Black Skies (2 page)

‘And you? Still preaching?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

‘Of course. We’re both indispensable.’ Ingólfur grinned.

Guffi appeared and gave Sigurdur Óli a hearty slap on the back.

‘How’s the cop?’ he boomed, full of his new importance.

‘Fine.’

‘Never regretted quitting your law studies?’ Guffi went on, conceited as ever. He had put on quite a bit of weight over the years: his bow tie was now gradually disappearing under an impressive double chin.

‘No, never,’ Sigurdur Óli retorted, though actually he did occasionally wonder if he should leave the police and go back and complete his degree so that he could get a proper job. But there was no way he was going to admit this to Guffi, or the fact that Guffi was something of an inspiration to him when he was in this state of mind: after all, he often reasoned, if a buffoon like Guffi could understand the law, then anyone could.

‘You’ve been marrying queers, I see,’ said Elmar, joining the group and giving Ingólfur a reproachful look.

‘Here we go,’ said Sigurdur Óli, searching for an escape route before he got caught up in a religious debate.

He turned to Steinunn who was walking past with a drink in her hand. Until recently she had worked for the tax office and Sigurdur Óli used to call her from time to time when he ran into difficulties with his tax return. She had always been very obliging. He knew she had got divorced several years ago and was now happily single. It was partly on her account that he had made the effort to come this evening.

‘Steina,’ he called, ‘is it true that you’ve left the tax office?’

‘Yes, I’m working for Guffi’s bank now,’ she said with a smile. ‘These days my job consists of helping the rich to avoid paying tax – thereby saving them a fortune, according to Guffi.’

‘I guess the bank pays better too.’

‘You’re telling me. I’m earning silly money.’

Steinunn smiled again, revealing gleaming white teeth, and pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over one eye. She was blonde, with curly shoulder-length hair, a rather broad face, attractive dark eyes and brows that she dyed black. She was what the kids would call a MILF and Sigurdur Óli wondered if she was aware of the term. No doubt; she had always known that sort of thing.

‘Yeah, I gather you lot are not exactly starving,’ he said.

‘What about you? Not dabbling yourself?’

‘Dabbling?’

‘In the markets,’ Steinunn said. ‘You’re that kind of guy.’

‘Am I?’ Sigurdur Óli asked, grinning.

‘Yes, you’re a bit of a gambler, aren’t you?’

‘I can’t afford to take any risks,’ he said, grinning again. ‘I stick to safe bets.’

‘Like what?’

‘I only buy bank shares.’

Steinunn raised her glass. ‘And you can’t get safer than that.’

‘Still single?’ he asked.

‘Yes, and loving it.’

‘It’s not all bad,’ Sigurdur Óli conceded.

‘What’s happening with you and Bergthóra?’ Steinunn asked bluntly. ‘I heard things weren’t going so well.’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘it isn’t really working out. Sadly.’

‘Great girl, Bergthóra,’ said Steinunn, who had met his former partner once or twice at similar occasions.

‘Yes, she was … is. Look, I was wondering if you and I could maybe meet up. For a coffee or something.’

‘Are you asking me out?’

Sigurdur Óli nodded.

‘On a date?’

‘No, not a date, well, yes, maybe something like that, now you come to mention it.’

‘Siggi,’ Steinunn said, patting him on the cheek, ‘you’re just not my type.’

Sigurdur Óli stared at her.

‘You know that, Siggi. You never were, never will be.’

Type
?! Sigurdur Óli spat out the word as he sat in his car in front of the flats, waiting to ambush the newspaper thief.
Type
? What did that mean? Was he a worse type than anyone else? What did Steinunn mean by her talk of types?

A young man carrying a musical-instrument case went inside, took the paper from the postbox without breaking his stride and proceeded to open the door to the staircase with a key. Sigurdur Óli just made it into the lobby in time to shove his foot in the door as it was closing, and pursued him into the stairwell. The young man was astonished when Sigurdur Óli grabbed him as he started up the stairs and yanked him back down, before relieving him of
the
newspaper and whacking him over the head with it. The man dropped his instrument case, which banged into the wall, lost his balance and fell over.

‘Get up, you idiot!’ Sigurdur Óli snapped, trying to drag the man to his feet. He assumed that this was the layabout who lived two floors up from his mother’s friend; the waster who called himself a composer.

‘Don’t hurt me!’ cried the composer.

‘I’m not hurting you. Now, are you going to stop stealing Gudmunda’s paper? You know who she is, don’t you? The old lady on the first floor. What kind of loser steals an old lady’s Sunday paper? Or do you get some sort of kick out of picking on people who can’t stand up for themselves?’

The young man was on his feet again. Glaring at Sigurdur Óli with a look of outrage, he snatched the paper back from him.

‘This is
my
paper,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘
Your
paper?’ Sigurdur Óli broke in quickly. ‘You’re wrong there, mate; this is Gudmunda’s.’

Only now did he cast a glance into the lobby where the postboxes hung in rows, five across and three high, and saw the paper jutting out of Gudmunda’s postbox just as he had left it.

‘Shit!’ he swore as he got back into his car and shamefacedly drove away.

3

HE WAS ON
his way to work on Monday morning when he heard the news that a body had been discovered in a rented flat in the old Thingholt district, near the city centre. A young man had been murdered, his throat slashed. The CID were quick to arrive on the scene and the rest of Sigurdur Óli’s day was spent interviewing the young man’s neighbours. At one point he ran into Elínborg, who was in charge of the case and appeared as calm and unflappable as ever; rather too calm and unflappable for Sigurdur Óli’s taste.

During the day he took a phone call from Patrekur reminding him that they had planned to meet, but as he had heard about the murder he said Sigurdur Óli should forget it. Sigurdur Óli told him it was all right; they could meet later that day at a cafe he suggested. Shortly afterwards he received another call, this time from the station, about a man who was asking after Erlendur and refused to leave until he was allowed to see him. The man had been informed that Erlendur was on leave in the countryside but would not believe it. Finally, he said he would talk to Sigurdur Óli instead, but eventually left after refusing to give his name or state his business. Lastly,
Bergthóra
rang and asked him to meet her the following evening, if he could spare the time.

Having spent the day at the crime scene, Sigurdur Óli went to meet Patrekur at five at the appointed cafe in the city centre. Patrekur was there first, accompanied by his wife’s brother-in-law, whom Sigurdur Óli knew vaguely from parties at his friend’s house. There was a beer in front of the man and he had apparently already emptied a shot glass.

‘Bit heavy for a Monday,’ Sigurdur Óli commented, looking at him disapprovingly as he took a seat at their table.

The man smiled awkwardly and glanced at Patrekur.

‘I needed it,’ he said and took a sip of beer.

His name was Hermann and he was a wholesaler, married to Súsanna’s sister.

‘So, what’s up?’ asked Sigurdur Óli.

He sensed that Patrekur was not his usual self and guessed that he was uncomfortable about having arranged this meeting without warning Sigurdur Óli that Hermann was coming along; as a rule he was the easy-going type, quick to smile and always cracking jokes. They sometimes went to the gym together early in the morning and grabbed a quick coffee afterwards, or to the cinema, and had even holidayed together from time to time. Patrekur was the closest thing Sigurdur Óli had to a best friend.

‘Are you familiar with the term “swinging”?’ Patrekur asked now.

‘No, what, you mean dancing?’

Patrekur’s lips twitched. ‘If only,’ he said, his eyes on Hermann, who was sipping his beer. Hermann’s handshake had been weak and moist when Sigurdur Óli greeted him. He had thin hair, small, regular features, and, in spite of being smartly dressed in a suit and tie, had several days’ stubble on his chin.

‘So you’re not talking about the swing – that forties dance?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

‘No, not a lot of dancing goes on at the parties I’m talking about,’ Patrekur said quietly.

Hermann finished his beer and waved to the waiter to bring him another.

Sigurdur Óli looked at Patrekur. They had founded a neoconservative society known as Milton in the sixth form and produced an eight-page magazine of the same name, singing the praises of individual enterprise and the free market. They had booked well-known right-wing speakers to come to the school and address thinly attended meetings. Later, much to Sigurdur Óli’s surprise, Patrekur had turned against the magazine, developing left-wing sympathies and starting to speak out against the American base on Midnesheidi, calling for Iceland to leave NATO. This was around the time he met his future wife, so it probably reflected her influence. Sigurdur Óli had struggled on alone to keep Milton going but when the magazine dwindled to four pages and even the young conservatives no longer bothered to turn up to the meetings, the whole thing died a natural death. Sigurdur Óli still owned all the back issues of
Milton
, including the one containing his essay: ‘The US to the Rescue: Lies About CIA Involvement in South America’.

He and Patrekur had started university at the same time and even after Sigurdur Óli had abandoned his law degree in order to enrol at a police academy in the US, they continued to write to each other regularly. Patrekur had come out to visit him, bringing his wife Súsanna and their first child, while he was still on his engineering course, full of talk of soil mechanics and infrastructure design.

‘Why are we talking about swinging?’ asked Sigurdur Óli, who could not make head or tail of his friend’s hints. He flicked some dust off his new light-coloured summer coat that he was still wearing, in defiance of the onset of autumn. He had bought it in a sale and was rather pleased with it.

‘Well, I feel a bit awkward raising this with you. You know I never
ask
you favours as a policeman.’ Patrekur smiled uneasily. ‘But the thing is, Hermann and his wife are in a tight corner thanks to some people they hardly even know.’

‘What kind of tight corner?’

‘These people invited them to a swingers’ party.’

‘You’re on about swinging again.’

‘Let me tell him,’ interrupted Hermann. ‘We only did it for a short time and stopped after that. Swinging is another term for …’ He coughed in embarrassment. ‘… it’s another term for wife-swapping.’

‘Wife-swapping?’

Patrekur nodded. Sigurdur Óli gaped at his friend.

‘Not you and Súsanna too?’ he asked.

Patrekur hesitated, as if he did not understand the question.

‘Not you and Súsanna?’ Sigurdur Óli repeated in disbelief.

‘No, no, of course not,’ Patrekur hastily reassured him. ‘We weren’t involved. It was Hermann and his wife – Súsanna’s sister.’

‘It was just an innocent way of livening up our marriage,’ Hermann added.

‘An innocent way of livening up your marriage?’

‘Are you going to repeat everything we say?’ asked Hermann.

‘Have you been practising this for long?’

‘Practising? I don’t know if that’s the right word.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know.’

‘We’ve stopped now but a couple of years back we experimented a bit.’

Sigurdur Óli glanced at his friend, then back at Hermann.

‘I don’t need to justify myself to you,’ Hermann said, bridling. His beer arrived and he took a deep draught, then, looking at Patrekur, added: ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.’

Patrekur ignored him. He was studying Sigurdur Óli with a sombre expression.

‘Please tell me you’re not involved in this,’ Sigurdur Óli said.

‘Of course not,’ Patrekur repeated. ‘I’m just trying to help them.’

‘Well, what’s it got to do with me?’

‘They’re in a spot of bother.’

‘What kind of bother?’

‘It’s all about having fun with strangers,’ Hermann chimed in, apparently revived by the beer. ‘That’s what makes it such a turn-on.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Sigurdur Óli again.

Hermann took a deep breath. ‘We got involved with con men.’

‘You mean they conned you out of a shag?’

Hermann turned to Patrekur. ‘I told you this was a mistake.’

‘Will you listen to him?’ Patrekur admonished Sigurdur Óli. ‘They’re in deep shit and I thought you might be able to help. Please just shut up and listen.’

Sigurdur Óli obliged his friend. Hermann and his wife had been involved in wife-swapping for a while two years previously, inviting people over for swingers’ parties and accepting invitations to similar gatherings at other people’s homes. They had an open relationship, which worked well for them, according to Hermann. The sex was exciting; they only went with ‘nice’ people, as he put it, and they soon became part of a club consisting of a small group of like-minded couples.

‘Then we met Lína and Ebbi,’ he said.

‘Who are they?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

‘A couple of total shits,’ Hermann said, emptying his glass.

‘Not “nice” people, then?’

‘They took photos,’ Hermann said.

‘Photos of you?’

Hermann nodded.

‘Having sex?’

‘They’re threatening to post them on the Internet if we don’t pay up.’

‘Súsanna’s sister is in politics, isn’t she?’ Sigurdur Óli asked Patrekur.

‘Do you think you could talk to them?’ Hermann said.

‘Isn’t she an assistant to one of the cabinet ministers?’ Sigurdur Óli asked.

Patrekur nodded. ‘It’s a nightmare for them,’ he said. ‘Hermann was wondering if you could talk some sense into these people, get the pictures off them, scare them into coming clean and handing over everything they’ve got.’