28
Friday, 26 September
Clean Iceland’s offices were two rooms between an artist’s studio and a health food shop a street back from Myrargata and the slipways of Reykjavik harbour. Looking out of the window behind Kolbeinn Sverrisson’s head, Gunna could see the masts of the whaling boats that had been there for a decade without putting to sea.
Bara stood by the door while Gunna took the only other chair in Kolbeinn’s cramped and crowded cubbyhole of an office. Every surface was covered with snowdrifts of paperwork, folders, books and papers. The floor could only be seen in the shape of a corridor threading its way between boxes of more files.
‘It’s a mess,’ Kolbeinn sighed. ‘We only moved in here last week and there hasn’t been time to sort anything out yet. We don’t even have phones connected yet.’
‘How many of you are there here?’ Gunna asked.
‘Just two of us. Me and Asta full time, then there’s loads of people who donate a few hours a week to the cause.’
Kolbeinn Sverrison was a raw-boned man with cropped dark hair and an open, engaging face cross-hatched with several days’ worth of stubble. Gunna had seen him in the distance at the march and wondered if the anger and passion he had shown then were far below the surface. He looked different, more vulnerable than the clown- like figure she had seen in his outsize green hat at the head of the march and later addressing the crowd with a fury that had left him drained.
‘Are you here to donate a few hours to Clean Iceland?’ he asked wryly, pouring coffee from a thermos into three cracked cups on the edge of his desk.
‘No, sorry. Do you have the pictures, Bara?’ Gunna asked, swivelling in her seat. Bara passed forward a folder and Gunna extracted pictures of Egill Grimsson and Einar Eyjolfur Einarsson. She placed them one by one alongside the row of cups.
‘Anyone here you recognize?’
‘Could be.’
‘And?’
Kolbeinn’s brows knitted in a frown as he lifted a cup and sipped.
‘Why do you need to know?’ he asked finally.
‘Because, as you must be aware, these two people are dead and we’d like to know why and who’s responsible.’
‘InterAlu is responsible,’ he said flatly.
‘Would you care to explain?’
‘Both of these men were close to us here at Clean Iceland. Egill was one of the founders of the movement and one of our most energetic campaigners. He poured a huge amount of energy into lobbying politicians and government departments, highlighting illegal acts, generally making himself a nuisance to InterAlu and all the other aluminium manufacturers who want to set up shop here.’
‘But particularly InterAlu? Why?’
‘Because it’s just so fucking blatant. The environmental survey was a sham to begin with. Then there was the issue of power, when the National Power Authority refused to supply them. So they went ahead and started building their own hydro-electric plant in a nature reserve, after they had bribed or bamboozled the government into declassifying the reserve and allowing the power station to be built. The pollution will be horrendous when it’s finished. It’s crooked government. It’s worse than that. It’s stupid government being diddled by a pack of crooks.’
Gunna felt that she was seeing a burst of the same passion: the man’s presence had gone from quiet to electrifying in a matter of seconds. ‘And Einar Eyjolfur?’
The passion vanished as soon as it had appeared. ‘Ach. Einar. He was a great guy.’
‘You knew he worked at Spearpoint and that Spearpoint is involved with the power plant?’
‘Involved? Don’t you know that the owners of Spearpoint also own fifty per cent of ESC, the company that’s building the power station? They’re more than just involved and it’s even more of a fucking scandal if you remember that one of these people is a government minister,’ Kolbeinn spat. ‘But yes, we were fully aware that Einar Eyjolfur was working at Spearpoint and he was an invaluable source of inside information. I have no doubt this is why he was killed.’
‘Why haven’t you contacted the police about this?’
Kolbeinn laughed. ‘What? And you think anyone would believe us? Come on.’
Gunna picked up the pictures from the desk and replaced them with one of Gunnar Harde. ‘Recognize this guy?’
‘Nope. Who is he?’
‘OK. And this one?’
This time she placed a picture of Arngrimur Orn Arnarson on the table.
‘I know this one. He’s a computer programmer who did some work for us years ago. In fact, he set up our first website in the nineties. Haven’t seen him for a long time. I thought he’d moved away?’
‘Not far. He moved to Borgarnes. We believe he was murdered a couple of weeks ago and that he could be linked to Egill and Einar Eyjolfur. Do you know anything of Arngrimur’s activities?’
‘Shit. No.’
‘When did you last see him or have any contact with him?’
Kolbeinn looked briefly at the ceiling. ‘I’m not sure. Probably six, seven years ago. To be honest, I wasn’t too comfortable around him, always got the feeling there was something dodgy he was up to. Know what I mean?’
Gunna nodded. ‘Perfectly. It’s part of the job description. But can you be more precise? What was it made you uncomfortable?’
‘It’s hard to say. He was a highly competent systems guy and a very clever programmer. But he was one of those people who would do any kind of work for the right price. I don’t think he had much in the way of principles. He made our website and kept it secure, as we certainly had a good few hacking attempts that Arngrimur did his best to trace. But we had to pay him the going rate, even though this isn’t a rich organization and it’s supposed to be on a non-profit basis.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He was too expensive for us after a while. That was that.’
‘Who took over his work?’
‘Egill, mostly, to begin with. Actually my little sister is our webmaster now but we have a much simpler site that’s easy to maintain and we have a series of blogs and a Facebook presence instead.’
‘When did you see Einar Eyjolfur last?’
‘Months ago. Not long after Egill died. I could tell he was worried then, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Who’s this guy?’ Kolbeinn asked, tapping Harde’s picture with a forefinger. ‘A suspect, maybe?’
‘He’s someone we want to trace. That’s all I can tell you. How come Einar Eyjolfur was working at Spearpoint? Did you plant him there?’
‘Not at all. He applied and got the job on his own merits. It wasn’t until he had been there some time that he got in touch with us. We’d been friends since we were at university. Drifted apart when he went off to the US to do his master’s. He called one day and suggested we meet, about two years ago. That’s when he told me all about the Hvalvik smelter plans and he essentially became our mole.’
‘So do you think his employers were aware of what he was doing?’
‘Eventually, yes. I’m certain of it and I think that got him murdered. Not the people at Spearpoint — the ones who manage InterAlu. They are absolutely ruthless.’
Kolbeinn waved a hand at the mass of papers. ‘Somewhere in here I have a file on their business activities in Central America and in the Philippines. Breaks your heart, some of it.’
‘So who do you believe is responsible?’
‘For Einar Eyjolfur’s death? You’re the detective. You tell me.’
