Cold Comfort (23 page)

“I’ve asked a few questions and not had many favourable reports of it. So I’d like to hear it from you.”

The return of the urbane persona alarmed Gunna. It told her that Jónas Valur was no longer on the defensive.

“Kleifaberg was a property development operation on a fairly small scale. We bought land and either developed it ourselves or found suitable partners who were capable of taking on projects like that.”

“And this was principally Sindri’s business?”

“It was. He’s a smart boy, my son,” Jónas Valur said, unable to conceal his pride. “He saw the writing on the wall and listened to the analysts. He sold up his interests and shifted overseas to a more stable business environment. He was, I believe, the only one who was pragmatic enough to get out in good time. As it happens, he could have held on for another year or more. But …”

The spread palms finished the sentence.

“What I’d like to know, officer, is why you are taking an interest in a smallish company like Kleifaberg, which no longer exists, which always operated entirely legally, and the activities of which were mostly so long ago that they fall under various statutes of limitations.”

“I think you know I can’t tell you that. But I think you also know as well as I do that your son has some questions to answer.”

“M
UM, ARE YOU
going to be long?” Laufey asked as Gunna tried to make out what she was saying over the rumble of wheels on tarmac. In spite of the crackle of the poor connection, she instinctively realized that something was not right.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she asked, eyes on the road, one finger to her ear to push the earpiece a little more firmly into place.

“I don’t know. Sigrún’s really unhappy about something. She’s been crying and all sorts.”

“Fifteen minutes. I’m on the way.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

Gunna put her foot down a little harder. At the turnoff, she coasted the Range Rover down the brand-new slip road to the roundabout underneath it that she was sure would become an impassable snow trap if the south-west were ever to see snow on the scale that she had grown up with in the west of Iceland, and accelerated as the road south opened up before her.

The black lava fields that from a distance appeared devoid of life were starting to sprout the first green lichens of spring, which was bursting out of its winter dormancy now that the temperature was rising. She checked carefully before swinging the heavy car across the road to overtake a slow-moving truck laden with tubs of fish on its way south, and quickly wound down the window to extend a hand and wave to the driver, one of Haddi’s relatives, taking freshly landed fish to a processing plant in Grindav’k. The truck’s lights flashed briefly in acknowledgement before it disappeared behind a bend in the road.

Gunna brought the car to a halt in a flurry of gravel outside Sigrún’s house and pocketed phone and keys before jumping down and striding straight round to the back door.

“Hæ! Anyone live here?” she called out, opening the kitchen door and looking inside. A row of bulging bin liners greeted her.

“Sigrún? You in?” she shouted, slipping off her shoes and padding into the house.

A stifled sob told her where to look. In the bedroom, Sigrún sat on the end of the bed surrounded by piles of clothes.

“Hey, what’s up?” Gunna asked.

“Sod him. I’ve had enough,” Sigrún said through a voice choked with frustration. “Bloody men, nothing but trouble.”

Gunna sat down next to her and surveyed the stacks of shirts, jeans, jackets and socks. “What’s gone wrong?”

“Bloody Jörundur. He went to Norway with that bunch from where he used to work. He’s been there a week. Just a bloody, sodding, bastard week, that’s all. I got a text this afternoon saying he’s not coming home, he’s staying in Norway and would I send his stuff.”

“He’s not on the piss again, is he?”

“If only that was all,” Sigrún said despairingly. “The bastard. I called him half a dozen times but he’s not answering his phone. So I gave up and called his sister, asked what the hell’s happening, and she finally told me. Jörundur’s been seeing a woman over in Keflavík, and she’s gone to Norway with him. His sister finally admitted it. She’s not that bright and it didn’t take long to get the truth out of her.”

“Æi, Rúna. I’m so sorry …” Gunna began.

“Don’t be. I’m best rid of the bastard.”

She sat clear-eyed on the edge of the bed and surveyed the contents of the wardrobes, feet extended in front of her and rocking back and forth.

“You know, I always knew this would happen, always. I always knew deep inside that he’d let me down sooner or later. Eventually I wouldn’t be what he wanted any more and he’d be gone. Why didn’t I admit it to myself? Have I been in denial all these years, or what?”

“What have you done with Jens?” Gunna asked, feeling foolish.

“I asked Laufey to go to the shop for me and she took him as well. Couldn’t face going out right now, especially now that all the old bags down there will have heard the news,” she said bitterly. “Unless they knew it before I did. Did you know, Gunna? Did you?” Sigrún asked, turning to face her.

“No, I didn’t. I had my suspicions that things weren’t right. But no, I didn’t know about his other woman.”

“Sure?” Sigrún asked. “I need to be certain at least one person wasn’t in on it. Jörundur even told his sister, and that’s as good as putting an announcement on the radio.”

“I had no idea,” Gunna assured her. “You know I’ve always had reservations about the man, but I never thought he’d do this.”

“All right then,” Sigrún allowed grudgingly, her shoulders sagging.

“So what are you going to do with all this lot?” Gunna asked, waving a hand at the stacks of clothes.

“I told his sister to come and collect it.”

“Is she on the way, then?”

Sigrún stood up with a tough expression on her face that Gunna had not seen for years. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m going to bag it all up and she can collect it from either the front step or the dump.”

When Laufey returned with Jens crying in his pushchair and shopping bags hung from both handles, she found them enthusiastically stuffing clothes into black bin liners as the heap on the floor diminished and the wardrobes looked increasingly bare.

“That’s a lot of clothes,” Laufey observed doubtfully, holding Jens’s hand as he took faltering steps into the room. Sigrún swept him up in her arms.

“Your daddy’s an unfaithful lying bastard, little man,” she crooned to the little boy, who grinned and gurgled back. “And if he comes back, I’m going to cut his balls off with a blunt kitchen knife and then Auntie Gunna can lock him up in a smelly cellar on stale bread and water for ever and ever.”

“H
OW’S YOUR FRIEND?”
Steini asked softly, looking up from the book in his hands.

“Ach, she’s all right. Well, she’s not, but she will be in a day or two.”

Steini lifted his feet off the sofa and Gunna shrugged out of her coat and draped it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. She hobbled over and dropped herself down next to him. He leaned over for a kiss, sandwiching the book uncomfortably between them.

“So what happened?” he asked.

“Sigrún’s husband, Jörundur, has been out of work since the crash. Then he got an offer through some blokes he’d worked with before, some big construction job in Norway, a tunnel or something. So he went to Norway to check it out and hopefully do a couple of weeks’ work. But what he didn’t tell anybody was that there’s a woman he’s been having it off with on the sly since Christmas, and she went with him.”

“Ah, the perils of middle age,” Steini said with a rueful nod. “Pleased to be past all that.”

“Get away with you. Anyway, he’s decided to stay there with his new woman, and the first Sigrún knew of it was when he texted her asking her to send his stuff to Norway.”

“That’s a considerate, sensitive way to behave. Have a good day, apart from that?”

“Not bad. Lots I can’t tell you. But it’s been non-stop excitement since I left the house this morning. You’d never believe how many really unpleasant, bad people there are out there, even in a quiet little place like Iceland.”

“Really?”

“Really. Keep your doors locked at night.”

Steini leaned forward and tipped the last of a bottle of white wine into a glass, then passed the glass to Gunna. She took a sip and wrinkled her nose at the slightly acidic aroma.

“Where did this come from?”

“Don’t ask.” He grinned.

“Oh, right. I’m starving. Are you hungry?”

Steini stroked the moustache that made him look a decade older than he really was.

“If there’s food on offer, I suppose I could be persuaded,” he said with a slow smile.

Gunna hauled herself to her feet and started to unbutton her blouse.

“Good. There should be some garlic bread in the freezer that you can microwave, some pasta salad left over from yesterday, and a few lamb chops in the fridge. If you put them under the grill now, they’ll be done by the time I’m out of the shower.”

Sunday 21st

“J
ÓN,
I
DIDN’T
expect to see you today,” Ágústa said with eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Sorry, Mum. Thought I’d told you last week that I’d be over this weekend,” Jón replied. Rain dripped from the brim of his cap and Ragna Gústa quickly let go of his hand and darted behind her grandmother to vanish into the house.

“You’d better come in, I suppose. Not for long, though. Didda Geirmunds is coming round later and we’re going out,” Ágústa pronounced without troubling to hide her annoyance at having her routine disturbed.

Jón sat himself down in the kitchen after force of habit had made him open the fridge to check the contents. Ágústa set a cup in front of him and nodded at the elegant steel flask on the table. Everything about his mother and the way she lived was elegant, Jón reflected. The house was spick and span, expensively furnished without a single piece of self-assembly flatpack furniture to be seen.

“So what brings you out here today?” Ágústa asked sharply. “I’m sure I’d told you. Ragna Gústa’s with me today and I thought you’d like to see her. Linda’s taking her somewhere next weekend, so it’s not as if you’ll see her again for a while.”

“It’s such a shame,” Ágústa said with pursed lips. “Divorce is so common, but I thought it was something that didn’t happen in our family.”

It bloody well has now, Jón wanted to yell at his mother. Instead he shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s happened and it’s not something I’m going to discuss,” he said. It’s all right for you, he thought. Buried two husbands and they both left you a packet.

“I just want to have a look in the cellar for some bits and pieces,” he added, leaving his half-full cup on the table and pushing back his chair.

“All right. But don’t be long. Didda will be here for me in half an hour.”

Jón felt happier in the cellar. It was cool and quiet, apart from the discreet humming of a deep freeze in the corner. The cellar had the same dimensions as the outside walls of the house, with a large main room that housed the heating system and racks of shelves full of biscuit tins and jars that Jón knew were empty. Ágústa had not made jam or baked a cake for years.

At the far side a door opened on to a smaller room, fitted out with a wooden bench and with tools hung on the walls, everything covered with a fine layer of dust. Jón looked under the bench for what he knew was there, and the sight of the familiar case gave him a warm feeling deep inside, recalling autumn days spent sitting wrapped in a thick coat watching the skies.

He admired the clean lines and dull shine of the shotguns. One was old, but as a practical man he could appreciate the beauty of a piece of precision craftsmanship made by hand and with love before the days of lathes and drills controlled by computers. He caressed the wooden stock, looking deep into the whorls and grain, wondering what kind of timber had produced such a pattern. The feel of the gun in his hands brought back uncomfortable memories, and he tried to shake them off as he picked up the other shotgun, with its dull metal and plain stock, that had been his own.

This was a newer weapon, less of a work of art and more of a tool with a workmanlike feel to it. Rummaging further beneath the bench, he came up with an old sports bag. Carefully wrapping his shotgun in sheets of clean cloth, he gently stowed it in the bag with a box of cartridges nestling against it, and then swung the closed bag on to one shoulder as he snapped off the light to plunge the cellar back into darkness.

“C
HILLY OUTSIDE,
” B
JÖSSI
announced, slamming the door and settling into the passenger seat. “Going to see Skari Bubba, are we?”

The hired Polo rattled and Bjössi winced.

“What’s the matter with you?” Gunna asked.

“You might want to get this thing serviced, you know. It sounds a bit rocky,” Bjössi advised.

“Not my car, though, is it?”

Pulling up outside the hospital, Gunna felt her phone vibrate and fished it from her pocket to peer at the screen.

staying @sigruns tonite. OK?

Resolutely sticking to spelling and grammar, Gunna texted back to Laufey.

All right with me. I’ll pop in on the way home. See you then. x, she wrote, before texting a shorter message to Steini: ?xG

As they walked into the building, with Bjössi leading the way, her phone chirped again.

9-ish?xS

She chuckled and thumbed back, OK xG “Steini still sending you erotic texts?” Bjössi asked.

“Yup.”

“Thought you were more cheerful than usual.”

“Well that’s what happens when you get it regularly,” Gunna assured him.

“Couldn’t tell you, that was so long ago,” Bjössi said morosely.

“Get away with you, you randy old goat. You’ve always been like a rat up a drainpipe,” Gunna shot back, stopping to look for the room where Óskar Óskarsson was not expecting them.

She pushed open the door and saw that there were visitors ahead of her. Óskar’s mother sat there with pursed lips, and a florid woman with a mass of ginger hair spilled across the other chair.