“All right. I’ve been fortunate enough never to have encountered this particular ray of sunshine, although I’ve met his mother. Now I’ve also spoken to both Skari and Skari’s mum. The old lady loathes Ommi with a passion and Skari says nothing. So where does that leave us?”
Helgi lifted his hands up, palms in the air. “If he wants to keep his mouth shut, that’s his prerogative. But with that sort of injury, there has to be a damned good reason …”
“Which is what we need to winkle out of someone,” Gunna finished for him. “Right, guys. I have an appointment at Svana Geirs’ flat in ten minutes, so I’ll see you two in the canteen at lunchtime.”
THE WOMAN HE had lived with for fifteen years looked blank-eyed at him from the doorway of her parents’ house. Jón wanted desperately to sweep her into his arms and take her with him, not that he had anywhere much to go. Their own house had become a shell of the home they had both worked hard to make it. Practically everything that could be sold had gone. Even the living-room carpet had been exchanged for a couple of tanks of diesel.
“Have her back by eight, can you?” Linda said in the most neutral voice she could manage, although to Jón it sounded edged with barbed wire. He just nodded as his daughter skipped down the steps and put her hand in his. Didn’t the bloody woman understand that every hard word was like a smack in the face?
Linda watched with folded arms as Jón carefully strapped Ragna Gústa into the front seat and the little girl waved happily to her mother, who found suddenly that while she could wave back, finding a smile was more of a problem.
“Where are we going, Daddy? To our house?”
“I don’t know yet, darling. I thought maybe we’d go to Grandma’s place for a change. How does that sound?”
“Good,” she replied after thinking carefully for a moment. Jón spun the wheel to take the van out on to the main road, and the tools in the back rattled.
“I like this.”
“What’s that, love?”
“I like being in your work van. It’s funner than your big car.”
“Not funner. More fun…”
“You know what I mean. This car’s bigger and it smells different.” The only car now, Jón thought but didn’t say out loud. He didn’t know how to explain to her that the jeep had gone more than a month ago.
THE EXISTENCE OF a canteen was something Gunna was becoming accustomed to. In her years on the city force before leaving Reykjavík for the quiet of a post at the fishing village Hvalvík, the canteen had been a fixture where practically every officer met every other one.
She loaded two lamb cutlets on to her plate, added a single potato, some salad, decided to forgo gravy and carried lunch to where Eiríkur was sipping coffee over his empty plate.
“That’s what comes of being late,” she said, cutting into the cold potato and discarding it.
“There’s no phone in Svana Geirs’ flat, is there, chief?” Eiríkur asked. “No, don’t think so.”
“That’s what’s missing. No phone. Somebody like Svana Geirs must have had an iPhone or a BlackBerry. There’s no way round it—everyone has a mobile these days. Even my dad has one and he’s the world’s most old-fashioned man.”
Eiríkur rarely mentioned his parents, but Gunna knew that his father was a clergyman and that Eiríkur had several considerably older siblings. She sometimes wondered how easily Eiríkur’s parents accepted his not being married to the girlfriend with whom he had a small child.
“It’s a thought,” she said, more to encourage him to continue than to say anything.
“She must have relied on a mobile. Even if people have a landline these days, it’s normally just for the internet connection. You just can’t function now without a mobile. So where’s Svana’s phone?”
“Do you have a number?”
“No. But I’m starting on some of her friends this afternoon and I’ll see what I can get out of them. It stands to reason. If we could get hold of it, it would give us a load of information on her movements that day.”
“Go for it. Let me know what you come up with.”
“GOD! AND RIGHT next door!”
Svana Geirs’ neighbour was alone at home and seemed pleased to have company when Gunna and Eiríkur called on her. She was a tiny, doll-like woman, casually and fashionably dressed.
“I mean … Svana. It’s …” She floundered for the right words and eventually gave up, letting a despairing fluttering of hands speak for her.
“It must have been a shock for you,” Gunna said.
“God! Of course! I know this is Reykjavík 101 and you should expect it to be … er, like …”
“Rowdy sometimes?” Gunna finished for her.
“Yeah. Rowdy, lively. That’s it. But, God,” she said with emphasis, dropping on to a plush sofa while Gunna and Eiríkur stood. Gunna thought better of the sofa and lowered herself on to one of the chairs arranged around a long dining-room table. The room was spotless. Gunna gazed around her with a practised eye and saw nothing cheap, from the minimalist pictures on the walls to the weighty crystal ornaments and the huge screen that filled one wall. She placed her notes in front of her and opened the folder.
“All right. You’re Arna Arnarsdóttir?”
“That’s me,” she simpered.
“My colleague Eiríkur Thór …” Gunna looked over at him, enveloped in the sofa’s grip. “My colleague spoke to you yesterday, and according to your statement you recognized some of the people seen leaving and entering Svana’s flat. Is that right?”
“Yeah, God. I saw one of them on TV last night as well,” she said in excitement.
“Who was that?”
“On the news!”
“RÚV or Channel 2?”
Arna’s excited smile stopped in its tracks. “Er, I don’t know. They’re the same, aren’t they?”
“Not quite,” Gunna said. “Were you aware of the same people coming and going regularly? Or were there people you only saw once?”
“Well, both really.”
“So, have you any idea who some of these people are?”
Arna almost bounced with eagerness and reached down to the floor beside the sofa for a stack of glossy magazines that she put on the table in front of her.
“I went through all these …”
“And you found some faces you recognized?”
“Yeah!” She opened the first one and flipped through it, peering at the pages. “Him.”
Gunna moved over to the table and looked down at the magazine to where Arna pointed with a lacquered nail at a flashed photograph of a man in a dark suit getting out of a sleek car.
“But I don’t know who he is,” Arna said.
“Jónas Valur Hjaltason, it says there,” Gunna pointed out, and looked over at Eiríkur again.
“Businessman,” Eiríkur elaborated. “Fingers in all sorts of pies.”
“Fair enough. Arna, it might be easiest if you could go through these and mark the people you recognize.”
The idea seemed to confuse her for a moment. “What, and you’ll come back later and get them, you mean?”
“No, I meant you could go through them now,” Gunna said patiently. “That way we can ask you any questions while you do it.” Arna seemed to be thinking through the idea. “OK. Do you have a pen?”
“Eiríkur? Would you?”
Eiríkur stood up and took charge.
“Could I ask you to put the magazines over here where we can both look?” he asked sweetly, patting the dining table.
Gunna gratefully left Eiríkur to it, accepting that his patient manner would be far more effective than the irritable brusqueness she was having difficulty suppressing. Every few moments there was a giggle from the table as Eiríkur’s and Arna’s heads became steadily closer over the pile of magazines.
“Arna? Do you live here alone?” Gunna asked suddenly when there was a lull.