Authors: Arnaldur Indridason
‘All that formal shit will start tomorrow,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘I just wanted to hear what you had to say; ask you about a few minor points that we can go over in more detail later. Like where the money that you laundered for Alain Sörensen came from. I gather he couldn’t help telling you. Who is Sörensen involved with? Who’s he acting for?’
‘Sörensen?’ asked Sverrir innocently.
‘Yes, Sörensen.’
‘What has Knútur been telling you?’
‘All about Alain Sörensen and how you knew him; how you and Arnar met him in London and agreed to exploit the interest margin by taking a loan from him and using it to make a killing on the high rates here, before dividing up the profits. We’ll start straight away tomorrow morning by examining your assets, bank accounts, share holdings, and all that crap. I imagine a lot of interesting things are going to come to light. About shell companies and tax havens, for example.’
Sverrir sat down again.
‘As I said, he’s being very cooperative,’ continued Sigurdur Óli. ‘He said you and Arnar were going to send him out of the country. You regard him as a total pussy, don’t you? So why did you bring him in on the deal?’
Sverrir did not answer.
‘Thorfinnur knew, didn’t he?’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘He knew where the money came from. And he wasn’t happy. Oh no, far from it: Knútur says he hit the roof.’
The blue plastic mattress on which Sverrir would sleep that night squeaked slightly whenever he moved.
‘Why did Thorfinnur go crazy?’
‘I want my lawyer present,’ said Sverrir. ‘Surely it’s my right?’
‘But why did you have to have Sigurlína attacked? Why did she matter?’
‘I don’t know any Sigurlína.’
‘What did she do to you? Don’t you remember her? She was with you on the glacier trip a year ago. When Alain Sörensen visited Iceland. She found out about your scheme. Who told her?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Which of you did she sleep with?’ persisted Sigurdur Óli.
‘I want a lawyer,’ said Sverrir. ‘I think it would be best if a lawyer were present for all of this.’
Arnar was sitting in another cell on an identical bed, which was cemented to the floor. He did not bother to rise from the blue plastic mattress when Sigurdur Óli asked the guard to let him in, barely lifting his head before continuing to stare at the wall. It was getting on for one in the morning and Arnar looked weary and dejected.
In an attempt to elicit a reaction, Sigurdur Óli asked him the same questions he had just put to Sverrir. He mentioned that Knútur was cooperating and asked about the money laundering and where Alain Sörensen’s funds had come from, about Lína and the scheme and why they had found it necessary to set a debt collector on her.
At the final question Arnar, who had been sitting in silence throughout, suddenly pulled himself together.
‘Who’s this Lína you keep banging on about?’ he asked, his eyes on Sigurdur Óli, then rose.
‘Her name was Sigurlína Thorgrímsdóttir. She was murdered at her home last week. A debt collector, commissioned by you and your colleagues, sent his friend round to see her and this friend accidentally killed her. Only one of them struck the blow but they’re equally liable.’
‘It’s the first I’ve heard about it. Sverrir must have totally lost his mind.’
‘She found out what you lot were up to. Maybe she threatened to go to the press. She was a bit inept like that, didn’t know how to blackmail people into doing what she wanted. And what she wanted was money. Why didn’t you just pay her off? Wouldn’t it have been easier? After all, you’d made enough money.’
Arnar came a step closer to Sigurdur Óli, who was leaning against the steel door.
‘Or maybe she knew where the money came from,’ continued Sigurdur Óli.
‘Her name doesn’t ring any bells,’ Arnar said. ‘I just saw on the news that some woman had been killed.’
‘She knew about the four of you. And she lost her life. And what about Thorfinnur? What happened to him? How did he die?’
‘I don’t know about this woman.’
‘What about Thorfinnur then? I expect you know all about him.’
Arnar turned back towards the bed and sat down. Sigurdur Óli waited while the seconds ticked away.
‘Did you plot to get rid of him?’
‘No,’ said Arnar.
‘To push him over the cliff at Svörtuloft? Was that why you went to Snaefellsnes in the first place?’
‘I wasn’t with Sverrir and Thorfinnur. As far as I know, Sverrir told the truth.’
‘Let’s change the subject then,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Where did the money come from?’
‘The money?’ repeated Arnar.
‘The money that you put into circulation for Alain Sörensen. Where did it come from? Why did Thorfinnur go ballistic about it? Sverrir refuses to talk and Knútur’s keeping shtum too. He told us to ask Sverrir. Where did the money come from?’
Again Arnar did not answer.
‘It’ll come out sooner or later,’ Sigurdur Óli said.
Arnar straightened his back, trying to sit upright on the mattress. Unlike Sverrir, he had not said a word about a lawyer.
‘Thorfinnur went mad when he found out and threatened to go straight to the police,’ he said suddenly. ‘Sverrir managed to pacify him, but not for long.’
He sighed heavily.
‘Sörensen just kept saying that we didn’t need to know where the
money
came from. Sverrir and I were perfectly happy with that, but after a while Thorfinnur started asking questions. He felt guilty. I think he just wanted out and was looking for an excuse. He was worried that we were profiting from drugs. But when we found out what was really behind it, he said it was ten times worse than drugs.’
‘So he threatened to talk?’
‘He wanted out and Sverrir said he’d started blabbing. I didn’t ask any questions. Sverrir said we had to do something – I must stress that he only said it to me, not to Knútur. We’d got him and Thorfinnur involved at the outset because we needed to spread the loans, the sums were too big. Thorfinnur was like Knútur, a bit of a kid really, but he wanted the money, he wanted to get rich; everyone wanted to get rich.’
‘So that’s the explanation, is it? Greed?’
‘Look, we seized the chance when it was offered to us. We could see what was going on around us and maybe we wanted a slice of the cake.’
Arnar looked up.
‘Sverrir hasn’t told me exactly what happened on the trip. You’ll have to ask him about it, though I have my suspicions. And so will you, of course, now that the whole thing has blown up in our faces.’
‘Why did they go to Svörtuloft? Because Sverrir knows it like the back of his hand?’
‘It was sort of a joke to him. Everything Sörensen said was spot on: the economy just keeps on expanding; the Central Bank has doubled interest rates since last year.’
‘Hang on a minute, what kind of joke?’
‘You know, it’s what people call the Central Bank – Svörtuloft, “the Black Fort”. Sverrir found it funny. He said he would show us the real Svörtuloft. I didn’t even know it existed.’
‘And you know nothing about Lína?’
‘No.’
‘So she didn’t pretend to have information on you? Didn’t threaten you?’
‘No. I don’t know her.’
‘But you recollect her from the glacier tour, don’t you? When Alain Sörensen came over and you took him on a trip into the interior? You remembered her the last time we spoke.’
Arnar thought about this. ‘She was the woman who organised the tour, right?’
‘Correct.’
‘I do vaguely remember her. Now I come to think of it, I have a feeling Knútur was interested in her.’
‘Knútur?’
‘Maybe I’m getting this wrong.’
‘Did Knútur sleep with Lína?’
Arnar did not answer. It was evident he wanted to get something off his chest and Sigurdur Óli waited patiently.
‘It was child porn,’ he said finally.
‘What?’
‘The money we laundered for Alain Sörensen. The dirty money. Some of it was from drugs, some from normal porn, but some from child porn.’
‘Child pornography?’
Arnar nodded. ‘We were involved in laundering money for a porn ring, including paedophiles who produced child porn. Thorfinnur – he just couldn’t live with that.’
50
SIGURDUR ÓLI HAD
Knútur brought up to his office. He meant to ask him about Lína, before heading home to get some sleep. It had been a long day but his curiosity would not allow him to give up quite yet. Finnur had already left. Sigurdur Óli did not know if he would take any notice of what he had said.
The door opened and Knútur was escorted into his office. He sat down, his youthful features betraying fear and anxiety. No doubt he would get little sleep that night, kept awake by thoughts of his wife and child, or Thorfinnur’s fate, or the origin of the money from which he had made a profit.
‘You knew where Alain Sörensen’s money came from, didn’t you?’ said Sigurdur Óli.
‘I’m not saying anything until I’ve spoken to a lawyer,’ Knútur replied. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I want a lawyer. I gather it’s my right. I’d like to go back to my cell now, please.’
‘Sure, and I want to go home,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘So let’s not waste any more time. There’s one matter I want to go over with you; it won’t take long. I understand you knew Lína rather better
than
you want to admit – the woman who was attacked in her home.’
While waiting for Knútur to be brought up, Sigurdur Óli had continued leafing through the transcripts of Höddi’s phone calls. The printout was still lying on the desk in front of him.
‘You were flirting with her during the tour that you lot went on with your friend Sörensen.’
‘Says who?’
‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you claimed not to know her. Until now I believe you’ve been telling the truth this evening, so why lie about her? Enlighten me.’
Sigurdur Óli fiddled with the papers on his desk, picking some up as if he were distracted and his question of incidental importance. He glanced over the printout, read a few words and turned the pages while Knútur looked on.
‘Was it because of your wife?’ Sigurdur Óli asked. ‘Was that the reason? If so, I can well understand that.’
‘I want a lawyer,’ Knútur said again.
‘There’s one thing you should know about Lína, though,’ Sigurdur Óli continued. ‘Sure, she was friendly and great fun, a sassy woman, but she had a special interest in married men. I haven’t been able to investigate it fully yet but it seems she found men more attractive if they were married. She had a rather unusual arrangement with her partner; an open relationship where they were both free to sleep around. It’s not for everyone but it suited them. I don’t know if she told you about that.’
Knútur listened.
‘This is what I think, and you’ll have to correct me if I’m wide of the mark. You slept with her, maybe after you got back to town. You may have slept together several times or only the once. Either way, it’s quite possible that she threatened you, that she had pictures of you together and threatened to send them to your wife. She was
deceitful
like that, unscrupulous. And you’d told her once when you were in bed together that –’
‘That’s not true,’ protested Knútur.
‘– that you and your mates were involved in a clever scam that was going to make you stupidly rich. You didn’t tell her everything, but enough for her to go away and tell her partner about some scheme and that you lot had an incredible nerve.’
‘That’s just not true.’
‘You wanted to show off to her.’
‘No.’
‘Did she take pictures of you together?’
‘No.’
‘But you did sleep together?’
‘She didn’t take any pictures,’ said Knútur angrily. It was the first time Sigurdur Óli had seen him lose his temper. ‘And she didn’t threaten to tell my wife anything. I met her twice, both times in Reykjavík and –’ Knútur broke off. ‘Does this have to come out?’
‘Just tell me what happened.’
‘I don’t want my wife to find out.’
‘Nor would I.’
‘It was the only time,’ Knútur said. ‘I’ve never done it before – cheated, I mean – but I … she was very determined.’
‘And you blurted it out to her?’
‘She wanted to know all about my job. I think she was more intrigued that I worked for a bank than that I was married. We never discussed that.’
‘But you talked a lot about the bank? And you tried to make yourself sound important.’
‘I told her …’ Knútur hesitated. ‘I don’t know if I was trying to show off. She was very interested and kept asking about all the ways people found to dodge paying tax and so on. She wanted to know about tax havens and I may have told her about some guys I knew
who
were working on a fail-safe plan to make a killing. But I didn’t say who. And I mentioned all sorts of different scenarios. But … I may have hinted that I was involved.’
‘So you weren’t trying to big yourself up?’
Knútur did not answer.
‘And your colleagues, Arnar, Sverrir and Thorfinnur; did you tell them about this liaison?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone anything.’
‘Did she want money?’
‘No.’
‘Did you send the boys round to shut her up?’
‘No. To shut her up? I didn’t have any reason to. I don’t know any “boys”.’
‘It was vital that your wife didn’t find out.’
‘Yes, but I’d never have harmed Lína.’
‘So you don’t know Thórarinn or Hördur?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t send them round to persuade Lína to keep her mouth shut?’
‘No.’
‘Did she try to blackmail you when she found out what you and your friends were up to?’
‘No. She didn’t know because I didn’t tell her.’
‘I think you’re lying,’ said Sigurdur Óli, rising to his feet. ‘But we’ll go over it all in more detail tomorrow.’
‘I’m not lying,’ protested Knútur.
‘We’ll see about that.’
Knútur stood up as well. ‘I said I’m not lying.’
‘Did you know where Alain Sörensen’s money came from?’
‘No, not at first.’
‘But later?’
Knútur said nothing.
‘Was that why Thorfinnur died?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.