‘I asked the police about Thomocoin today,’ she said. ‘You know they’re not even investigating it?’
‘Why not?’
‘Politics, apparently. Sharp has got to important people in the government. It makes me furious.’
‘But do you even know that’s why Gunni killed Helga?’
‘That’s just what the detective asked me.’ Dísa hesitated. ‘He said there might be another reason.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know, don’t you, Jói? About Gunni and Mum. When I told you about the rumour I could see you weren’t surprised.’
Jói winced. ‘I wasn’t.’ Now it was his turn to hesitate. ‘I caught them at it, you know.’
‘What!’
‘It was a couple of years before the divorce. I was about fourteen. I came home from school in the middle of the day, I forget why. I heard noises from her bedroom. I was old enough to know what that meant. I ran out of the house and spent two hours hiding behind a wall watching the front door to see who came out.’
‘And it was Gunni?’
Jói nodded.
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
‘Certainly not!’ Jói protested. ‘I didn’t tell anyone. Except you just now.’
‘Wow.’ Dísa was about to tell Jói she didn’t believe him, to stick up for Mum. But she did believe him.
‘So that means that Dad wasn’t the only one to cheat?’ she said.
‘She cheated on him first.’
‘Do you think he knew?’
‘No idea. But that’s what happened with him and my mum. She cheated on him first too.’
Dísa frowned. ‘You’re just sticking up for him.’
‘Maybe, a little bit. He did wrong too. He did have an affair with that woman, Bryndís. And he broke the law and went to jail. But he’s paid for his sins.’
‘Whereas Mum hadn’t?’
Jói winced. ‘She has now.’
Dísa shuddered. ‘She was tough on Dad.’
‘Look,’ said Jói. ‘Truth is, they both screwed up. But let’s not take sides. You’re my sister, Dísa. Aren’t you?’
Dísa smiled. ‘Yes, Jói. I am.’
Dísa’s room in Kata’s apartment was tiny; there was barely enough space for a single bed and a small table to act as a desk. But after all that had happened, it was good to be with an old, old friend.
As soon as Dísa decently could, she shut herself in there and opened up her laptop.
She knew her way around bitcoin, so with her father’s wallet address and private key it didn’t take her long to get into his wallet to see how many actual bitcoin he owned.
Three.
Or 3.116 to be precise. Dísa checked the price: $10,526. So that was over thirty thousand dollars. A reasonable amount of money, but not as much as she had hoped. Not nearly enough to save the farm. Or repay all those investors in Thomocoin Mum had suckered in.
But it was something.
Dísa hesitated. Was she really sure she wanted to do what she was about to do?
Steal from her father?
It wasn’t theft. She wasn’t going to take any of the bitcoin for herself. It was reversing a theft.
Restitution.
Carefully, precisely, she gave instructions to transfer the entire 3.116 bitcoin from her father’s wallet to hers.
Ómar probably owned some Thomocoin as well, but Dísa had no way of getting access to that. Not that there was any point. By this stage, Dísa was convinced Thomocoin was worthless.
Now, what about this other wallet? The one headed ‘K’?
She carefully copied out the wallet address and then the private key she had retrieved from the summer house.
It worked!
She blinked. That couldn’t be right.
She scribbled down a quick calculation of a piece of paper and counted up the zeroes.
It was right.
‘K’, whoever he was, owned 1,962 bitcoin in the blockchain.
Which, at a bit over ten thousand dollars each, worked out at about twenty million dollars.
Twenty-Eight
Magnus’s head was spinning as he left Ingileif’s apartment in Vesturbaer and his heart was churning. It was late to interview Sharp. On the other hand, Magnus really didn’t want to return directly to Eygló’s flat, so he drove over to 101 hotel, where Sharp was staying.
It was one of the hippest hotels in Reykjavík, but on a weekday evening in the middle of a pandemic, it was quiet. Fortunately, Sharp was in, although he said he had to leave for an appointment at nine.
They met in a corner of the empty bar, Sharp drinking one of the new Icelandic micro-brews and Magnus a Coke. Everything in the hotel was black, white and cool.
Except Magnus.
Sharp stood up and gave Magnus a friendly smile, but in those COVID times, no handshake. Magnus knew the type: well dressed in a studied, casual way, tall, good-looking, a smattering of stubble. The bankers had won a terrible reputation for themselves in Iceland after the crash. In many ways this was justified — the country had almost gone bust, after all — but compared to some of the seriously sleazy financial types Magnus had come across in Boston, the Icelandic banksters struck him as misguided optimists who had overreached themselves and paid the price.
Sharp seemed genuinely upset by Helga’s death. He explained that they had become good friends in Reykjavík before the crash, and Ómar and Helga had stayed with Sharp and his wife Ella a couple of times after they had moved to London.
‘Was your relationship with Helga more than just friendship?’ Magnus asked.
‘Oh, come on!’ said Sharp, wrinkling his nose in disgust. ‘What kind of question is that?’
‘It’s a question a detective should ask in a murder inquiry,’ Magnus replied, deadpan.
‘All right. No. She was my best friend’s wife. That’s all.’
‘It’s a long way to come for a funeral.’
‘From Reykjavík?’
‘From London.’
‘I was in Iceland anyway. I’ve got some business with the government; I saw the Central Bank this afternoon. And I’ve been to see my parents in Hafnarfjördur. My mother isn’t very well. So I took a day to go up to Dalvík for Helga’s funeral.’
‘I bet they weren’t pleased to see you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, half of Dalvík has invested in Thomocoin, and it’s worthless.’
‘It’s not worthless. It was worth three hundred and sixty-eight dollars yesterday.’
‘But if you can’t sell it on an exchange, is it worth anything?’
‘People can buy it. We’re still selling Thomocoin every day. At three hundred and sixty-eight dollars.’
‘“Still”? You sound surprised. Admit it, Sharp. Thomocoin is in trouble.’
But Sharp wasn’t about to show any loss of confidence in Thomocoin. ‘The roll-out of the exchange is taking longer than we anticipated, that’s all. The idea is still a good one. Cryptocurrencies are moving up in price again. All those guys in Dalvík will be fine. Better than fine — they’ll make a good profit.’
‘How did it go with the Central Bank today?’
For a moment, the former banker’s guard was penetrated. He blinked the fatigue from his eyes.
‘Not as well as we’d hoped. But Iceland is still the perfect place to launch Thomocoin.’
‘Because of the gullible investors?’
Sharp betrayed a flash of irritation. ‘Because it’s almost a cashless society already.’
‘Gunnar Snaer Sigmundsson is a big investor in Thomocoin, isn’t he?’ Magnus asked.
‘Big by Icelandic standards. There are plenty bigger around the world. He’s the guy you arrested for Helga’s murder?’