‘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.