‘Thórarinn! This is the police. We know you’re in here. We need to talk to you.’
There was no answer.
Sigurdur Óli walked back into the workshop.
‘Stop wasting my time!’ he called.
He was keen not to linger, feeling idiotic enough as it was, shouting like this in the hope that Toggi was hiding among the spare parts or heaps of tyres. If it turned out that he was not, Sigurdur Óli would feel a complete fool.
As he crossed the workshop, it occurred to him that something was missing. Over the years he had had a variety of cars, some good, others not so good, and he had often had occasion to go to repair shops and if the job was small hang around, or else hitch a lift home, or in the worst case call a taxi, though he tried to avoid that unless he had no other option. Generally he tried to get the mechanics to finish the job while he waited in the office or went for a stroll, so he reckoned he knew a thing or two about auto repair shops and in his estimation Birgir’s equipment was not exactly state-of-the-art.
He was standing in the middle of the floor when it dawned on him what was missing. The car lift.
Just at that instant he thought he heard a faint scraping sound beneath his feet.
Sigurdur Óli looked down. He was standing on a large, rectangular metal hatch, and the sound seemed to have come from underneath it. He stamped his foot.
‘Thórarinn!’ he called again.
There was no answer. But Sigurdur Óli understood now why there was no car lift in the garage: instead of raising the cars to get at their undersides, the mechanic would climb down into a pit which the vehicle was parked over. Birgir probably could not afford a hoist, but then perhaps he did not have any use for such equipment, nor for the pit, given that it was covered.
Sigurdur Óli soon discovered how to slide the metal hatch off the pit, and when he looked down there was Thórarinn sitting against the wall, staring up at him.
‘How the hell did you find me?’ he asked, unable to conceal his astonishment. He rose to his feet, still staring at Sigurdur Óli, then clambered out and dusted himself down.
‘Are you going to make trouble?’ asked Sigurdur Óli, who had rung for backup as Thórarinn was climbing out.
‘How the hell did you manage it?’
He did not put up any resistance.
‘Maybe I’ll tell you some time,’ said Sigurdur Óli. ‘Have you been here long?’
‘Only just arrived.’
‘So where have you been hiding?’
‘Jesus, I got a shock,’ Thórarinn said, ignoring the question. ‘I was eating a burger when I heard you banging on the door. All I could think of was the pit. Was it Höddi? Did you follow him?’ He had started to inch his way unobtrusively towards the door.
‘Stand still,’ ordered Sigurdur Óli. ‘There are cars on their way. You’re not going anywhere.’
‘You’re alone?’ exclaimed Thórarinn.
It was the second time that day Sigurdur Óli had been asked this question.
‘There are two men outside,’ he said. ‘They’re waiting for us.’
He hoped his lie sounded plausible enough to give Thórarinn pause, as he had no desire to be involved in another chase. They heard sirens in the distance.
‘And the street is filling with other units, as you can hear.’
‘Who grassed on Höddi?’
‘Just take it easy,’ said Sigurdur Óli, inserting himself between Thórarinn and the door. ‘We’d have found you eventually. Or you’d have given yourself up: you lot always do in the end.’
34
Thórarinn was taken to the police station on Hverfisgata. By then it was past midnight and they decided his interview could wait until morning, so Sigurdur Óli saw him safely installed in a cell. He had intended to lie about how he had tracked Thórarinn down in order to keep Kristján’s name out of it, but was not sure he would get away with this. It would be better to claim he had received one of those anonymous phone calls saying that Höddi was somehow linked to Thórarinn. The tip-off, he would say, had not seemed particularly credible but he had decided to follow it up anyway, by shadowing Höddi, who he had seen buying a hamburger before heading towards the Ellidavogur inlet area. At that point he had remembered the direction Toggi had taken after Lína’s attack, and thought the matter deserved closer investigation. After Höddi had entered the garage and emerged minus the takeaway, Sigurdur Óli had decided to take immediate action and broke into the workshop, finding Thórarinn inside.
By telling the story this way, he hoped to deflect attention from Kristján and did not feel remotely ashamed of his lie. Kristján may have been a bloody fool but there was no need to set two debt collectors on him. In the event, no one questioned his account: what mattered was that Thórarinn had been caught; how it had happened was less important. The police often found themselves having to improvise.
Later that night Höddi and the garage owner, Birgir, together with an employee, were arrested and escorted to Hverfisgata. The baseball bat that Thórarinn had used to batter Lína was found in a skip about two hundred metres from the garage, stained with blood at one end.
As he was leaving the office, Sigurdur Óli bumped into Finnur.
‘You should have called for backup,’ said Finnur, who was still in charge of the investigation. ‘It’s not your own show, even if your friends are mixed up in it.’
‘I’ll remember that next time,’ said Sigurdur Óli.
Early next morning he took part in the interrogation of the three suspects. Birgir claimed complete ignorance that his workshop was being used as a safe house for criminals and flatly denied any complicity. It transpired that Höddi owned a share in the business and had his own key. Neither Birgir nor his employee had been aware of Toggi’s presence during opening hours, so he must have hidden himself unbelievably well if he had been there during the day. The workshop was small and in the course of a normal day’s work they were in and out of every corner, so it was more likely that he had hidden there at night. Since neither Birgir nor the man who worked for him had a police record, their statements were taken on trust and there was deemed to be no reason to keep them in custody.
‘Who’s going to pay for the broken glass?’ asked Birgir despondently when he heard about the damage to the garage door. He had mentioned that business was slack and that they could not afford any setbacks.
‘You can send us the bill,’ Sigurdur Óli said, not sounding particularly encouraging.
Höddi proved a tougher nut to crack. He was in a sullen, obstructive mood after a night in the cells and took exception to everything he was asked.
‘How do you know Thórarinn?’ asked Sigurdur Óli for the third time.
‘Shut your face,’ said Höddi. ‘You’d better watch your back when I get out of here.’
‘Why, are you going to kneecap me?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Are you threatening me, you prick?’
Höddi stared at Sigurdur Óli, who smiled back.
‘Shut your face,’ he said again.
‘How do you know Thórarinn?’
‘We both fucked your mother.’
Höddi was escorted back to the cells.
Thórarinn did not appear remotely intimidated when he was brought up for questioning. In the interview room he took a seat next to his lawyer, facing Sigurdur Óli, and lounged with his legs spread, drumming one foot rhythmically on the floor. Finnur joined in the questioning. They asked Thórarinn first where he had been hiding for the last few days and the answer came promptly: when he shook off the police that evening, he had run to Birgir’s repair shop and hidden outside, before later fleeing to Höddi’s place. Höddi had initially hidden him in his own house but after receiving a visit from the police he had told him to go down to the garage and wait for him there. They had met after closing time and Höddi had let him in, then come back later with food. Next, Thórarinn had been planning to move to Höddi’s summer cottage in Borgarfjördur, in the west of the country, where he would hide out for a few days while considering his options.