Sun on Fire by Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson Read Free Book Online

activity on this floor that night.”
    “Where was the body?” Birkir asked.
    “Upstairs, in the ambassador’s office on the top floor. I found it sitting in a chair in there. It was totally shocking, of course.”
    “We won’t go up there just yet,” Birkir said. “First we need to hear from the local polizei about their crime-scene investigation. Anna can proceed with the forensics in light of that.”
    “It all must be done in an organized way, of course—I understand that.” Arngrímur looked at his watch. “The German police officer should be here any minute.”
    Birkir looked around. “We’ll need access to a room that was definitely locked and not used on the night in question. We’ll make that our base.”
    Arngrímur nodded and said, “There’s an office on the floor below. We use it for interns sometimes, but we haven’t any interns at the moment. The ambassador doesn’t have keys to that room, so he couldn’t have let anyone in there Sunday evening.”
    15:45
    As they walked back down to the second floor, Arngrímur’s cell phone rang.
    After a brief conversation, he told Gunnar, “That was the front desk of the Felleshus. The local police officer has arrived.”
    Gunnar said, “I’ll speak to him. Is there a restaurant or something over there? I’m starving.”
    “My apologies—you need to eat, of course.”
    Birkir said, “A sandwich and some seltzer water is plenty for me. It’d be good if it could be sent here.”
    “A sandwich for me, too,” Anna said, “and a Coke. But first I need to go out for a cigarette.”
    Gunnar accompanied Arngrímur across the plaza to the Felleshus, where they met Commissar Fischer from the Berlin Police, a tall man with thick gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His brown eyes sparkled with humor. Gunnar greeted him in German, and they immediately seemed to click. They agreed to go talk in the cafeteria on the second floor so that Gunnar could get something to eat.
    “I think better on a full stomach,” he said.
    Gunnar got himself a double portion of Hungarian goulash with bread on the side. Fischer accepted a cup of coffee and a wedge of cake. Arngrímur signed for the bill and left, carrying sandwiches, Coke, and seltzer water for the others.
    “Iceland—I’ve got to visit Iceland to see the mountains, the glaciers, and the hot springs,” Fischer said when they’d settled into a corner table. “Next time we’ll have a meeting in Reykjavík.”
    “For sure,” Gunnar said, grinning.
    From a cardboard box he’d brought, Fischer produced the murder weapon enclosed in clear plastic. He handed it to Gunnar, who examined it through its wrapper. It was a large hunting knife with leather handle, covered in blood.
    “American product,” Fischer said. “Nineteen-centimeter blade, overall length twenty-seven point three centimeters. Known as an SOG Super Bowie. List price two hundred sixty-two US dollars. It wasn’t ever available in stores here in Germany, as far as we can ascertain. Unfortunately, blood spread along the handle after the killer let go of it. We can’t find a clean area to look for finger or palm prints. The blade is completely unworn and very sharp—a knife in top condition. You could rip the thickest cowhide with a weapon like this.”
    He pulled a large envelope from his briefcase and extracted several color photographs. The first one showed a fat, bald man sitting hunched over in a fancy office chair. He was dressed in a dark-gray suit and a white open-necked shirt. A gaping wound split the man’s abdomen, and the knife stuck out from its lower end. The blade had sliced through his clothing, and internal pressure had forced the wound open to fifteen centimeters at its widest.
    Fischer said, “The killer plunged the knife deep into the victim’s abdomen halfway between the sternum and the navel, probably using his right hand, since the incision slants marginally to the left. He then pushed the knife downward with