‘I saw your husband here in Blönduós on Sunday morning. He wasn’t on shift on Sunday night. So how come Reynir was able to be with you on Sunday evening? That’s what I want to know.’
Gunna arrived back at her desk with a mug of coffee in one hand to find Ívar Laxdal sitting in Helgi’s chair and looking through the pile of books under the table.
‘I never thought of Helgi as an admirer of Laxness,’ Ívar Laxdal said, flicking through a much-thumbed hardback and placing it reverently back where it had come from. ‘Independent People. Marvellous stuff, I always thought.’
‘Why, did you think he was more of a one for Westerns and whodunnits? He’s a dark horse, is our Helgi. You know what these country boys are like. Speaking of which, he’s up in Húnavatnssysla and he’s made an arrest.’
‘This is the killing in Hafnarfjördur?’
‘It is,’ Gunna confirmed and sipped her coffee. ‘Actually, Helgi has done all the important work on this one.’
‘You mean you feel he deserves an afternoon off?’ Ívar Laxdal asked with a trace of a smile.
‘Steady on. I wouldn’t go that far, but a bag of sweets, maybe.’
‘So who’s the killer?’
‘Reynir Aronsson. The brother of the man whose son was run over by Borgar Jónsson. But there’s a hell of a lot of ground to go over here. There are four brothers and they have a long history of sorting out each other’s grudges — going back decades, or so Helgi says.’
‘You think you can tie this in with any cold cases?’
Gunna shook her head. ‘I doubt it. It’s more a case of figuring out if any of the other brothers were party to this and how much of it was arranged in advance.’
‘So this was premeditated murder?’
‘Without a doubt, I’d say.’
‘And the young man who had an accident? Was he part of this too?’
‘I’d say so. There’s been a little business going on here as well. Two of the brothers were brewing moonshine on a practically industrial scale up north, and the man, Elmar, was delivering it to bars and people who were selling it by the half-bottle to the city drunks. He was close to his father’s brothers and they supplied him with a van so he could deliver for them, or that’s the way it looks. That lad has a lot of questions to answer once that morphine feed is turned off. But my guess is that he was the one who had tracked down Borgar Jónsson and shadowed him. Maybe he found out about Borgar’s plans to skip the country and they decided between them on some rough justice. Who knows? He’s still in hospital and too doped up to answer questions — not that he’s going far, so it can wait a day or two.’
‘We might have to open a whole new wing at Litla-Hraun just for them. Anyhow, an announcement needs to be made. A man is helping police with enquiries, etc, do you think?’
‘A man has been arrested, kind of thing, I’d say. But no names, obviously. Not that the press won’t work out who he is soon enough.’
‘Excellent. The commissioner will be relieved. I’ll tell him.’
‘If you don’t mind, don’t forget to mention Helgi as well. It’s his work that’s done this.’
‘Of course,’ Ívar Laxdal said, levering himself from Helgi’s chair. ‘Credit where it’s due. Just so you know, the gentlemen of National Security were very interested in what I had to show them yesterday. The passport is, however, a fake.’
‘So Borgar must have bought it for some reason. In case he needed to make a quiet exit, maybe?’
‘Who knows? Anyhow, it’s a fake, but a very good one of the kind that when it was made eight or nine years ago would have cost a lot of money. They doubt it would pass inspection now. Airport checks are so much more rigorous and he probably wouldn’t have got far with it, although it’s not easy to say if it would be a problem somewhere further south in Europe with a fifty-euro note tucked between the pages. There’s no Turkish embassy here, so the unit is in touch with their Oslo embassy. If anything more surfaces, I’m sure they’ll let us know.’
‘So Borgar could have left the country as himself, gone to Rome or somewhere, and travelled on from there under another identity?’ Gunna speculated.
‘Quite. But the bankbook is very real and the figures in it are euros, so there’s a respectable amount of money there, the deposits all made over six years or so, and the last one just a few months before Borgar was convicted. There were no withdrawals,’ he added.
Gunna sat back and looked at the ceiling for a moment. ‘I’m sure he was going to vanish,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s not as if he had all that much to keep him here. So,’ she said, ‘I owe the gentlemen of National Security a favour, do I?’
‘Let’s say that I do. But if they decide you owe them a favour as well, then I’m sure they’ll let you know soon enough.’
It was a journey he wasn’t looking forward to and he spent half an hour longer than he had meant to sitting moodily in Rúna’s kitchen. His big sister talked about grandchildren without apparently being concerned as to whether or not he was listening. Helgi left Rúna’s house with a promise to drop by later, by which time his brother-in-law would be home, and drove slowly through Blönduós past the petrol station where he had spoken to Mæja. He wondered how she would cope with Reynir being so suddenly removed from her life, probably for five or six years assuming he were to behave himself in Litla-Hraun. Maybe Mæja and Hjörtur would rekindle their relationship with Reynir off the scene, but Helgi thought it more likely that she would find a replacement soon enough.
Turning off the main road and out towards the long coastline where farms were dotted between the highlands and the sea, he thought to himself what a peaceful childhood it had been where a car passed no more than half a dozen times a day and he had been on horseback or driving the tractor at an age when city boys were riding bicycles. Where he had grown up at Hraunbær and where his father had tended sheep and a few cows was a less prosperous farm. On higher ground on the valley slopes, the winters were colder than on a good farm like Tunga close to the shore where there had once been driftwood and seals to be had in the spring, as well as the wild salmon that could be discreetly caught in nets and which visiting city dwellers these days would pay a fortune just for the sight of.
He could see the turning for Tunga in the distance and slowed down long before he reached it. A knot of ponies in a field watched him as he stopped by the sign to the farm and got out to walk over to the fence where a piebald mare stood with her head over the wire. He scratched her ears while behind her the rest of them stood warily watching this strange man who got out of his car to talk to horses by the side of the road.
The Daihatsu bumped down the track to Tunga and the same dog barked at him as he rolled into the yard. The old lady’s face appeared at the window and a moment later the door opened.
‘Hæ,’ Helgi greeted her as he got slowly out of the Daihatsu and walked towards her.
‘The boys aren’t here,’ she said shortly, her face strained. ‘Össur and Ingi are down at the long barn, though I don’t know how pleased they’ll be to see you.’
‘I have to speak to them,’ he said simply.
‘Be it on your own head, Helgi,’ she said, looking past him as Ingi’s van drove into the yard and stopped by the farmhouse door. The old lady watched with her arms folded just as Reynir had done in the interview room.
‘You’ve a nerve, showing up here,’ Össur said shortly and walked straight past him, kicking his boots off at the door and disappearing inside. Ingi got slowly out of the van and stretched his legs.
‘Helgi. What’s the news?’
‘Not great.’
‘Come inside.’
‘Your mother and Össur aren’t exactly going to welcome me with open arms, are they?’
Ingi spat into a puddle. ‘Ach. Össur’s Össur. We all know what he’s like. The old lady doesn’t like it but she knows you don’t have a choice. When are you taking Reynir south?’