Cold Comfort (24 page)

“Morning,” Gunna greeted them. “I could do with ten minutes of your time, if you don’t mind,” she added firmly to Skari, making it plain that she expected none of them to object.

“Of course. We’ll leave you to talk to my Óskar,” old Fanney said in her clear voice.

The other woman opened her mouth to protest, but Fanney stood up, buttoning her coat as she did so.

“We’ll go and look round the shops for half an hour, Óskar,” she said with decision. “Just while this lady wants to speak to you. Come on, Erla. We can start in Krónan.”

Gunna recognized the younger woman as Skari’s wife. She had seen her many times around Hvalvík, but never otherwise than surrounded by a brood of similarly red-haired children and behind a pushchair.

The two of them left the room, leaving Gunna and Bjössi to take their chairs.

“I’ve nothing to tell you,” Óskar rasped.

“Your voice has improved, Skari,” Gunna said, trying to be friendly.

“Yeah. Full of drugs, so it doesn’t hurt so much.”

“Skari, I’d like you to cast your mind back, if you’d be so good.”

The patient glowered and looked uncomfortable. “What?”

“Ten years ago,” Bjössi said. “What were you doing then?”

“I was in Reykjavík. Why?”

“That much we know. I’d like you to tell me about Blacklights. You remember the place?”

“Yeah,” Óskar admitted warily. “Why?”

“Steindór Hjálmarsson. Does the name mean anything to you?”

“Should it?”

Gunna extracted a sheaf of documents from her briefcase, paperclipped together.

“This is a witness statement made by Óskar Óskarsson to the effect that you saw Ómar Magnússon and Steindór Hjálmarsson arguing heatedly in Blacklights at around two thirty in the morning. You and two of the other bouncers, whose statements I also have here, separated them.”

“Might be,” Óskar repeated with a shrug. “It was a rowdy place. There was rucks going on all the time.”

“Ah, but this was a bit special,” Gunna said. “Further along in your statement, you said that you escorted Steindór Hjálmarsson from the building and that Ómar Magnússon followed him out. So don’t try and tell me you don’t remember this, Skari. This is part of the testimony that put your mate Ommi away for fifteen years, isn’t it?”

Óskar gulped and his eyes swivelled.

“So all this lot, all these black eyes, broken ribs and the rest of it, was this Long Ommi settling a score, or what?”

“Nah. Like I said, Polish bloke. A right big bastard he was.”

“No, Skari,” Bjössi broke in gently. “Long Ommi did this. You screwed him over, and when he got out, he decided to pay you back for the favour.”

“No, no, no,” Óskar said emphatically. “Leave me alone, will you? I’m straight now, clean record these days. So lay off.”

“Let’s look at it another way, shall we, Skari?” Gunna suggested quietly as the panic in Óskar’s face began to magnify and his eyes started to bulge. “I get the feeling that you’ve been spinning us a good few tales. Let’s suppose a little bird whispered to me that your statement is a pack of lies? What then?”

Gunna held up the statement again, one finger on the scrawled signature at the bottom. Surprise registered on Bjössi’s face and he sat back to listen.

“Yours, I believe?”

“Whadda you mean?” Óskar blustered.

“What I mean is, you gave a statement putting Ómar right next to Steindór Hjálmarsson when he was killed. Am I right?”

“Yeah. And what?”

“Long Ommi was your mate, your best mate. You grew up together. You don’t help the coppers do the dirty on your mates. You could easily have said that you saw nothing and just kept out of it. Your statement and Svana’s statement helped put Long Ommi away. Your best mate and Svana’s former lover, one of many, you included, I understand. Right?”

“Well, yeah, me and Svana had a thing going for a while. But Ommi, I didn’t …”

“Didn’t what?”

“I didn’t make a statement to get back at him or anything like that.”

“So why, then?” Gunna asked sweetly. “Why squeal on your mate? It’s not as if you had any special love for coppers, is it?”

“Hell, no,” Óskar spat through his broken teeth.

“So why?”

“Nothing to say,” Óskar said firmly.

Gunna sat back and looked at Bjössi, his face one big question mark.

“All right, let’s try another theory, shall we? Correct me if I’m wrong, won’t you?” Gunna continued. “Of course you don’t dump on your mates. But maybe your mate wanted you to testify that he was following Steindór Hjálmarsson?”

Óskar’s eyes overflowed with panic and he looked desperately past her at the door, as if willing anyone in the world to come into the room and interrupt. Gunna leaned forward and looked straight into the smashed face and the frantic eyes.

“So who really attacked Steindór Hjálmarsson, Skari? Who has Ommi been covering for all these years? Who promised him a payday when he’s done the time? Who’s being protected? And why is Ommi out now, ahead of time and causing trouble all round? Why has he been settling scores? Why were you thrashed and why is Svana dead? Who else is on his list? Come on, Skari. We’re on to you. Spill the beans, will you?”

“N-n-n-nothing to say,” Óskar squawked, drops of spit flying in every direction as the words came out faster than his puffed lips could cope with them.

“You’re telling me everything I need to know, Skari,” Gunna continued in a gentle tone. “If you have nothing to say, that tells me you have plenty to hide, so I have every reason to dig a bit deeper.”

“Shut up! Fuck off out of it and leave me alone,” Óskar yelled furiously. “Nurse! Erla! Where are you?”

“Skari, just who are you scared of? You’re in hospital. Ommi’s not going to come and break your kneecaps in here, is he?”

“Get out! Nurse! Come here, quick!” Óskar roared, sweat rolling in rivulets from his thick black hair and down his forehead. He wiped his face with a sleeve and continued to bellow.

“Jeezus,” scolded the nurse as she came in, punching a button on the wall. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave. You’ve really upset him and he’ll have to be sedated again now.”

Gunna and Bjössi stepped back as a sandy-haired young doctor appeared and strapped an oxygen mask around Óskar’s face, while the nurse patted his hand soothingly. Gunna could still see Óskar’s wild eyes, even though he began to calm down as the doctor administered an injection.

“You’ll have to leave now,” he said seriously. “If you’ve caused any complications …”

“Just doing our job, Doctor,” Gunna assured him. “See you again soon, Skari,” she said over one shoulder as they left the room and the door banged shut behind them.

“Hell, Gunna. Were you trying to give the poor bastard a heart attack? Couldn’t you see what he was like?” Bjössi demanded outside.

“You were listening, weren’t you?”

“You’re serious about that, are you? That Long Ommi’s been doing time for someone else? You weren’t just winding Skari up?”

Gunna looked at him and frowned. “Bjössi, dear and trusted comrade-in-arms. Of course I was deadly serious. You don’t think I’d push him that far if there wasn’t something behind it? The more I find out, the more convinced I am. I want to be sure who did kill that poor bloke. There must be a bloody good reason for it, and anyone who can afford to give Long Ommi a payday for doing a long stretch must have seriously deep pockets.”

“I
T’S A RIGHT
pig’s breakfast,” Gunna announced.

Ívar Laxdal’s brooding presence dominated the room. Eiríkur and Helgi sat in silence, ready to be called on.

“Go on,” he said. “Just the outline, not too many details.”

Gunna took a deep breath and picked up a marker pen. The others sat in silence while she drew a circle on the board and wrote a series of names around it.

“Steindór Hjálmarsson was killed ten years ago in a fight. Ómar Magnússon was convicted of the murder, which is all on record. Our information tells me that Ómar wasn’t responsible for the killing. It seems to me that someone was concerned that Steindór was going to blow the whistle on some very dodgy dealing with several municipal authorities in property that subsequently became extremely valuable. I’m convinced that Ómar was doing time for someone else.”

She drew arrows across the circle on the board to indicate the relationships.

“Now, Óskar Óskarsson and Svanhildur Mjöll Sigurgeirsdóttir were both among the people who gave statements to the effect that Ómar had argued with Steindór on the night he died. Ómar absconds from prison a few months before he would have been up for parole. While he’s on the loose, Óskar is badly beaten and Svana Geirs is murdered. Also Daft Diddi is beaten and then intimidated into committing a violent robbery. With me so far, everyone?”

The three men nodded.

“We have all sorts going on here. Svana Geirs had turned herself into some kind of high-class hooker with an exclusive clientele. We’ve spoken to all of her regular clients, as far as we know, and some of them have sticky fingers. Bjartmar Arnarson and Jónas Valur Hjaltason didn’t seem too concerned that we knew what was going on. In fact, Bjartmar appears to have dropped out of the Svana club. The other two, Hallur Hallbjörnsson and Bjarki Steinsson, are extremely jumpy. Hallur for understandable political reasons, and Bjarki because his wife will rip his balls off when she finds out.”

Gunna paused for breath. “Questions?”

“Get on with it,” Ívar Laxdal growled.

“We also have the problem of Bjartmar’s wife, still in hospital after what looks like an arson attack. Bjartmar himself has a very unsavoury past. He owned the club where the altercation between Steindór and Ómar took place. Ómar and Óskar were both working for Bjartmar, ostensibly as bouncers, but both were certainly involved in Bjartmar’s other illegal business interests.”

“Such as?” Ívar Laxdal asked.

“Dope. Blacklights was a clearing house for all kinds of narcotics, but Bjartmar was very careful never to get his own hands dirty. The man came into some money in the late nineties, and within a year he’d gone legit and was probably making more money legally than he had done illegally.”

“How?”

“Property investments, for the most part. He bought houses and sold them as soon as the value rose by twenty per cent. Prices shot up between 2000 and 2007, so he made a fortune and put a lot of it into a similar business in Spain selling property to elderly people looking to retire somewhere warm. But he was still heavily into property and development here at the same time. One of his companies, Rigel Investment, owns the building just round the corner on Lindargata where Svana Geirs lived.”

“It’s convoluted, isn’t it?” Ívar Laxdal observed with a rare shadow of a smile.

“It’s a step up from speeding tickets,” Gunna admitted. “Everything is linked somehow. Wherever you look, someone else had an interest as well.”

Eiríkur put a hand up. “Er, chief. Actually there’s more. While you were out this morning, I did a bit of digging and spoke to Björgvin over the road. Bjartmar was a director of Kleifaberg as well. Don’t know if you were aware of that,” he said, as if this was something that he should have found out long before.

Gunna circled the company on the whiteboard, which was now covered in arrows, and added another between Bjartmar and Kleifaberg. “Good grief, anything else?”

“Well, yes, there is,” Eiríkur said nervously. “There were a few more shareholders in Kleifaberg, including Bjarki Steinsson and a woman called Helena Rós Pálsdóttir—Hallur Hallbjörnsson’s wife.”

“Ah, so the plot continues to thicken, Gunnhildur,” Ívar Laxdal said approvingly. “But I need to see results for the murder of Svana Geirs. Do you have anyone in the frame?”

“As it is, I don’t believe we are close to an arrest. We have Omar Magnússon in the picture, with evidence that puts him there during the week leading up to her death, but the same is true of half a dozen other people. Bjartmar has a rock-solid alibi, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t get someone else to carry it out on his behalf. We can place Jónas Valur, Bjarki Steinsson and Hallur in her flat during that same week, Bjarki on the same day, but we still have no evidence that any of them may have committed the crime.”

“Motives?”

“Ah, Omar is the obvious one, as she had been a witness over the Steindór Hjálmarsson murder in 2000, and this is what I feel we need to crack more than anything. Who was paying Omar to do the time? What went wrong and why did Omar abscond? If we can find that out, then I’m certain everything else will fall into place. I’m sure Oskar knows, but he’s terrified. I’m sure Jónas Valur knows, but he’s saying nothing, possibly to protect his son.”

“Next step?”

“Oskar. I’ve already pushed him harder than I should have, considering he’s a sick man. But I reckon he’s our way in.”

J
ÓN ADMIRED THE
clean lines of the shotgun, the deep patina that much polishing had given the stock and the gunmetal menace of the twin barrels. He and the old man had shot geese and ptarmigan every winter while his father had lived, first using the old man’s shotgun that Jón had left under the bench at his mother’s house. A year before he died, Jón’s father had bought him a shotgun of his own, and the two of them doubled their haul of geese that winter, to the consternation of his mother, expected to pluck, clean and roast them.

With the old man gone, Jón had little heart for spending time on the hills and fields they had walked together, and the shotguns languished in the cellar, occasionally taken out to be cleaned, polished, oiled and put away.

Jón winced to himself as he put the barrels between the jaws of the vice and gently closed them. What he was about to do didn’t feel right, but he picked up a hacksaw from the bench and laid the blade against the barrels, shutting his eyes as he pushed the saw forward for the first rasping cut.

G
UNNA LISTENED TO
the hired car’s suspension complain every time it hit a bump in the road. Helgi himself seemed blissfully unaware of the bumps and Gunna decided that he must have become so used to the noise that if it were to disappear he would start to be worried about it.

“Run out of cars again, have we, Helgi?”