Cold Comfort (13 page)

Wasted on a bloke, Gunna thought, reminding herself that her own unruly thatch was overdue its usual workmanlike trim.

“Good morning,” she offered, sitting down opposite him without waiting to be asked.

“More questions, Sergeant?”

“I’m afraid so. This isn’t a bad moment?”

“Not at all. Always ready to help the police,” Hallur said, and Gunna saw him gulp as he spoke.

She nodded and looked sternly over the cluttered desk. “I don’t feel you’ve been entirely open about your relationship with Svanhildur Mjöll Sigurgeirsdóttir. We spoke a few days ago and you gave me the impression that you had conducted an occasional liaison with her, but now I understand that there was rather more to this. I’d be interested if you’d elaborate.”

Gunna could sense fear as Hallur coughed and looked from one corner of the room to other as if seeking inspiration. He’s cornered and terrified, Gunna thought. Be gentle. Don’t overdo it.

“I, er, I’d like you to know that this could be deeply embarrassing, you know … Very unpleasant for a lot of people. My wife … and the Prime Minister …”

There was real anguish in his voice. Gunna looked impassively at the wild eyes frowning back at her and let him continue.

“It would be a shock to her if this were made public. A huge shock,” he concluded, nodding in emphasis.

“Unfortunately that’s beyond my remit. My concern is to identify who was responsible for this woman’s violent death. You’d best be open about it and tell me what you know.”

Hallur fidgeted. “What do you know already?”

“Let’s just pretend that I don’t know anything and you start from the beginning.”

“I think I ought to have my lawyer present,” he blurted out.

Gunna shrugged. “Up to you. That’s if you want me to suspect you were involved with her death, in which case we’d be best off doing this as a formal recorded interview at Hverfisgata and not an informal chat in your office.”

Hallur deflated visibly and his whole body sagged in his chair.

“Did you, for instance, support Svana financially in any way?”

“What? Good grief, no.”

“Not at all?”

“I paid for a meal sometimes,” he said with a flash of his smooth public persona breaking through. “I’m old-fashioned like that, don’t believe in going Dutch. Of course I paid for everything that time we met in Copenhagen, but apart from that, certainly not.”

“And your financial records will bear this out?” Gunna asked quietly.

“You want to go through my bank statements?”

“It’s possible. So this is the sum total of your involvement with Svana Geirs, is it? An occasional meal, one dirty weekend away, the odd screw? No cash changed hands?”

Hallur blanched and he shook his head, jumping as his desk phone rang. He snatched up the receiver as if it were a saviour and yelped into it, nodding as he spoke.

“Yes, yes, of course. That shouldn’t be a problem. But could you ask him to call me in an hour? I’m in a meeting right now and it’s not entirely convenient. Thanks.”

He dropped the receiver reluctantly. “Sorry. I’m supposed to be on the way to meet a group of Japanese investors.”

“You know Bjarki Steinsson,” Gunna said, framing the question as a direct statement.

“Er, I, yes. Of course. What do you want me to say? We belong to the same clubs, he’s a member of the party and attends meetings regularly.”

“I want you to tell me the truth and all of it, just as you would in court,” Gunna said grimly. She was certain that Hallur was close to telling her everything as long as she could maintain pressure on him. “And how about Jónas Valur Hjaltason? Another friend?”

Blood drained from Hallur’s face, leaving him gaping at her. “How much do you know?” he gulped finally.

“Tell me about the syndicate,” Gunna said quietly, ignoring his question.

“It was Jónas Valur who started it all off.”

“Go on.”

“Yeah. He’d known Svana for a long time. The idea came up when we were at Jónas Valur’s salmon lodge, I don’t know, three years ago, a whole bunch of us. Jónas Valur’s son Sindri was there as well, and he was boasting that he’d slept with Svana. He was pretty drunk, and all of a sudden he spat out that Svana would do it for cash for the right people. We had a laugh and a joke about it and that was that.”

Gunna stared at him as he sat bolt upright in his chair, looking blankly at a point on the wall behind her, hands playing nervously in his lap.

“So the next night we had a few bottles of Jameson’s on the table and it was Jónas Valur who suggested that we could form a syndicate and take turns, y’know, once a week or something. We all thought it was a brilliant joke, but Jónas Valur was completely serious. It took a while before we realized that. He just called her up there and then and put it to her, and she agreed right away. Don’t know if she was serious or not at the time, but he’s a proper salesman, the old bastard, a real charmer. A few days later he took her out to dinner and convinced her. Mind you, Svana was always short of cash, and I suppose she saw it as some sort of security.”

Hallur sighed. “What now? What else do you want to know?” he asked in the same blank monotone as before.

“I want to know how long this arrangement has been going on.”

“Since about this time two years ago.”

“And how often did you have a meeting with Svana?”

Hallur hesitated. “It varied. Sometimes it would be a couple of times in the same week. Other times not for a week or two. I don’t think any of us kept a log or anything like that,” he said with distaste. “We’re all friends and trust each other.”

“When and where did this take place?”

“At Svana’s flat. Sometimes we’d meet at Fit Club and go on from there. Normally I’d just go straight to her flat in the afternoon after a workout, we’d spend an hour or two together and then I’d go back to work. I don’t know about the others. I guess Jónas Valur had evenings, as he doesn’t have the same family ties as the rest of us.”

“And was Svana paid in cash, or what?”

“Direct to her bank account.”

“From your family account?” Gunna asked with disbelief.

“Well, no. I have a separate account that my wife doesn’t, er … doesn’t know about. I do some journalism and public speaking, that sort of thing, which is paid into that account.”

“So your freelance activities funded your part-time mistress, so to speak?”

He nodded silently.

“I’d prefer it if you don’t mention this conversation to the others. Of course I can’t prevent you from getting in touch with them, but you ought to be aware that we will be interviewing them as well, and if your stories all tie up too neatly, then there might be something to get suspicious about. So, not a word, please.”

“No, no, of course not,” Hallur said blankly.

“I’ll be in touch with you again in a few days.”

It was as if he had snapped out of a reverie as his eyes lifted despairingly. “Is it possible to keep this quiet?” he asked quickly. “I have a lot more at stake than the others—wife, family, career.”

Gunna wanted to reply that he should have considered that before, but kept the comment to herself. “It’s very difficult to say. Strictly speaking, an offence has been committed. It’s largely down to the prosecutor’s office to decide whether or not to press a charge. But at present, I’m looking for Svana’s killer.”

“None of this is on record, is it, Sergeant?”

“No, but if there’s reason to investigate further, then it might have to be done at Hverfisgata, which would mean a formal interview.”

“I could deny everything.”

“I think, under the circumstances, that would be far from wise,” Gunna said quietly. “But certainly for the moment, if you keep this conversation to yourself, I’ll do the same.”

She rose to leave and picked up her unopened folder. Hallur levered himself from his seat behind the desk and made his way around it, extending a hand. “Thank you. It’s much appreciated. Of course my offer still holds good.”

“Offer?” Gunna said blankly.

“Dinner sometime?”

The familiar boyish smile spread across Hallur’s face, and Gunna could see why old ladies voted for him in droves.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said coldly, letting go of his hand and stepping outside.

She took the stairs two at a time and waved to the researcher half hidden behind her computer monitor before taking a breath of fresh, damp air on the steps outside the old building. She looked up and could see Hallur’s tiny office window propped open up in the eaves.

“The cheeky bastard. Dinner? My arse,” she muttered to herself, wondering just why Hallur had avoided mentioning Bjartmar Arnarson’s membership of what she had started to think of as the Svana Syndicate.

“W
HY ARE WE
in this place?” Eiríkur asked, craning his neck to take in his surroundings.

“We’re here because Helgi and I like it,” Gunna replied. “It’s also quiet, and if anyone we know pops in, we’ll see them straight away.”

Gunna had taken a window table at Kænan, the harbour café in Hafnarfjördur, with a view of trucks rumbling steadily along the road outside to and from the dock gate a hundred metres away. With the lunchtime rush over, there was still food on the menu but the place was quiet enough for them to talk.

The remnants of lunch, Gunna’s fried fish, Helgi’s lamb stew and Eiríkur’s burger, had all been taken away. The sallow waitress had hardly even bothered to look at them, but Gunna could tell the woman had sensed that they were police officers. She tried to catch her eye as if to reassure her that she didn’t interest them in the least, but the waitress stared steadfastly over the trolley in front of her.

“Coffee, boys?” Gunna asked brightly.

Helgi grunted what she knew from the tone to be a yes and gazed out of the window at a forklift truck making precarious progress with a pallet of scrap metal on its forks, waiting to see whether the driver would notice if anything fell off.

“Mocha, please,” Eiríkur said, and Gunna chuckled grimly as she went to the counter and poured into three mugs. Helgi took his appreciatively, while Eiríkur looked at his with surprise.

“Sorry,” Gunna apologized. “There’s only two kinds of coffee here—black or white.”

“Come on then, what’s it all about?” Helgi asked. “Either going out for lunch is some bizarre team-building exercise, or you’ve a good reason for taking us somewhere quiet.”

Half an hour earlier the tables had been packed with men in overalls and heavy boots. But as the magic hour of one o’clock approached, Kænan had emptied, the queue at the counter had vanished and the tables were deserted. A knot of smokers gathered outside for a few minutes before the boiler suits and boots disappeared to the workshops and factories around the harbour. Only a group of retired men sat at a table in the far corner of the long room, looking wistfully at the small boats at the quayside over the road and idly flipping through the day’s newspapers as they wished there was still work for them.

“The long and the short of it is that we have something that’s more than a little sensitive on our plates right now,” Gunna explained. “And you’re right. I wanted to get away from flapping ears for an hour or so.”

“Svana Geirs?”

“Got it in one. I had a chat with Ívar Laxdal. I don’t reckon Örlygur’s coming back from sick leave, and we’re reporting direct to Laxdal himself on this.”

Helgi guffawed. “I can just imagine Örlygur nursing his bad back at home, hoping it won’t get better. I’ll bet he’s scared shitless he might have to return to work.”

“Well, Örlygur’s bad back aside, we don’t have a senior officer in charge of this department and we probably won’t for a while.”

“Are you going to put in for it, Gunna?” Eiríkur asked, taking her by surprise with such a direct question.

“No comment’s all I can say. Let’s just say it’s doubtful,” she said finally.

“A bar to a star’s a bit of a jump,” Helgi observed, referring to the one bar of a sergeant and the star a chief inspector would carry on each shoulder.

“Well put, Helgi. Now, Svana Geirs. The word from Ívar Laxdal is that this has to be under wraps, which is why we’re here and not in the canteen at Hverfisgata. No publicity, no leaks, no charging in without some very good reasons. Other stuff has to go on the back burner for a few days.”

“All right. Is it just us, or do we get any help?” Helgi asked doubtfully.

“It’s down to us for the moment. We still have uniforms knocking on doors around Svana’s flat and searching bins and whatnot for a possible murder weapon, but we have to concentrate on her private life. We’ve been over this already, but to make sure we all have the basics, Svana Geirs was the shared squeeze of a group of prominent men who between them contributed to keeping her in a pretty comfortable lifestyle,” Gunna explained.

“Names?” Helgi asked.

“There’s Bjartmar Arnarson to begin with, which throws a whole new light on a few things.”

“And Svana’s flat and car are owned by one of his companies,” Eiríkur chipped in.

“By the way, did you know that Bjartmar and Long Ommi have a bit of history as well?” Helgi added thoughtfully.

Gunna raised an eyebrow.

“That’s right,” Helgi continued. “Before Bjartmar became respectable, Ommi was some kind of freelance muscle for him.”

“So maybe we can ask Ommi, when we catch up with him. Which might not be for a while if we have to devote every waking moment to Svana Geirs. Anyway, these are the others,” Gunna said grimly. “Our big hitters are Jónas Valur Hjaltason, chairman of Kleifar, shareholder in shipping and transport businesses, as well as running his own export operation. He’s a grandfather and older than the others, in his midfifties, separated, lives alone. Then there’s Bjarki Steinsson, who runs an accountancy firm. Bjarki sold a whole raft of holdings in one of the banks weeks before the crash and made a packet out of it. Björgvin at Financial says that everything he owned has been transferred to a company in his wife’s name. It’s already part of a wider investigation, so we have to be extra careful not to muddy the water there.”

Gunna paused.

“Any more?” Eiríkur asked.

“Plus Hallur Hallbjörnsson, and as far as we know, that’s all. Right. We’d better divvy these magnificent specimens up between us and see what we come up with. Start with any records we already hold, I’ll check with Financial, and we go on from there.”