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‘So you weren’t aware of who was at number fifty?’

‘Officer, I’ve been out of the country for the last two weeks. Sunna María said something about the place needing to be cleaned and that’s all I can tell you.’

Óttar Sveinsson didn’t look pleased to see her and jumped up from behind his desk to head her off into a quiet corner. By the time his hurried steps coincided with Gunna’s he had managed to summon a smile.

‘What can I do for you this time, officer? Looking for a house, maybe?’

‘The same one, actually,’ Gunna said and watched the smile fade. ‘I’m here to take all the paperwork related to Kópavogsbakki fifty for the last twelve months.’

‘All of it?’

‘Every tiny snippet of information down to the last detail. I’m assuming you keep records going back a few years?’

‘We keep everything. But we don’t keep it all here.’

‘Where’s the rest of it?’

‘At our storage facility.’

‘You don’t mean your garage, do you?’

Óttar Sveinsson looked hurt. ‘Of course not. If it’s not here it’ll be stored at our other office in Kópavogur. Excuse me,’ he said, and went over to whisper in the ear of a young man sitting behind a desk.

‘No, right now,’ Gunna heard him say in an urgent tone. ‘It’s important.’

‘One moment, please,’ he said, returning to the corner where Gunna had decided against sinking into the all-enveloping sofa. ‘My colleague is fetching everything.’

‘Who makes the decisions on repairs to the houses you rent out?’

‘One of us will do that, normally. We inspect properties that we manage regularly, as long as the rental period is longer than six months, otherwise we only inspect at the end when the tenants leave.’

‘So is that your job?’

‘Most of the time.’

‘And if it’s something major that needs doing?’

‘Then we consult the owners. We don’t have the authority to embark on significant costs without their consent. Minor expenses aren’t a problem and that comes out of the payment to the owner.’

‘Let’s just say,’ Gunna said. ‘Let’s imagine a tenant carries out some work. Is that acceptable?’

‘If it’s authorized, yes. Otherwise tenants aren’t allowed to carry out modifications.’

‘So when the basement of Kópavogsbakki fifty was painted throughout, was that your doing?’

Óttar Sveinsson stopped short. ‘I really don’t know,’ he said after a moment’s thought and looked across to where the office boy was not exactly hurrying to bring them a bulky file. ‘Thank you,’ he said tartly as it was handed over.

He opened the folder and started to flip through it, going through checklists and receipts.

‘No,’ he decided. ‘If the basement was painted, then it wasn’t done by us or on our instructions.’

‘Thanks.’ Gunna took the folder and opened it.

‘We will get that back, won’t we?’

‘Eventually. Are the details of the tenants here as well?’

‘At the back,’ he said, extracting a plastic sleeve and from that a sheaf of papers.

‘I suppose you photocopy identification?’

‘Naturally,’ Óttar Sveinsson said, taking the sheaf of paper and flicking through it with practised fingers before taking a slower second look. ‘I, er. . I’m sorry, but it seems those papers are missing. This is the previous tenant, not the one who has just moved out.’

‘That’s convenient.’

Óttar Sveinsson shuffled his feet and mumbled in embarrassment. ‘I can’t understand it. We’re so careful. It must have been misplaced in the wrong folder.’

‘So who were the tenants?’

‘They were two gentlemen, here on business, I understand, for a few months.’

‘Names?’

‘I really don’t recall.’

‘Local?’

‘No, they were Danish, I think. Or German.’

‘Surely they had references?’

‘Normally, yes, we would expect references. But Sunna María told me that she knew them and she was happy to skip the formalities.’

‘Anything?’ Gunna asked. ‘Anything at all?’

Ívar Laxdal’s face was set in its usual impassive mask. ‘Nothing at all. Sævaldur has nothing, literally nothing. The slugs are nothing that can be identified and match no firearm on any records. The witness saw nothing that was of any use, and as the girl is from Russia, she doesn’t speak English well enough to be able to tell if the killers spoke with an accent or not. There’s no description beyond two men, one about one metre seventy-five and one about one-eighty-five tall, both heavily built, with dark hair judging by their eyebrows. That’s all.’

‘No vehicle in the area or anything like that? If it wasn’t a hired car, then where did it come from?’

‘Gunnhildur, you think Sævaldur’s incident room hasn’t been through all that?’

‘Sorry. It’s frustrating, though.’ She sensed that he was impatient, unusually for someone who exuded calmness and control while others around him struggled to keep abreast of their workloads. ‘You’re getting shit from above about this?’ she ventured to ask, and saw with a flush of satisfaction that the question had taken him by surprise.

‘No. Not yet,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘But rest assured that I will.’

‘There is something else. The cleaner who found that pool of blood in a cellar yesterday and freaked out?’

‘What about it? No victim, so no case, I’d imagine.’

‘That would be my feeling as well, except that the house is owned by Sunna María Voss and Jóhann Hjálmarsson.’

‘The dentist and his wife? Who have been in business with the victim?’

‘That’s them,’ she said. ‘It seems the wife is the one who has been in business with Vilhelm Thorleifsson. The husband’s lukewarm about him, and also about the missing partner, Elvar Pálsson.’

Ívar Laxdal sat silent for a moment and placed the palms of his hands together in front of him, his fingertips beating a tattoo against each other as he thought.

‘It’s a mess, isn’t it? Have you located this other character?’

‘No. He’s abroad as far as I can make out, but nobody knows where.’

‘Keep an eye on things, would you, Gunnhildur?’ He said slowly. ‘If this man. .’

‘Elvar.’

‘If he doesn’t show his face soon, then are we looking at a missing person enquiry? Could he have gone the same way?’

‘Who knows? He travels to the Baltic States, and it seems he has business in London as well. So it’s anyone’s guess.’

‘Not in Iceland. Someone will know where he is. Family?’

‘He has an ex-wife who has been an ex-wife for a very long time, no contact there. He’s dissolved most of his business activities here, and the little he does have left in Iceland includes the bankrupt firm that the dentist and his wife were involved with.’

‘And how are they coping with all this?’

‘Living in the lap of luxury in the Harbourside Hotel. But they can afford it.’

‘They’re still asking for protection?’

‘Not at the moment. They have a security consultant looking after them.’

Ívar Laxdal’s eyes rolled and he groaned. ‘Not some hoodlum, I hope?’

‘No, Bára Kristinns who used to be at the Keflavík station.’

‘Ah, then that’s all right,’ he said, brightening. ‘A very sharp young woman. A real shame we couldn’t keep her on the force.’

‘Yeah, and for a hundred thousand a day I’m tempted to go into that line of business myself.’

Gunna scrolled through the report with mounting frustration. The basement of Kópavogsbakki 50 had been examined by the forensic team, who had come up with nothing conclusive. There were no recent fingerprints anywhere in the basement other than those of Valmira and the other cleaners. The dried blood on the floor was real enough and was identifiable as the overwhelmingly common type O, but it was doubtful that a DNA profile could be obtained.

She chewed her lip, knowing that even an urgent DNA analysis request could take weeks and cost money that would come from the department’s already thin budget. Costs had been cut and cut again, to the point that she had started bringing in a few lightbulbs and toilet rolls that filled a drawer of her desk in case the day came when there was an empty store cupboard.