There, surrounded by willow and dwarf birch, stood a grey stone about a metre high and three metres long.
Dad had told them stories about that stone. The farmer who had sold him the land on which he had built the summer house had made him promise not to move it. A family of hidden people lived there. The farmer said that he wasn’t bothered about them personally, but his mother definitely was and had almost blocked the sale of the land.
Ómar had promised. And had enjoyed telling his little girls all about them.
Dísa and Anna Rós had never seen the huldufólk but had played all kinds of imaginary games with them. The rock had become an important part of the attraction of the place to the little girls and hence their parents.
So Dísa hadn’t been surprised when her father had told her that was where he had hidden his private key.
She had bought a trowel from a hardware store and clutched that as she ducked into the bushes. Unlike the stone at Blábrekka, this one wasn’t surrounded by smaller rocks. Neither was there an obvious patch of bare earth.
Dísa considered the spot. Had Dad dug a kind of tunnel under the rock? Unlikely. There were about a dozen tussocks of grass. She yanked at these, but they didn’t rise. But as she was bending down to tug at the last one, she saw a slit in the rock underneath it.
She went down on her knees. Gingerly, she slipped her hand into the hole. She felt dead leaves and moss and something else. Two something elses.
She pulled them out.
They were light metal tubes with writing in Spanish on them. It took her a moment to figure out what they were: cigar tubes.
She opened the first one and drew out a rolled-up scrap of torn paper. She laid it out on the stone. A large letter ‘O’ was written in blue biro, and underneath two long strings of letters and numbers that looked as if they had been produced by an inkjet printer. Above the first string were written in English the words ‘private key’; above the second ‘wallet address’.
Dad’s cold wallet.
Dísa had considered taking a picture on her phone, but she didn’t want the image floating around in the cloud where a hacker might find it. So she carefully copied out the characters from both keys on a card she had brought with her, and read them out loud backwards and forwards to double and triple check she had not made any errors. If just one character was wrong, then the whole key would be useless.
She opened the second cigar tube and extracted a similar scrap of paper, this one headed with the letter ‘K’. Once again, she copied out the string of characters and read them back aloud to make sure she had got them down correctly.
She stuffed the papers back in their tubes and slipped the tubes under the tussock of grass.
Two wallet addresses. Two private keys. Two bitcoin wallets. One of them was clearly her father’s. Whose was the other?
And how much bitcoin was in them? As she walked back to the car, she wondered whether there would be enough to repay all those investors in Dalvík. Even if Dísa couldn’t repay them in full, even if she could just pay back a portion, it would be much better than doing nothing.
Twenty-Five
Fjóla Rúnarsdóttir lived on the sixth floor of one of the apartment blocks in the Shadow District that overlooked Faxaflói Bay. Those places were expensive. Fjóla herself was a tall woman with curly black hair, wearing a tight black top and black leggings. Her eyes, however, were blue and warm, and she gave a friendly smile as she welcomed Magnus into her apartment.
Friendly, though also nervous. But then a lot of people were nervous about talking to the police.
She sat him on a light grey sofa — the whole apartment was light grey and white, as if colour had been banished. Even the art on the walls was in black and white. Only the books were colourful; Magnus noticed a number with English titles on management and various self-improvement themes. Her windows looked down upon a narrow street of scruffy green and yellow metal houses that had not yet been devoured by Reykjavík’s young professionals.
‘How can I help you?’ Fjóla asked, with a warm, helpful smile.
‘I’m investigating the murder of Helga Hafsteinsdóttir.’
‘Ah.’ The smile left her face. ‘I was so sorry to hear about that. But I understand you’ve caught the murderer?’
‘We think so. But we’re still gathering evidence.’
‘Of course.’
‘I take it you knew Helga?’
‘Certainly. She was an investor in Thomocoin. More importantly from our point of view, she brought in plenty of other investors. She was one of my top customers. Actually, my top customer.’
‘Because of all the commission those other investors brought in?’
‘That’s right. We use MLM to sell Thomocoin — multi-level marketing. It’s perfect for the kind of thing that requires enthusiastic selling. Helga was very effective.’
‘How many customers did she bring in?’
‘I think about twenty directly, give or take. But they all brought in others, especially in Dalvík. I think there were probably another fifty or sixty in total.’
‘And you earned commission on all of them?’
‘I did,’ said Fjóla. ‘And so did she. That’s how MLM works.’
‘What form did this commission take?’
‘You can take it either in Thomocoin or bitcoin.’
‘How did Helga take hers?’
‘Thomocoin. She was a true believer.’
‘And you?’
‘Bitcoin.’
Magnus raised his eyebrows. ‘You aren’t a true believer?’
Fjóla smiled. ‘Oh, of course I believe in it! I wouldn’t sell it otherwise. But I’m a professional. I don’t think putting all my eggs in one basket is a good idea. I’d have preferred euros or dollars, but bitcoin is better than nothing. The price has been all over the place in the last couple of years, but it seems to be going up again now.’
‘Are you aware that bitcoin is illegal in Iceland?’
Fjóla paused. ‘I believe it’s against the law to buy bitcoin. It’s OK to own it. But I’d rather not discuss my own affairs unless it’s relevant to your investigation. I hope you understand.’
Smart woman.
‘I do understand,’ said Magnus. He didn’t want Fjóla to turn defensive. She seemed naturally helpful, and Magnus wanted to take advantage of that.
‘The sale of Thomocoin in Iceland doesn’t breach any current financial regulations,’ Fjóla added. ‘I got a lawyer to check.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ said Magnus, remembering Sigurjón in Financial Crimes and his instructions to look the other way. ‘One of the investors Helga brought in was Gunnar Snaer Sigmundsson.’
‘That’s correct. He’s the man you’ve arrested for Helga’s murder, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is. Do you know how much Thomocoin he bought?’
‘I can look up the exact number, but it was probably about three million dollars’ worth.’ She smiled. ‘Actually, I do remember the number pretty accurately. Two million nine hundred and sixty-eight thousand dollars of Thomocoin. He was the biggest investor in Iceland.’
‘Did you ever meet him?’
‘Not directly. Helga handled him. But I did communicate with him by email recently.’
‘What about?’
Fjóla paused. The smile disappeared.
Magnus waited.
‘It was terrible Helga was killed like that.’
Magnus waited some more.
Fjóla blew air through her cheeks. ‘Look. I’ve always believed Thomocoin is legitimate. I still do. I checked it out thoroughly before I signed up. I have no doubt that cryptocurrencies are the future, especially once they are approved for legal tender, and that’s precisely what Thomocoin is aiming to do. To get approval.’