‘Did she believe him?’
‘Ómar thinks she didn’t. He says she was pretty upset.’
‘Does Ómar believe this Sharp?’
‘He says he does.’
‘Has he invested in Thomocoin himself?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask him,’ said Vigdís.
‘That’s OK. Did he have any idea who might have killed Helga?’
‘No. He seemed genuinely upset about it, though. For what that’s worth.’
Magnus knew what Vigdís meant. In murder cases, most people seemed upset, even the perpetrators. It was unprofessional for a detective to set much store in that. But it was the response you wanted to see from a human being.
‘Thanks a lot, Vigdís.’
‘I’ll send you my report. Say hi to Árni for me.’
‘Vigdís says hi,’ said Magnus to Árni as he hung up. He was relaying the rest of what Vigdís had told him when his phone buzzed again.
A New York number.
‘Inspector Jonson,’ said Magnus, reverting to the American version of his name. His father had been Ragnar Jónsson, which meant that Magnus had been Magnús Ragnarsson in Iceland, but when he moved to America as a kid, his father had simplified his son’s last name to Jonson, and the accent had slipped off ‘Magnús’.
‘Hi. This is Agent Ryan Malley of the FBI. I came into the office this morning to catch up on some stuff and I saw your message.’
Magnus grinned, pleased with Agent Malley’s work ethic. ‘Thanks for getting back to me, Ryan. I’m investigating a murder here in Iceland, and there might be a Thomocoin angle. I know you sent us an MLAT about it recently. Can you give me some details?’
‘Haven’t heard squat from Reykjavik,’ said Malley gruffly.
Magnus had learned from long experience in Boston that the FBI could sometimes be very helpful, and they could sometimes be very unhelpful. It all depended on how you started off with them. And bullshitting them was never a good idea.
‘I don’t think you will hear back from them,’ said Magnus. ‘Or at least nothing useful. Apparently, the whole subject has gotten political here, know what I’m saying? But maybe we can come to an arrangement.’
‘An arrangement?’
‘I tell you things. You tell me things.’ Magnus left unsaid that any information exchanged in this way could not be used as evidence, but he was sure Malley knew that.
‘You speak pretty good English,’ Malley said.
‘I worked for the Boston Police Department for fifteen years,’ Magnus said. ‘Homicide.’
‘Oh really? You know Harry Spaventa, then?’
‘Yeah, I know Harry,’ said Magnus. ‘He retired last year.’
‘He and I worked a case five years back.’ Magnus waited while the FBI agent thought. ‘OK. What do you want to know?’
‘What has Thomocoin been up to? And do you have anything on a guy called Sharp? Skarphédinn Gíslason. He’s the CEO.’
‘Thomocoin is a Ponzi scheme, pure and simple. They use existing multi-level marketing teams to recruit investors. They sell them “Thomocoins” with the promise that the investors will be able to sell their Thomocoins one day at a large profit for dollars or euros or whatever. It’s never going to happen.’
‘Don’t the investors get impatient?’
‘They do. But these guys are plausible, especially Sharp, and a French guy called Jérôme Carmin, who is head of marketing. There’ll come a time, though, when they won’t be able to keep the plates spinning in the air, and then they’ll all come crashing down. And we think that time is pretty soon now.’
‘Are you going to shut them down?’
‘We’ve shut them down in the States. We’re working on a red notice for Sharp and Carmin, but we don’t have the evidence yet. And there’s a guy goes by the name Krakatoa. We don’t know who he is. Sharp is CEO, but he’s just a front man. Krakatoa runs the operation.’ Malley sighed. ‘So that’s why it would be kind of nice if you guys got back to us.’
‘What do you want to know?’ said Magnus.
‘Where Sharp is at. Is he in Iceland?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Magnus. ‘Not that we know of, anyway. I’ve heard he lives in London. I’ll probably need to question him myself.’
‘Can you hold off until we’ve gotten the arrest warrant?’
Magnus could see this getting messy. An Interpol red notice would call for Sharp’s arrest with a view to extradition to the United States. If Sharp was a genuine suspect for Helga’s murder, Magnus might want access to him first, before the FBI had grabbed him. But Sharp wasn’t a suspect yet. The best way of getting the cooperation of the FBI for an interview, if they did succeed in arresting him, was to get his cooperation in first.
‘I’ll do what I can. I’ll ask if anyone knows where Sharp is and let you know. And if we need to interview him, I’ll talk to you first. Can you tell me when you’ve got him?’
‘Sure,’ said Malley. ‘What’s your murder investigation? How’s Thomocoin involved?’
Eighteen
‘I’ve got some bad news,’ Magnus said. He and Árni were sitting opposite Dísa, Hafsteinn and Íris at the kitchen table at Blábrekka.
The family waited, faces strained.
‘It looks as if Thomocoin is a scam. There will never be an exchange.’
‘Oh my God!’ said Dísa.
‘How do you know?’ Hafsteinn asked.
‘I can’t say.’ Magnus was reluctant to let them know that the FBI were suspicious in case Sharp was somehow tipped off. ‘But I have heard it from at least two sources.’
‘So Mum’s Thomocoin is worthless?’ Dísa said.
‘Looks like it,’ said Magnus.
‘It’s the haters,’ said Hafsteinn. ‘The Thomocoin haters. They’ve got to our police now.’ He grabbed his daughter’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, Dísa. Have faith. It’s just a sign that Thomocoin has got them scared.’
Dísa withdrew her hand. ‘But that means all those people Mum sold Thomocoin to will have lost their money too?’
Magnus nodded. ‘We found Helga’s list on her computer.’ Árni produced two sheets of paper with a list of twenty-two names. ‘Do you know these people?’
Árni shoved the list over to the other side of the table.
Hafsteinn picked it up and scanned the list. He nodded. ‘I know at least half of them.’
‘Some of them will be her colleagues at the hospital,’ Íris said. ‘We won’t necessarily know them. But I recognize the Dalvík names.’
‘Are these the amounts they bought?’ Dísa said, leaning over her grandfather’s elbow to look.
Magnus nodded.
‘Gunnar Snaer Sigmundsson bought fourteen thousand?’ Dísa asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘So that’s worth about five million dollars now?’
‘Yes. Gunnar was by far the biggest investor.’ Most of the other investments were for a hundred or two Thomocoin, although there were two purchasers of a thousand Thomocoin each.
‘Gunni?’ said Hafsteinn. ‘He’s a smart guy, that Gunni.’
‘Grandpa!’ said Dísa. ‘Don’t you see? He’s not smart at all! He’s going to lose all that money.’
‘No, he’s not, Dísa, dear,’ said her grandfather.
‘Do you have any reason to think any of these people knew that their investment was worthless?’ Magnus asked.
‘It’s not worthless!’ said Hafsteinn. ‘You may say it is, but I want proof and you haven’t given me any.’
‘All right,’ said Magnus. The old man was correct: Magnus hadn’t offered any proof. And neither, really, had the FBI. ‘But did any of these people have any suspicion that Thomocoin might be worthless?’