Cold Comfort (43 page)

“And now they’re both dead.”

“Nothing to do with me! You have to believe that, surely!”

“You heard about this group who were sharing Svana Geirs between them, and knowing that Hallur was one of them, you told his wife, right? Why?”

“I, well … I’ve known her for years. Good friends, but never … you know …”

“You thought it might bag you a good story, return the favour to the people who screwed you over before and help you into her knickers, all at the same time?”

“That’s …” he began, and sank down and nodded.

“And it worked?”

He nodded again. “I was going to leak it to a gossip magazine or a website. That would get it out into the open so I could follow it up. That was the idea, expose Hallur as a man who was cheating on his wife. That would have made it a lot easier for Helena Rós to end the marriage. She’s a prominent figure in her own right and doesn’t need any mud thrown at her.”

“So you were going to engineer a scandal with Hallur as the bad guy?”

“I’m not proud of it. Not now.”

“I’m not here to pass any judgement on you. That’s for the jury.”

“Jury?”

“Undoubtedly. This will go to court.”

“Jesus … Look, it was Helena Rós who wanted to put pressure on her husband, not me.”

“Right, let’s backtrack. You say she wanted to apply pressure to her husband. When was this?”

“About three weeks before Svana Geirs died. Hallur was a bag of nerves after he got the first demand. Helena Rós is vicious. She wanted to pressure him and screw as much money out of him as she could. It wasn’t because she needed it; just to make him squirm. She knew he had money hidden away that she didn’t have access to, but didn’t know how much.”

“So she wrote the letters?”

“I did that, some of them anyway. Then Helena wrote more.”

“You sent them to his office or his home?”

“Both.”

Gunna felt her head throbbing but forced herself to concentrate. “You also sent letters to Bjarki Steinsson, Bjartmar Arnarson and Jónas Valur Hjaltason?”

“A few text messages as well,” he sighed. “They all responded, except Bjartmar. Maybe he just didn’t care. I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to make them suffer too. I’m damn sure that bloke who threatened to strangle me was sent by Bjartmar or Jónas Valur, or that bastard of a son of his.”

“And you needed the cash, I suppose?”

“Shit, yes, all right. I bought a flat two years ago, not long before the crash. The payments on it have gone through the roof and I thought I’d be out on the street otherwise. The place has been for sale for the best part of a year and it’s only even been viewed twice.”

“So your flat is safe now?”

“For the moment.”

“Good. Interview suspended, fourteen twenty-five,” Gunna intoned, stopping the recording. “Maybe you’ll be able to rent it out while you’re in prison. We’ll take a break now.”

At the mention of prison, Gulli Ólafs’ eyes glazed over.

“I
HEAR HÖGNI’S
been picked up,” Eiríkur said, sitting down at his desk and running his hands through his hair to dislodge some more of the gravel collected during his tussle with Gulli Ólafs.

“Do we have room for him?” Gunna asked, shaking painkillers from a jar and washing them down with lukewarm coffee.

“Yup. There’s a cell upstairs reserved for him. Helgi’s back,” he added. “Has Helena Rós been arrested?”

“Not yet. But she has plenty of questions to answer.”

The door swung silently open and Ívar Laxdal stepped inside. “Progress, Gunnhildur?” The trace of a smile on his normally deadpan face told them both that he was already aware of what had happened.

“Oh yes. Högni Sigurgeirsson is on his way and Helena Rós is sitting in an interview room waiting for us.”

“Hallur Hallbjörnsson’s wife?”

“That’s her.”

“Her father’s a well-known figure, you know.”

“And he’s a lawyer.”

“What progress with the hack?”

“Singing like a bird. Can we get some extra bodies to search his flat and his car? I could do with someone to go to his office as well and bring his computer back here for Albert to have a look through.”

“I can get that done,” Ívar Laxdal said.

“What we have at the moment is Helena Rós and Gulli Ólafs helping us with enquiries. It’s crystal clear that between them they were blackmailing three of the four members of Svana’s Syndicate, but I have no idea yet how they’re linked to the deaths of Svana or Jónas Valur, or the attacks on me or Hallur,” Gunna said, pausing for breath as Ívar Laxdal’s eyes widened. “On the other hand, we have Högni Sigurgeirsson, who is a seriously fucked-up young man and has plenty of questions to answer about Hallur’s injuries. It seems that Gulli and Helena Rós had already started their little campaign some time before Svana’s murder, and it was aimed mainly at wrecking Hallur’s marriage, as well as digging Gulli Ólafs out of his financial difficulties, after which he was going to play house with the man’s wife. It’s something I should have twigged earlier and followed up.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Gunnhildur. You’ve been busy.”

“Albert’s work has been outstanding,” she continued. “There was a dog hair in one envelope at Hallur’s parliamentary office that matches Helena Rós’ poodle. Now Gulli Ólafs and Helena Rós Pálsdóttir are in separate interview rooms desperately blaming each other. But Gulli Ólafs wasn’t the one who smacked Hallur and tried to poison him, or the one who bashed Jónas Valur’s head in, although he was probably the person Jónas Valur was expecting to see. Both Gulli Ólafs and Helena Rós were elsewhere at the time, and that’s already been confirmed. The house-to-house enquiries and CCTV have turned up sightings of a grey Opel that fits, so I have our pizza delivery boy pegged for that one. But we’ll see.”

“If you think Högni may be responsible for the attack on you and Jónas Valur, then that interrogation ought to be handled by someone else,” Ívar Laxdal decided.

“Not Sævaldur, surely? Not after all the work we’ve done.”

“Sævaldur’s busy elsewhere. Helgi can do it.”

G
UNNA SAT QUIETLY
next to Eiríkur in the interview room.

“Interview with Helena Rós Pálsdóttir, officers Eiríkur Thór Jónsson and Gunnhildur Gísladóttir present,” Eiríkur recited for the benefit of the recording. “Helena Rós, can you tell us where you were on the day your husband was attacked at your home?”

“At a fundraising event.”

“Fundraising for what?”

“For the National Theatre, at Hotel Borg.”

“And there were people there who will confirm your attendance?”

“Of course.”

“Have you any idea who might be responsible for the attack on your husband?”

Helena Rós folded her arms and glared, head back. “You’ve already asked me all these questions.”

“How long have you been in a relationship with Gunnlaugur Ólafsson?”

“Who says we’re in a relationship?”

“I’m asking,” Eiríkur said. “Are you saying there isn’t a relationship between you?”

“All right. About a year.”

“How long have you known Gunnlaugur?”

“Since we were at college. Twenty years, something like that.”

“And how did you become aware of your husband’s arrangement with Svana Geirs?”

“Do I really have to answer these questions? This is very personal.”

“But it’s also a murder inquiry.”

“Surely you don’t suspect me of murdering that woman?”

“Would you please answer the question?”

Helena Rós fidgeted with the ends of her scarf. “I knew there was something going on. Hallur has always been easily led astray, especially by pretty women, but since the children were born he’s kept his dick in his trousers, or so I thought. This was different. To answer your question, it was simple. I checked the SMS messages on his phone while he was in the bath. He must have realized, because after a while he started taking his phone with him to the bathroom.”

“Was this before or after your relationship with Gunnlaugur began?”

“Before. Gulli confirmed it and told me what the arrangement was.”

“Which was what?”

“You know perfectly well,” Helena Rós said in a voice that dripped scorn.

“I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

“Hallur and three other dirty old men were paying to take turns on that plastic Barbie doll. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“That will do nicely, thank you,” Eiríkur said politely. “You know Jónas Valur Hjaltason?”

“Of course. He sits on a couple of committees with my husband.”

“He’s dead.”

“A heart attack, I suppose?”

“You don’t seem surprised,” Eiríkur said with a frown.

“He was overweight and unhealthy.”

“He was murdered. It’s not public knowledge yet. Where were you on Friday evening?”

“At home, I think. Yes, I’m sure of it, I was at home.”

“Anyone who could corroborate that?”

Her cheeks flushed pink. “Gulli. He stayed the night and left early in the morning.”

“What time did he arrive?”

“Eight-ish. Something like that.”

Eiríkur shot a glance at Gunna. “The threats and demands posted to your husband. Who had this bright idea?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Gunna opened the file on the desk and passed two sheets of paper across. Helena Rós ignored them.

“There are more,” Eiríkur said. “Some of these were retrieved from the bin in your husband’s office at your home. A couple more are from his parliamentary office.”

“So who was blackmailing my husband?”

“That’s what we’d all like to know, and I have to consider your involvement in it.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous! How dare you!” Helena Rós lifted herself to her feet and towered over Eiríkur.

“Sit down, will you?” Gunna growled, speaking for the first time.

“Idiots,” Helena Rós hissed, ripping the two letters into shreds and dropping the pieces with a flourish on the desk as she dropped back into the chair.

Í
VAR
L
AXDAL RUBBED
his chin irritably, the first indication Gunna had seen that he might be tired.

“What’s the situation with Hallur now?” he asked.

“He’s not doing well. It seems he has a level of brain damage due to oxygen starvation. It could be weeks or even months before we can understand quite how much damage has been done, and all the indications are that he may never be fit to stand trial. One doctor says he’s going to be a twelve-year old for the rest of his life. Another says he should make at least a partial recovery, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

“But there is some good news for you,” Ívar Laxdal said. “Högni Sigurgeirsson is being flown back to Reykjavík right now from Tórshavn.”

“What? Out there in the east? What was he doing there?”

“No, Tórshavn in the Faroes. It seems he arrived there the day before yesterday. Showed up on a flight from Reykjavík with a bag full of money, still with Jónas Valur Hjaltason’s name tags on it, and brandishing Jónas Valur’s passport.”

“Sounds weird, doesn’t it?” Eiríkur asked. “Why the Faroes?”

“He had a ticket for the next morning to Copenhagen, but Faroese customs only picked him up as he was waiting for his flight from there to Kåstrup, not when he landed from Reykjavík,” Ívar Laxdal explained patiently.

“If you want to fly to Denmark, there are direct flights all the time. Why go through the Faroes? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does if you want to avoid the airport at Keflavík, where he would have been picked up like a shot,” Helgi pointed out. “But the only flights leaving the country from Reykjavík airport go to the Faroes, and I suppose he was travelling on Jónas Valur’s ticket. How much money did he have on him?”

A phone rang shrilly on a desk and Eiríkur swept it up, speaking in an undertone as Ívar Laxdal continued.

“A hundred and ten thousand euros in cash and he’s saying nothing. Faroese customs took one look at him and decided he wasn’t Jónas Valur, then had a look in his baggage and found the cash. He refused to tell them who he really is and we got the identification from pictures of him that the Faroese police sent as soon as he couldn’t pretend to be anything other than Icelandic. Once we was realized who it was, we asked them to send him right back.”

“So he knocked you on the head, banged Jónas Valur a bit harder, grabbed the man’s car keys, suitcase, tickets and passport, and ran for it. Is that what you reckon, Gunna?” Helgi asked.

Gunna cradled her chin in her fingers. “It sounds plausible, doesn’t it? It also sounds like I was just in time to see what Jónas Valur was up to, if he had flight tickets and some pocket money on him. I don’t think he was coming back, y’know. Maybe I held him up long enough for Högni to intercept him on his way out of the country for good. I assume they were oneway tickets that he had?”

“Sounds about right to me,” Eiríkur interrupted, with the phone to his chest and the palm of one hand over the mouthpiece. “But you want some more news? Bjarki Steinsson has disappeared. His wife’s reported him missing, hasn’t seen him since last night. His car’s missing as well. Do we put out an alert for him?”

T
HE FAINT AROMA
of something spicy hit her nostrils even before Gunna had left the car. It was late, and she felt exhausted by the tension of the long day. At the door she kicked off her shoes and left wet prints across the kitchen floor.

“Hæ, people,” she offered as Steini looked up from the book in front of him and Laufey acknowledged with the briefest of nods that her mother was home before turning her attention back to a TV sitcom.

“Good day?” Steini asked. “We thought you were only going to be an hour or two.”

“A bloody long one, and I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve pissed off.”

“A successful day, then?” Steini grinned. “We kept some food for you. Chicken and stuff with it.”

“Spicy?”

“Oh yes.”

“Will I need a litre of milk to wash it down?”

“Not that hot.”

“That’s all right, then.”

Gunna heard the ten o’clock news start on the TV through the bathroom door just as the hot water had started to wash away the day’s aches. She emerged swathed in towels to find a steaming plate waiting for her and Laufey sitting at the kitchen table. Steini’s eyes were closed and the book had slipped down to his lap. Work seemed blessedly far away from Hvalvík, where only an occasional car could be heard in the distance to break the soft quiet.