Preoccupied by these thoughts, he walked into a small meat-processing factory in search of a man called Hafsteinn, who turned out to be the foreman and who professed himself astonished by Sigurdur Óli’s visit, exclaiming that he had never spoken to a detective before in his life, as if this were a guarantee of a blameless existence. Hafsteinn invited him into his office and they both sat down. The foreman was wearing a white coat and a lightweight white hat bearing the firm’s logo on his head. He had the figure of a German beer drinker at Oktoberfest, stout and cheery, with plump red cheeks; hardly the type to attack a defenceless woman with a baseball bat, let alone run further than ten metres. This fact did not deter Sigurdur Óli, however, and he stuck doggedly to his task. After a short preamble, he said he wanted to know what Hafsteinn had been doing in the area where Lína was attacked, and whether there was anyone who could provide an alibi for his explanation, whatever it was.
The foreman gave Sigurdur Óli a long look.
‘Hang on a minute, what are you saying? Do I have to tell you what I was doing there?’
‘Your car was parked one street down from the crime scene. You live in Hafnarfjördur. What were you doing in Reykjavík? Were you driving the car yourself?’
Sigurdur Óli reasoned that even if the man had not attacked Lína, he might conceivably know something about the attack; he might have driven the assailant to the scene and abandoned his car in a panic.
‘Yes, I was driving. I was visiting someone. Do you need to know any more?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I ask what you’re going to do with the information?’
‘We’re trying to find the assailant.’
‘You don’t think I attacked the poor woman?’
‘Did you take part in the attack?’
‘Are you out of your mind?’
Sigurdur Óli observed that the red cheeks had lost some of their colour.
‘Can I speak to someone who can confirm your alibi?’
‘Are you going to mention this to my wife?’ Hafsteinn asked hesitantly.
‘Do I need to?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.
The man sighed heavily.
‘There’s no need,’ he said after a long pause. ‘I … I have a lady friend on that road. If you need to confirm my story you can talk to her. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.’
‘A lady friend?’
The man nodded.
‘You mean a mistress?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were visiting her?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see. Did you notice anyone in the area who could have been connected to the attack?’
‘No. Is that it?’
‘Yes, I believe that’s all,’ Sigurdur Óli said.
‘Are you going to speak to my wife?’
‘Can she confirm any of this?’
The man shook his head.
‘Then I’ve no interest in talking to her,’ Sigurdur Óli said. He took the lady friend’s phone number just in case, then got up and left.
Later that day he met a man who was unaware that his car had been parked near Lína’s house, as he had not been driving it himself but had lent it to his son. After the man had made some enquiries it turned out that his son had been round at a nearby house with a friend. They were visiting a classmate from their sixth-form college and had all gone together to a film in the Laugarás cinema which had started at around the time Lína was attacked.
The man gave Sigurdur Óli a considering look.
‘You needn’t bother about the boy,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Scared of his own shadow.’
Finally Sigurdur Óli sat down with a woman of about thirty who worked on the switchboard at a soft-drinks bottling plant. After Sigurdur Óli had introduced himself, she asked someone to cover for her and since he did not want to explain his business where they could be overheard, she went and sat with him in the staff cafeteria.
‘What’s going on exactly?’ the woman asked. She had dark hair and a broad face, a small metal ring in one eyebrow and a tattoo on her forearm. Sigurdur Óli could not see what it was supposed to be; it looked like a cat but could equally have been a snake that wound around her arm. Her name was Sara.
‘I’d like to know what you were doing in the east of town, near the Laugarás cinema, on the evening of the day before yesterday.’
‘The day before yesterday?’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘Your car was parked not far from the street where a brutal attack occurred.’
‘I didn’t attack anyone,’ she said.
‘No,’ Sigurdur Óli agreed. ‘But your car was in the area.’
He explained that the police were checking up on the owners of any vehicle that had been seen in the vicinity that evening. It was a serious case of assault and battery, and the police wanted to ask all those who had been in the area whether they had noticed anything that might assist the investigation. It was a long speech and Sigurdur Óli could tell that Sara was bored.
‘I didn’t see anything,’ she said.
‘What were you doing in the area?’
‘Visiting a friend. What actually happened? I saw something on the news about a break-in.’
‘We don’t have any more information as yet,’ Sigurdur Óli said. ‘I’ll need your friend’s details.’
Sara gave them to him.
‘Did you stay the night?’
‘What? Are you spying on me?’ she asked.
The cafeteria door opened and an employee of the bottling plant nodded to Sara.
‘No. Is there any reason why I should?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.
Sara smiled. ‘I very much doubt it.’
Sigurdur Óli was getting into his car outside the plant when his phone rang. He recognised the number immediately. It was Finnur, who informed him brusquely that Sigurlína Thorgrímsdóttir had died a quarter of an hour earlier as a result of the blow to her head.
‘What the hell were you doing at her place, Siggi?’ Finnur whispered and hung up.
13
Sigurdur Óli’s mother opened the door, her expression indicating that he was late. He did not have his own key because she said she would feel uncomfortable knowing that he could walk in on her whenever he liked. She had invited him for supper but had not waited for him before serving up, and now the food was growing cold on the table. Saemundur was nowhere to be seen.
His mother, known to all as Gagga, was on the wrong side of sixty and lived in a large detached house in the smart satellite town of Gardabaer, surrounded by fellow accountants, doctors, lawyers and other wealthy professionals, the kind of people who owned two to three cars apiece and hired professionals to look after their homes and gardens and put up their Christmas lights. Not that Gagga had always lived this well; she had been hard up when she met Sigurdur Óli’s father and in the period immediately after the divorce, although ‘the plumber’, as she insisted on calling her ex-husband, had offered to assist in any way he could. She had rented at first but was forever falling out with her landlords. Then there was nothing for it but to move on. It made no difference when Sigurdur Óli complained that he found it hard to keep changing schools. His mother had a talent for putting people’s backs up, including the teachers and principals of his schools, so in the end his father had to take over all communication about his education.
Gagga had studied business at college and was working as a bookkeeper when Sigurdur Óli was born, but subsequently improved her qualifications at university and gradually worked her way up to a good position in an accountancy firm that was eventually taken over by a large international corporation. She now occupied a managerial position at the company.
‘Where’s Saemundur?’ Sigurdur Óli asked, slipping off the winter coat he had bought the year before; bloody expensive it had been too, from one of the most exclusive clothing stores in the country. Bergthóra had shaken her head when he brought the coat home and accused him of being the worst label snob she knew. He recalled the way she used to say ‘you mean gaga’, whenever his mother came up in conversation.