Starkadur to take David out to one of the taxis waiting outside. Then I woke Lúdvík, who’d fallen asleep in one of the restrooms, and I told the ambassador and his wife that the four of us were leaving. Konrad asked about the other guests, and I said they’d gone off together in a taxi. He and his wife came outside with us, and Konrad had to help Jón in his argument with the night guard over his lost guest pass—we were supposed to hand them back in exchange for our passports.

“Back at the hotel, I made Fabían tell me the whole story. We already knew that something dreadful had happened to him when he was a young boy, but it really shocked me to hear him describe exactly what Anton had done. All things considered, you could hardly blame him for bumping off the guy who’d destroyed
his body and his whole life, especially after he’d bragged about continuing to abuse children.

“Fabían and I agreed we would go back to Iceland together later that day. We didn’t tell Jón or Starkadur anything about what had happened until we all met in Iceland last Thursday. That’s when Jón and Starkadur decided to make one final attempt to finish things with the ex-sheriff, Arngrímur. But I said I’d take no part in that. The whole thing had become too much for me. Before, I’d been prepared to deal with Arngrímur and accept the consequences—be convicted and maybe have to serve a sentence. But now I’d had enough. My nerves can’t take stuff like this.”

Birkir said, “We suspect that Jón Sváfnisson and Lúdvík Bjarnason have taken two men prisoner and are holding them somewhere. Do you know anything about that?”

“No.”

Birkir continued, “You told me on a previous occasion that you and Jón and Starkadur had made plans to kidnap Arngrímur. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” Helgi nodded. “I guess that’s correct.”

“Where were you planning to keep him captive?”

“We didn’t know. We planned to find a suitable place if and when we needed it. It never got that far.”

“What sort of place did you have in mind?”

“An abandoned house somewhere. Somewhere remote.”

“Out in the countryside?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, but not too far from Reykjavík, though.”

“Do you know what will happen to Arngrímur after he has admitted his part in Sunna’s death?”

Helgi was silent, and Birkir repeated his question.

“I don’t know,” Helgi finally said, “but I think you should try to find him as soon as possible.”

“Why?”

“At some point someone suggested we should chain Arngrímur by one leg, near a burning candle. When the candle burned down, it would set the house on fire.”

“He was to be burned alive?”

“He was to be given a chance to escape, which was more than Sun got.”

“How?”

“Within his reach would be a saw so he could cut off his leg and free himself from the chain.”

Birkir’s cell phone rang. He saw on its screen that it was Gunnar.

“Hi,” he said. “Where are you?”

“I’m stuck in a snowdrift up in Borgarfjördur.”

“What in the hell are you doing there?”

“I think I’ve found the place.”

“What place?”

“The one that the directions refer to. The numbers Jón wrote on the notepad.”

“How?”

“I got a car and then headed up to the Vesturlandsvegur ring road.”

“Are you actually driving?”

“Yeah, I’m not doing too badly. I just can’t look to either side.”

“How do you manage to go through an intersection?”

“I unfastened the rearview mirror and use it to see right and left.”

“My God. Where did you get the idea for all this?”

“Just came into my mind—you know how it is.”

“OK, but what’s this place you’re talking about?”

“So . . . I went up to Vesturlandsvegur and set the odometer to zero where the ring road begins. Then I drove sixty-three
kilometers north to Borgarfjördur, where I came to Route 50, the third number on the list.”

“I get it. So, then you drove seventeen kilometers along that road?”

“Well, not immediately. First I crossed the bridge to Borgarnes and had a bite to eat. You know how hungry I always get when I see Borgarnes.”

“OK. And then what?”

“Then I went back and turned up Route 50, and drove for seventeen kilometers till I arrived at the exit for Route 52, just like it said on the list. I made a left and continued for twelve kilometers and came to a driveway. The house is called Setberg—there’s a sign down where the driveway meets the road. Everything’s covered in snow up here, and my car got stuck. You’ll have to send backup.”

“I’ll do that,” Birkir said. “Can you see the house?”

“Yeah, up on the hill. About five hundred meters.”

“You’ve got to get up there right away. There may be an incendiary device on a timer. We don’t know when it’ll start the fire. It could happen at any moment.”

“I’m supposed to switch it off?”

“Yes, but be careful. I’ll have the Borgarnes police hit the road immediately.”

“I’ll try to investigate the house.”

“Call me before you go in.”

14:10

The tightly packed snowdrift in which Gunnar was stuck reached nearly halfway up the side of the car, and it took him some time, and all his strength, to heave the door open far enough to squeeze out, all the while trying not to strain his already painful back and neck. At last he was on his feet, and able to fish his crutches out from the backseat.

The house on the hill looked lifeless and abandoned—he saw no light in the windows, despite the overcast skies and waning day. This old farm had clearly not been worked for a long time. Though the house had been restored, probably for use as a summer house, the outbuildings were small and in bad shape—definitely not an establishment that would satisfy a present-day farmer’s needs. The fences around the miserable fields had all collapsed, and there were no signs of livestock anywhere. The only vehicle in sight was an ancient rusty tractor standing in the farmyard.

He moved off up the driveway, step by step. Something big had driven there recently, and he was able to walk in the tire tracks, but his crutches sank into the snow under his weight; the frost gnawed at his face, his swollen eye was sore, and, apart from the surgical collar protecting his neck, he wore only an old suit and a thin shirt.

From time to time he looked up, scanning the house for signs of life. Or signs of fire. Smoke or flames. He saw nothing, and the house—a single-story with an attic, and standing on a concrete basement—seemed totally deserted.

When he finally reached the farmyard, he called Birkir as promised. “I’m by the house.”

“Great,” Birkir said. “The Borgarnes police are on their way, and a fire engine is about to mobilize. Can you get into the house?”

“Hang on,” Gunnar said. “Let me check.” He struggled up the few steps and tried the front door. It was unlocked.

“I’m inside,” he said, still on the phone.

Birkir said, “Use your best judgment, but stay in close contact with me.”

Gunnar was now in a narrow foyer and saw a hallway beyond. At first he thought of sneaking from room to room to check the place, but then reflected that a well-shod horse had more chance of moving quietly around the house than he did in his present condition, and so decided to tackle the situation head-on. “Hello!” he shouted as loudly as his husky voice could manage. “Anybody here?”

He listened, and immediately heard the faint response, “Help, help! We’re in the basement.”

“Coming!” he called in reply. From where he was standing, he could see stairs leading up to the attic, but no entrance to the basement. He proceeded along the hall.

“How do I get down?” he shouted.

“Help, help!” was the only reply he could make out.

He entered the living room but couldn’t see any way down. He turned back and moved to the kitchen at the other end of the house.

“Help, help!”
He heard it clearly now.

“How do I get down?” he repeated.

“There’s a hatch in the kitchen,” someone shouted.

Gunnar spotted a trapdoor in the corner. Throwing aside his crutches, he got awkwardly to his knees, hooked his finger through the loop set into the trapdoor, and lifted it.

“Hello!” he called.

He heard Magnús’s voice saying, “Hurry! The fire’ll start any minute.”

Gunnar looked dubiously at the ladder leading precipitously down into the basement. “I’m coming!” he hollered. He sat down and swung his legs into the hatch, feeling forward with his foot for a rung to step on, and began his descent.

On the fourth rung his lumbago caught him with a stabbing, immobilizing pain. “Aargh! My back,” he yelped.

“Quick, quick!” Magnús cried.

Gunnar gritted his teeth and closed his eyes as he let go of the ladder. He slid down the ladder on his belly, bouncing on the rungs and crying out, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” as he went. Landing on his feet, he felt sweat cascading from every pore on his body.

“Put the candle out!” Magnús shrieked.

With difficulty, Gunnar turned to see the flickering stub of a candle in a bowl in the center of the floor.

Magnús shouted, “It’s in a pool of kerosene! There’s a fuse connected to that gasoline drum!”

At that moment, the candle sputtered, and a sheet of flame shot up from the kerosene in the bowl.

“The fuse is lit!” Magnús screamed.

Still in agony, Gunnar fell to his knees and crawled like a giant cockroach across the floor. He grasped the burning fuse and yanked it toward him, away from the barrel. Confident now that there was no danger of the place going up in flames, he slumped onto his belly, breathless and exhausted.

“Thank God,” Magnús gasped.

Gunnar lifted his head very slowly and saw Magnús sitting, legs outstretched, in one corner of the basement, his back resting against some piled-up sacks of fertilizer. His hands and feet were bound with strong packing tape, and a rope fastened to the wall behind him encircled his neck. Magnús would have strangled himself if he’d tried to get away.

Arngrímur sat at the other end of the basement. In contrast to Magnús, he was shackled to the floor with a tight steel cuff around his left ankle, attached by a heavy chain to a substantial anchor bolt in the floor. A small handsaw lay next to him. He was in a state of shock, staring in silence at the shallow, bleeding wound on his leg.

“He was going to saw his leg off when he couldn’t get through the chain,” Magnús said. “But it was no use, he only managed that scratch. You arrived just in time, thank God.”

Raising himself up on all fours again, Gunnar crawled toward the barrel. He tried to get to his feet using it for support, but it fell over with a loud clang. He peered into the opening where the fuse had gone.

“This barrel is totally empty,” he said. “There was no gas in it. There wouldn’t have been a fire.”

Magnús began to laugh—an odd, strangled laugh that changed into a kind of whimpering. “They lied, the fucking bastards,” he stammered between sobs. “They let us squirm here thinking we were going to be burned alive. Goddamned thugs.”