Sun on Fire (33 page)

Birkir asked, “Lúdvík pretended to be an official driver?”

“Yes. He drives a black Range Rover that could be taken for a ministry vehicle.”

“How did you overpower Arngrímur?”

“That was the simplest part. I waited at the place where Lúdvík had to stop the car to pay the parking fee. Arngrímur was sitting in the front passenger seat, and I opened the rear door and grabbed his seat belt—it was easy to pull it tight around his neck as I climbed into the rear seat. Arngrímur couldn’t do a thing to defend himself. We had practiced this many times. Lúdvík drove on, beyond the airport area, to a place where we could stop. I tied Arngrímur’s hands and feet with tape, and we put him in the back and covered him with blankets.”

“How did you get access to that house in Borgarfjördur?”

“The owner’s someone Lúdvík knows. He lives in Spain and only uses the place during the summer. Lúdvík looks after it in the winter, so he has a key. After capturing Arngrímur, we took him straight there. Lúdvík attached an anchor bolt to the basement floor, and we shackled our prisoner to it with a chain and a steel cuff round his leg. That way we could leave him there while we prepared the next move.”

“You left Arngrímur alone in the house?”

“Yes,” Starkadur replied. “We left him some food and a bucket for him to do his business in. And a mattress and a blanket for sleeping. It was warm enough down there. We told him he would stay there until he’d told us everything about the fire at Sandgil.
Lúdvík went back the following day, and I was going to join him that evening with video- and audio-recording equipment. But then you guys arrested me, and Lúdvík had to contact Jón for help with the rest.”

“Was that the first Jón heard of the kidnapping?”

“Yes, Lúdvík asked him to bring something so they could record Arngrímur telling his story. Jón’s not familiar with that part of the country, so Lúdvík described the route carefully to him over the phone. Next day, Jón got somebody to drive him to Borgarfjördur. He brought an old cassette recorder that was good enough for our purposes.”

Birkir asked, “Did Arngrímur make his confession willingly?”

“Yes, he was very cooperative. He just seemed pleased to be able to talk about this. I think it was a relief for him, in a way.”

“Why did you grab Magnús, too?”

“When Jón and Lúdvík heard what Arngrímur had to say, they realized that the cop had also been involved—that he’d deliberately written a false report. I heard about it when Lúdvík and I spoke on the phone after you released me on Monday. We didn’t think it was fair for him to get away unpunished.”

“How did you manage to kidnap him?”

“Lúdvík and Jón came back to town to pick me up. We then waited outside Magnús’s house, and when he came home and parked, Lúdvík was able to get into the rear seat and trap him with his seat belt. When we saw he wasn’t alone, we needed Jón to help us. There was much more resistance than when we took Arngrímur, but finally, after Lúdvík had all but strangled Magnús with the seat belt, I managed to tie him up. It was easier to deal with the passenger, in spite of his size, since he gave up right away. We left him in the car but took Magnús off to Borgarfjördur,
where we made him listen to the recording of Arngrímur’s story, which he confirmed was an accurate account.”

“I heard as much,” Birkir said, “but why did you let them think you were going to burn them alive?”

“Through all these years, we’ve discussed different ways of dealing with Arngrímur. There’ve been a lot of different suggestions, one of which was to burn him alive in the same way that Sun died. Then someone had the idea of leaving a handsaw beside him so he could escape the fire by sawing his leg off. That was a chance that Sun didn’t get. The shackle would be made of a heavy-duty steel that the saw had no chance of cutting through. Finally, the day before yesterday, we decided to use a variation on this idea. We set up the fire trap, but unbeknownst to them, there was no gasoline in the barrel. We’ve clearly gone soft with age. And it’s a nice house—we didn’t want to burn it down.”

Birkir looked from Jón to Starkadur and back again. “Did you ever think you would get away with this?” he asked.

Starkadur replied, “Maybe, if we’d stuck to the original plan to kill Arngrímur and dump the body where it wouldn’t be found. Or we could have burned him alive. The idea was to fix it so no one could prove we were responsible, but things quickly got way out of our control. But we’re ready to face the consequences for our actions. We did it for Sun and for ourselves.”

Birkir shook his head. “Having listened to all your statements these last few days, I’ve managed to put together a picture of this girl, and I’m not convinced she would have wished for such retribution.”

Starkadur looked at Jón. “Probably not,” he said. “But we don’t have her ability to forgive and forget.”

“Do you know where Lúdvík hangs out?” Birkir asked.

“He is asleep here, in the house,” Starkadur replied. “He knows we plan to turn ourselves in. He’s coming with us.”

Birkir stood up. “I guess it’s time to go. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Jón said, and rested his hand momentarily on Fabían’s forehead. “Will we be allowed to go to the funeral?”

“I don’t know, frankly,” Birkir replied. “That’s not my decision. I think you should say good-bye to him now.”

“I already have,” Jón said.

I
visited the Icelandic embassy in Berlin in the fall of 2006, and I was given an exhaustive and most enjoyable guided tour around the embassy and the Felleshus by members of the embassy staff, who readily provided comprehensive answers to my many questions. I took great care not to ask about the security arrangements in the Nordic Embassies complex; everything I have written about such matters in this story is my fabrication, and is undoubtedly very different from reality.

The poem translated on
pages 41
–
42
is by Adalsteinn Ásberg Sigurdsson and was written especially for this story. Adalsteinn and I have made it our custom that he writes poems for all my books. Three such poems have been set to music by Eyjólfur Kristjánsson and released on CD.

Early in 2009, the ceramic artist Margrét Jónsdóttir held an exhibition of her works at the Akureyri Art Museum in northern Iceland. The exhibition was named
Hvítir skuggar
, or
White Shadows
. A year previously she had reached out to a number of writers, requesting assistance with a particular aspect of the
exhibition. She asked that they each write a description of an item of pottery—the only condition being that there should be no mention of color—and she would then make a piece that fit what they had written. The writers reacted positively, and there were many interesting pieces in Margrét’s exhibition created in this manner. I was lucky enough to be one of the writers that she approached; at this time I was working on the first half of this story, and I sent her the text on pages nine and ten of this book. Margrét subsequently made two candlesticks from the description, and those were displayed in her exhibition.

Photo © Einar Falur

Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson is the author of several books, including
Daybreak
, which was the basis for the 2008 Icelandic television series
Hunting Men
. In 2001, his third novel,
House of Evidence
, was nominated for the Glass Key Award, given by the Crime Writers Association of Scandinavia; his novel
The Flatey Enigma
was nominated for the same prize in 2004. His numerous short stories have appeared in magazines and collections.

Photo © Derek Linney

Icelandic native Björg Árnadóttir has lived most of her life in England; her British husband, Andrew Cauthery, is fluent in Icelandic. They have worked together for many years, translating both English texts into Icelandic and Icelandic texts into English. They have worked on a wide variety of manuscripts, including books on Icelandic nature and technical topics, as well as literature. This is their third translation of Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson’s work, following
House of Evidence
and
Daybreak
.