The Darkness Knows

57

Lúkas stared downstream to where the river took a sharp bend into the gorge on the other side of the bridge, continuing on its tireless journey to the sea.

‘Are you planning to do something stupid like Bernhard?’ Konrád asked.

Lúkas peered over the rocky ledge and shook his head. ‘You needn’t worry about that. I’ve always been afraid of the river, like I told you.’

‘You said your plan was a disaster.’

‘None of it would have happened if we hadn’t bumped into Sigurvin at the cinema one day. I don’t remember the name of the film, only that it was crap. We hadn’t seen each other for years, not since we were in the Scouts, but we got chatting, and for some reason we started talking about booze because I used to work on the cargo ships. I said I could get hold of some vodka for him, if he liked. I had some gallon bottles smuggled in by a mate of mine and took a couple round to Sigurvin’s place the following evening. He liked the price and after that I used to sell him the gallon bottles from time to time, whenever I had some to spare, and we used to chat a bit and got to know each other better and—’

‘I don’t remember any bottles like that turning up at his house,’ Konrád interrupted. He was constantly on the lookout for any details he had missed during the original investigation. ‘There was nothing to connect him to smuggling. Not a single piece of evidence.’

‘No. He was careful. I think he used to empty out the gallon containers into normal-sized vodka bottles. He said something about it once.’

‘And the drugs?’

‘No one had a clue that we were mates with Sigurvin,’ Lúkas said, seeming eager to tell the whole story at last. ‘And he was the only person we knew who had any money. So I told him about Bernhard’s idea of using the search and rescue team. Sigurvin thought it over, then said he was up for it. He was greedy. “You can never have too much dosh,” he said. We told him he could get twenty times back what he’d paid for the drugs, which was perfectly true. His involvement would never come out, and even if it did he could simply deny everything. We’d make sure we didn’t leave any tracks that could be traced to him. Bernhard and I offered to go to Amsterdam on rescue-team business. I’d done a bit of drug smuggling before on a very small scale, so I knew where to lay my hands on the goods. Everything went according to plan. We bought the drugs — cocaine mostly, which was starting to be popular in Iceland at the time — and packed it in with a consignment of equipment for the rescue team that was due to be transported home in a container. We hid the stuff in two second-hand German snowmobiles. The whole thing went like a dream, right up until Sigurvin lost his nerve. First he said he couldn’t trust us; that we were cheating him and he’d never have any way of being sure that we weren’t. We weren’t cheating him but he didn’t believe us when we denied it. In hindsight, I reckon he just wanted an excuse to withdraw from the whole thing. He’d got his profit and we’d given him some extra money as a sweetener because he made such a fuss, but then, stupidly, we decided we wanted him to return part of it. He flat-out refused.’

‘We learnt recently that he’d kept a considerable sum in cash in his house,’ Konrád said reflectively. ‘Presumably, you two met him to talk things over?’

‘Bernhard met him on Öskjuhlíd.’

‘Had they met there before?’ Konrád asked, remembering Ingvar’s story about the big off-road vehicle by the tanks.

‘Yes, once before. Bernhard had invested part of his profit in the scrapyard. He’d bought it off some bloke and was planning to sell it on quickly and open a garage instead. He had other big dreams too. We’d made a hell of a lot on that consignment. My brother had connections in the drugs world and helped us with the distribution. He was under the impression that me and Bernhard were responsible for smuggling it in on our own. I never told him about Sigurvin. By then, things had got so bad that we couldn’t talk to him any more without it blowing up into a row. But Bernhard wanted to fix things, so he met Sigurvin on Öskjuhlíd and persuaded him, with a lot of difficulty, to come over to the scrapyard, where I was waiting. All we meant to do was smooth things out between us. But of course tempers got lost immediately and it turned into a shouting match. Sigurvin threatened to shop us. He talked about ringing the police with an anonymous tip-off. Said we’d never be able to prove he’d been involved. Which was true. We’d made sure there was no evidence pointing to him.’

‘Which of you hit him on the head?’

Lúkas hesitated for a moment, then said: ‘It would be easy to blame Bernhard now.’

‘Sure,’ Konrád said. ‘If that would let you off the hook.’