“Don’t you ever get tired of these people?”
“And how. But a morning off helps, and chocolate biscuits don’t do any harm. What’s happening with Norway?”
“Jörundur’s there now for a week, on a strict promise to behave and not touch a drop. If it works out, he’ll go back and I’ll go with him for a couple of days. The job sounds good. A year’s contract, decent earnings plus subsidized accommodation.”
Gunna absently dipped a biscuit a little too long in her coffee and it unexpectedly disintegrated.
“Damn,” she said mildly. “I mean, it’s going to be quiet without you two here. Laufey’s going to miss babysitting Jens and having a second mum to go to when I’m at work.”
GUNNA MADE HER way up the stairwell of a pastelcoloured concrete block of flats. The building was indistinguishable from the rest of the row that formed the final border of an out-of-the-way housing estate at the far end of Breidholt. This was where some of the city’s cheapest housing could be found, in cramped apartments that had once been smart and in demand as the first rung on the property ladder. More recently they had started to be seen almost as ghettos, where those down on their luck lived alongside the city’s more recent immigrants, as the spicy aromas in the stairwell bore witness to.
Gunna sensed the sharp smells of garlic and ginger, mingled with the more subtle tinges of spices she did not have names for, as she peered at a door that was bruised and had clearly been repaired more than once. A broken pushchair containing a black plastic sack of rubbish occupied the corner of the landing.
A thickset teenager wearing a black T-shirt and with a baseball cap sideways on his head answered the door with a frown across his face. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Justyna,” Gunna said.
“Who wants her?” he demanded truculently.
“Police. Where is she?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders and jerked a thumb towards the flat’s passage before turning on his heel without a word. Gunna knocked on the first door and opened it gingerly. A bright light inside shone above a heavy sewing machine festooned with orange fabric and a pale-faced woman hunched over it as the machine hummed. A pencil secured an untidy bun of greying fair hair and she held a pair of oversized scissors crosswise in her mouth.
“Justyna?”
The woman looked up and nodded, finished the seam she was stitching and stood up to pick her way through the folds of fabric to the door, which she shut behind her with relief.
“Kitchen,” she said firmly, before yelling, “Nonni! Where are you?”
There was no reply from further along the corridor, but an insistent beat that pervaded the whole flat was enough to tell them both that the teenager was there.
“Your son?” Gunna asked, wondering if the boy had shown up in any of the reports passing across her desk.
“Yes. His father is not here any more, so now we two are here only,” she said stiffly.
“How long have you been here?” Gunna asked.
“Fifteen years,” Justyna replied, lighting a cigarette and leaning against the kitchen units. Gunna opened her notes and looked over at the tired woman staring back at her. “I’m investigating the death of Svana Geirs. I understand that you cleaned her flat?”
Justyna nodded.
“And when was the last time you cleaned it?”
“Every week. So a week before she died.”
“Always on the same day?”
“Yeah. Always same day, but not same time. Sometimes morning, sometimes later. Never cleaning if she have people there.” Justyna ground out the stub of her cigarette into a saucer and fiddled with the packet in her other hand.
“Is this a private arrangement of some kind?”
“Is agency. They arrange, fix times. Most times I cleaned her flat when nobody there. Two, three times she was home when I clean. Not more.”
“Which agency?”
“Reindeer Hygiene. They clean many houses, flats, offices. But I guess business not so good now.”
“Do you do much work for them?”
“Before, every day. Even Sunday. Now, two, three days every week.”
“And you do other work as well?” Gunna asked.
“Work, work, always work,” Justyna replied bitterly with a frown that deepened the web of lines around each eye. “Teenager is expensive and no maintenance any more. Two, three days cleaning houses. One day, maybe two, cleaning hotel.”
“And what are you sewing?”
“Extra work. Not black,” Justyna added hurriedly. “Tents. Repair before summer comes. Tent company rents them to tourists.”
“All right, I’m not concerned with whether or not you’re working on the black. I’m interested in Svana Geirs. Did you ever speak to her?”
“Only the first time I go there. She show me around.”
“OK. So, tell me about Svana’s place. Was it clean normally?” Justyna looked thoughtful. “I see lot of people’s houses. Svana’s place …” She shrugged. “OK. Same as most. If people are too lazy to clean themselves … it’s not hard.”
She shrugged again and looked around the flat’s tiny but spotless kitchen. “This place should be cleaner. Not easy with teenagers.”
“Tell me about it,” Gunna agreed with heartfelt conviction. “I have two. Now, about Svana’s flat. I’m interested in anything unusual that you might have seen.”
“Nothing special. I see lots of strange things in people’s houses. Svana, she have lots of friends. Or maybe same friend come a lot. I always change the bedclothes and take to wash. Always very dirty, drink, food, other stuff,” Justyna said with a curl of her lip. “Bedroom toys as well, she sometimes leave them on the bed. I put them away.”
“So you cleaned everything.”
“Ceiling to floor. Every week.”
“Wiping everything down?”
“Everything.”
“Always the same way?”
“Always the same. Start with kitchen, then bathroom. Then big room, bedroom and hall last. Polish everything. Vacuum everything.”
“And was this regular, the things you saw? The bedclothes, the toys and things like that?”
“I think so. A lot of drink, lots of bottles. No food, only takeaway. Pizza and things. But whisky, vodka, gin, wine always, always bottles to throw away. Always lots for bathroom, empty packets.”
Gunna raised an eyebrow and Justyna curled thumb and forefinger into a circle that she slid sharply down the index finger of the other hand to indicate a condom.
“Also make-up, lots of make-up, hair dye, stuff to look younger. All rubbish. Sleep good, eat good, you look younger.”
“How about the keys? Do you have a key?” Gunna asked.
“Key at agency. We collect keys for all the houses each day. Sign for them, give back when we finish.”
“And the alarm code?”
“Is new code every week. Also get from agency.”
“And the day you found Svana, did you have a code?”
“Yes, I go with code and key, but everything open.”
“So you wouldn’t be able to get into a house on a day when you weren’t cleaning?”
“No. Only if the code is not changed. But still no key.”
“Understood,” Gunna said, reflecting what an opportunity such an arrangement provided for scams of all kinds to be set up. “It’s a very security-conscious operation.”
“Of course. Rich people in smart houses don’t trust foreigners in their homes,” Justyna said with a mischievous smile that lifted the fatigue from her face. “Too many criminals come from other countries.”
GUNNA BROUGHT THE car to a halt in a puddle that widened visibly as the rain pelted down from a belt of black sky chased by a distant blue promise of sunshine to come. She waited, toying with the idea of going for a hot dog at Bæjarins Bezta, until the sight of Skúli running through the rain towards her put the idea out of her mind.