“Interesting. If it was Högni, he must have gone pretty much straight from being questioned here to Hallur,” Gunna agreed. “No doubt on the vehicle identification?”
“None at all. The woman in question has the same model of car, so she was certain. No registration number, though.”
“Shame,” Gunna said.
“If this man is a suspect for the killing of Jónas Valur, you think he may have attempted to murder Hallur Hallbjörnsson as well?” Ívar Laxdal asked.
“Certainly,” Helgi replied.
“So what next?” Gunna asked, wondering if the investigation was out of her hands and in Helgi’s charge.
“We’re looking for the weapon used to assault you and Jónas Valur. The door-to-door stuff is still going on and there’s a search in progress through all the bins and nooks and crannies for anything that might fit the bill. It could be a long process,” Helgi replied sadly.
“ALL RIGHT, ARE you?” Sigrún asked with concern.
“Ah, not so bad,” Gunna admitted. “And you? Heard anything from … ?”
Sigrún’s face brightened. “A little bird whispered to me that Jörundur’s all alone now.”
“Really?” Gunna said. “What happened?”
Sigrún sat down and opened a bag of home-made biscuits straight from the deep freeze. She dipped one in her coffee and skilfully lifted it out and into her mouth a moment before it was ready to disintegrate.
“Left over from Christmas,” she said, munching. “I baked too many and froze what was left over.”
“Never happens at my place. I swear my Gísli can sniff out cakes and biscuits a mile away. Come on, what’s happened with Jörundur? He’s not on the way home, is he?”
“No, it’s his lady friend, this Gígja who went out there with him. They’d been carrying on a good while. I can see it now, all the signs were there, but I refused to acknowledge it,” Sigrún said with a shake of her head. “I should have known better. Well, I was talking to Mæja Dís the other day.”
“The girl who works in the office at Hvalvíkingur?”
“That’s her, the personnel manager I think she is. Well, Mæja Dís knows this Gígja a bit, because Gígja’s ex used to be a cook on one of the boats; Einar, his name is. So Mæja Dís ran into Einar at the petrol station in Keflavík and he said that she was back.”
“Already? That was quick!”
“Apparently Einar said that Gígja had given up her job and let her flat to go to Norway with Jörundur, but once he’d been on the drink once or twice, she packed her stuff and got a flight back. Now she’s living with her daughter, because she can’t have her flat back until the end of the year.”
“Amazing, isn’t it, how some people fall out of lust the moment they see the other half’s true colours?”
“That’s not all,” Sigrún added gleefully. “I don’t want to crow, but she had sold or given away almost all her furniture and everything. So when she does get her flat back, she’ll have to start by buying a new fridge and a washing machine. I don’t want to crow,” she repeated, “but it’s karma. She’s gone from having a nice flat and a reasonable job to stealing someone else’s deadbeat husband, and now she’s got no job, no flat and no bloke either. Great, isn’t it?” Sigrún smiled radiantly while Gunna shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“All right, are you?”
“Ach. Stiff after my little adventure, that’s all.”
“D’you think you should still be doing this sort of stuff?” Sigrún asked seriously.
“Absolutely. Can you see me managing for long with a desk job?”
“You did it here for long enough.”
“Yeah, but that was different. There was only me and old Haddi at the station here, so we both had to do a bit of everything, and Haddi was quite happy to sit in peace and quiet and look after the paperwork.”
Gunna hauled herself to her feet. “Well, Laufey’s disappointed you’re not going.”
“Why’s that?”
“Krummi. She was really looking forward to having a rabbit living in our bathroom.”
Monday 29th
“WHERE ARE WE going now?” Helgi asked. “You know, we hard-working public servants have enough to be getting on with. Especially when some of those public servants ought to be at home nursing a sore head.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“Why so secretive?” Helgi asked, looking sideways at the determined side of Gunna that he had heard of but never seen close at hand.
Gunna sighed and brought the car almost to a halt so she could check the café’s interior.
“Here?”
“Yup.”
“Why?” Helgi asked, baffled.
Gunna screwed up her eyes against the bright midday sun that she felt was trying to drill holes in her head and strolled across the road. She pushed open the door, nodded to someone Helgi could hardly see in a corner and poured coffee for both Helgi and herself at the counter, offering a note to the darkeyed girl behind the till. She handed Helgi his mug and nodded towards another table in the far corner, where Helena Rós’ gaze followed Gulli Olafs’ as he looked in horror at Gunna and Helgi bearing down on them.
Gunna smiled broadly, taking a seat at the end of the table. “How sweet. The wronged wife and the investigative journalist meeting for lattes in a bookshop café.”
Both looked embarrassed as Gunna sat back and surveyed them, while Helgi pulled up a chair next to her.
“We’re … er …” Gulli Olafs floundered.
“Gunnlaugur is writing an article about this whole affair,” Helena Rós said sharply. “He wanted to interview me about Hallur’s part in it. Haven’t I helped you enough with all this already?” she asked, her voice petulant.
“Certainly,” Gunna said. “My officers have spent a lot of time trawling through your husband’s effects. How is he, by the way?”
“As close to being brain-dead as before,” Helena Rós snapped back.
“Now I’m wondering if we were looking in the right places.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that I’d like you to accompany my colleague here. He’s going to go to your house once again for another look around, while Gulli has a chat with me.”
Helena Rós’ face was set as firm as rock. “Am I under arrest for something?”
“Not so far,” Gunna said coolly, opening her briefcase to pull out a file. “But that’s an option if you decline to cooperate.”
Helgi looked puzzled. Gunna opened the file and extracted some sheets of paper that she placed on the table. “Of course, these are just copies, as the originals are still at the lab.”
Gunna watched the blood drain from Gulli Ólafs’ face as he saw what had been put in front of them.
“Can we, er … can we take this somewhere else?” he said in a strained voice.
“We’re just about to do that, don’t you worry,” Gunna told him, and turned to Helgi. “See if you can rustle up a patrol car to take this lady home, would you? When you get there, you’ll need to impound all the computers and printers in the house.”
“How dare you!” Helena Rós spluttered, her cheeks acquiring pink spots of fury beneath the make-up.
“And you,” Gunna continued, transferring her attention to Gulli Ólafs, “I’m asking you to come with me to your office and we’ll go through the same procedure there.”
The tension that had been gnawing at her all morning had disappeared, replaced by a serene calmness that she knew would be followed later by a draining exhaustion.
“I want to make a statement,” Gulli Ólafs said abruptly while Helgi muttered into his communicator.
“And so do I,” Helena Rós spat.
“All in good time,” Gunna assured her, as a patrol car appeared outside and two officers emerged from it.