Free 66° North by Michael Ridpath Page A

Freyja.’ He kissed her on the cheek.
    As he walked back to his car and the long drive back to Reykjavík he thought that perhaps Bjartur did live on after all.
    He felt sick with shame. It was urban dwellers like him who had shafted the farmers; not just the bankers and the politicians like Ólafur Tómasson, but the shoppers in the boutiques on Laugavegur, the easy spenders, the borrowers, the speculators. It was true Sindri had always protested about the capitalist system, but he had abandoned the countryside himself. His brother had succumbed to the allure of easy money.
    He liked to blame others for what had happened to Iceland, but the truth was he felt as guilty as the rest of them.
    He owed Freyja. And Frída. And he would do something about it.
    Back at the station, Magnus phoned Detective Sergeant Piper, with Árni and Vigdís listening in. After seeing Emilía, Magnus and Árni had interviewed Óskar’s younger brother at his house in the Laugardalur district of Reykjavík. He was clearly put out that the family fortune had disappeared, but he was more inclined to praise Óskar for making the money than blame him for losing it.
    Vigdís had visited the distraught parents, and searched Óskar’s empty house in Thingholt. Nothing. The banker hadn’t lived there for nine months. The only visitors had been a cleaner every fortnight and a secretary from OBG Investments checking for mail.
    Magnus relayed the information, or rather lack of it, to Piper. ‘So no real signs of an Icelandic connection from this end,’ he said. ‘Nor Russian. How about you? Any luck with the motorbikes?’
    ‘Some. One of the owners is a small-time drug dealer to the wealthy in Kensington. He claims he has never heard of Gunnarsson. We are inclined to believe him. Besides, his bike was a nine-hundred-cc Kawasaki, and one of the witnesses said he thought the killer’s sounded smaller than that.’
    Didn’t seem like much of a suspect to Magnus. He was wary of the tendency for policemen the world over to fall upon the nearest small-time dealer and try to pin big crimes on him. At least the British police were resisting the temptation. ‘Anything on any of the others?’
    ‘Yeah. One of the bikes was nicked last week in Hounslow. A Suzuki one-two-five. We are trying to trace it. Might be something there.’
    ‘What about the Russian girl?’
    ‘We pulled her in again. Nothing. She’s cool as a cucumber, though: she could be hiding something. But we have turned up one lead.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘A neighbour said a bloke came round a few days ago with a package for Gunnarsson. Didn’t have the right number house. She didn’t know where Gunnarsson lived, but when we asked the other neighbours, one of them remembered pointing him to the right address.’
    ‘Interesting. Did you get a description?’
    ‘Yes. Young guy, early twenties, short fair hair. Five-eight or five-nine.’ Magnus was pleased to hear the familiar feet and inches. He still found heights in metres difficult to translate. ‘Broad face, slight dimple on his chin, blue eyes. Black leather jacket, jeans and checked shirt, but neat. Very neat. Too neat for a genuine courier, the neighbour thought. Foreign accent.’
    ‘What kind of foreign accent?’
    ‘Ah, that’s the question. The witness is French herself, although she speaks good English. Virginie Rogeon. And she remembered him well. Fancied him, we think, said he was good-looking. She thought the accent might be Polish, but she didn’t know. Northern or Eastern European rather than Italian or Spanish.’
    ‘Could it be Icelandic?’
    ‘Is an Icelandic accent distinctive?’
    Magnus thought about it. ‘Yes. Yes, I guess it is. You could get some Icelanders to speak to the witness, see if it sounds familiar.’
    ‘Good thought. We could try the embassy. Or some of Gunnarsson’s friends in London.’
    ‘So apart from that, no real leads then?’
    ‘No. It’s early days, but we are struggling a