Sun on Fire (21 page)

“Can I offer you something?” he asked Gunnar.

Gunnar had finished his beer and bitters, and pointed at the glasses in front of him. “Same again, please. So what’s this rule on Arngrímur all about?”

“That’s the big question. Arngrímur’s father was Ólafur Ingi Esjar, a member of parliament and big-time wholesaler—in his time, he was Iceland’s most powerful man behind the scenes. Arngrímur was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He completed his law qualification with top marks and was made sheriff at Hvolsvöllur before he was thirty. That was in 1972. In the Register of Lawyers from that time he’s down as Arngrímur Esjar, but he changed his name to Ingason when he started working for the Foreign Ministry in 1975.”

“Any idea why he changed his name?”

“No.”

“Was there some malpractice when he was sheriff?”

“If so, it’s been covered up.”

“Well, anyone who’s interested should be able to dig that up. But I don’t see that it has anything to do with our case, so it’s none of my business.”

The waiter brought Gunnar another Holsten and Jägermeister and, for Konrad, a whisky on the rocks. Konrad took a sip from the glass he already had, poured what was left into the new glass, and passed the empty one to the waiter along with a fifty-euro note. “Keep the change, my friend,” he said, and then turning to Gunnar added, “Not a good idea to have too many glasses in front of you. People might think you’re on the sauce.”

Gunnar said, “We found out there were more connections between the guests at the embassy than they were willing to admit at first. Jón and Helgi are childhood friends and went on to live together in a commune in Fljótshlíd, on a farm called Sandgil. Fabían lived with them there, too. Jón’s fiancée died when their house burned down in 1975.”

“I remember that,” Konrad said. “Jón didn’t improve with the loss of his sweetheart, poor guy.”

“So three of the embassy guests are linked to this fire.”

Konrad was about to take a sip from his glass, but put it down.

“No,” he said. “Four.”

“Really?”

“One of that gay couple is the brother of the girl who died.”

“Which one?”

“Starkadur, I think his name was.”

“How do you know that?”

“It came out at the party that night. There was some drama around it.”

“In what way?’

“When Jón recited his poem ‘Spring Wakes,’ Starkadur burst into tears. Helgi tried to calm him down, and I heard them talk about how the girl was his sister.”

Gunnar pondered this news. “Is it possible Anton Eiríksson was linked to the fire in some way?” he finally asked.

“No, I don’t think that’s possible, I can’t see it. He was living in a different part of the country at that time. We were comrades in arms in politics.”

“Oh, well, that’s that, then. Must have been a coincidence.”

“Probably,” Konrad said, taking a large sip of whisky. “But there is another angle. Arngrímur was the local sheriff at the time and must have been involved in the case somehow.”

“Were there any irregularities?”

“Definitely not. Arngrímur always does everything by the book. That’s what’s so irritating about him.”

“And he wasn’t even at the embassy the night Anton was killed,” Gunnar said.

“Alas not. He had that meeting scheduled, but was called away to handle another matter. I would be ambassador in Berlin tonight if he had been present. He always makes sure everything
goes like clockwork. Anton would not have been killed on his watch, goddammit.”

He emptied his glass in one gulp.

22:30

“Go home and press your pants,” Gunnar had said to Birkir, and that was exactly what Birkir did. In the center of his living room stood a large heavy ironing board that was his refuge when he needed to think. He began with the pants he’d worn that day, pressing them and hanging them up. Next, he turned his attention to the nine shirts he had washed the previous week; he had not had time to deal with them since, but now set about ironing them with his customary efficiency, bestowing on each shirt the same methodical attention to detail. First sleeves, then back. He did not rush the job—if the occasion demanded, this was a task he could complete in no time at all, but he preferred to wait until he had the leisure to enjoy the process and leave his shirts looking like new.

Tchaikovsky wafted over from the music system: “Elégie” from his Serenade for Strings, played by a chamber orchestra. This was the type of music Birkir almost always listened to, slow classical pieces; he had a sense of having had sounds like this in his environment when he was very young, but he couldn’t link it to other memories, nor did he usually try to. It wasn’t important.

He was thinking about the men who had been the ambassador’s guests in Berlin on the night of the murder. They were all unusual characters, and it was worth getting to know them properly. He’d already gotten a fair picture of these guys, but he needed to keep going, to delve into the past, if necessary. He was convinced that would lead them to the last visitor to enter the ambassador’s office that night.

He decided to drive out to Fljótshlíd the following day to take a look at the place where a young woman had lost her life so many years before.

G
unnar had drunk enough. After having bought several rounds, Konrad said the bar had gotten too rowdy and he was going to move on elsewhere. But Gunnar decided to go home, and asked the bartender to call him a taxi. He tottered out to the sidewalk, leaning on his crutches, and the cab soon arrived. It was a short drive back, and having paid the fare, Gunnar got the driver to open the door for him and take the crutches, before easing himself out of his seat. “It’s my back,” he explained. “Lumbago.”

“Get well soon, then, and take care,” the driver said as he climbed back in and drove off.

Gunnar had to support himself on one crutch while holding the other with the same hand as he fumbled for his house keys in his jacket pocket. This took all his attention, and he didn’t notice the shadowy figure sneaking up behind him.

Suddenly someone kicked the crutch out from under him. He landed on all fours on the sidewalk, where he received a vicious blow to his side.

“Shit!” Gunnar yelled as he rolled to avoid the next kick.

“Not so cocky now, fucking niggerlicker,” said a shrill voice that Gunnar recognized.

“Oh, they let you out, huh?” Gunnar said, trying to shield himself from the next blow.

“You didn’t know that, you fucking fag?”

“Fag? You coming on to me?” Gunnar winced as a kick struck his brow.

“Don’t try to be clever with me,” said the blond pyromaniac Gunnar had interrogated the previous Monday morning. He looked for a good spot to aim his next kick, but Gunnar defended himself with his arm.

“How did you find me?” he said.

“You’re in the National Register, asshole. Think I don’t know how to use a computer? I’ve been waiting here all night.”

“Ah, the National Register. Yes, of course,” Gunnar said. “Hey, I’m not up for a fight with you tonight. Go home—ouch!” The blond psycho interrupted his speech with a heavy kick to Gunnar’s chest.

“Who’s going home? Eh?” he said triumphantly.

“You,” said a harsh female voice from the doorway. “You to go home or now I do shoot.”

The blond guy looked up and straight down the barrel of a rifle aimed between his eyes. He took a few steps back, and then turned and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

“Thanks, Mom,” Gunnar said, digging out his cell and dialing.

“Emergency,” said the voice at the other end.

Gunnar gave his name and address. “I need an ambulance right away. I think I have a cracked rib, and my back is really sore. Never mind that I have a cold, too.”

02:10

Birkir found Gunnar in the emergency room, lying on his side in a hospital bed and eating crushed chocolate raisins from a crumpled plastic bag. A large bandage covered his swollen right eye.

“Found this in my pocket,” Gunnar explained. “They don’t give you anything to eat here.”

“Your mom called,” Birkir said. “She said someone tried to kill you.”

“Yeah, it was that blond freak—the pyromaniac we brought in on Monday. Jumped me from behind.”

Birkir took out his cell. “I’ll have him picked up immediately.”

Gunnar snatched his hand. “No, don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“They’ll put him away anyway because of the arson,” Gunnar said. “It’ll only boost his status with his fellow prisoners if he’s charged with roughing me up. Let’s not indulge him.”

“Is this the right thing to do?”

“Yeah. He’ll make a big noise about beating me up, but if there’s no charge, people will stop believing him and laugh at his story. That’s much worse punishment for a lowlife like him. I’ll settle up with him later.”

“OK. Your call,” Birkir said. “How are you feeling?”

“The doctor says there’s nothing broken. I’m badly bruised, but in reasonable shape other than that. A small cut and a black eye. They’ll give me an injection for my back later, and I’ll sleep here tonight. You can tell Mom that.”

Birkir smiled. “I will. Your mom never wants you to go to Egilsstadir again. She says you’ve been in really bad shape since you went there.”

“She’s dead right. Did she ask questions about the trip?”

“She started to, but I said I was in a hurry to get here to talk with you.”

“Great. We need to synchronize our stories. We’ll go over it later.”

“Fine.” Birkir smiled again.

“You know what?” Gunnar said. “My old mom just saved me from that guy.”

“She did?” Birkir frowned. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“She was still awake when I came back in the taxi. She heard the car and looked out the window. She was worried about me because of my back. She saw when the asshole went for me. Got out my rifle and staggered downstairs. The guy ran off as soon as he saw the gun.”

“That was a piece of luck,” Birkir said. “But don’t we have to file a special report on this use of a firearm?”

“The hell we do. I’m not bringing charges for the attack, and nobody mentions the old lady threatened someone with a rifle. OK?”

“Yes.”

“The rifle wasn’t even loaded.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. In other news, I ran into Ambassador Konrad earlier this evening.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, and we talked a lot about that hippie business down in Fljótshlíd those years ago. He’s a great guy, Konrad. Generous and friendly.”

“I imagine he’s a good drinking companion.”

“Hey, that’s not the only thing. He came up with some interesting tips.” Gunnar ran back over his conversation with Konrad about the folks living at Sandgil and the sheriff in Hvolsvöllur.

“There seem to be more and more threads leading eastward to Fljótshlíd,” Birkir said when Gunnar had finished his account.

“Yes,” Gunnar said, popping the last chocolate raisin into his mouth. “Why don’t you take a look at the evidence on that fire?”

“I’ll do that.”

“And see if you can find anything for me to eat.”

11:20

When Gunnar’s mother, María, had called at twenty to two that morning to tell him what had happened to her son, Birkir had been asleep for about two and a half hours. After spending an hour at the hospital, he’d returned home and tried to get back to sleep, with limited success. By seven o’clock he was wide awake, but lay in bed for an hour thinking about things before getting up, eating breakfast, and heading off to Fljótshlíd in his car.

All was quiet at the police station in the little town of Hvolsvöllur, and the cop on duty, a chubby guy in his forties, decided to drive with Birkir out to the Fljótshlíd district and show him Sandgil, the place where Jón the Sun Poet’s hippie commune had operated from 1973 through 1975.

The sky was clear and the air cold and pure. The view that lay before them justified this trip in itself, never mind anything else. The majestic Eyjafjallajökull glacier rose against the sky in the southeast, and sunshine intensified the fall colors of the slopes to the left as they drove into Fljótshlíd.

Birkir asked whether the Thórsmörk National Park was visible from the road, but the cop said it was too far away. You needed to go much farther up the valley, on a dirt road, to see the trees of Thórsmörk on the far side of the river.

Birkir was picturing Húsadalur, the finishing point of the Laugavegur run, a grueling fifty-five kilometer cross-country race over the highlands from Landmannalaugar down to Thórsmörk. He’d competed in the race the previous summer, coming in fifty-eighth out of three hundred twenty participants, in six hours and
three minutes. Next summer he intended to do the run in less than six hours. That was the plan, at least.

They drove a good distance along a narrow road, paved to start with but later turning into dirt. There was a scattering of farmsteads and summer houses on both sides as they went farther up the valley, and finally the policeman stopped the vehicle by a beautiful forest grove, far from the nearest habitation.

They got out and scanned the scene.

“The ruins from the fire were cleared away very soon after the incident, or so I’m told,” the policeman said. “And then the plot was fenced off and given over to grazing, and this grove was planted. I understand Jón Sváfnisson still owns the land, but he never comes here.”