Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

father.”’
    Jóhannes smiled. ‘I did. It’s a common theme of the sagas, as I am sure you know. Many people think those concepts are from a bygone age. My father didn’t.’
    ‘Yeah. Magnus didn’t get it, of course. It can be a pain in the ass having a brother who is a cop. But I got it.’ Ollie looked straight at Jóhannes.
    ‘Did you?’ Jóhannes said, quietly.
    ‘Yes,’ said Ollie. ‘Yes, I did.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    P OLICE HEADQUARTERS WAS hopping all afternoon. The Commissioner, Thorkell Holm, the Prosecutor and the Minister of Justice
were all trying to decide how best to approach the Church. Baldur was sent off to interview the current Bishop with Thorkell. Amazingly, the Bishop didn’t confess to masterminding an
operation of mass murder to hush up his predecessor’s sexual misdemeanours. Fortunately that was a line of inquiry the Commissioner was keen to keep Magnus well away from. While Magnus had
many strengths that the Commissioner professed to admire, political tact wasn’t one of them.
    They had found the black Suzuki Vitara that had been rented by the mysterious Dutchman parked in the suburb of Árbaer. Forensics were all over it. If a fingerprint from the vehicle could
be matched to one of the many sets found in the church, that would point strongly to a link between Nico’s and Ásta’s murder.
    But Magnus was tired and frustrated. He wondered what to do about the information from Apex about Dieter and Erika. He would like to get some corroboration from someone else before confronting
them, but from whom? Nico might have known, but he was dead. Dúddi had not been involved in Freeflow for long enough. Perhaps Ásta had discovered something about it, which was why she
had died? Was that why she knew the Israelis weren’t responsible?
    Possible? Just. But there was clearly someone else involved outside Freeflow, the man who had killed Nico, who had attacked Erika, and who had presumably murdered Ásta. Why would he care
about Dieter’s jealousy of Nico?
    It didn’t add up.
    ‘Magnús?’
    It was Vigdís. She was holding a loose page torn from a spiral reporter’s notebook. She was wearing gloves.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Look at this. We found it in Ásta’s bag. It’s her writing, by the way.’
    It was a kind of to-do list. Seven single words in a column. Top of the list was the word ‘Scanning’. It was obvious what that meant. Fourth on the list was
‘Dumont?’.
    ‘Dumont?’ said Magnus. ‘That’s something to do with the Belgian scandal, right? Wasn’t that the name of the Finance Minister?’
    ‘That’s right. In 2008 Sabine Dumont became Finance Minister in the Belgian government. Two weeks later, Freeflow published details of an internal investigation into her time as an
economist at the European Monetary Institute in Frankfurt in 1998.’
    ‘What’s the European Monetary Institute?’
    ‘It doesn’t exist any more. It was the predecessor organization to the European Central Bank.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Anyway, Dumont had an affair with a German banker called Helmut Bernecker. The investigation was launched in 2000 and it uncovered evidence that suggested Bernecker had traded on inside
information about European monetary policy from Dumont. But the evidence wasn’t conclusive and the report was shelved.’
    ‘Not good for Madame Dumont.’
    ‘No, but what was worse was that in 2005 Bernecker, who was now working for a fund manager, was found guilty in a totally separate case of insider trading. But no one went back to look at
the old Dumont investigation until Freeflow put it up on the web for all to see.’
    ‘I’m guessing that didn’t do Dumont’s career a whole lot of good.’
    ‘She resigned the next day. Three days after that she killed herself in a hotel room in Antwerp.’
    ‘So Freeflow got its scalp,’ said Magnus. ‘But why would Ásta be interested in that case in particular?’
    Vigdís shrugged. ‘I don’t know. There was a big sheaf of paper she had printed out next to her computer: downloads from the Freeflow website and press comment on their various
leaks. The Dumont scandal was in there, but so were all the others: Gruppo Cavour, the German bank in Luxembourg, the Icelandic bank, all of it.’
    Magnus stared at the piece of paper. ‘Belgians speak Dutch, don’t they? Flemish is more or less the same as Dutch, right?’
    Vigdís shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve never been to Belgium. You mean you think our friend