Black Skies (28 page)

‘So, did anything happen between them?’

‘No,’ said Arnar, ‘not that I know of.’

‘What about between her and Sverrir or Knútur?’

‘I don’t know what you’re implying.’

‘Lína was the type,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘If you get my drift.’

‘Well, you’ll have to ask them.’

On his way out of the bank, Sigurdur Óli looked in on both Sverrir and Knútur to show them the list and ask them the same questions that he had put to Arnar, including whether they recognised any of the names. He had delayed showing it to them in the hope of catching them off guard and leaving them unsure of exactly how much he knew. Sverrir hardly read the list, merely handed it back saying he had known nobody on the trip. Knútur took more time to assess the names. He was less self-assured in Sigurdur Óli’s presence than the others but gave the same answer, that he had not been acquainted with anyone except his colleagues.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

‘Yes,’ replied Knútur. ‘Absolutely positive.’

Sigurdur Óli was walking out of the building when he heard someone call his name and, turning, saw his old school friend
Steinunn
coming towards him with a smile on her face. He had not seen her since the reunion, when she had mentioned her new job at the bank and advised him that he was not her type.

‘What are you doing here – after a loan?’ she asked, looking hotter than ever with her blonde hair, dark eyebrows and tight black trousers.

‘No, I …’

‘Did you come to see Guffi?’ Steinunn asked. ‘He’s on holiday; he’s gone to Florida.’

‘No, I had a meeting on the first floor,’ Sigurdur Óli explained. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine, thanks. I enjoy working here, not like the tax office. You lot must have more than enough on your plate with two murders. It’s a bit excessive, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m investigating the woman who was battered to death.’

‘It sounded horrific. Was it debt collectors? You hear rumours.’

‘We’ll get to the bottom of it,’ Sigurdur Óli replied non-committally, relieved that Steinunn did not appear to have heard about Patrekur being called in for interview.

‘It’s unbelievable what those debt collectors get away with,’ Steinunn said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Now, who was it who was talking about guys like that?’ she added, as if to herself.

‘About debt collectors?’

‘Yes, something about bullying at school. God, my mind’s a blank. Anyway, he soon put a stop to it.’

‘Who was it?’

‘The debt collector? No idea.’

‘No, the person who told you.’

‘Oh, I can’t remember where I heard it. I’ll let you know when it comes back to me. I have a feeling it was someone we both
know
, unless I’m getting confused. Or maybe I heard it at the tax office.’

‘Call me,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

‘It was good to see you. Say hi to Bergthóra, or is it all over?’

‘See you,’ said Sigurdur Óli and hurried out.

44

KOLFINNA, LÍNA’S FRIEND
who had given Sigurdur Óli the guest lists for the company’s glacier tours, recognised him immediately when he went back to see her. She was dashing about in preparation for some meeting and he had to follow her down the corridors before he could persuade her to slow down enough to hand her back the lists of names.

‘Could you run through who these people are for me?’ he asked.

‘I’m sorry but I’m in a terrible hurry.’

‘Is there any more you can tell me about Lína?’

‘Are these people connected to her in some way?’ asked Kolfinna, running an eye down the list. ‘Christ, I’ve missed the meeting!’ she exclaimed, looking at her watch.

‘I don’t know,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘But I know this man,’ he added, pointing at Patrekur’s name. ‘This one too,’ indicating Hermann. ‘And I know who these four are.’ He pointed to the four bankers. ‘And of course I know Lína and Ebeneser, but there are lots of others left. Three foreigners, for example. They are foreigners, aren’t they? These ones here.’

‘It looks like it from the names. Are you wondering whether they might be resident in Iceland?’

‘Can you fill in any of the gaps?’

‘These two, Snorri and Einar, work here with us. I think this guy, Gudmundur, is a VIP client of theirs, and this one here, Ísak, is a big client too. I don’t know the foreigners. Maybe you should talk to Snorri; he might know more.’

‘Snorri?’

‘He deals with our parent company overseas. Maybe he knows who these foreigners are. Sorry, got to dash. Nice to see you again.’

Snorri was no less pressed than Kolfinna and Sigurdur Óli had to resign himself to waiting outside his office for twenty minutes before the door finally opened and he was ushered in. During their conversation the phone rang incessantly and Snorri answered some of the calls while ignoring the rest.

Sigurdur Óli explained the situation and the reason he needed information about the foreigners who had been on the corporate excursion. He did not mention the attack on Lína or Thorfinnur’s death, only that the police were investigating links between individuals in the corporate world. Snorri, a lean, agile man who obviously spent a good deal of time at the gym, answered quickly and concisely. He studied the list.

‘These two came to Iceland as our guests,’ he said, pointing to two of the foreign names. ‘We’re only a subsidiary of an international accountancy firm, as our name suggests. These men look after relations between us and their other subsidiaries in Scandinavia. They visit Iceland regularly, so we decided to send them on this tour. I gather they had a great time too.’

‘What about this one?’ asked Sigurdur Óli, pointing to the third foreign name.

‘No, I don’t know about him,’ said Snorri. ‘I think he must have been with the bankers.’

‘Do you know them at all?’

‘No. But we were doing a lot of business with the bank at the time, so I assume that’s how they came to be invited. Shall we check out this guy?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘No problem.’

Snorri opened a search engine on his computer and typed in the man’s name. A number of results appeared and he clicked on the top one, then closed it and tried the next. In under a minute he had the facts.

‘He’s some executive at a bank in Luxembourg, not right at the top but in a good position. A middle manager, you might say. Alain Sörensen. Swedish on his father’s side, French on his mother’s, brought up in Sweden. Born 1969. Specialises in derivatives. Wife, two kids. Educated in France. Hobbies: cycling and travelling. Is that him?’ Snorri asked, looking up from the screen.

‘It’s the right name,’ Sigurdur Óli said.

‘He has nothing to do with our company; I think I can say that with confidence.’

‘Isn’t it likely then that he was with the bankers?’

‘Very likely. They’re the only people in the group who would have dealings with foreign banks.’

Sigurdur Óli thought back to the three men who had studied the list and claimed not to know anyone on it.

‘What’s it all about?’ asked Snorri. ‘Surely a bankers’ get-together isn’t a police matter?’

‘You wouldn’t have thought so,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘What do you make of it? What’s going on with all these banks and new billionaires?’

‘It’s not complicated,’ said Snorri.

‘Are they all financial rocket scientists?’

‘If only. The problem is that very few of the people involved in
this
new big-bucks business have much expertise in finance, and quite frankly some of them aren’t all that bright.’

‘Personally I’ve been quite impressed by what they’ve achieved,’ said Sigurdur Óli.

‘Yeah, sure, they’re buying up big-name companies in Denmark and the UK and putting Iceland on the map, as they say. Some of them are cleverer than others. And the boost to the banking sector has created a huge amount of work, not least for people in my line of business, as well as bringing plenty of revenue into the country. But they’re no wizards. They’ve simply discovered that there’s a vast supply of cheap credit in the world, short-term borrowing, just there for the taking. They have complex ownership arrangements and scoop up all the credit they can lay their hands on before lending it back to themselves, their companies and each other in order to buy companies, banks and airlines, paying enormous sums for them.’

‘So what’s wrong with that?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

‘On the surface it looks as if they’re making money and accumulating businesses,’ explained Snorri, ‘but all that’s happening is that the shares in their companies are rising, so it looks as if they’re making a profit and that their loans are increasing simultaneously in value. There are indications that they’re pushing the share prices way beyond their economic value. Then when the public and so-called professional investors like pension funds see the share price going through the roof, they jump on the bandwagon, and the New Vikings take out even bigger loans against the rise, which is driven by a vastly inflated asset valuation. And so on.’

‘Is there no regulation?’

‘The valuation of assets is governed entirely by them. Look how they’re permitted to record goodwill, which is just some kind of expectation of future revenue. They decide how it’s calculated themselves. It’s a completely fictional number that can be blown up to tens of billions without having any basis in reality, but it helps them
ramp
up their market price still further. There’s next to no regulation of this sort of trick.’

‘Goodwill?’ echoed Sigurdur Óli.

‘They do whatever they can to make the numbers look good,’ said Snorri. ‘When the economy’s being run on this sort of model, it only needs one thing to go wrong for it to have catastrophic results. Hardly a single credit repayment can be made without the whole system coming crashing down. You may not have heard much about goodwill yet, but just you wait until you start hearing talk of credit lines.’

‘But isn’t it up to auditors like you to make sure that everything’s above board?’

‘That’s my point. We’re gradually easing ourselves out of a relationship with these individuals,’ said Snorri. ‘I’ve been fighting for this in our company and people are starting to listen to me. We’re not going to connive in these practices any more.’

‘What about Alain Sörensen?’

‘I don’t know him,’ said Snorri. ‘There are all sorts of banking scams that involve shifting money into tax havens and so on. But I don’t know this man.’

‘Tax havens?’

‘I only say that because he’s based in Luxembourg. A lot of that stuff passes through Luxembourg.’

45

WHEN THE INTERROGATION
of Thórarinn and Hördur resumed that afternoon at the Litla-Hraun prison, where the two men had been remanded in custody, Sigurdur Óli joined Finnur to interview Thórarinn. He had given Finnur an update on his investigation into Lína’s links with the three bankers and a summary of his conversations with them, which had not proved particularly informative. They had agreed on a strategy for dealing with Thórarinn, who until now had been singularly uncooperative. It was time, they resolved, that he woke up to the predicament he was in.

‘A tiresome character,’ commented Finnur.

‘Insufferable,’ agreed Sigurdur Óli.

But Thórarinn appeared undaunted when he was led into the interview room, smirking at them, accompanied by his lawyer.

‘What’s with the porridge in this place, day in, day out?’ he asked.

‘You’d better get used to it,’ Finnur said.

Sigurdur Óli switched on the tape recorder and they began by repeating the same questions about Lína and the reason Thórarinn
had
turned up at her house, armed with a weapon, and hit her, thereby causing her death. Thórarinn stuck to his story about a debt and to his claim that he had not meant to go so far. He remained adamant that he had acted in self-defence.

‘All right,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Let’s change the subject. Do you know a banker called Sverrir?’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Can’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t know a Sverrir. What’s he saying? Is he telling lies about me? I don’t know him.’

‘What about a man called Arnar, also a banker? He works at the same firm.’

‘No idea.’

‘The third banker I’m going to ask you about is called Knútur. Ring any bells?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about a man called Thorfinnur?’

‘No. Who are these guys?’

‘Have you had any business dealings with the men I’ve just named?’

‘No.’

‘Have you had any other sort of dealings with them?’

‘No.’

‘Did one of them approach you about Lína?’

‘I’m telling you, I don’t know them.’

‘So you deny having any dealings with them?’

‘Yes, I do. I don’t bloody know them.’

‘Have you heard the name Alain Sörensen?’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘All right,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘That’s all. Thank you.’

He reached over to the tape recorder and turned it off.

‘You’re admitting sole liability for Lína’s death so you’re looking
at
a life sentence,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. You should be pleased. Congratulations.’

‘What? Is that it?’ asked Thórarinn in surprise. ‘Who are these characters you were asking about?’

‘I think we’re finished here,’ said Finnur to Thórarinn’s lawyer. Neither he nor Sigurdur Óli looked at the prisoner. They explained that as far as they were concerned the case was solved and no longer a matter for the police but would now be passed to the public prosecutor’s office. Toggi listened intently. Gradually it dawned on him that he no longer had any power over the assembled company.

‘We expect he’ll remain in custody here at Litla-Hraun until the trial, and ultimately he’ll probably get a reduced sentence. That’s par for the course,’ Sigurdur Óli told the lawyer.

‘Run that bit about liability by me again,’ said Thórarinn, glancing from one of the police officers to the other.

‘What about liability?’ asked Sigurdur Óli. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘If someone … how did you put it? That thing you said last time. If someone’s just … if someone’s just an instrument or whatever the hell you said.’