Meltwater (24 page)

But of course it wasn’t out of nowhere. He had lost his job. He had discovered that his father was a murderer. And that raised all kinds of questions about why his own father had in turn been killed.

Life would never be the same again for Jóhannes Benediktsson.

Ásta picked up a new cartridge on her way home from Thórsgata and installed it on her scanner. It was happy again now – no more whining.

Eighty pages to go. It was a slow bottom-of-the range machine that liked to grind, slide and wink before each page. It was trying Ásta’s patience.

It had been a tough day. Ásta was good at dealing with the bereaved, but Teresa Andreose’s distress was of an intensity she had rarely seen before. She had booked her into a hotel, and then taken her to the police station and left her there. Teresa had eventually warmed to her a little bit, but understandably she was suspicious of Ásta’s connection with Freeflow.

Ásta wasn’t sure now what to think about Erika. Like everyone else in the room she had been shocked at Teresa’s accusation. There was no doubt that Erika had slept with another woman’s husband, and that was clearly wrong. Erika had a lot to answer for. Yet Ásta couldn’t help admiring the way that Erika had stood and accepted Teresa’s tirade, not arguing with it, not making excuses.

It also put Erika’s insistence that they continue to work on Project Meltwater in a different light. Ásta had been suspicious that Erika was using the claim that ‘Nico would have wanted it’ to justify her own ambition to promote Freeflow. Now it was clear that Erika really did care about Nico. Perhaps in her mind there was no conflict: she wanted to go ahead with the project for her own sake and for Nico’s.

Thirty-eight pages to go. Ásta was tempted to multi-task.

Her eyes were drawn to a sheaf of paper she had printed out the previous weekend when she had heard Freeflow were coming to Iceland – press reports on their past leaks. She had skimmed them on Saturday, but there was something she had heard later in the house in Thórsgata that she wanted to check out.

She leafed through the printouts. After eight more pages of the journal had been scanned, she found what she was looking for.

She called up Wikipedia on her machine, and typed in a name.

She stared at the result. And stared, as the consequences of what she was reading sank in.

It could be a coincidence, of course. It must be a coincidence. But the more she thought about it, the more unlikely that seemed.

She needed to know.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

M
AGNUS DIDN’T TELL
his colleagues about his conversation with the CIA. They were doing well on the list of Israelis in Iceland: most of the tourists had been accounted for; there were still half a dozen to be followed up. The Italians were harder: half of Reykjavík’s hotels seemed to be harbouring at least one Italian tourist, and five had been booked into the Hotel Rangá the night of the murder, the nearest big hotel to Fimmvörduháls. Of course none of them was still there. Vigdís had driven out there to talk to the manager and the staff. That would probably be her last task before going to Paris.

Árni had tracked down a black Suzuki Vitara rented from Keflavík Airport by two Canadian men, both dark haired and in their twenties. He had their names, but no idea where they were staying. They could be anywhere in the country.

Chief Superintendent Kristján called. ‘What were you doing driving across the Markarfljót in the middle of a
jökulhlaup
?’ he demanded.

‘I wanted to get to the other side,’ Magnus said.

‘This is no joke, Magnús.’ And indeed the chief superintendent didn’t sound amused. ‘So far we have managed to avoid any fatalities. We found the British schoolgirls and the Norwegian ambassador. But how stupid would we have looked if the only casualty had been one of our own men? In this country you have to treat nature with respect. Icelandic policemen know this.’

Magnus winced at the slur on his American background. He hated it when Icelanders made the point that he wasn’t really one of them. He almost mentioned that they had natural disasters in the United States too, hadn’t Kristján heard of Hurricane Katrina? But he thought better of it; that event had hardly covered the American authorities in glory.

‘I had to look for the evidence,’ said Magnus. ‘Especially since they say there is going to be ash falling later on.’

‘Did you find any?’

‘Yes.’ Magnus filled Kristján in on the state of the investigation.

‘It sounds like you are making some progress,’ said Kristján. ‘Keep me informed. But I won’t be able to spare any of my officers for the next couple of days. And don’t take any more stupid risks around the volcano.’

‘I won’t. How’s the guy in the Cat?’

‘The Caterpillar? He’s a hero. The highway isn’t too badly damaged, and the bridge is still standing. I think he’s gone home now for supper.’

Ásta brought Teresa Andreose into the station and Magnus interviewed her. Teresa was much calmer until Erika Zinn’s name was mentioned. She had been jealous of Erika for months. Even though she suspected her husband of having an affair with Erika, she had had no evidence. But two weeks earlier, she had confronted her husband about his relationship with his Freeflow colleague. Nico had admitted that they had slept together a couple of times, but promised he wouldn’t do it again. However, when he had said that he was going to Reykjavík with the Freeflow team, including Erika, Teresa had exploded.

Nico had gone regardless, and now he was dead.

‘Did Nico speak to you much about Freeflow?’ Magnus asked.

‘Only in the most general terms. He kept on telling me what a wonderful organization it was, but he didn’t talk about the details.’

‘What about the Gruppo Cavour scandal?’

‘That happened before Nico got involved. And we live in Milan: fortunately we have nothing to do with those Roman scandals.’

Magnus studied the Italian woman. She looked exhausted after her earlier eruption. Although she had reapplied her makeup, she could not hide the despair in her eyes.

‘When can I have them send his body back to Italy?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ Magnus said. ‘We need to keep it here for a while. With the murder investigation.’

‘You can’t do that! I won’t let him stay in this horrible country a moment longer!’ For a moment it looked as if the fight would flare up in her again. But when Magnus shrugged, her shoulders slumped. ‘Can I at least see him?’

‘Of course,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ll get one of my colleagues to take you to the morgue.’

‘Thank you.’ Teresa smiled quickly. ‘And when I have seen him, I will go home. There is nothing more I can do here.’

Magnus hesitated. Could Teresa have paid someone to follow her husband to Iceland and kill him? Magnus doubted it, but it had to be an outside possibility. Erika’s testimony suggested she was the real target on the mountain, but then Teresa could have wanted both of them dead. So now there were two reasons to look for an Italian.

Magnus considered insisting that Teresa stayed in Iceland, but decided to let her go. He had her address in Milan; the next step if he was serious about investigating her would be to get in touch with the police there. So he finished the interview and got hold of Róbert to take her to Barónsstígur to see the body of her husband.

At about seven, Magnús packed up to leave the station. Ordinarily he would have stayed later at this early stage of the investigation, but he hadn’t had much sleep in the previous couple of days, and he knew he should see Ollie.

Before shutting down his computer, he checked the file he had added that morning. Sure enough there were some words added to the bottom:

Magnus smiled. That was interesting. Clearly someone at Freeflow wanted to help him. He wondered which of the group had written the message. Not Erika, obviously. Probably not Ásta. Perhaps Franz? Or someone with a longer period of involvement: Dúddi or Dieter?

What to ask?

He remembered Baldur’s words. If there were any tensions within the Freeflow group, they hadn’t come out in any of the interviews so far. But Teresa’s dramatic outburst had demonstrated that there were things going on between members of the group that Erika and the rest of them had kept from the police.

Magnus began to type:

Erika needed to get out of the house. The big cop, Magnus, might have warned her against it, but she just had to get away from the tense silence of the crowded room. She would explode otherwise. She pulled on her running kit and without saying anything to anyone, stepped out into the road.

The air was wonderfully fresh after the foetid house. Patches of blue came and went behind fast-moving clouds, and there was a brisk, salt-laden breeze blowing.

She hadn’t looked at a map since she had arrived, but uphill to the big church and then down to the left would take her to the bay. She set off at speed.

It wasn’t far to the top of the hill, but the wind was stronger there. She eased off as she loped down a small street, crossed a larger road lined with stores, dodging a couple of meandering tourists on the sidewalk, and headed down towards the water.

She crossed the busy road and hit the bike path right along the shoreline. At last she could get into a rhythm.

As a rule, Erika didn’t do guilt. She saw guilt as one of those negative impulses injected into her psyche when she was young by her parents, with the intention of holding her back. Others were a desire for status, a duty to have children and a need for a monthly pay cheque.

She had fought them all and won. Provided you knew what you stood for, were open and honest at all times, and believed in your fellow humans, then Erika knew that you had nothing to feel guilty about. And she was all of those things: OK, sometimes she wasn’t exactly honest, but you couldn’t get anywhere unless you were willing to bend the truth for a good cause.

Yet it was hard to avoid the sense of guilt. Teresa’s pain was real. Her hatred of Erika was real. Her love of Nico was real.

Was Teresa right? Had Erika not only taken her husband away from her, but also caused his death?

For a moment, Erika’s steps faltered. She slowed down, became aware of how tired she was. The wind blew down cold from the big block of Mount Esja to the north. Perhaps she should just pack her suitcase and move out of the house as soon as she got home.

And then what would she do?

No, Erika was committed to her life, to her cause. Teresa was wrong. Teresa
must
be wrong.

Erika thought it all through, sensibly this time. Although she was quite capable of seducing married men, it was Nico who had seduced her. Right here in Reykjavík the previous November. Erika had been planning to stay at a cheap guesthouse when Nico had changed the reservations to the 101 hotel, the smartest hotel in town, paying the bill himself. He had booked two rooms, but they ended up only using one of them.

He wouldn’t have done that if he had loved Teresa.

He might have loved her once, but he loved Erika more. And Erika knew why. She and Freeflow had given Nico a sense of purpose. He had had a bad couple of years at his hedge fund in London, but he had thrown himself into helping her build up Freeflow. He had loved it.

He had loved her.

It was all his choice. All of it. She needn’t point that out to Teresa, but she herself shouldn’t forget it.

She had gone quite a distance – past the white mansion with the flags, and almost to the end of the road of plush new office buildings.

She turned around. She was tired, but the blood was flowing. Things were rearranging themselves in her head, as she knew they would.

She wasn’t sure precisely where she had emerged on to the wide green strip next to the bay on the way down, but she could see the spire on the hill above her. She jogged past a skeletal bronze sculpture of some kind of Viking ship which she hadn’t passed on the way out, and decided to cut up through some narrow roads, past half-finished blocks rising unnaturally high above the low city skyline.

Her earlier speed had tired her, especially as she was going uphill. She glanced behind her, back towards the bay.

And saw a man running up the hill, only fifty yards behind.