Sun on Fire (25 page)

“I’m not in the mood for more work today,” he said, sipping his coffee. Then he was silent.

Birkir was silent, too, his gaze resting on the glass of water in his hand, and a few long moments passed before Helgi seemed ready to speak. Finally he began: “When Jón and Rakel came to Amsterdam to drag me out of the gutter and my heroin-induced stupor, they had a story to tell. Fabían had languished in a mental hospital since Sun died in the fire. He’d been unable to express himself, had been in some kind of mental shock—for years he’d been awake but not there. But things changed after a young woman, a psychologist, at the hospital had, with patience and persistence, managed to get through to him using some kind of hypnotism. The first advance was when he spontaneously helped himself to a glass of water. Then he began to say the occasional word. It took a couple years to get him back to the stage he is at today, which is pretty good, mentally. But part of that procedure involved having him work through what happened to him in the fire. It turned out that every single fraction of a second of that evening was etched into his mind like a movie on a DVD.
He could describe the course of events and the surroundings in minute detail. He was also able to draw pictures of his experience.

“His story revealed that he and Sun had been making candles—he in the kitchen watching over the pot of wax on the stove, and she in the living room working on the molds. Our method for melting wax was quite primitive and demanded a lot of care. The correct way is to stand the pan of wax in boiling water so the wax temperature never exceeds a hundred degrees Celsius, but we were impatient and just used to melt the wax over a gas ring, watching it all the time. Then as soon as it was melted, we took it off the stove and poured it into the molds. So Fabían was standing by the stove when he heard a car come up to the house. He heard someone come in, and then the sound of the newcomer and Sun talking next door in the living room, but he didn’t check what was going on because he was stuck there looking after the hot wax. The muffled conversation continued awhile, but then he heard a commotion and stomping of feet as Sun ran up the ladder into the attic, followed by the bang of the trapdoor slamming shut. Fabían could resist no longer and stuck his head around the door into the living room, where the visitor had clambered up the ladder and was banging on the trapdoor. Fabían saw the man, and the man saw him. The man jumped down to chase after him, but Fabían escaped through the back door in the pantry and hid behind the outhouse as the man searched around in the dark for him.

“Abandoning the pursuit, the man went back inside, and shortly afterward Fabían saw smoke billowing out the back door. He called out Sun’s name, but the smoke was increasing, and he soon saw flames in the pantry. The wax must have ignited, and the fire spread quickly through the bone-dry timbers of the house and the highly flammable paper that covered its walls. The whole house was soon ablaze, and all Fabían could do was retreat into
the darkness. Finally, he saw the little skylight fly open and Sun trying to climb out through it, but at that moment the house collapsed and she disappeared into the flames.

“This vision haunted Fabían’s every waking hour for all those years. He could neither hear nor see anything else—could not free himself from what had happened. The memory overpowered everything else, until at last the hypnotism treatment tore a tiny hole in the black shroud that had enveloped his mind. The image of that visitor in the living room was still etched in his brain, and eventually he regained enough mental balance to be able to transfer that image onto paper. His artistic skills were the same as they had been before the catastrophe. The picture he drew was of a man he had never seen before that night, because he never had any business in Hvolsvöllur with the rest of us; but Jón and Rakel immediately recognized the young sheriff.

“Officially, the sheriff’s version of events had been that the house was already on fire when he and the policeman got there, and that, despite their efforts to get in, they couldn’t save anything or anyone. The young sheriff suffered burns in his attempt, and the story went around that the experience so discombobulated him that he didn’t feel able to continue in his post, and went to work in the Foreign Ministry instead. But according to Fabían’s story, there was no fire when this man first entered the house. His actions had caused Fabían to run away, abandoning the melting wax, which must have reached flash point and ignited, bringing about the conflagration. In which case, Arngrímur was obviously responsible for the fire and Sun’s death. Worst thing was, as a result of the sheriff’s testimony, Fabían got the blame for the fire—the inquiry determined that he failed to exercise due care while melting the wax, and that the fire was his fault. And we, his best friends, believed it.”

Birkir asked, “Maybe he said all this about the sheriff specifically to escape blame?”

Helgi replied, “No. Fabían had no idea what was in the official report, nor what people in general thought about this. He simply told his story when his mental health had improved enough for him to be able to do so. It didn’t matter to him what other people thought. He would never have made this story up. His drawing of the sheriff was as accurate as a photograph, even down to the coat of arms on the buttons of his uniform. And he had never seen this guy, not before and not since. Fabían just wanted to stay at home and do his thing. He never went into Hvolsvöllur with us, and the sheriff never visited the house until that evening.”

Birkir shrugged. “OK, let’s assume his story is true.”

“It
is
true. I have no doubt Arngrímur Esjar is guilty of Sun’s death. But we all saw there was no hope he would ever be brought to justice through the official legal system. Fabían was not a witness you could rely on in court, and then there was the question whether the statute of limitations meant we were too late. And even if we revealed the story, there was no guarantee anybody would believe it; there might even be a backlash against us. Our only hope was to get Arngrímur to tell the truth, and that’s what we decided to do. We kept track of where he was working, first Washington, then Bonn, and finally Berlin. We figured our only option was to grab him and get him to confess his part in the crime. In writing or on tape.”

“Who is the ‘we’ in this context?”

“It was me, Jón, Rakel, and Starkadur—Sun’s younger brother.”

“What did you do?”

“We made various plans over the years, all of which revolved around grabbing Arngrímur on arrival in Iceland. We waited and waited, but he never showed up. Starkadur knew a young woman
who worked as a secretary in the Foreign Ministry, and he asked her to let him know if Arngrímur was coming to Iceland—told her he needed a clarification of some old record dating from the time Arngrímur was sheriff at Hvolsvöllur, a minor matter, no need to bother him in Berlin. He jogged the secretary’s memory on a regular basis, but the answer was always the same: Arngrímur Ingason is not expected in Iceland.”

“So you decided to go to Berlin.”

“Yes. Things just started happening all of a sudden. The embassy invited me to hold an exhibition in the Felleshus, and Jón received a German translation of his poems. The new ambassador in Berlin was a personal acquaintance, and through this friendship he arranged for the poems’ publication in Germany. Self-publication in disguise, actually, because Jón had to pay the costs himself. I’d previously met the ambassador’s wife at an art exhibition, and I sent a message to her that it would be a good idea to invite Jón to do a reading at the embassy in connection with his visit to the Frankfurt Book Fair. The second Sunday in October, just before the fair opened, would be the perfect day for it. I contacted the embassy to say I was coming to make preliminary arrangements for my exhibition and requested a meeting with Arngrímur Ingason that same Sunday. And Starkadur got his husband, David, to go with him to Berlin the same weekend to attend a well-known designer’s fashion show. The idea was that all three of us would be at the embassy on the same Sunday, and that we could easily corner Arngrímur since it was very unlikely that any of the rest of the staff would be there that day. We would introduce him to Fabían, the witness, and get him to write a confession. We assumed that it might be necessary to threaten him, and for that purpose hid a knife inside my candlestick, one of the two that were going to the embassy. It’s mostly hollow and there
was ample space in there for a knife like that. I sealed it in with plaster of paris, but it was easy to break—you only needed to bang the candlestick on a hard object of some kind.”

“But then Arngrímur didn’t show up,” Birkir said.

“No, he didn’t show up. Everything had gone according to plan until the reading started. I asked the ambassador about the counselor I was supposed to meet with, but Konrad said he’d been unexpectedly called to Stuttgart because of an accident there. As a result Konrad would hold the meeting with me himself. What a letdown. All that preparation and effort for nothing. We weren’t going to get our hands on Arngrímur that day.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, Jón recited his poetry, and we played our parts as if nothing had happened. Afterward the ambassador took us across to the Icelandic building and we had a party. Then this strange man, Anton Eiríksson, suddenly showed up. Jón and Starkadur were feeling a certain sense of anticlimax, and they decided to get drunk on the booze the embassy provided. Jón threw himself into reciting poems, and the ambassador had a ball—he ordered food for us and we stayed there well into the night, as you know.”

“But who killed Anton? Who knew about the knife?”

“I have no idea who killed Anton. We all knew about the knife.”

“David as well?”

“Yes.”

“And Lúdvík?”

“Yes. Lúdvík was supposed to be on hand to intimidate Arngrímur if necessary. He knows about that kind of thing. He used to be a heavy for the loan sharks for many years. He knows how to spook a guy.”

“Why was he included in the gang?”

“He was a kind of mercenary. He does most anything for money, and Jón was going to pay him well.”

“Doesn’t that make him the most likely person to have murdered Anton?”

“I don’t know.”

“The rest of you had no idea what he was doing during the hour he was supposed to have been sick in the restroom. He could have gone up to the fourth floor at any time during that period. Isn’t that so?”

“We were in the conference room. We didn’t observe anybody’s movements outside the room.”

“So Lúdvík has no alibi?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Where can I find him?”

“I think he’s still abroad.”

“No, he’s not. Where does he live?”

“He lives with a woman up in the Mosfell suburbs. The address must be in the National Register.”

18:00

Back outside, Birkir called Dóra, who agreed to come pick him up right away. She was in the apartment building at Austurbrún, talking with any tenants she could find at home—but that could wait.

Birkir called Magnús. “I must have a meeting with you now,” he said when his superior finally answered. “The Sandgil fire is still in the picture. I’ve come across information that conflicts with your testimony. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

“I’m just driving Gunnar home,” Magnús said. “I’ll meet you at my place afterward, same as yesterday.”

“Bring Gunnar with you, he needs to be in on this. I can take him home later.”

Birkir heard Magnús exchange words with Gunnar before replying, “OK. Gunnar’s coming with me. I’ll see you at home.”

It was a full fifteen minutes before Dóra arrived in her car. Birkir got in.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “As I was leaving, I met the guy who lives in the apartment directly beneath Anton’s. He said he heard drilling off and on over a period of two days. Not continuously, though, and not in the evenings.”

“Did he see anybody?”

“No, but Anna seemed to have found something interesting. She went two hours without a smoke while she was investigating it, or so I was told.”

“Any idea what?”

“Footprints, or something.”

“Oh, just footprints,” Birkir said, disappointed.
That might or might not be relevant
, he thought.

“It’s something to work with,” Dóra said.

Birkir asked her to drive to Magnús’s home.

“This case is turning into something very strange,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

For a long time, Birkir did not reply. Finally he said, “Let’s hear what Magnús has to say.”

In the driveway next to the house, Magnús’s Land Cruiser was parked in the shade.

“Come in with me,” Birkir said to Dóra. “You need to be a party to this meeting.”

They walked up to the house and Birkir rang the doorbell. Nobody came to the door; there was no sign of life inside the house, no lights visible.

“They must be in there,” Birkir said. He called Magnús’s cell but got the automatic response saying it was either switched off or out of range. He tried Gunnar’s, which rang until voice mail offered him the option of leaving a message.

“What’s Gunnar’s ringtone?” Dóra asked.

“He keeps on changing it,” Birkir said. “Last I heard, it was a referee’s whistle.”

“I’m sure I just heard a sound like that,” Dóra said. “Call the number again.”

Birkir did, and Dóra pointed to the driveway. They followed the faint sound past the house and around the corner toward Magnús’s car. The trilling of the phone grew louder as they approached.

“There’s someone in the passenger seat,” Dóra said.

Birkir opened the front passenger door to find Gunnar sitting there gasping for breath, both hands scrabbling at his neck,
which someone had bound with heavy-duty packing tape to the headrest behind him. Gunnar was trying to pull at the tape with his pudgy fingers to relieve the pressure on his throat. The still-ringing cell phone lay on the floor behind the seat.

“I have scissors in my bag,” Dóra said calmly, pushing Birkir aside. She fished out a pair of delicate nail scissors and carefully cut through the tape, which Gunnar immediately tore away from his neck. He then leaned forward, puffing like a whale.