She marched out of the café with her mouth pursed and her nose in the air, leaving Gunna wondering what was in the thick envelope that she had discreetly left on the table where her handbag had rested.
Friday 26th
GUNNA DROVE THE few kilometres to the Keflavík police station, where Bjössi lounged in his habitual smoking spot by the back door, chatting to Helgi. As she parked, he crushed out his cigarette and shook the last drops of coffee from a mug and let it hang on his little finger.
“Good morning, gentlemen. And how are you on this lovely day, Bjössi?” Gunna greeted him.
“Tired, got cold feet, my hair’s still falling out, I hate my job and it’s going to rain. Apart from that, fine,” Bjössi grumbled back at her as she marched into the station. A muffled angry mutter of distant shouts could be heard from deep inside the building.
“What’s the racket, Bjössi? Got the choir practising in there?”
“Bugger the choir. You know what that is,” Bjössi told her grimly.
“Ah. Our friend, is it?”
“I don’t know about our friend. Not the cleverest in the class, but he’s all yours.”
The volume of sound grew as they approached the cells, and the hammering on the steel door echoed throughout the building.
“Æi, shut the fuck up, will you?” Bjössi yelled, banging on the door and lifting the flap to give Gunna a view inside. “You really want to go in there? He’s bouncing off the fucking walls.”
“Yeah. We’ll be all right.”
Bjössi shook his head in resignation as he slid back the bolt and the hammering inside faded away.
“About fucking time …” Skari rasped, falling silent as Gunna stalked into the cell with Helgi trying to look tough behind her and Bjössi standing by the door. The bruises on his face had subsided, but there were still livid patches across his cheekbones where the stitches had been taken out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he challenged. “I told you before—”
“Sit down, Skari,” Gunna told him coldly.
“I don’t have anything to say to you. I told you that before, didn’t I?”
“For fuck’s sake, sit down and shut up for a few seconds, will you, you selfish twat?” Gunna spat at him.
Taken by surprise, Skari dropped onto the bunk and glowered back at her, muttering under his breath.
“What did you say?” he demanded, scowling. “Fucking … brutality, that’s what it is. Bastards …”
“Skari, give over, will you. Now listen. Two thousand, remember that year? I have you positively and reliably identified as issuing threats. There’s no ifs or buts here. Understand?”
“Is that what that bloke wanted yesterday?” He nodded towards Bjössi. “Asked me to read something out for him?”
“Precisely. Bang to rights, Skari.”
His brow darkened as he struggled to take it in. “That was fucking years back.”
“But it’s still an offence and the victim would be only too happy to press charges, even at this late stage. You could be looking at a year or two for this, even now.”
Skari’s hands curled into fists and the anger turning his face red was plain enough. Bjössi stepped forward and Helgi took his hands out of his coat pockets.
“You’ve three minutes to come up with the whole story. Otherwise there’ll be a formal charge and not much chance of bail.”
Cornered, Skari’s eyes flitted from Bjössi to Helgi and back to Gunna. “Mum said you were a hard bitch.”
“Your mum wouldn’t say anything of the kind. Who wanted you to frighten this guy?”
“Come on. This was years ago.”
“Who?”
“Sindri.”
“Sindri Valsson?”
Skari nodded and hung his head.
“What, precisely, did Sindri want you to do?”
“I don’t remember. It was a long time ago, for Christ’s sake.”
“Then start remembering,” Gunna said with quiet menace. “You have another minute.”
“Sindri said there was this bloke who worked in an office on Skipholt. Didn’t tell me his name or anything, just gave me the number of his car. He said the bloke’d come out around seven, and I should scare the shit out of him and tell him to keep his nose out of what’s not his business. So I did.”
“This was just Sindri?”
“Sindri and his old man, both of them.”
“Where did this conversation take place?”
“At the club.”
“Blacklights?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
Skari shook his head as if he were talking to an idiot. “It was years ago. How the fuck should I know?”
“How soon was this after you beat Steindór Hjálmarsson to death?”
In a second, Skari was on his feet. “I didn’t! That was
Sindri! It wasn’t me and you can’t prove anything!” he yelled, eyes bulging.
“Sit down, Skari. I know it was Sindri.”
“So why d’you say that?”
“Because I wanted to be sure,” Gunna said sharply. “Now I can be. What do you know about it? Did you see it happen?”
“Might have.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
Skari heaved a deep breath. “Bjartmar was there. He pointed this bloke out to me and told me to kick him out, said he was a troublemaker.”
“Bjartmar did, not Sindri?”
“Yeah. I collared the bloke and walked him out, easy as you like, and slung him out the back door into the car park.” He paused. “Sindri just laid into the guy. I don’t know why, I’d never seen him before. Sindri fucking hammered him, knocked him flying and kicked him a few times, then went back inside like nothing had happened.”
“And he said nothing to you?”
Skari shook his head. “Bjartmar just said, ‘You saw nothing, right?’ And that was all.”
“You know who Gunnlaugur Ólafsson is?”
“Who?” Skari asked, mystified.
“Bjarki Steinsson?”
“Look, I don’t know who you’re on about,” Skari replied angrily. “Who the hell are these people?”
“Högni Sigurgeirsson?”
“I said, I don’t know who these bloody people are. All right?”
“Who was it who beat you up and put you in hospital?”
“Told you,” he said, dropping his eyes to the floor. “Polish bloke.”
“No, Skari,” Gunna corrected him. “I’m sick of listening to this particular broken record. Most of the Poles have already gone home and there isn’t a single Pole, Latvian, Lithuanian or even Mongolian who answers your description. So how about you come clean and admit it was Ommi?”
“What?” he asked, eyes wide. “Because …”
“Because what? I know you and Ommi go way back, but that’s not going to make a bit of difference.”
Skari hung his head and at last his fists unclenched.
“It was Ommi,” he muttered angrily. “Ommi and some little pipsqueak mate of his. I’d have had Ommi on his own, but his mate batted me round the head with a plank and I couldn’t think straight after that.”
Gunna turned to Bjössi in the doorway. “Got that?”
Bjössi nodded back at her and she looked down at Skari, sitting on the bed clenching and unclenching his big fists.
“And you’re going to give my colleague a statement to that effect, aren’t you?”
“Can I go home after that?” he asked hopefully.
“Make a statement and you can go home to Erla and the kids.”
“Everything?”
“Everything,” Gunna said firmly. “All right, Bjössi, we’ll leave this chap to your tender care. Can you sort him out a lift home when he’s made a suitable statement?”