Quentin Bates

Winterlude

Monday

The red of Helgi’s usually healthy complexion had gone, replaced by pallid cheeks.

‘It’s not pretty, Chief,’ he said, sucking cold air into his lungs in deep breaths as occasional snowflakes spun through the air. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this part of the job.’

Gunna steeled herself and stepped past the equally stiff-faced uniformed officer standing guard and stepped through the doorway. One white-suited and masked figure inside was systematically photographing everything, the flash bouncing off walls that had once been white but had turned a shade of nicotine ivory over the years, while the other stooped low over a third figure on the floor. Gunna made out the arms spread wide of a man flat on his ample back. The hands looked huge, pale in the harsh artificial light, flat to the floor as if holding on, with scattered black hairs growing from the knuckles.

‘Anything you can tell me, Sigmar?’

The kneeling figure looked around and shook his head. As he moved, Gunna saw the rest of the body on the floor, a worn leather jacket over a thick chest and a pot-belly. She caught her breath at the sight of the man’s head. There was no face to speak of, its features flattened and broken.

‘Stone dead and it’s a damned mess,’ Sigmar said, his voice muffled by the mask across his mouth. ‘That’s all I can tell you right now, Gunna. Sorry.’

‘There must have been a weapon involved, surely?’

He nodded his head slowly. ‘I’d say so. You don’t get that kind of result with bare hands.’

‘Any identification?’

Sigmar unzipped the man’s coat and felt inside, shook his head and leaned back. ‘Nothing there.’

‘Back pocket?’

He felt along the corpse’s side, then leaned over the body to feel the other, before lifting himself upright holding a worn wallet that he placed into Gunna’s hand. ‘Be my guest,’ he said with mock formality.

‘Thanks. I’ll leave you to it. But the sooner you can tell us anything more, the better,’ Gunna told him. ‘I can see headlines already.’

Helgi shivered as Gunna flipped through the man’s wallet with latex-covered fingers.

‘How long has this place been empty?’

‘A good few years. It went bankrupt right after the crash and it’s been empty since.’

They stood in the entrance of what had once been a boat-builder’s workshop. Voices echoed under the high ceiling and a layer of grey plastic dust coated every surface in the place.

‘Six thousand, five hundred krónur. A video rental card, a debit card that’s ten years out of date,’ she muttered as Helgi leaned over her shoulder. ‘No driving licence. No health insurance card.’

‘What’s the name on the debit card? I can’t see it without my glasses.’

‘Borgar Jónsson. Does that mean anything to you?’

Helgi’s forehead puckered with lines as he thought. ‘It does ring a bell somewhere and I’m sure I’ve heard the name recently as well. I just can’t think where,’ he admitted.

Gunna dropped the wallet into an evidence bag and sealed it before peeling off her gloves.

‘Get yourself back to the shop and see what you can dig up,’ she decided. ‘Sigmar will let us know when it’s all over here and I’ll knock on a few doors around this area. Who found him, then?’

‘A guy who works down the street. He said he’d driven past and seen the door wide open, so he went to close it and decided to have a quick look inside first. Now he wishes he hadn’t, I guess.’

‘Fair enough,’ Gunna said. ‘We can talk to him later.’

‘When he’s managed to get over the shock. I gather the ambulance took him away.’

‘It’s not the kind of sight that’s going to improve your day, is it?’

The screech of steel being cut greeted Gunna as she stepped inside. It lasted only a few seconds and brought to mind some great animal being painfully slaughtered. A shower of flying sparks subsided and the big man lifted his safety glasses and glowered.

‘We’re busy,’ he said, hands on his glasses again. ‘You need to go next door.’

‘Police,’ Gunna said, opening her wallet and displaying her ID.

‘You’re here about. .?’ the man asked with a shrug of one shoulder and a jerk of the head.

‘Right first time.’

He pulled the glasses off, folded them and put them in the pocket of his overall. ‘Then I’ll allow myself a well-deserved unofficial smoking break,’ he decided, heading for the door Gunna had just come in through. Outside the workshop he cupped a hand around a cigarette and lit it with a Zippo, drawing the smoke deep.

‘You are?’

‘Jón Geir Árnason. I sort of run this place, in that my wife runs it from the office upstairs and I do the actual hard work.’

‘The place over there, NesPlast. Know anything about it?’ Gunna asked.

‘It’s been empty for a while, since before we moved in here three years ago. Any idea who owns it? Business isn’t doing badly and we could do with moving to a bigger place.’

‘One of your staff discovered Borgar Jónsson’s body inside. Do you know what he was doing there?’

‘Halldór, that’s right,’ Jón Geir said. ‘He’s a bit of an old woman, even though he tries to come across as a tough guy. He told me the door over there was open and I said if he was worried he should go and have a quick look. I thought of going over there myself to check the place out. Like I said, we’re on the lookout for somewhere bigger and that would be perfect. But anyway, Halldór went over there and came back shaking like a leaf five minutes later. I called the police, and I guess you know the rest,’ he said, crushing out his cigarette under one boot.

‘Have you noticed any activity there? Anyone coming or going?’

Jón Geir shook his head and sniffed. ‘No. There’s a guy who comes once a month or so, but we’re used to seeing him now and again. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen him for quite a while and I was hoping to run into him sooner or later and find out if the place might be up for grabs. If anyone’s seen anything, it’d be Lára upstairs or Halldór. She can see the place from her window and Halldór comes and goes a lot more than I do. He does deliveries, so he’s in and out, while I’m stuck on the tools the whole time.’

‘And Halldór’s off sick?’

‘Yeah. The big pansy. He’ll be back tomorrow, he said.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Hafnarfjördur. Lára can give you his address,’ Jón Geir said firmly, fiddling with the safety glasses he had taken out of his pocket and clearly anxious to get back to work. ‘Go out of this door and in the next one. The office is upstairs.’

The office upstairs was almost bare and Gunna wished she could keep her own workspace as tidy.

‘Lára?’ Gunna asked of the severe-looking woman who sat straight-backed at the computer. ‘Jón Geir downstairs said you might be able to answer a few questions.’

‘You’re from the police? About. .?’ she asked, nodding towards the window.

‘I am.’

‘You have an address for Halldór? I understand he discovered your neighbour this morning.’

Lára wrote on a scrap of paper and handed it across.

‘Phone number?’ Gunna prompted, handing it back. Lára took it and scribbled a number that she didn’t need to look up.

‘He said he’d be back at work tomorrow, so you can find him here if you need to.’

‘I’m wondering why he left so quickly?’

‘I really couldn’t say. But he’s not the tough character he likes people to think he is, that’s for sure. In fact, Halldór’s a bit of an idiot.’

‘So why do you keep him on?’

Lára took off her glasses and fiddled with them. ‘Let’s say he’s not useless by any means. He works well and pays attention to detail. He’s just an odd character.’

Gunna walked across to the window and looked out over the road outside and NesPlast beyond it, where blue lights flickered against the NesPlast sign that had once been white.

‘You have a view over here. In fact, you’re probably the only person who does have a view of NesPlast, considering it’s the last place in the street. Have you noticed any movement over there? Any lights, anyone who comes and goes?’

‘I don’t spend my days looking out of the window, you know.’

Gunna laughed inwardly at the woman’s spiky retort. ‘Sure, I understand that. But every now and then you must stand up and go for a coffee or a pee or whatever, surely, and that takes you past the window?’

‘There’s only the guy who turns up every few weeks. He never stops there long. I know Jón Geir wants to speak to him when he gets a chance but we haven’t seen him for a while. I don’t know who he is, but he has a key to get in.’

‘Young? Old? What car does he drive?’

Lára’s impatience was clear. ‘I don’t know. Middle-aged, I guess. Thirties, maybe. There must have been a car but I didn’t notice one. That’s the kind of thing the boys would notice right away.’

‘This must be a quiet place, though — isn’t it?’

‘Too damned quiet. That’s one of our problems. This place is practically in the country,’ she said dismissively. ‘We’re at the end of the street at the far end of an industrial estate. There’s nothing that way but lava fields and the main road behind that. We only live over there,’ she said, pointing out of the window at some distant roofs. ‘But I practically have to drive into Hafnarfjördur to get here.’

Gunna leaned on the window frame and thought how pleasant it must be to work so far from traffic noise and pollution.

‘So not many people pass here, then?’

‘Hell, no. You see a few people wandering around, but not many.’

‘Such as?’

‘Kids on bikes and scooters sometimes. Occasionally there’s a drunk who comes by.’

‘A drunk? This far out of town?’ Gunna asked, immediately suspicious. ‘That’s unusual. Just the one?’

‘I’ve only seen him a few times. Like I said, I don’t spend my time staring out of the window.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to passing tramps,’ she snapped.

‘Young? Old?’ Gunna continued, ignoring Lára’s impatience. ‘Short? Tall?’

‘A big guy,’ she conceded.

‘As big as Jón Geir?’

‘Maybe, but tubbier.’

‘Age?’

‘Honestly, I couldn’t say. I’ve seen him go past a handful of times in the last few months, that’s all.’

‘Hair? Beard? How was he dressed?’

‘I don’t know,’ she floundered. ‘He didn’t have a beard, but he had longish hair,’ she decided, putting the edge of her hand against her own neck as an indicator. ‘Dark clothes, as far as I remember.’

‘A shabby leather jacket, maybe?’

‘Could be,’ Lára said thoughtfully. ‘That sounds right.’

Gunna smiled. ‘It’s amazing how much detail people can recall when you push them a little.’

Gunna cursed, sensing instinctively that Sævaldur was waiting for her. He put out a hand to stop the door closing and she had no choice but to change course and join him in the lift instead of taking the stairs.

‘What’s happened up there?’ he asked as the lift started its stately upward progress.

‘Straightforward enough at first glance,’ Gunna said, studying the lift’s steel wall. ‘A guy’s had his head beaten in. Not a pretty sight.’

‘Nasty?’

‘The place looks like a modern art installation.’

‘What?’

‘You know. There’s blood everywhere. Redecoration in red.’

Sævaldur curled a lip. ‘Messy, then? Who’s the victim?’

‘Name of Borgar Jónsson, or so it seems.’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah, what? You know something I don’t?’

Sævaldur radiated satisfaction. ‘I may do. What do you want to know?’

The lift creaked to a standstill and the doors opened, but Sævaldur stood still, making no move to leave. Gunna pressed the ‘close doors’ button.

‘Sævaldur, I’ve no real desire to be stuck in a lift between floors with you. But I have a dead man, a nutcase on the loose somewhere, the chief superintendent wanting to be briefed as soon as possible so he can hold a press conference and I’m a man down with Eiríkur on leave. So if you have anything to tell me, I’d really prefer it if you’d spit it out and not play games.’

‘Hell, Gunna,’ Sævaldur said, backing as far away from her as the lift’s steel wall would allow. ‘There’s no need to throw all your toys out of the pram — not this early, anyway. Open the doors, will you?’

Gunna punched the button and the doors hissed open again. ‘Speak up. I’m listening.’

‘Borgar Jónsson was a weird character, and it was me and old Thorfinnur Markússon who arrested him, steaming drunk.’

‘What for?’

Sævaldur’s usually deadpan expression softened. ‘It was really unpleasant. He’d been on an afternoon drinking spree, tried to drive himself home in his monster GMC truck and went through a red light on Sudurlandsbraut. He managed to knock a lad off his bike in the process and drove right over him. Open and shut, all caught on CCTV. I don’t suppose he even knew what he’d done and he didn’t stop. Thorfinnur and I arrested him about an hour after the accident and he couldn’t understand why we were there. It wasn’t until he’d sobered up and seen the CCTV footage that he realized.’

‘And he got eight years?’

‘That’s it. I didn’t know he was out.’

‘He’s been at that hostel near the Grand Hotel for the last month.’

Sævaldur nodded slowly. ‘The bastard,’ he said with uncharacteristic feeling. ‘If I had my way. .’

‘I know. You’d throw away the key, but only after you’d taken off his balls with an angle grinder.’

‘That hostel’s only a few hundred metres from where the boy was hit. So I hope it might have jogged his memory.’

‘We can live in hope. So, plenty of people who might have a grievance?’

‘Shit, dozens, I’d say. Borgar Jónsson had pissed off a lot of people in business as well. You know the type, he’d been bankrupt more times than you’ve. . Well,’ Sævaldur coughed. ‘Let’s not go there. But you know what I mean.’

‘I can imagine. Anyway, thanks for the potted digest,’ Gunna said, stepping aside to let Sævaldur escape from the lift.

‘News, Gunnhildur?’ Ívar Laxdal asked, appearing suddenly next to her within minutes of taking a seat at her desk.

‘Dead man, multiple blows to the head. Looks like his name is Borgar Jónsson, or that’s the name on the out-of-date bank card he had in his pocket, and it seems there’s some history there if this does turn out to be the same guy. Helgi’s chasing the bank to try and find out the man’s identity number.’

‘It’s not on the card?’

‘It’s a card that was issued a dozen years ago by a savings bank that doesn’t exist any more.’

‘Ah. Keep me informed, would you?’ he instructed and left as silently as he had appeared.

‘Any joy with the bank, Helgi?’

Helgi lifted his glasses so that they were jammed firm against his forehead. ‘The savings bank was taken over by another one after the crash,’ he said dolefully. ‘I’m assured they have the details, but it might take an hour to find them. They’ll call back,’ he added in a tone that indicated his lack of faith in that statement.

‘Give them ten minutes and chase them again,’ Gunna instructed, her attention on her computer. ‘In any case, I have a feeling I may have found our man already,’ she said slowly, scrolling through the list on her own screen.

‘Already?’ he echoed.

Gunna scribbled on a pad at her side, tore off the series of numbers and passed it over to Helgi.

‘There’s only one Borgar Jónsson in the national registry who could fit our candidate as far as age goes. Call the bank again, would you? Give them that number and date of birth, and just ask them to confirm if it’s the same character.’

Helgi lowered his glasses to look at the note.

‘Will do, Chief,’ he said with a smile, and smacked his hand against his forehead. ‘And now I remember where I’ve heard the name before.’

Gunna shivered in the still wind outside, which cut through her coat. Skies the colour of battleships loomed above the Reykjavík rooftops and that of the hostel she and Helgi quickly walked around to find the director coming towards them, his tie flapping over one shoulder.

‘Egill Bjarnason,’ he said in an anguished voice, thrusting his hand into Helgi’s and ignoring Gunna. ‘Could you come this way, please? There’s a TV camera already outside the front entrance, for some reason. We can get to my office through the rear door.’ He scurried ahead of them without waiting for a response, looking over his shoulder and twitching as he walked quickly through the badly cut grass that was leaving the legs of his smart suit soaked.

He seemed more at home in his office, as if back in his natural environment, ushering Gunna and Helgi to chairs in front of a practically bare desk while he manoeuvred himself behind it.

‘It’s terrible,’ he tutted. ‘Dreadful.’

‘I’m Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and this is my colleague, Helgi Svavarsson. We’re from CID,’ Gunna told him. ‘I see it didn’t take the press long to figure out a connection between Borgar Jónsson and this place. How the hell did that happen?’

‘I have no idea. He’s been missing for a day, so there was an announcement on the news this morning asking for sightings of him.’

‘That’s unusual so soon after a disappearance, isn’t it?’ Helgi asked.

‘Maybe,’ Egill admitted. ‘But we considered Borgar to be somewhat vulnerable.’

‘So tell us about him, will you?’ Gunna instructed.

‘He’s been here for eight weeks and hasn’t been a problem,’ he said, coughing. ‘I have no idea what he was doing where he was found. Our residents are free to come and go during the day as long as they’re back for the evening meal at six.’

‘For which he presumably didn’t show up?’

‘No.’

‘So you informed the police?’

‘The manager did that, or so I’m told. Standard procedure. These people are still effectively convicts, even though they aren’t in prison.’

‘You said Borgar was vulnerable,’ Helgi said. ‘In what way?’

‘He wasn’t a well man. He was diabetic and walked with difficulty sometimes,’ replied Egill, clearing his throat. ‘It seems he hadn’t had an easy time in prison. Because of the nature of his crime, he wasn’t popular, to say the least.’

‘And did that reflect on the fact that he served less than half of his sentence in Litla-Hraun?’

‘I would imagine that would have been taken into account.’

‘How long do your clients normally stay?’ Helgi asked. ‘Is that the right word — clients?’

Egill flapped his hands. ‘Clients. Residents. Whatever,’ he said, looking about him as if the panelled walls would tell him something. ‘These people are all former prisoners and they stay here for a week, two weeks, six months sometimes, while they acclimatize to normal life again. The ones who have served a long sentence tend to take longer to become de-institutionalized, so they stay here longer and find it harder to adjust, as do those who don’t have — how shall I put it? — a criminal career behind them and are used to being in and out of prison.’

‘How much of his sentence was left?’

‘Four years.’

‘Hell,’ Helgi muttered to himself. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we bother catching them,’ he growled. ‘Any visitors? Were you aware of any threats to his safety? Had anyone been in contact with him, do you know?’

‘I don’t know,’ Egill floundered. ‘I don’t have a great deal to do with the day-to-day running of the hostel, you see,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘My role is more an executive one.’

‘Which means what?’ Gunna asked. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but we have a dead man to deal with, and whoever committed the murder running around the city. So if you can’t provide a few answers, maybe you could direct us to someone who can?’

‘Oh.’ Egill scowled, stung by Gunna’s words. ‘Your colleague is, er. . forthright, I think is the word.’ He paused and coughed. ‘Maybe you should speak to Ásrún. She’s the manager here.’

Egill pushed his chair back and stood up. Gunna felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and looked at the screen quickly, dropping the phone back into her coat pocket.

‘Helgi, can you go with this gentleman and get whatever you can out of the manager if she’s likely to be the best-informed person in the building. I need to get back to the shop for half an hour and then back to the scene.’

‘No problem, Chief,’ Helgi said smartly as Egill looked from one to the other of them and it dawned on him that Gunna was the one in charge.

A TV camera had also been set up at the end of the unmade road on the industrial estate leading to the run-down workshop where Borgar Jónsson’s body had been found. Gunna recognized faces among the cluster around the camera but drove past without making eye contact, pulling up outside the building where an unmarked black van she knew belonged to one of the city’s undertakers was parked in front of the entrance with its back doors open.

‘Done?’ Gunna asked Sigmar as he peeled off his white suit, sitting on the tailgate of his 4×4.

‘I’m done here. We’ll have a look at our man later, but there’s no question what the cause of death is. Miss Cruz can give you details later, I expect.’

‘Know any more about this place?’

‘It was a fibreglass workshop. I understand they mostly built boats, until it closed down.’

‘Has the place been swept for prints?’

‘It has, and I have half a dozen items to take away with me. You’re free to poke around to your heart’s content. We’ve managed to get the lights to work, so there’ll be no fumbling around in the dark.’

‘Why? Was the power off?’

‘The circuit breaker for the lights had been tripped. But it could have been like that for years for all I know.’

Gunna snapped on a pair of latex gloves and shivered as she walked around the echoing workshop. It was late in the afternoon and the transparent sections in the high roof that let in light during the day were becoming dark squares. The dust that covered every surface of the place had been disturbed across the floor and she padded cautiously around the area where Borgar Jónsson had been killed. In the shadows at the edges of the workshop were trestles and sheets of timber and plastic, all covered with the same grey dust, all quite obviously untouched for years, Gunna decided as she moved one of the trestles and a miasma of fine dust filled the air.

The iron steps of the spiral staircase creaked and echoed as she placed her feet on them. Each step was a steel grille, so no prints were visible, but at the top of the stairs she clicked on the light to see the open area that had once been the coffee room swept clean and the tables wiped down. Even the calendar on the wall had been folded to the correct month. The sink in the corner was clean and mugs had been washed and placed on the draining board. Even the coffee machine had an inch of black liquid in its glass jug. Gunna flicked the filter drawer open and sniffed. The coffee grounds were still damp.

A clang on the iron staircase shook her from her thoughts and she felt in her pocket to make sure the can of pepper spray was there as feet banging on the steps echoed through the building and a tousled blond head appeared at floor level, staring at her.

‘Who the fuck are you?’

Gunna bridled. ‘I could ask you the same question,’ she snapped. ‘But since you asked first, I can tell you that I’m a police officer and now I’d like to know who the hell you are and why you saw fit to barge past the tape downstairs that clearly says “Keep Out” in nice big easy-to-read letters?’

The rest of the figure appeared as the man came up the remaining steps with a crestfallen expression on his face.

‘I’m Óli Baldurs. What’s going on here?’ he asked. ‘Are you a real cop?’

Gunna flipped open her ID wallet in front of him. ‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, CID serious crime unit. Who are you and what brings you here?’

‘Like I said, I’m Óli and I sort of look after this place for my uncle while he’s. .’ he began, and his voice faltered.

‘While he’s inside?’

‘Yeah. Exactly. I had a call from a mate who said there was something going on here so I came to have a look.’

‘How are you related to Borgar Jónsson?’

‘He’s my dad’s brother. But he and Dad don’t talk any more, so I check on this place for Borgar sometimes. It’s about the only thing the poor old guy has left.’

Óli made to cross the floor towards the canteen area.

‘Stay there, please,’ Gunna instructed. ‘This is a crime scene and I can do without your fingerprints all over the place.’

‘Crime scene?’

‘You’re not aware that your uncle was released from prison eight weeks ago?’

‘What? No.’

‘He’s been out for almost two months and he’s been at a transition hostel. But what’s maybe more relevant is that his body was found downstairs earlier today. You didn’t know?’

Óli’s face had gone chalk white and he put out a hand to steady himself against the handrail at the top of the stairs. ‘What? I had no idea. . How? What happened?’

‘He was assaulted.’

Óli took some deep breaths and let out a long sigh. ‘Shit. . I saw on the news at work that there had been a murder out this way, but I never imagined it could have been Borgar. We didn’t even know he was out of Litla-Hraun.’

‘Someone knew. Considering what a mess this place is in downstairs, I’m wondering why it’s so tidy up here?’

Óli looked around in surprise. ‘Yeah. Who did this?’

‘I take it you didn’t? When you say you look after this place, what does that mean?’

‘I drop in here once a month or so to make sure nobody’s broken in or that there aren’t any burst pipes. Apart from that, nobody comes near the place.’

‘This was your uncle’s workshop, was it?’

‘Yeah. It’s all that’s left of the businesses he had before his. .’ He gulped. ‘His accident,’ he finished.

‘So your uncle built boats?’

‘Sort of. He owned the place and he had other businesses and properties as well. This place was run by a guy called Henning, and Borgar just left him to it, as far as I know. But when he went to prison, it was all sold off and I guess Hafdís dealt with all that stuff. Then there was the crash and nobody wanted to buy any more. So this place has been pretty much forgotten. It’ll get auctioned off, I suppose, sooner or later. The council tax bills are piling up and they won’t wait forever for their money.’

‘Hafdís?’

‘Borgar’s wife. She divorced him once he was inside and moved away. Took the kids with her as well.’

‘Full name? And where did she move to?’

‘Hafdís Hafthórsdóttir. As far as I know she moved to somewhere in Norway. Our side of the family doesn’t have a lot of contact with Hafdís, but I’m in touch with one of the children on Facebook.’

Gunna’s phone ringing in her pocket startled them both as it echoed against the bare walls.

‘Hæ, Helgi,’ Gunna greeted him. ‘What news?’

‘All sorts, Chief. All sorts. Just wondering when you’re likely to be back. I’ve made a list of people who didn’t have a very high opinion of our Borgar and I’m wondering where we make a start.’

‘Spoilt for choice, are we? I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so. In the meantime, can you organize a locksmith to get over to Borgar’s unit and change the lock, and a patrol to be here while the job’s being done? It needs closing up securely before we go much further.’

‘Will do, Chief,’ Helgi said and rang off.

‘You heard that?’ Gunna asked Óli, who had listened to the brief conversation with a dazed look on his face.

‘Yeah. I’ll stay here until the locksmith has been if you like.’

‘Good. I need your contact details and I’ll certainly have to ask you a few more questions, probably tomorrow,’ Gunna said, writing quickly in her notepad.

‘Hafdís Hafthórsdóttir, you said?’

‘Hafdís Helga Hafthórsdóttir, her name is. The children are Sævar and Sara Björt.’

‘Address?’

‘I don’t have it on me. Norway somewhere.’

‘Your name?’

‘Óli Már Baldursson.’

Gunna wrote down names and a string of home, work and mobile numbers before closing her notebook and giving Óli a smile as her phone buzzed.

Locksmith in 15 minutes. Patrol on the way. H, she read.

‘We’ll stand outside, if you don’t mind,’ she decided and followed him down the clanging staircase. ‘By the way, Henning — the chap who used to run this place — where’s he now?’

‘No idea. He was an old boy, so he ought to be retired by now,’ Óli said, discomfort evident in his voice. ‘But I don’t suppose he is. He’s not the retiring type, I guess.’

‘Full name?’

‘Henning Simonsen. It’s a Faroese name, I think, although I don’t know if he’s from the Faroes or if his family came from there.’

‘Any idea where he lives?’

‘Sorry. I try and steer clear of my uncle’s affairs as far as possible. I can do without the headaches, if you know what I mean.’

A blast of wind met them as Gunna pulled open the heavy outside door just as a burly uniformed officer was about to push it open.

‘Hæ, Gunna. Job for us, is there?’ he asked, looking Óli up and down suspiciously.

‘Just a quick one, Geiri. There should be a locksmith here in a few minutes to change the lock on this place. I’d like you to be here while it’s done and drop the keys in at Hverfisgata when he’s finished. Oh, and get him to secure the other doors while he’s at it, would you? Just make sure they’re bolted from the inside.’

‘But what about me?’ Óli asked. ‘Don’t I get a key?’

‘When it’s no longer a crime scene you can have all the keys,’ Gunna told him. ‘But until then it stays locked up tight.’

Gunna shook the rain off her coat as she walked in at the main police station on Hverfisgata and found Sævaldur Bogason on the way out. They had regularly clashed as uniformed officers more than a decade ago, before Gunna left Reykjavík for a country beat in her coastal village of Hvalvík, where she still lived, resolutely refusing to move to the city and commuting for almost an hour each way every morning and evening instead. Returning to Reykjavík after almost ten years to join CID, Gunna found that Sævaldur was still there and had been promoted, most recently to chief inspector. Wary of each other and each other’s methods, they generally kept out of the other’s way.

‘How goes it with Borgar?’ Sævaldur asked, and Gunna wondered if he was being friendly, helpful or simply inquisitive.

‘Early days yet. Plenty of people to quiz.’

Sævaldur spun a set of car keys on his little finger, twirling them and catching them in his palm. ‘There’s a guy called Kjartan you ought to talk to,’ he said finally. ‘The father of the boy Borgar drove over and killed.’

‘That’s understandable. You reckon he could have done it?’

Sævaldur shrugged. ‘No idea. But I was there on the last day of Borgar Jónsson’s trial and Kjartan was in the gallery as well. Kjartan went wild when the verdict was given. Snapped, I suppose. He yelled across the court that he’d be waiting at the prison gate for Borgar when he came out.’

Gunna’s eyebrows lifted and she nodded. ‘Like I said, that’s understandable. Eight years for killing the boy and then he’s out in four. Have you heard anything of this Kjartan since?’

‘Not a word. He was a sailor back then and he was at sea when his son was killed, somewhere off West Africa, and it was three days before he could get home.’

‘Must have been three nightmare days,’ Gunna declared.

‘I’d imagine he’s probably still at sea, and if it’s an Icelandic ship he’s on, he’ll be registered on board.’

‘Which means a chat with Customs. Thanks, Sæsi.’

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with Sævaldur,’ Gunna grumbled when she reached her desk.

‘What’s the awkward old fool done now?’

‘Nothing. That’s what’s so confusing. He’s actually been helpful.’

Helgi lifted his glasses from his face and let them drop to the table in front of him as he rubbed his eyes. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose there has to be a first time for everything. Midlife crisis, maybe?’

‘Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never understood much about how men think.’

‘Speaking of which, how is your Gísli?’

Gunna sat down and nudged her computer into life. ‘You know, Helgi, I don’t see a lot of the lad at the moment. Hardly surprising considering he’s at sea for weeks at a stretch.’

‘He still lives with you, does he?’

‘You have all this to come. He lives with me in the sense that there’s a stack of post for him, I keep tripping over his boots in the hall and there’s a room in my house that’s full of his stuff. But that’s as far as it goes. He’s either at sea or he’s in Reykjavík with Soffía. He stops off, gives his old mum a kiss on the cheek if she happens to be home, grazes through the contents of the fridge, picks up his car and he’s gone.’

‘I’m looking forward to it already, although it’s more likely their mother will be the one who has to deal with all that stuff.’

‘And then you’ll get it again in, what? Fifteen years’ time?’

‘Don’t remind me. I’ll be a pensioner by then.’

‘I don’t know how you do it, Helgi. Supporting one family’s hard enough, let alone two.’

‘Tell me about it. Overtime helps, I assure you.’

‘Speaking of which, what progress on Borgar Jónsson?’

Helgi replaced his glasses, flipped through his notes and took a breath. ‘Ready?’

‘Fire away, my good man.’

‘The boy’s name was Aron Kjartansson. Borgar ran him over, didn’t stop and was arrested an hour later by officers Sævaldur Bogason and Thorfinnur Markússon. The boy was an only child. The boy’s father, Kjartan Aronsson, and his mother, Katla Einarsdóttir, split up a few months later. Kjartan made some very public threats towards Borgar at the time, both in court and in newspaper interviews afterwards.’

‘That’s all in the police records?’

‘Only the stuff about the arrest. I had a quick browse through the papers at the time, and there’s plenty about it all in there.’

‘All right. Continue,’ Gunna instructed.

‘Borgar owned a small import business that handled tyres and a few other odd bits and pieces — exercise bikes, cheap electronics, that sort of junk. Plus he had a garage and car wash that was on the verge of bankruptcy and the yard where the boats were built. Apparently that was the most successful business. Borgar knew practically nothing about boats; it was run by this Henning guy and Borgar hardly came near it.’

‘So what do we have?’ Gunna asked, leaning back. ‘We have Kjartan and Katla, both with a strong motive to bump Borgar off. Plus we have Henning, who presumably lost his job through this. Any others?’

‘Any number of dissatisfied customers over the years, or so it seems. But I reckon if I can find Henning he’ll give us an insight into them.’

‘Borgar’s family?’

‘Wife left the country soon after he was put away. There’s a rather strange daughter who does stuff with crystals and a son who doesn’t want to have anything to do with his father, both living overseas now.’

Gunna nodded. ‘Quick work, Helgi. Where did all that come from?’

‘A lot from Ásrún, the manager at the hostel,’ Helgi said, then hesitated. ‘Gunna. .’

‘Yes?’ she replied and looked up from her screen.

‘It’s Kjartan. Kjartan Aronsson. I’ve come across him before.’

‘He has a record of some kind?’

Helgi looked briefly uncomfortable. ‘He does, but nothing to do with this,’ he said finally. ‘Kjartan’s the eldest of four brothers and they’re all as hard as nails. I was at school with his youngest brother and we were close friends when we were teenagers.’

‘So he’s from Blönduós or somewhere round there?’

‘Almost. Their father farmed out at a place called Tunga. My dad had the farm at Hraunbær, which was a good way further inland. All of us country boys went to boarding school at Reykir for a couple of terms and that’s where I was at school with Kjartan’s brother, Ingi. I went out to Tunga quite a few times when I was a lad. My dad knew old man Aron as well and he used to buy a few litres of moonshine off him now and then.’

‘So what do you reckon?’ Gunna asked thoughtfully. ‘You have an idea of what Kjartan’s capable of. Do you think he could have murdered Borgar?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Helgi said without hesitation.

‘Do you want to talk to Kjartan, considering you know his background?’

Helgi thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s probably best if you do it. I’d be interested to know what you make of him, and I reckon someone he doesn’t know would get more out of him. But I’ll have a quiet chat with Ingi later if he’s in Reykjavík.’

Gunna decided that the industrial estate where Borgar Jónsson had been murdered was a relic of an earlier age when buildings were thrown up with less bother, and progress had left the street behind before there had even been an opportunity to tarmac it. Deep puddles filled the road and Gunna’s car pulled up outside the deserted and locked unit covered with brown water. She had been on the way home, but had found herself unable to pass the turnoff to the sprawl of industrial estates that had spread over the lava fields outside Hafnarfjördur, and found herself driving around curiously in the gathering darkness, which was slashed by the glaring lights from offices and workshops.

Thankful that she had worn a decent pair of boots, she splashed around the deeper puddles. Borgar Jónsson’s unit at the end was the only one that was clearly deserted. Although she could see that while Jón Geir on the opposite side of the road was still at work, the office window upstairs was black, so presumably Lára had left.

She pushed open the door of the unit three doors along from NesPlast and was greeted by Tammy Wynette from a cracked speaker urging a woman to stand by her man, accompanied by a mournful baritone in poor harmony coming from an unidentified source.

‘Hello! Anyone there?’ Gunna called and a figure in overalls, its face hidden behind safety glasses, appeared from behind the car that filled the workshop.

‘Hi. What can I do for you?’ the figure asked, sliding the glasses up with grease-covered hands.

‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, CID,’ she announced, flashing her wallet. ‘You have a spare minute?’

‘Is this about Borgar’s place down the road?’

‘It is. Were you about yesterday?’

The man turned his back and as Gunna made her way around the car, she saw he was scrubbing his hands at a sink in the corner. The hand he dried and extended to be shaken was still black.

‘What year?’ she asked, nodding at the rusty Ford Bronco.

‘Seventy-two, or so it says on the registration docs,’ he replied, his face lighting up. ‘You know something about these?’

‘My dad had one years ago. It practically broke his heart when he finally had to scrap it, but there wasn’t a panel left that wasn’t rusted through.’

‘Shame.’

‘You’re Stefán? One of my colleagues spoke to you this morning.’

‘That’s right. The baldie.’

‘I’m sure that’s not how he’d describe himself, but yes, that’s him. I know he asked you about yesterday, which is when we believe Borgar was probably murdered.’

‘That’s right. Didn’t see anything.’

‘You’re here on your own?’

‘Yeah. Most of the time, but I wasn’t here yesterday,’ he said. ‘There’s an old chap comes in two days a week, but I can’t afford to employ anyone at the moment. There’s work to be had tarting up old cars for rich collectors, but not as much as there used to be.’

‘I know you didn’t see anything yesterday, but I’m wondering about the week or two before. Have you noticed any activity in Borgar’s unit? Or anyone new poking around?’

Stefán gingerly inserted a little finger into one ear as he thought, scratching deep inside with a thoughtful look on his face.

‘There have been lights on at Borgar’s place during the last week or two. I reckoned it was his nephew Óli pottering around there. Thought he might be showing someone around, so I didn’t poke my nose in.’

‘Did you see Óli?’

Stefán removed the finger from his ear and looked more relaxed now that the blockage was cleared. ‘No. Now that you mention it, I don’t recall seeing that fancy Freelander of his, either. Mind you, it’s not as if I was keeping an eye on the place.’

‘Any unusual traffic? There can’t be many people coming up here without good reason, surely?’

‘Well, no. This place is a dead end. But I spend most of my time looking at the inside of a car, not staring out of the window in case someone comes down the street.’

‘Fair point. How long do you reckon since you started seeing lights at Borgar’s unit?’

Stefán frowned and thought. ‘It was while we had Jói Jóa’s Cadillac in here,’ he said slowly, and brightened as he went to the workbench and consulted a diary. He ran a finger down a page of entries written in a surprisingly neat hand. ‘It came in two weeks ago yesterday. So it would have been some time that week. That’s about as exact as I can be.’

‘Thanks,’ Gunna said. ‘That’s a big help. Any particular time of day you saw lights on?’

‘Afternoons, mostly, I reckon — as far as I remember. I didn’t pay that much attention.’

‘Thanks,’ Gunna repeated, handing him a card. ‘If anything else springs to mind, I’d appreciate a call.’

Stefán tucked the card in a pocket. ‘Yeah. Will do,’ he agreed. ‘But if you find the bastard who did it, I’d appreciate it if you nailed him to the wall. Borgar had his faults, but he was a decent enough character.’

‘You knew him well?’

‘Not really. He was always busy with whatever new business he was immersed in, but he always had time to stop for a coffee and a few of those dirty jokes he always seemed to pick up. Mind you, I had the sense to always be too busy when he wanted his car serviced.’

Gunna left the workshop and made her way along the street. An hour later she had learned little other than that the long-deserted workshop had seen a little activity recently. Nobody had seen anything unusual. Like Stefán, the carpenter next door to him, the refrigeration engineer and the soft-drinks importer further along the same street had little time to watch for passers-by.

Night had fallen when Gunna unlocked her car and sat behind the wheel. She was writing notes, waiting for the heater to clear the windscreen when there was a tap on the window. She looked up to see Stefán looking in.

‘Any ideas?’ she asked, winding down the window.

‘Not sure,’ he said, his forehead knitted with lines as he scowled. ‘There’s a blue Nissan van I’ve seen a few times in recent weeks and thought nothing of it. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘Any registration number?’

Stefán shook his head. ‘Nah. No such luck. A dark blue van, with a white panel on each side as if someone had peeled off a company name or a logo.’

‘Did you get a look at the driver?’

‘No. Sorry. Wasn’t paying a lot of attention. I couldn’t tell you if it went to Borgar’s unit or somewhere else. I just saw it go past a few times.’

‘Definitely more than once, though? So this wasn’t someone who was just lost?’

‘This street is a dead end. Nobody comes down here more than once without a good reason,’ Stefán said. ‘That’s one reason I like being here. But I reckon I saw the Nissan two, three times, for definite.’

‘Thanks. It all helps,’ Gunna replied, and Stefán smiled diffidently at her before turning and walking back to his open door.

Tuesday

A biting wind swept in from the sea, whipping up whitecaps that spat spray while gulls hovered and swooped gracefully above the black rocks of the shore a hundred yards away across scrub grass. Gunna was sure it would be a delightful spot in summer, but the November cold did little for its charms, even with Esja and the row of distant mountains across Faxa Bay picked out in startlingly bright sunshine.

Kjartan Aronson looked impassively through the glass of his front door and ushered Gunna inside, his expression giving nothing away. The terraced house was a mess. Dust was everywhere and Gunna felt her nose protest.

‘There’s been some work going on here while I’ve been away. I thought they’d be finished by the time I got back, but they haven’t. Sorry,’ he said, not sounding at all apologetic, as he gestured at the sawhorse in the middle of the living room and the new parquet floor that only reached halfway across it. ‘My brother’s been working on it in between other jobs, but I guess he must be busy with paid work these last few weeks. So big brother gets the short end of the stick.’

‘That’s Ingi, is it?’

Kjartan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Could be. What does Ingi have to do with the police?’

‘You came home last night?’ Gunna asked, ignoring the question.

‘Docked at midday yesterday in Dalvík. I flew back from Akureyri.’ Kjartan waved Gunna to an armchair, the only one in the half-finished room, while he sat down on an upturned crate, flexing his shoulders as he did so. Gunna could not fail to notice the muscles that bulged beneath the man’s snug shirt and the biceps that left no doubt that Kjartan was not a stranger to hard work or the gym, or both. ‘Anyway, what do the police want with me? Not that I need to make too many guesses.’

‘You’re aware that Borgar Jónsson is dead, I take it?’

‘I am, and I gather he was helped on his way.’

‘How do you know that?’

Kjartan gave the first hint of a smile. ‘It was on the news last night that a man had been killed in suspicious circumstances. Someone told me that it might have been Borgar. I put two and two together when I saw the pictures of the hostel on the news and wasn’t surprised.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘You’re the detective. I’m sure you have a pretty good idea,’ Kjartan said, and his eyes crossed the room to the only picture on display anywhere, a black and white portrait of a boy of ten or eleven, Gunna guessed, grinning at the camera from the pillion of a motorbike while the driver was undoubtedly a younger and happier Kjartan than the impassive, bristle-headed man sitting on a box in front of her, the low winter sunlight slanting through the room’s picture window and glancing off the flat surfaces that he seemed to be made of.

‘You can confirm you weren’t in Reykjavík yesterday, I take it?’

‘I didn’t get back to Reykjavík until five. Four o’clock flight from Akureyri and a taxi home. That’s a perfect alibi, I reckon.’

‘How do you know? Are you aware of when Borgar’s killing took place?’

‘Well, no. Of course not. But it was on the news while we were still steaming home. It was only later I found out it was that bastard getting what he deserved.’

‘You have to understand that anyone who might have had any kind of a grudge against this man could be a suspect.’

‘Except me. I have a perfect alibi,’ he repeated, a hint of satisfaction in his voice. ‘I’ll happily sing and dance and piss on his grave after what he did. I make no apologies for it.’ He paused and Gunna looked into hate-filled black eyes. ‘But I didn’t kill the man.’

Gunna nodded, taken aback by the virulent anger that spilled out of Kjartan’s voice, accompanied by his heavy hands balling unconsciously into fists.

‘You made threats against Borgar Jónsson several times, some of them very specific.’

‘I did. And I stand by them. I’m just sorry that someone beat me to it.’

‘You knew he was out of prison?’

‘I did.’

‘And?’

‘And what? What do you expect me to say? Did you expect me to be waiting outside Litla-Hraun for him as the gate opened? Look, I’ve been away for a while. I’m at sea for two, three weeks at a stretch and this is the first time I’ve been off for more than a couple of days since we went back to sea in September. You get it? I’ve hardly been here. In fact, I’ve deliberately not been here and I’ve been working trips for other people who wanted time off.’

‘Because of Borgar?’

‘Exactly. Because of that piece of filth. I knew that if I were to even see the man I wouldn’t be able to hold back. I was told he was about to be let out, so I decided to make myself scarce,’ he said, the angles of his face sharpening as his loathing became apparent. ‘If I’d seen the man, I’d have killed him. End of story. Except somehow I don’t suppose I’d have been let out with a pat on the back halfway through my sentence to go and live in a luxury hostel.’

‘I understand,’ Gunna said as Kjartan’s mouth opened to speak and he closed it again, his breath coming in sharp bursts.

‘How the fuck can you understand?’ Kjartan replied with scorn in his voice. ‘How can you understand what it’s like to have someone taken away like that? One moment they’re there, the next they’ve been wiped out as if they’d never existed.’

‘You’d be amazed, Kjartan,’ Gunna said softly as a heavy silence followed his outburst. ‘Sometimes it’s best not to make assumptions about people you don’t know. Who told you that Borgar was being released?’

Gunna wondered if Kjartan was wiping tears from his eyes as he kneaded his face with the heels of his hands. ‘My wife told me,’ he said eventually. ‘My ex-wife, considering we went our separate ways after Aron died.’

At the café by the quayside, day was breaking and the chef was banging stainless steel pans into their slots ready for lunch. The place was quiet with the morning coffee break over, as Helgi sipped his drink gratefully and Gunna flicked through her notes.

‘Kjartan Aronsson has an alibi that’s pretty damn fireproof,’ she said morosely.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely. I phoned the fleet manager at the company he works for. He’s been at sea more or less non-stop since September. His ship docked yesterday and he flew home late afternoon.’

‘Hours after Borgar Jónsson’s body was found,’ Helgi said.

‘And a day after he was murdered. Assuming Borgar was killed the day before his body was found. It could be longer — the hostel had only reported his disappearance on Sunday night. Had he been missing for longer than that? Did you ask Ásrún?’

‘I did. She said he was there for breakfast on Sunday morning and left around nine. He’s been working at a supermarket in Kópavogur these last few weeks, and having that job to go to was what got him out of the nick.’

‘Taking work away from someone else,’ Gunna growled.

‘Depends how you look at it,’ Helgi mused. ‘Borgar wasn’t a hazard to anyone else. It’s not as if he was going to embark on a crime spree. So he’s out of jail and keeping his nose clean instead of occupying a cell needed for someone who could well be dangerous.’

‘That’s a very tolerant viewpoint for a man who’s always been a dyed-in-the-wool Progressive,’ Gunna said with a smile. ‘Not turning into a bleeding-heart leftie, are you?’

‘It’s the kind of opinion you’d expect from a lifelong communist such as yourself,’ Helgi said gently.

‘Communist? What? There have been a few lefties on the side of the family that comes from Ósvík, but it’s not compulsory,’ Gunna retorted. ‘Anyhow, Borgar was alive on Sunday morning, and I’m guessing that the supermarket he was supposed to be working in is your next stop, isn’t it? If we narrow down when he was last seen alive, I’ll see if there’s anything else I can screw out of the neighbours. I want to ask a few questions in the next street and find out if anyone else was aware of any movements. I’m certain Borgar was spending his time there at that unit, considering how it had been swept and dusted upstairs. But the fingerprint results should tell us.’

‘People keep themselves to themselves over there, I reckon. This isn’t like a town where there are people around all the time. Industrial estates like this are a hive of activity from seven in the morning until three or four in the afternoon. After that they’re deserted, and on Sundays. So good luck. If Borgar was about on a Sunday afternoon, I’ll bet you nobody noticed a thing.’

Helgi looked puzzled, frowned and sat back, staring out of the window past Gunna’s shoulder as he absently scratched one ear with a rapid, unconscious movement.

‘What’s bugging you, Helgi?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve been as nervous as a cat all morning and it’s not like you to snap back. What’s bugging you?’

Helgi sucked his teeth briefly and tipped the remainder of his coffee down his throat. ‘Refill?’

Gunna shook her head and Helgi stood up to make his way to the counter, returning with a full mug.

‘It’s those brothers. Kjartan and the rest of them.’

‘What about them? You know one of the younger brothers?’

‘I know them all, but Ingi was the one I knew best. Kjartan’s the eldest and he was long gone from the district when I got to know Ingi and the others. They all wanted to be seamen, and they all gave it a try. But Kjartan’s the only one who stayed with fishing. Össur’s the farmer. Ingi’s a carpenter in Blönduós and Reynir’s an invalid.’

‘How come?’

‘Who knows? But he’s certainly unhinged. Officially he hasn’t worked for years. But I know and everyone else knows that he can drive a tractor as well as anyone, and being on the sick list doesn’t stop him doing a full day’s work when Össur or Ingi need him to help out. Those boys have always stuck together, and I’m just suspicious about this.’

‘You reckon Borgar’s death might have something to do with one of the brothers?’

Helgi nodded. ‘Years ago Kjartan had a house that he couldn’t sell. Quite by chance it burned down while he was on holiday in Crete.’

‘Another perfect alibi?’

‘Absolutely. And it was lucky for him that as he was preparing to move anyway, he’d stored all his furniture in Össur’s barn. This was back when I was on the beat up there and it was the talk of the countryside how Kjartan had fiddled the insurance.’

‘Gossip or truth?’

Helgi thought for a moment. ‘A bit of both, I’d say, plus a healthy dollop of conjecture. But those brothers have always looked out for each other. If ever any of them has a problem, it magically gets sorted out while he’s unaccountably somewhere else. Kjartan’s unsellable house burns down while he’s on holiday. Össur’s daughter got herself tied up with some low-life who smacked her around, who amazingly enough found himself in casualty with a bunch of broken bones just when Össur happened to be at a winter celebration in Skagafjördur. You get the idea.’

‘So you think that Borgar was murdered by one of the brothers?’

Helgi shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Kjartan made very specific threats. He was at sea when Borgar was murdered. It adds up. On the other hand, there are plenty more people who had reason to hold a grudge against Borgar.’

‘You reckon the brothers would go as far as murder? You said Kjartan could kill, didn’t you?’

‘Kjartan, yes,’ Helgi said without hesitation. ‘Kjartan could kill if he needed to or wanted to. But he couldn’t have done it. Össur, I don’t know. I don’t think so. He comes across as a headcase but he doesn’t have that inbuilt mean streak that Kjartan has. Reynir’s anyone’s guess. He’s always been a nutcase, getting into fights he could never win. I’m amazed he hasn’t been sorted out good and proper before now. Although Ingi’s the one I know best, I’m not sure about him. He’s the most normal of the four of them, and he has a family now so he doesn’t live at the farm any more like Össur and Reynir. I’d say that barring Kjartan, Reynir’s the most likely candidate.’

‘Then you’d best go and find out, hadn’t you? Take one of the Daihatsus from the car pool and drive up there.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Helgi asked in surprise.

‘No. Go this afternoon if you can get away. If there’s a problem getting a car, then let me know and I’ll make sure it happens, even if we have to hire you a 4x4 for a few days.’

‘And you?’

‘I’ll look after things here and I’ll see if I can get an extra body to help us out while you’re up north,’ Gunna told him. ‘But now I have to go and see Kjartan’s former wife. That’s going to be fun.’

Gunna left a slightly bemused Helgi at the station on Hverfisgata to organize a car and she could only laugh to herself at his surprise at being sent north to the home town he had long left behind. He had called his wife on the way back into town and the news of his being away for a few days had been greeted with little enthusiasm. Gunna could imagine Halla’s tight-lipped look of disapproval and Helgi made sure to blame Gunna, while Gunna sat and nodded her agreement in the driving seat.

She headed out of town through the sparse afternoon traffic with the sun already low behind her in a gunmetal sky and watched the road as it unfolded ahead of her across the Hellisheidi heath, where bursts of steam erupted at intervals at the sides of the road before it dropped back down to ground level and the lowland towns on the far side.

She left Hveragerdi behind and looked around for signs as she drove into Selfoss, before locating the right road that snaked out of the little town and into the flat lands beyond. The church was the landmark. Gunna eyed its gaunt tower as she approached and took the turnoff before it to a quartet of low-slung wooden houses in a ring, like wagons in a circle, each with a car or two in the drive.

The front door opened before Gunna had left the car and dark eyes followed her as she crunched up the drive, the gravel beneath her feet frozen together and only unwillingly giving way.

‘Katla?’ Gunna asked, knowing the answer and getting a nod in reply.

She looked older than Gunna had expected. The fresh but grief-stricken face she had seen in the news reports following the accident that had killed Aron Kjartansson and put Borgar Jónsson in prison had grown lines in the meantime.

‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir,’ she said, extending a hand to be shaken. ‘I called this morning.’

‘About that man’s death?’ asked Katla, clearly not willing to even speak the name. ‘Come in.’

The living room of the wooden house was a mess of what Gunna thought of as toys for teenagers, with the controllers of a PlayStation snaking from the television across a coffee table piled with debris to a sofa. In contrast, there was not a thing out of place in the spotless kitchen.

‘The boys use the front room most of the time,’ she explained, half apologetically. ‘I use the kitchen. They keep out of here and I leave their crap where it is.’

‘Boys?’

‘My sons,’ Katla said. ‘Elmar and Einar.’

‘I didn’t realize. .’

‘That I had other children? But after Aron. .’ She shook her head.

‘You came to live out here?’

‘It all fell apart after. .’ she said, hesitating, and took a deep breath. ‘Kjartan retreated into himself. I was brought up around here, so I came back.’

‘I’m investigating Borgar Jónsson’s murder.’

Katla laughed briefly and humourlessly. ‘Great. When you find the killer, please let me know. I’ll buy him a drink before you lock him up.’

‘Where were you on Sunday?’

‘Me? I was here in the morning. I had coffee with a friend in Selfoss in the afternoon and called in at work for a couple of hours after that.’

‘Where’s work?’

‘I work for a builder’s merchant in Selfoss. We were stocktaking on Sunday,’ Katla said with disbelief in her voice. ‘What is this? You think I killed that bastard? You are joking?’

‘Right now I don’t think anything. But if you were at work and that can be confirmed, then I can rule you out and that means I can cross you off a list that’s getting steadily longer.’

Mollified, Katla leaned against the kitchen cupboard and rooted through a drawer for a packet of cigarettes. ‘Fair enough. That sounds reasonable.’ She lit up, sent out a long plume of smoke and nodded sagely, then scribbled a number on a piece of paper that she tore from a calendar on the wall. ‘Grétar is the manager. I was there from three until about six. Before that I was at Bakkakaffi in Selfoss.’

She looked up as the door banged, bringing with it a blast of air that swept around their ankles. A lanky young man slouched into the doorway, looked Gunna up and down and departed wordlessly. Gunna raised an eyebrow.

‘That’s Elmar,’ Katla said.

‘How old is he?’

‘Twenty?’

‘And Einar?’

‘Two years older. Why?’

‘I’ll need to know where they were on Sunday as well.’

Tight-lipped, Katla went to the doorway and put her head into the living room. ‘Elmar, come in here, would you?’ Gunna heard a grunt from the next room and Katla snapped back a retort: ‘Because I asked you to, that’s why.’

Elmar towered over his mother. He seemed ill at ease, as if he had yet to grow into those long limbs.

‘This lady is from the police and she has a few questions,’ Katla said nervously, as if she was wondering herself where the boy had been that day.

‘Elmar, my name’s Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and I’m a detective with the serious crime unit. I’m investigating the death of Borgar Jónsson. Can you tell me where you were on Sunday?’

Elmar looked briefly at his mother and then back at Gunna. ‘Er, why?’

‘Because I’m investigating a man’s murder and I need to know the whereabouts of anyone who might have had a grudge against him. What were you doing on Sunday?’

‘I was here, I think.’

‘You think?’ Gunna asked. ‘You’re not sure?’

‘Why? What’s it to you?’ Elmar folded his arms and stuck out his chest. ‘I haven’t been near what’s-his-name. All right?’

‘You mean Borgar?’

‘Yeah. That’s him.’

‘Were you in Reykjavík on Sunday?’

‘I don’t remember.’

The answer was too swift to have any thought behind it and Gunna found herself instantly suspicious. ‘What time did you get up on Sunday?’

‘Why d’you want to know?’

‘Elmar, for crying out loud,’ Katla broke in. ‘Answer the damned questions, will you?’

Gunna looked from son to mother and back, taking in Katla’s look of sudden panic, while also wishing that Helgi had not been dispatched out of town.

‘I’m not sure you realize how serious this is, Elmar,’ Gunna said softly. ‘A man has been murdered. He had a connection with your family and I have to suspect anyone who can’t tell me where they were when it happened.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘For God’s sake, Elmar!’ Katla screeched. ‘Just tell her where you were on Sunday, will you?’

‘I was out and about.’

‘Where were you out and about?’

‘Here and there. Selfoss.’

‘All day?’

‘Yeah. Sort of.’

Gunna stared at Elmar for a long moment until his truculent gaze dropped to the floor. ‘And just what does "sort of" mean? Does that mean you were in Reykjavík on Sunday?’

‘Might do. I went to see a mate. That’s all.’

‘And this friend’s name?’

The arms unfolded and Elmar stuck one hand deep into the pocket of his hoodie while the fingers of the other hand strayed to one ear and nervously fingered the thick tunnel ring.

‘Bjarni,’ he said eventually.

‘Full name?’

‘Bjarni Björgvinsson.’

‘Address? Phone number?’ Gunna asked smartly, making quick notes on her pad.

Elmar pulled an iPhone from his pocket and tapped at the screen. He reeled off a number.

‘Address?’

‘Brekkusel 88,’ he replied with sulky unwillingness, and Gunna made a mental note that the address was not far from the workshop where Borgar Jónsson had been clubbed to death.

‘How long did you spend there and where were you before and after?’

‘Went straight there. Got to Bjarni’s place about four and stayed a few hours. Came back home.’

‘Who’ll corroborate that?’

‘Bjarni will. His mum was there as well.’

‘Good. Because I’ll be asking them both.’

‘Herbert?’ Gunna asked.

‘That’s me,’ the man said with a smile that ran round his face and did nothing to conceal his curiosity. ‘Hebbi the cop. Coffee?’

Gunna settled in the police station’s canteen and sipped the coffee that was very welcome after her angry interview with Elmar. It had ended with Gunna making it plain that if he did not cooperate, she would have him brought to the central police station in Reykjavík to explain himself, while his mother stood tight-lipped and silent next to him.

‘You know Katla, don’t you? Katla Einarsdóttir?’

‘Oh, yes. And those dratted boys of hers,’ Herbert confirmed. ‘Know them well. I guess you’re here about the guy who ran over Katla’s youngest?’

‘That’s about it. Anything you can tell me?’

Herbert sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. His back cracked as he stretched, and Gunna winced at the sound. ‘Nothing special. Katla’s a tough old bird even though she comes across as a bag of nerves.’

‘You knew her husband, Kjartan?’

Herbert shook his head and folded his hands across the expanse of uniform that covered his belly. ‘No. I knew her first husband well enough, Einar’s father, because we spent quite a few nights together.’

‘In here?’

‘Exactly. Now there’s a man who had a good few nights in the cells. As good as gold sober, but a bastard with a drink inside him, and he was a man who liked a drink. Probably still does. He was on the street in Reykjavík last I heard. It’s a good few years since he left the district and he’s not been back this way.’

‘But Elmar is Kjartan’s boy, though, isn’t he?’

‘He is, unless the bull jumped the gate somewhere,’ he said with a lopsided smile. ‘But I doubt that somehow.’

Gunna wondered how close an eye the corpulent Herbert the cop kept on his area. She reminded herself that only a year or two before, she had been in a similar position at a police station in a small town covering a large rural area of dispersed farms linked by dirt roads where anything other than the pettiest crime was a rarity. A series of coincidences and a brutal killing had hauled her out of sleepy Hvalvík and given her new opportunities at a time when she had even been contemplating leaving the force. It was just as well she had stayed, she thought. The financial crash had all but wiped out any real hope of other employment and although her police salary was modest, at least it was secure.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gunna said, noticing Herbert looking at her quizzically and realizing that her thoughts had been miles away. ‘You were saying?’

‘Those boys. Einar’s all right. He’s not bright and he knows it, so he keeps out of trouble most of the time and he’ll turn out fine if he can keep his nose clean and doesn’t become a professional drunk like his father.’

‘And Elmar?’

‘More of a handful,’ Herbert decided after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s smarter than his brother, but there’s a reckless streak there. He’s totalled three or four cars already. He’s an idiot behind the wheel, especially considering what happened to his little brother. A real tragedy, that was.’ He shook his head sorrowfully and his heavy jowls trembled.

Gunna drank the remaining coffee in her mug and pushed it across the table.

‘More?’ Herbert asked, half filling his own mug.

‘No thanks. I’d better be getting back to Reykjavík.’

‘Things to do and bad guys to catch?’

Gunna returned Herbert’s smile. ‘Something like that.’

‘You were in Hvalvík, weren’t you?’

‘That’s right. Ten years.’

Herbert shivered. ‘Rather you than me,’ he said with feeling.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Working in Reykjavík. I couldn’t handle that. All that traffic all day long. It’d drive me nuts.’

‘You get used to it. But I still live in Hvalvík, so I can escape at the end of the day. I’ll probably be back, I think. So could you let me know if Elmar or Einar get up to anything?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll be keeping a beady eye on those two.’

A vicious shower of icy rain lashed the windscreen, blotting out the road ahead in an instant. Gunna swore and held her breath as the wipers hissed and her view ahead was restored. She toyed with the idea of taking the coast road home instead of going back to Reykjavík and spending the rest of the day with her feet on the sofa and a book in one hand, maybe taking Steini and Laufey by surprise by being home before them for a change. But she immediately dismissed the idea with a heavy heart, knowing that with Helgi on his way north and Eiríkur on paternity leave, there would be pressure to resolve Borgar Jónsson’s murder quickly. Friday, she reckoned, would be the day for a quiet word when it would be hinted that upstairs wanted a quick and efficient arrest, with the killer neatly delivered, preferably in time for the Friday evening TV news.

The rain vanished as she drove up onto the heath. The sun shone briefly, but the car’s temperature gauge showed that outside it was uncomfortably far below zero and she watched for signs of ice on the road, keeping the car at a reasonable speed as others sped past her.

Heading for the city centre and back to Hverfisgata, she took the road past half-built trading estates and newish blocks of flats that already looked old. Black sand and fields of black lava filled the gaps between the new buildings as the city spread into what had been open countryside a few years before. Gunna wondered how far the building boom, interrupted by the financial crash and now gradually gathering momentum again, would last and who would live in all the new blocks and houses far from the city centre.

‘We know he was killed some time on Sunday. But if there’s any way that could be narrowed down, it would certainly help,’ Gunna said hopefully.

The police force’s only forensic pathologist, a Spanish woman with wild midnight hair and serious black glasses known as Miss Cruz, stroked her chin with one finger. Gunna liked working with Miss Cruz and was not looking forward to the day when her year-long position with the Icelandic police force would come to an end.

‘I can’t be sure,’ she said. ‘But I think later in the day is more likely.’

‘Temperature?’

‘Body temperature, yes. The remains were still in rigor mortis when the body was found, and judging by the core temperature of the body on Monday morning, I would suggest between three and six on Sunday afternoon.’

Gunna nodded, satisfied that this was the most precise figure she would be likely to get. ‘And no doubt about the cause of death?’

‘None at all. I can give you details if you like.’

‘No need. As long as it was the beating he received that did it?’

Miss Cruz thought briefly. ‘There’s no question about it. This was a rather savage beating, with all of the blows to the head. There are a few minor bruises to the arms, indicating that he tried to protect himself, to start with at least.’

‘Fists, or a weapon?’

‘I’d say both. It looks like the decisive blow was administered with a weapon. Something round.’

‘A baseball bat?’

‘Maybe. But I think something smaller, narrower.’

Helgi allowed himself to enjoy the drive. He made good time out of the city as it had proved to be no problem to get one of the police force’s small 4x4s from the car pool, on a promise that it would be back before the weekend. He left the tunnel under Hvalfjördur and Borgarnes behind him, and opened the window going up the long incline to the heath separating what he thought of as the south from the north of Iceland to let in some of the fresh, clean air. At the top, he was tempted to stop and admire the dark ribbon of Hrútafjördur slicing into the landscape below.

He gunned the Daihatsu past the old crossroads and slowed to stop at the new petrol station further along, resplendent in red plastic and polished concrete. He drank a stale coffee and filled the car’s tank with regret, mourning the old Brú truckstop, before heading north through the darkening landscape along unlit roads as Gunna was cursing the sleet between Selfoss and Reykjavík.

The first Christmas lights were on outside the Co-op as Helgi drove into Blönduós, parked the car and sat in silence, wondering why he had come.

‘You’re here, then.’

Helgi’s older sister hardly greeted him effusively, but he detected a little well-hidden warmth behind her few words.

‘Just a flying visit, Rúna.’

She hesitated and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Welcome home.’

He dropped his holdall by the kitchen door and sniffed. ‘Liver sausage?’

‘Yup. I know Halla doesn’t do that sort of stuff, so I brought a few home for you.’

Helgi nodded in silent appreciation. His young wife had little time for traditional food and was on a mission to help him lose a few kilos, her valiant attempts sabotaged whenever the heavy food of his upbringing was on offer.

‘So how’s Blönduós these days?’

Rúna shrugged. ‘Same as usual. Not much changes. Valdi’s at work. The boys are at college in Akureyri. I might be out of a job next year, I reckon.’

‘Not closing down?’

‘No. But there are fewer people about, so there’s less trade. I don’t know. I might just drop down to half days or something, just work mornings and leave it at that,’ she sighed. ‘I guess you’re here about the brothers from Tunga?’

Helgi nodded sadly as Rúna put a mug in front of him.

‘Thought so. The town’s been talking about it since yesterday. Going out there today, are you?’

‘No, tomorrow. I’ll have a word with Anna Björg today and go out to Tunga in the morning. Maybe have a beer at the hotel tonight, since I’m on expenses.’

‘She’s expecting you, is she?’

‘She should be. I emailed her before I left.’

‘She’ll be there, then. It makes a change to have a girl running the police here for a change.’

‘Anna Björg’s not a girl, Rúna. She’s my age — that’s ancient.’

‘She’s younger than I am, Helgi, so that’s young. She’s also recently single, so you watch your step, little brother. No revisiting old times,’ Rúna said with a ghost of a smile on her pinched face. ‘Dinner’s at six if Valdi’s back by then. So don’t be late.’

Gunna scowled as her computer whirred. She resented being in the office when she needed to be out asking questions, and was already missing both Helgi’s support and his company.

When the computer was ready to use, Gunna typed in the names of Katla Einarsdóttir and both of her sons, drawing a blank with Katla and Einar, but she whistled as she saw that Elmar Kjartansson had a significant police record in spite of his youth. She hit print and poured herself a mug of coffee while the printer in the corner whispered to itself, before sitting back to read through the list of convictions and the statements of the arresting officers.

She almost regretted not dragging the boy back to Reykjavík with her and letting him stew in an interview room for an hour or two. Elmar had spent three months in a low-security prison when he was eighteen years old for repeated thefts and petty drug offences, and had graduated to assault a year later after a drunken argument. The fact that he was on parole and was due to spend six months in prison once a place was available accounted for his nerves while she had questioned him in his mother’s kitchen, and she was furious at her own carelessness for not having looked up his records first.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at the clock, realizing that she had been on her feet since before seven that morning and it was going to be touch and go if she were to be home before seven as promised. She shut the computer down and stood up to leave. A look out of the window showed her that Ívar Laxdal, the National Commissioner’s Deputy and the man she reported to while the senior officer supposedly at the head of the serious crime unit was still on long-term sick leave, had already left.

On the way down the stairs she toyed with the idea of asking Herbert the cop in Selfoss to collect Elmar Kjartansson and bring him to Reykjavík, but on reflection, she decided against it. Whatever the boy had on his conscience, she felt it was unlikely to be murder, and his other misdemeanours could be dealt with by Herbert and the local force.

‘He’s as guilty as hell, but of what?’ she muttered to herself, fumbling in her coat pocket for her car key and watching the lights flash as she clicked the fob.

Helgi decided that it was killing two birds with one stone as he sat alone in the bar at the town’s only hotel and nursed a small beer. Anna Björg, the local police officer, had been delayed dealing with a road traffic accident on the main road a dozen miles away and had promised to meet him for a drink instead of in the more formal surroundings of the police station.

Schmaltzy seventies muzak oozed from a speaker somewhere over his head as he checked his phone for messages and sent Halla a text to let her know he had arrived. She hadn’t been delighted at his suddenly being sent out of town, but the prospect of a block of days off in lieu and the promised fitting of a new bathroom cabinet had mollified her.

He was wondering where Anna Björg was and considering calling her when cold air curled around his ankles as the hotel’s main door opened, heralding her arrival. Helgi stood up and saw her grin with pleasure at seeing him. She was stouter than he remembered and her face had a few lines that hadn’t been there last time they met, but the windblown flaxen hair and the red cheeks hadn’t changed.

‘Hæ, Helgi,’ she said, hugging him and bestowing a kiss on his cheek. ‘Sorry I’m late, but a truck came off the road between here and the Hook and we had to organize a tow truck to haul it out. I was so covered in mud afterwards that I had to go home and change.’

‘No problem. As you’re out of uniform, can I get you a beer?’

‘Duh. Stupid question, city boy. But you’re a guest here so I’ll get them,’ she said decisively. ‘Go on, sit yourself down.’

Two beers arrived as Helgi was staring out of the window into the blackness beyond. Anna Björg lifted hers high to clink glasses.

‘Skál. Now, what brings you back to these old haunts? But first, how have you been keeping?’

‘Oh, you know. Middle age starting to kick in with a vengeance now.’

‘And the little ones? Two, three of them?’

‘Two,’ Helgi sighed. ‘Svavar’s four now and Vala’s eighteen months.’

Anna Björg shook her head. ‘Hardcore, Helgi, starting all that stuff a second time round. You must be a machine,’ she laughed and watched Helgi’s pained expression. ‘Ah, but I needed that,’ she said, finishing her beer while Helgi was barely halfway through his.

‘And you?’ he asked. ‘How’ve you been?’

She rolled the empty glass in her hands. ‘Ach. Y’know. Work, work, work. The summer was great and I spent plenty of it on horseback. But it’ll be snowing soon.’

‘How many horses now?’

‘Only eight.’

‘Only?’

‘Well. After Gussi moved away, he decided he didn’t want anything to do with horses ever again, so I kept hold of them all, and the stable. I should have figured out years ago that horses are better than men.’

‘There’s nobody else, then?’

‘Not right now. There was someone after Gussi.’ She shrugged. ‘He liked the uniform and the handcuffs, but he didn’t like dogs or horses, so he had to go.’

Helgi downed his beer and stood up. ‘You know, Anna Björg, I never have been able to figure out when you’re joking and when you’re not. Another one?’

‘Why would I joke about anything like that? Deadly serious, me.’

‘Yeah,’ Helgi said uncertainly. ‘The same again?’

The bar was still empty. Helgi rapped on the counter until the girl who doubled as the receptionist appeared and poured two more beers for them.

‘Quiet here on a weeknight,’ he said as he placed the glasses on the table. ‘Not a lot happening around here?’

‘Not a lot. It’ll be jumping on Friday night, I expect. There’s some band playing, so that might be a long night for us.’ Anna Björg raised her glass. ‘Skál. So, tell me what brings you here. This is to do with the Tunga brothers?’

‘The man who ran over Kjartan’s boy got eight years, out after four,’ Helgi said. ‘Yeah, I know,’ he added, noticing the sour look on Anna Björg’s face. ‘He’d been at a rehabilitation hostel for eight weeks. Then someone beat him up and broke his head wide open, in an industrial unit that he apparently still owned.’

‘And things point this way?’

Helgi cracked his knuckles uncomfortably. ‘Well, no. Not exactly. Kjartan has a rock solid alibi, as he was at sea. But we all know how the Tunga brothers look after each other. So Gunna suggested I come up here and ask a few discreet questions.’

‘Gunna? That’s your inspector?’

‘Sergeant. We’re supposed to be under Örlygur Sveinsson, but he’s been off sick practically since the unit was formed and so Gunna’s been running things.’

‘That’s Gunnhildur Gísla, right? What’s she like?’

‘I like her a lot. What you see is what you get. No office politics, no fishing for promotion — although it’s long overdue in her case. She gets results even though it’s not always the results that upstairs would like.’

‘So Gunna sent you up here to check out the Tunga boys’ alibis?’

‘Pretty much. Any ideas?’

‘What day?’

‘Sunday.’

‘Well, I saw Ingi on the road to the Hook on Sunday morning, so I doubt it could have been him.’

Helgi felt a sudden surge of relief that Anna Björg did not fail to notice in his face.

‘Do you know any of them?’

‘I was at school with Ingi,’ Helgi admitted. ‘Kjartan left the district while I was a kid. I never really knew the other two, although I bundled Reynir into a cell more than once when I was in uniform here. But he’s calmed down a lot since then, hasn’t he?’

Anna Björg nodded. ‘Össur’s the sensible one, I reckon. Kjartan I don’t know and Reynir’s a dark horse. He’s sobered up, but I’d still be wary of him. The man’s an unguided missile at the best of times and there’s no knowing when he’s likely to blow his top. Not that I’ve had reason to have any dealings with them for a long time. Are you going out to Tunga tomorrow, or do you just want to try and ask around discreetly?’

Helgi thought. The idea of going to Tunga wasn’t an appealing one and he had put off thinking about it.

‘I’d best go and talk to them. Kjartan will undoubtedly have passed on the news that he’s being watched. If he didn’t have such a copper-bottomed alibi, he’d be my number one suspect. But it’s not our only line of enquiry. Gunna’s chasing up other people in the city. It seems there’s no shortage of people that Borgar Jónsson pissed off, so we’re spoilt for choice at the moment.’

He picked up the two empty glasses and Anna Björg took them from him. ‘My turn. Want me to go out to Tunga with you in the morning?’

‘I’m sure you have enough to be getting on with, don’t you?’

She shrugged as she stood up. ‘Up to you. Let me know tomorrow. I’ve no objection to a little drive out into the country and a look at Össur’s stable while you have a friendly chat with Reynir,’ she said, turning and departing for the bar where this time the receptionist appeared as if she had been called and had already started pouring two more beers.

‘Staying with Rúna, are you?’ Anna Björg asked as she placed the glasses on the table and sat down.

‘No. Here,’ he said, looking around the otherwise deserted bar. ‘I was going to stay with Rúna. But, you know. . Big sister doesn’t have a lot of space in that little house and as it’s work, the taxpayer is putting me up in the town’s finest hotel.’

Anna Björg’s eyes twinkled. ‘Careful, Helgi. A married man on his own in a busy nightspot like this. That could mean trouble.’

‘It’s an entirely fair division of labour,’ Gunna explained to her pouting daughter, Laufey. ‘Steini cooked. I’ve washed, dried and folded two loads of clothes — mostly yours, I’d like to point out. So we’ve come to a unanimous decision that loading the dishwasher is all yours.’

‘But. .’

‘There’s no room for a “but” anywhere in this discussion.’

‘I wasn’t consulted on this,’ Laufey argued. ‘So I feel that I should have the right to lodge an objection and go and watch TV while this goes to arbitration, surely? Isn’t that the way it works?’

‘Ah. You may be under the illusion that this household in some way resembles a democracy. I’m sorry to disappoint, but that’s not the way it works.’

‘Then I’ll start a grassroots movement and protest against the shameless use of forced labour. Steini, are you with me on this?’ Laufey asked hopefully, and Steini looked up from skimming that morning’s paper.

‘I think it’s probably best not to stray into dangerous territory here,’ he decided.

‘Where does all this revolutionary fervour come from, anyway?’ Gunna asked.

‘We’ve been doing it in history, and Ylfa talked about the pots and pans revolution as well.’

‘That’s hardly history. It was only a couple of years ago.’

‘But it brought down the government. The only time an Icelandic government has been forced out of office by a popular movement.’

Steini stroked his moustache and looked at her quizzically. ‘I must say I rather like the sound of this teacher. But does the council know that a secondary school teacher is preaching revolution to fifteen-year-olds?’

‘She’s the new teacher at the school,’ Gunna told him. ‘A decent enough girl, but she might want to tone the radical stuff down if she wants a full-time job next term. Anyhow, back to the thorny issue of loading the dishwasher.’

‘Yes, Mum?’

‘If you’d just done it instead of arguing, you would have finished by now.’

Laufey thought for a moment. ‘Which would have been a victory for the forces of international capitalism,’ she said.

‘Right, in that case,’ Gunna decided, hearing her phone ringing and hunting for it through the pockets of her coat, which hung on the kitchen door, ‘negotiations on getting a lift to Reykjavík on Saturday will only be entered into once the dishwasher is full. Where the hell is my damned phone?’

Steini lifted the newspaper, put it down and felt among the cushions on the sofa.

‘That’s blackmail, Mum,’ Laufey said darkly, holding out the phone, which had been behind the kettle.

‘Not at all. It’s simply that one should always negotiate from a position of strength,’ Gunna retorted, pressing the green button. ‘Hello?’

‘Gunnhildur? Herbert over in Selfoss. Y’all right?’

‘Fine, thanks. Anything up? Elmar, maybe?’

She heard the fat man sigh and imagined she could hear his chair creaking as he sat back.

‘Elmar, yes — and it’s not good.’

‘Well, go on, then,’ she said impatiently as Herbert made the most of his dramatic moment. ‘What’s he done?’

‘He’s managed to roll his car about six times and he’s on the way to the National Hospital in an ambulance. Out cold and he looks a godawful mess. Car’s a write-off and his mother’s going frantic.’

Gunna cursed silently and at length with her hand over the phone.

‘You still there?’ Herbert asked eventually.

‘Yup. Give me half an hour. I’ll see you at the hospital.’

Wednesday

Anna Björg opened her eyes and was awake instantly, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling lit only by the dim street lamp outside glowing through the curtains. She brushed a lock of hair from her face and her heart sank as she looked sideways. Helgi’s bald patch gleamed in the half-light. She carefully slipped from under the duvet and pulled on as many of her clothes as she felt was necessary, stuffing her bra and socks into the pocket of her coat and pulling her boots onto bare feet.

Her head spun as she looked regretfully at Helgi, asleep with one arm stretched out over the edge of the bed and his back to her. Anna Björg shook her head, told herself that married men had to stay strictly off limits from now on, and let herself out.

As the lock clicked shut, Helgi woke and wondered where he was. His eyes adjusted slowly to the dim orange light and he tried to decide if he really had heard something or not. He rolled onto his back, extending an arm to seek out Halla’s familiar warmth next to him in the unfamiliar bed as memories of the previous evening came flooding back and he sat up, realizing that he was alone.

‘Shit. Hell and damnation.’

It was a quiet, still night and the click of rapid footfalls outside alerted him. He pushed aside a few inches of curtain and stared out sorrowfully as Anna Björg’s dark figure, shoulders hunched, marched across the car park outside without looking back, disappearing along the street and around the corner into the darkness.

Katla Einarsdóttir smoked furiously outside the hospital’s back door. Gunna had left her in the early hours of the morning with her elder son Einar holding her hand as Elmar was wheeled into surgery. The intervening few hours seemed to have added years to her.

‘Good morning,’ Gunna greeted her as cheerfully as she dared. ‘What news of the young man?’

‘He’ll live,’ Katla said shortly and pulled ferociously on her cigarette as it burned down to the filter. She threw it into what remained of the grass and lit another, sucking smoke deep.

‘Herbert still here, is he? And Einar?’

‘Hebbi’s bringing Einar back this morning. Elmar’s still sedated.’

‘And you? I know it’s a stupid question, but are you all right?’

‘Am I all right?’ Katla stared and laughed hysterically. ‘What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m not all right. My son’s car came off the road and he’s in hospital with broken legs and arms, and I don’t know if he’s going to be a vegetable if he wakes up.’

‘The doctor said last night that there were no serious head injuries. Look, he’s had a bad crash. It could have been so much worse.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what it’s like. First Aron, and now Elmar. For fuck’s sake. Haven’t I had enough of this stuff?’ she snapped, throwing away the remainder of her cigarette and stalking into the building.

Gunna was in the lobby, her phone to her ear, when Herbert arrived with Einar, a broad-shouldered version of his younger brother but with hair cut sensibly and a businesslike air about him. Herbert had dark rings under his eyes and Gunna guessed he hadn’t seen much of his bed.

She cornered him once Einar was closeted with his mother.

‘Right, what happened last night?’

‘Hell, I don’t rightly know. It was on the road coming into Hveragerdi. It looks like the road was icy, he was driving too fast and lost it on one of the bends.’

‘Any witnesses?’

Herbert shrugged. ‘For what it’s worth, there was a truck about a kilometre behind him. The driver saw Elmar’s van on the bend and the next thing he knew it was rolling over off the road. It was the truck driver who called us out. When we got to the crash site, he was sitting in the van holding Elmar’s hand and keeping him awake.’

‘You said Elmar drove a van? What sort?’

‘I don’t know. A Toyota or a Nissan or some such thing.’

‘What colour?’

‘I’m not sure. Blue or black. He hadn’t had it long and I didn’t pay much attention to it. I’ve been a bit busy as well.’

‘And where is it now?’

‘It’ll be in the pound behind the police station. A recovery truck collected it last night.’

Gunna rattled her fingernails in an irregular tattoo against the wall as she thought.

‘Can you either get back to Selfoss and take some pictures of that van and email them to me, or get someone there to do it right now?’

‘Yeah, of course. I’ll get one of the guys at the station to do it,’ Herbert agreed, surprised at the intensity of Gunna’s demand.

‘You got a statement from the truck driver, didn’t you? This was definitely an accident?’

Herbert looked suspicious. ‘That’s what the man said and I don’t have a reason to not believe him. He said it was a clear road and Elmar was driving fast as he hadn’t long overtaken him.’

‘Fair enough,’ Gunna decided. ‘I’ll assume it was just an accident until I have a reason to think otherwise.’

Helgi didn’t have much appetite for breakfast. The hotel was virtually empty and the girl who had been on reception the night before brought him coffee, avoiding his eye as she did so. He texted Halla and told her how much he was missing her, waiting for his phone to bleep in response as he munched toast and the coffee began to nibble at the fringes of his dull headache.

He was wondering if the girl dispensing coffee stayed in the hotel at night, and if she had seen Anna Björg’s discreet departure, when his phone finally buzzed and he grabbed it.

Missing you too. Have a lovely day. XX he read, and it only deepened his guilt.

He finished a tub of yoghurt that sat heavy on his stomach and wondered if he could call Anna Björg, and what her response would be. He tried to rehearse a conversation with her in his mind but kept coming to a grinding halt.

‘More?’ a voice at his elbow asked.

‘What?’

‘More coffee?’ the receptionist asked and Helgi searched her face for a smirk of recognition.

‘Er. Yes, please,’ he mumbled and picked up his phone again as the girl replaced the flask on the table with a full one. He poured himself a cup of coffee that he didn’t really want and punched in a text message to Anna Björg that he then deleted and started again.

Going out to Tunga this morning. Meet for lunch? He wrote and pressed send, regretting it as soon as the message had gone.

A Polish girl with the kind of tired face that said minimum wage and long hours showed Gunna to the day room of the rest home.

‘Henning is there, in the corner,’ she said in passable Icelandic, pointing to a man with heavy glasses and a thick cardigan in spite of the stifling warmth.

‘The guy in the wheelchair?’ Gunna asked in dismay.

‘That’s Henning,’ the girl confirmed. ‘Happy to have a visitor,’ she added with a smile that lit up her face.

‘He doesn’t get visitors often?’

‘Once a month his son comes to take him out for a few hours. Maybe twice. But not more.’

‘Right,’ Gunna said, straightening her back and already convinced she was wasting her time. ‘Take me to him, will you?’

They threaded their way through the room, which was dotted with chairs, each containing an elderly dozing person, while the radio boomed from a corner of the room.

‘Henning?’ the Polish girl asked, leaning over him. ‘Visit for you,’ she said softly and the old man’s face suddenly became animated. There was no lack of life behind the sharp blue eyes that looked her up and down.

‘Not often I get a visit from a pretty girl,’ he said, his eyes gleaming roguishly behind his glasses. ‘Not as pretty as you, obviously, Wioletta,’ he added with a sideways look at the girl. ‘Get us a flask of coffee, would you?’

Gunna extended a hand and the old man shook it.

‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir.’

‘Henning Simonsen,’ he replied, his eyes on the Polish girl as she threaded her way back across the room. ‘Good grief,’ he said. ‘That bottom. Once upon a time. . She’s a good girl, that one. A real worker.’

He grimaced and jerked a thumb behind him.

‘What do you mean?’ Gunna asked.

‘If you push, we can go to the dining room and get a bit of peace and quiet away from all these old women listening to the wireless.’

The dining room was quieter. The Polish girl brought them coffee and left, Henning once again admiring her rear as she departed. ‘I tell you. .’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Now, what can I do for you? About that Borgar, I’ll wager? God rest his soul. But he was a thieving bastard. I used to tell people to count their fingers once they’d shaken his hand.’

‘Exactly. It’s Borgar’s death I’m investigating. I take it you were here on Sunday afternoon?’

The old man grinned and sucked coffee through a lump of rock-hard sugar. ‘If I’d killed Borgar, I’d admit it straight out,’ he said. ‘I’ll bet prison’s more comfortable than this place.’

‘But there’s no Wioletta in Litla-Hraun,’ Gunna pointed out.

‘Ah, but maybe they’d allow her to visit an old man.’

‘You worked for Borgar for a long time?’

‘I did. I started NesPlast back in the eighties and we built a lot of boats but never made much money.’

‘But Borgar owned NesPlast. You sold it to him?’

‘I owned 60 per cent of NesPlast and Borgar owned the rest, so that’s why he wasn’t able to screw it up like every other business he touched. But he owned the building and rented it to NesPlast.’

‘Paying himself rent?’

Henning shrugged. ‘It was a tax dodge of some kind. A way of making sure NesPlast never made enough of a profit on paper to have to pay tax.’

‘And it closed down after he went to prison?’

‘Well, the crash was around that time as well. There was no money about and nobody wanted boats. We were stuck with two expensive boats that customers defaulted on and there was no choice but to wind it up. My health wasn’t what it had been, and there was nobody to take over.’ He smiled to himself. ‘I was able to sell the two boats to a cousin of mine in the Faroes who came and sailed them home. Cash,’ he said, rubbing his hands at the memory. ‘Borgar wasn’t happy. Not happy at all. But by then he had other things to worry about.’

‘He had enemies, though, surely?’

Henning reached for the thermos on the table. ‘Would you?’

Gunna poured him another cup and he sipped it gratefully.

‘There were always problems. People were happy enough with the boats, but when it came to money Borgar would always screw customers somehow.’ He sighed and looked at Gunna steadily. ‘But to answer the question you haven’t asked, as far as I know there were dozens of people who would have been happy to break Borgar’s nose, although I don’t believe any one of them would have gone so far as to kill him. These people aren’t crazies, and for most of them I reckon this was so long ago now that it’s in the past. Fishermen are used to setbacks. They move on.’

‘I guess you’re right.’

Henning looked quickly behind him. ‘But have you found his secret cubbyhole?’ he asked, with a conspiratorial gleam in his eye.

Gunna tracked Bjarni Björgvinsson down to the smart newish house his parents owned and she waited while the young man’s mother went to wake her youngest son several hours before the usual time he was on his feet. She came downstairs with suppressed frustration in her eyes.

‘He’s still in bed. I don’t know what the matter is with him these days. He’s surly, he’s rude and he has mood swings. It’s driving his father and me nuts,’ she admitted.

Gunna smiled inwardly. ‘Tell me about it,’ she said, trying to look sympathetic.

‘You have the same problem, maybe?’ Bjarni’s mother asked, clearly anxious for Gunna to have exactly the same headaches to deal with.

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Gunna said guardedly, wondering whether or not to tell this worried woman that her son’s behaviour clearly spelled out either alcohol or dope, or both.

‘You have children as well?’ Bjarni’s mother asked.

‘A boy and a girl.’

‘They say girls are less bother. Is that true?’

Gunna wanted to laugh. ‘I couldn’t say. But my mother certainly wouldn’t agree with that.’ She looked at her watch and listened for any movement. ‘Is he going to be long, do you think?’

The woman shook her head and Gunna could see the grey in her fair hair. ‘I’ll go and call him again.’

‘How about I go and wake him up?’

Her eyes bulged for a moment and she hesitated. ‘It’s a bit of a mess,’ she said defensively.

‘If a bit of a mess was the worst I had to be worried about in this job, believe me, it would all be so much easier. Where’s the boy’s room?’

‘At the top of the stairs, on the right,’ she said in a faint voice as Gunna took the stairs two at a time. At the top, the not unfamiliar smell of boy’s bedroom guided her and she rapped smartly on the door, didn’t bother waiting for a reply and clicked on the light as she stepped inside.

‘Go away, will you? I said I’m not well,’ a voice whined from beneath the duvet. ‘And turn the light off.’

Gunna strode to the window, swept the curtains aside and aimed a kick at the end of the bed. ‘I don’t care if you’ve got the plague and you’re missing an arm and a leg, you can wake up,’ she snapped, leaning down and roughly hauling the duvet back a foot to expose Bjarni’s head sunk in a deep depression in the pillow. He stared back at her dumbfounded through eyes heavy-lidded with too much sleep. ‘My name’s Gunnhildur. I’m an investigating officer at the city police force’s serious crime unit and I have some questions for you to wake up and answer.’

‘What. .? Now?’

‘Now. Right now. Either you wake up and pay attention, or I’ll call up a squad car and you can sit in an interview room at Hverfisgata wrapped in your smelly duvet and answer questions there,’ Gunna said, lifting a mess of magazines and CD cases from the room’s only chair and dumping it all on the desk under the window so she could sit down. ‘Your call. Make your mind up.’

‘This is police brutality,’ Bjarni said in a tone that carried little conviction. ‘And you need a warrant.’

‘You’ve probably been watching too many American cop shows. Sorry to destroy your misconceptions, Bjarni, but I don’t need a warrant. And if you think this is brutality, I’ll call up a squad car right now to collect you,’ she said, looking meaningfully at the ashtray on the windowsill overflowing with roaches. ‘And we’ll have a good look through this room in the process. I don’t suppose you’ve bothered to hide your stash all that carefully, have you?’

Bjarni quailed and hauled the duvet up to his chin.

‘Where were you on Sunday?’

‘Er. . out.’

‘I can figure that out for myself. Where were you and who were you with? What time did you leave here and when did you return?’

‘I went out about two with Elmar and we just mooched around a bit downtown, went to a mate’s place and then came back here and did some PlayStation.’

‘Until when?’

‘I don’t know. Some time in the night.’

‘Who’s this mate and where’s his place?’

‘Jóhann Eggertsson, his name is, lives in Lyngrími. I don’t know what number.’

‘In Grafarvogur, yes? Did you go anywhere near Hafnarfjördur on Sunday?’

‘No, not on Sunday.’

‘You were out with Elmar Kjartansson in that blue van he drives, were you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When you said you weren’t anywhere near Hafnarfjördur on Sunday, what does that mean? That you had been there with him some other time?’ Gunna asked, extracting a picture from her folder.

‘He wanted to go there a few times last week. I don’t know why. He’d go round town, see a few people and then he’d go round this industrial place, round and round these garages and stuff. I don’t know why.’

‘Anything in particular he was looking out for?’

‘He said he was looking for someone for his brother, but him and Einar don’t get on,’ Bjarni said in a petulant tone. ‘Look, can you leave the room so I can get up?’

‘I’m not finished with you yet,’ Gunna snapped, holding up the picture printed onto an A4 sheet showing a grainy version of what Borgar Jónsson had looked like a decade previously. ‘Seen this man?’

Bjarni peered briefly. ‘Never seen the guy.’

‘Look again, Bjarni, and don’t play games. Reykjavík’s full of CCTV cameras and whatever Elmar’s been up to, you can bet your life you can be implicated.’

The boy flinched at the thought, swept a lock of greasy hair out of his eyes and looked again. ‘Yeah,’ he said sulkily. ‘I think that’s the guy he was looking for. We saw him in town one time.’

‘Where?’

‘Outside some Bónus shop. Don’t know which one.’

‘Where else?’

‘Near that industrial place near Hafnarfjördur.’

‘Both times you were out in that blue van Elmar drives?’

‘Yeah. The blue van he got from someone he works for.’

‘Elmar doesn’t work, though, does he? Yet he always has plenty of cash. How come? What’s he doing — dealing? Are you involved in this as well?’ Gunna said, rattling out questions faster than the bewildered young man could cope with them. ‘You know how many years you’d be looking at for possession with intent to supply?’

‘No! It’s not me! I just hang around with Elmar.’

‘So where’s his money coming from?’

‘Ask him, why don’t you?’

‘Because,’ Gunna said, relishing the boy’s befuddled expression, ‘your mate Elmar is in the National Hospital with his arms and legs in plaster and morphined to the eyeballs. That’s why.’

She watched his eyes widen in fright.

‘What happened?’

‘You can ask him yourself when he’s out of hospital. Now, where’s all that cash coming from? Don’t try and tell me he’s running a car and having a good time on dole money that wouldn’t cover petrol to get to town and back every day of the week.’

Bjarni’s eyes glazed over as he shifted in bed and pulled the duvet tight to his chin where it met the fringe of hair that was plastered over the side of his head he had lain on.

‘He delivers stuff. Those big bottles they put onto water coolers in offices. That’s what he does.’

Sunshine broke through a ragged gap in the clouds and gleamed on the white hillside behind Tunga. The farm was far from being isolated, only twenty kilometres from the hotel where Helgi had spent an eventful night, but it lay at the end of a dog-leg track and in the lee of a hillside topped by a rocky escarpment that sheltered it from the worst of the weather. While there was a dusting of powdery snow on the lower slopes and the rocks at the top showed their teeth through the deeper snow around them, the pastures flanking the track to the farm were merely lightly frosted with a white morning crust that was already melting in the watered-down sunshine.

A dog barked briefly from the safety of a barn as Helgi parked the Daihatsu outside the farmhouse, in between an ancient Ferguson tractor with a wheel missing and the axle propped up on blocks, and a black Land Cruiser that dwarfed the police Daihatsu.

Helgi sniffed and frowned to himself at the vaguely sour smell the breeze brought to him as he walked towards the farmhouse and tapped at the door. The distant dog barked a second time, then was silent. The farmhouse door swung open as he tried the handle and he stepped inside to the familiar aromas that brought home to him how much he missed the countryside.

‘Hello! Anyone home?’

Only the clock over the kitchen doorway ticked in response. He closed the door and walked around to the back, to the warmth of the byre and a row of cows contentedly chewing, but there was nobody to be seen and Helgi’s back prickled with the feeling that he was not alone.

The tracks of a set of tyres could be seen leading out of the yard and along the trail that passed below the farm and its barn towards the shore some distance away, and Helgi tried to remember the outline of the Tunga lands, more than fifteen years after his last visit to the farm.

The gap in the clouds closed slowly and the glitter on the hillside faded to dull white as Helgi cast about, puzzled that there was nobody to be seen anywhere. He knew that Ingi lived in Blönduós these days, but Össur had stayed at the farm and either he or Reynir should be here somewhere, while the presence of the very new Land Cruiser in the yard indicated that someone was not far away.

Helgi pulled his phone from his pocket and was relieved to see that a few bars of signal strength remained. He scrolled down to Gunna’s name and listened as it rang.

‘Gunnhildur.’

‘Hæ, it’s Helgi. How goes it?’

‘Ach. You know. Just been doing what I do best and practising a little police brutality on the blameless public.’

‘Business as usual, then?’

‘Yep. Chasing up Elmar Kjartansson’s alibi for Sunday, and he was nowhere near Hafnarfjördur, so he didn’t beat Borgar to death,’ she said. ‘Not that I expected it of him, somehow. And you? What news of the countryside?’

‘Nothing yet. I’m at Tunga and the place is deserted. Can you check out a vehicle for me?’

‘Sure. Give me the registration.’

Helgi read the number off the Land Cruiser’s hulking rear end and Gunna repeated it as she wrote it down.

‘Got that. Is that a vehicle at this godforsaken farm?’

‘It is. It’s a swanky black Land Cruiser and not the kind of thing a poor sheep farmer can afford, so you might want to dig a little deeper than just who it’s registered to. I’d say that if anyone from here was in Reykjavík on Sunday, this is what they would have been driving.’

Gunna nodded in agreement as she looked up at Bjarni Björgvinsson’s bedroom window where the curtains were still drawn, and imagined the young man having to answer some searching questions after having been visited unexpectedly by a detective. She was fairly sure from the determined expression on the boy’s mother’s face as she left that she had been lurking on the stairs to listen to the exchange going on in her son’s bedroom, and that the end of a long tether had been reached.

‘OK, thanks, Helgi. I’ll give you a buzz back as soon as I know something. Good luck with them there yokels,’ she said as she ended the call.

Helgi started the Daihatsu up again and bumped out of the yard, following the fresh tyre tracks leading seawards, thankful that it was still early and there would be daylight for a few more hours. The car bumped in second gear along a rutted track, and around the shoulder of ground that Tunga occupied the land dropped away into a long slope between the farm and the sea, with a square barn in the distance that even a kilometre away he could see had smoke coming from a chimney and a newer tractor than the ancient Ferguson parked outside it.

Gunna downloaded the photos sent by Herbert’s colleague in Selfoss and set the printer running. It whispered to itself as it spat out sheets of paper.

‘Any luck with Borgar Jónsson?’

Sævaldur Bogason’s head appeared around the door, grinning.

‘It’s not about luck, Sæsi,’ she replied. ‘It’s about asking the right questions of the right people, or so I was told at police college all those years ago.’

‘You know what I mean, Gunna. Any progress? Spoken to that headcase Kjartan?’

‘Actually, I have,’ she said, retrieving a dozen sheets of paper from the printer and examining the top one. ‘Why do you say he’s a headcase? He seemed remarkably well balanced to me, all things considered.’

Sævaldur shook his head pityingly. ‘Shit. I remember the trial. He was practically crawling up the walls. I was sure he was going to beat some poor sap half to death just to take it out on someone. And what have you done with the rest of your team? It seems pretty empty around here.’

‘Eiríkur is on paternity leave and won’t be back for a couple of weeks,’ she explained, as Sævaldur snorted derision. ‘And Helgi is up north. I’m hoping he’ll be back tonight or tomorrow morning.’

‘Up north? What’s he doing there? You mean Akureyri?’

‘Nope. He’s checking out Kjartan’s brothers, who it seems have something of a track record of sorting out each other’s problems.’

‘You reckon? That sounds far-fetched to me. I’d pin my efforts on Kjartan.’

‘Maybe. But I can’t not check.’ She fluttered the sheaf of printed-out photographs in her hand. ‘And Kjartan has the most solid alibi you can find, in that he was still at sea somewhere north of Grímsey when Borgar Jónsson was killed.’

Sævaldur looked sour for a moment. ‘You be careful of Kjartan, though,’ he warned.

‘I most certainly will. The man’s a bruiser and he has bully written all over him in big letters. But he didn’t murder Borgar Jónsson. Now if you don’t mind, I have to ask our friends in traffic for a favour or two.’

Stefán was pleased with himself that the old Bronco that had been in his workshop the day before was now well enough to be outside, while something more modern and sleek was plugged into a computer on wheels parked next to it.

‘That’s the one, I reckon,’ he said, looking through narrowed eyes at the pictures Gunna showed him of Elmar’s wrecked van. ‘I thought it was one of those four-wheel-drive Nissans. A lot of people use them for work; plumbers, carpenters, mechanics — that sort of business.’

‘You’re sure this is the vehicle?’

‘Well, not a hundred and one per cent, but as sure as I can be. That dirty patch on the side gives it away.’

‘And you got a look at the driver?’

Stefán shrugged. ‘Young fella. Bad haircut,’ he said. ‘I didn’t look twice. Now, if it had been a young lady, I might have taken more notice.’

‘You’d recognize him?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

Gunna dug into her folder and pulled out Elmar’s driving licence photograph, blown up to a washed-out A4 size, his pale eyes staring somewhere beyond the camera.

‘How about that?’

Stefán stared at it and shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It looks like him, but I couldn’t swear to it. I only gave him a quick glance.’

As satisfied as she was likely to get, Gunna nodded and made a few notes. ‘OK, thanks. That’ll do nicely.’

‘Happy to help. If I’d have known, I’d have looked a bit more carefully. You reckon this is the guy who, you know. .’ He paused. ‘Borgar?’

‘I can’t comment on that.’

‘You want me to let you know if I see him again?’

‘I’d be surprised if you do,’ Gunna said, tapping the pictures of the wrecked van. ‘This happened last night and he’s in hospital now with a lot of broken bones.’

She let herself into the NesPlast unit and allowed her eyes to adjust to the gloom before she went upstairs and switched on one light over the canteen table. The place was clean, much cleaner than it should have been after being empty for several years.

She started in the kitchen area and went through all of the drawers, from cutlery at the top to one at the bottom containing old invoices, all dated a decade or more before. Moving on to the cupboards, she found only newly washed and dried glasses and cups, neatly stacked. She sat back down and shook her head in puzzlement. The place had been cleaned thoroughly. There was none of the dust and grime of downstairs. The office, little more than an alcove off the canteen, had also been swept clean, but there was no furniture. Desks and chairs had gone, and only the planner charts on the walls and faded outlines where pictures had been pinned indicated what the place had once been. Only a threadbare sofa occupied one end below the window.

Gunna sat on it and bounced gently, feeling the springs squeal. She stood up and felt under the seat, lifting when she felt it move. Underneath was a duvet and a couple of pillows, still fairly fresh rather than having lain there all the years that Borgar had been in prison. She stared at them and wondered what it all meant. Had Borgar used this place, the last remaining part of his former sprawling businesses, as some kind of bolt-hole, a place to escape to when the gloomy hostel became too much for him?

She lifted the duvet up, shook it and folded it in half, placing it on the floor with the two pillows on top. She searched the box under the sofa, fingers feeling for anything that might give her an idea of what Borgar had been doing there, but eventually stood up, admitting defeat, convinced that Borgar had spent an hour or two every day before his hostel evening curfew clearing up his one-time business.

Straightening up, she saw a couple of books on the windowsill above the sofa, half hidden behind its back. She riffled through the pages of the two cheap thrillers and put them down again, turning back to the office where she scanned the walls, remembering Henning’s question about Borgar’s cubbyhole. There was nothing to be seen. The floor was an unbroken set of boards without a join anywhere, while the walls were blank and provided no clue. The only break in them anywhere was the electrical box, and staring at it she remembered that the team arriving on Monday had found the circuit breakers tripped, but that Sigmar had reset them downstairs.

Gunna snapped her fingers. The circuits for the building were on the floor below. She clattered down the stairs, found the circuit box and took the metal key for opening the latch from its string. Upstairs it fitted the identical door and it swung open to show a single pair of circuit breakers, which she assumed had to be for the lights and power in the kitchen. She stretched and peered into the box, her head almost inside it.

‘Ah, there you are, my little beauty,’ she breathed, sliding her hand sideways behind the cabinet’s framework into a compartment that lay behind the panelling of the wall, and extracted an old Bible that she stared at in surprise, wondering if Borgar had found God during his time at Litla-Hraun.

The Bible felt odd in her hands, as if its covers did not meet properly, and opening it she saw why, as a couple of small, hardback books fell out and landed at her feet. Picking them up, Gunna saw there was a passport with a star and crescent on the cover, and bearing the legend ‘Republic of Turkey’. The picture inside was undoubtedly a younger and plumper Borgar Jónsson than the one whose picture she had seen on the police files, but with a very unfamiliar name, while the two books were clearly savings accounts from banks she had never heard of, containing figures dating back more than six years and running into many thousands.

‘Turkey. Someone planning a new life,’ she said to herself, straightening up and looking out of the window at the gathering gloom outside. ‘So I don’t suppose our Borgar had found God after all,’ she decided, and the sudden harsh ringing of her phone brought her back to reality.

The unmistakeable smell hit Helgi in the face. Somewhere a generator chattered discreetly and a few lights glowed in the gloomy barn where the carcasses of abandoned farm machinery crouched along one side. His shoes crunched on the gravel underfoot and he saw that a strip of light glimmered under a door at the far end.

He knew that this was not a good idea. It went against all the rules of good policing, but that would mean going back to Blönduós and calling in Anna Björg or another of the local station’s few officers to come with him. He glanced at his phone and saw that with no signal, there was no chance of calling anyone to join him.

Taking a deep breath to summon his courage, he listened at the door to the silence on the other side, wrinkling his nose at the smell before pushing the door open. Inside was a single light that illuminated the workshop where a still hissed on top of a gas ring. On the far side of the long room a dozen plastic bins were the source of the smell and Helgi knew exactly what he had stumbled across as he backed away as silently as he was able before turning and making for the door.

‘All right, Helgi?’ a deep voice asked as he emerged into the daylight. ‘What might bring Helgi Svavarsson from the police all the way out to Tunga on a winter morning?’

‘Hello, Össur. I was passing and wondered if Ingi might be about anywhere?’

A pair of dark eyes took stock of Helgi from the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat stained by rain and bleached by sunshine.

‘Our Ingi’s been working over at the Hook these last few weeks, building some new offices for the town council or some such. But since you’re here you’d best come up to the house and have a cup of coffee. I can’t speak for Reynir, but Mother’ll be happy to see you,’ he ordered and strode over to the tractor, leaving Helgi where he stood.

The tractor thundered into life and Össur reversed frighteningly fast in a half-circle towards Helgi and the Daihatsu.

‘That’s your city wagon, is it?’ he shouted over the roar of the engine. ‘I’ll go first so’s I can pull you out when you get it stuck in a puddle.’

Helgi got back into the Daihatsu and took the track back up to the farm slowly, wondering if Össur had seen him go into the barn and if he suspected that the still at the back might have been seen. At any rate, he was sure that even Össur would know that the smell of fermenting raw brew could hardly be missed. Maybe he didn’t expect anything to be done about it and for a blind eye to be turned for old times’ sake? Wondering where Össur’s brother Reynir might be, Helgi had no real choice but to follow the tractor back towards the farmhouse, relieved that as the Daihatsu breasted the rise, his phone pinged back into connection with the rest of the world.

‘Progress, Gunnhildur?’ Ívar Laxdal asked gently as Gunna gulped a glass of water in the deserted canteen.

‘Good grief, what a bastard this man was,’ she said with feeling. ‘He screwed everyone he could, dropped people in the shit without a moment’s hesitation and he’d have mortgaged his grandmother if he could have got away with it. I’m starting to wonder if whoever finished him off wasn’t doing the rest of us a favour.’

‘How’s Helgi getting on?’

‘No idea. I had a quick call to check a vehicle registration, but that’s all so far. I expect he’ll report in when he knows something. But I can’t help wondering if I’ve sent him on a wild-goose chase up there in the north.’

Ívar Laxdal nodded wisely, his meaty hands clasped around a mug. ‘Anything you need?’

‘Other than manpower, obviously?’

‘Of course.’

Gunna felt as helpless as she usually did when faced with this question.

‘Ideally I’d like Eiríkur back off paternity leave and back here running around for me. But that’s too much to hope for. So. .’

One of the Laxdal eyebrows gradually lifted from its habitual position as Gunna grinned wickedly. She placed the evidence bag containing the Turkish passport and the bankbooks on the table.

‘If you had a spare half hour to drop by the National Security Unit and ask what they make of these, then I’m sure you’d get an answer out of them a lot quicker than I would.’

The dog that had barked from the barn now sniffed around the Daihatsu’s wheels and disdainfully cocked a leg against one of them before trotting to the farmhouse door, proud of its work. Helgi saw a wrinkled face appear at the kitchen window and break into a smile on seeing him.

‘Before we go inside,’ he said, and Össur turned round to face him, ‘you must have an idea why I’m here, surely?’

For the first time Össur’s face showed a change of expression as he scowled. ‘Yup. I’m not Sherlock Holmes like you, but I can join the dots.’

‘Where were you on Sunday?’

‘Right here. I’ve not been south of the heath since the summer.’

‘And Reynir?’ Helgi asked softly.

‘Well,’ Össur said slowly, ‘it’d be easy enough for me to tell you he’d been here, wouldn’t it? And I guess you’d have to believe me.’

‘Not necessarily. Try me.’

‘I reckon you’ll have to speak to Reynir and ask him yourself,’ Össur said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘He’ll be here soon enough.’

The old lady had laid the table with coffee and a plate laden with slices of heavy bread, buttered and laid with strips of cheese and fat meat.

‘Come in, Helgi. It’s good to see you,’ she twittered. ‘You haven’t changed,’ she lied as Helgi stroked the top of his head and smiled back at her. The old clock ticked insistently on its shelf above the door and next to it was a picture of Aron Kjartansson. Helgi looked at it and guessed it must have been taken when the boy was eight or nine years old.

‘My grandson,’ the old lady said, catching Helgi’s eye. ‘He’d be fifteen now. I suppose it’s that man you’re here about,’ she said, then lapsed into silence as she clattered cups and plates.

‘It’s been a while since I was here last. How have you been keeping?’ he asked politely as the old lady finally sat down.

‘Not so bad. Still looking after these boys of mine when they should all have been married by now,’ she grumbled. ‘How about you? How’s Magga?’

‘We split up. About six years ago,’ Helgi told her with a touch of guilt in his voice, as if he were sure the old lady would blame him.

‘There’s a shame. Just like Kjartan and Katla, not that I cared all that much for Katla,’ she said. ‘And it’s not as if your mother’s here any longer to keep an eye on you, is it?’

‘I get by,’ Helgi assured her.

‘Married again, are you?’

‘Yes, and two little ones.’

The old lady’s face lit up. ‘How lovely,’ she crowed. ‘Össur, you should take a leaf out of this man’s book and find yourself a new young lady.’

‘Staying at the hotel in Blönduós, are you?’ Össur asked lazily. ‘Hope they look after you all right,’ he said with a leer and Helgi looked back at him, trying not to show the discomfort he felt.

There was a lull in the conversation, filled with the sound of feet pounding up the steps outside and the door banging open.

‘Reynir, I guess,’ Össur said simply, his face buried in his mug.

‘So who’s the raving ponce who drives a girl’s Daihatsu?’ a grating voice demanded from the hall. ‘It has to be a policeman, I reckon. Either that or there’s a troop of dancing girls stripping off in the kitchen for me.’

The face in the doorway was as creased as Össur’s, but with a wild grin and an even wilder look in the eyes.

‘It had to be the filth,’ he said. ‘The dancing girls would have been too much of a good thing. I was wondering if you were going to turn up, Helgi. Having a good time at the hotel, are you?’

‘Fine, thanks, Reynir. How’re you keeping?’

‘Ach, y’know. I have to keep the cows happy here and then I have to go over to the Hook or Blönduós and keep the cows happy there as well,’ he said as his mother frowned in disapproval.

‘Sit down, Reynir. There’s coffee and there’s buttered bread. And be polite to our guest,’ she scolded.

Reynir poured a mugful of coffee and slid a slice of bread into his mouth in one piece.

‘We’re not shedding any tears here, Helgi,’ Reynir said through a mouthful of bread and cheese, folding a second ready to follow it. ‘Not for that bastard who ran over Kjartan’s boy. Just the opposite. We’d have cracked open the champagne if we’d had any to crack open.’

He slid the second sandwich into his mouth with every sign of satisfaction.

‘Where were you on Sunday afternoon?’

‘Me? I was in Blönduós Saturday night. I was here on Sunday and back in Blönduós on Sunday night.’

‘And will someone confirm that for you?’

Reynir leered and nodded towards his mother, her back to them as she sliced more bread. ‘Tell you afterwards, Helgi,’ he murmured. ‘There are things a man’s mother doesn’t want to hear.’

The woman was clearly terrified and kept glancing at Helgi as if to be sure that he was real as he parked outside the petrol station and walked in, keys swinging from his fingers and a frown on his face. She had flatly refused to meet him at her home and the paper cup of coffee she held in both hands shook.

Helgi went to the counter and bought himself a newspaper and his own cup of coffee, which had clearly been on the hotplate for a long time, watching the woman from the corner of his eye as she repeatedly stared at him then looked away. He paid, slopped some milk into the cup, hoping it would deaden the rawness of the over-strong coffee, and sauntered over to where she sat at the window.

‘Mæja?’ he asked, sitting next to her and looking out of the window at the black strip of road that ran through the little town and the distant mountains beyond.

‘Yes,’ she said with a tremor in her voice. ‘That’s me.’

‘I take it you have a reason to want to meet here?’

‘My husband’s home,’ she said simply, fidgeting and looking around.

‘Just sit still,’ Helgi murmured to her. ‘Don’t keep looking round unless you want to look suspicious.’

‘Sorry. It’s just. .’

‘It’s just what?’

‘I’m not used to this. Look, can we make this quick? What do you want?’

‘I’m a police officer and I’m investigating a very serious crime. I understand that Reynir Aronsson was with you on Saturday and Sunday?’

Mæja lifted her cup to her lips with both hands, sipped and coughed. ‘Yes,’ she said in a dull voice. ‘He was with me.’

‘From what time on Saturday?’

‘Around nine, after Hjörtur went to work.’

‘Your husband?’

She nodded.

‘When did Reynir leave?’

‘Before six.’

‘And he was back on Sunday night? Same time?’

This time she coughed hard and sniffed, glancing around to see the girl behind the counter looking at them without even trying to hide her curiosity.

‘No. Earlier. In the afternoon. Around three.’

‘And where was your husband?’

Mæja’s voice quivered. ‘He does shifts at the power station. Four days at a time.’

‘And while he’s away. .?’ Helgi said.

‘Look, I’m not proud of this. You want to know any more?’ Mæja hissed with scorn in her thin voice. ‘You want to know the details, or what? Times, maybe? Positions?’

Helgi’s phone buzzed discreetly and he glanced at the screen to see a ‘call me when you’re free’ message from Gunna.

‘No, that’s none of my business. But as long as you’re able to confirm that Reynir was with you, that’s all I need to know.’

Her sigh of relief was almost palpable as she zipped her coat around her plump figure and dropped off the high chair to her feet. Helgi was surprised to see that she was hardly tall enough to reach his shoulder.

‘This won’t go any further, will it?’ she asked, hands thrust into her pockets, a packet of cigarettes already in her hand.

‘Not unless it has to go to court.’

‘Court?’ She shook her head. ‘Never.’

Helgi tried to smile at her. ‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it’s likely to go that far.’

‘Don’t worry. It won’t.’

She left at a trot and Helgi balanced his phone in his hand as he watched her hurry across the garage forecourt, shoulders hunched, stopping to light a cigarette in spite of the wind before she disappeared around a corner. He called and waited for Gunna to answer as he thought through what Mæja had told him, wondering how trustworthy her words were and at the back of his mind wondering what to say to Anna Björg.

‘Gunnhildur.’ Gunna’s voice crackled into his ear.

‘Hæ. It’s me. Any progress your end?’

‘A few bits and pieces. It looks like Borgar Jónsson was planning a new life in Turkey before he found himself in jail. Kjartan’s son Elmar is in hospital with two broken legs and a dislocated shoulder, and it turns out that the van he’s been driving used to belong to Ingi Aronsson.’

‘Really?’ Helgi frowned. ‘I haven’t seen Ingi, only Össur and Reynir, and their mum.’

‘And?’

‘They’re no less nuts than they used to be twenty years ago, not that that tells you much.’

‘Were any of them in Reykjavík on Sunday?’

‘Doesn’t look like it. I have a reliable sighting of Ingi on Sunday. Össur swears he hasn’t been further than Stadarskáli since the summer and I’ve just been checking out Reynir’s alibi for Sunday.’

‘Watertight, is it?’

‘I don’t have any particular reason to doubt it. .’

‘But you do,’ Gunna said, sensing the disquiet in his voice. ‘Would it stand up in court?’

Helgi laughed and looked up with a start to see Anna Björg getting out of a squad car on the garage forecourt, a smile on her face as she strode towards him with her blonde mop alluringly adrift in the wind.

‘Still there, are you?’ Gunna asked. ‘You all right? Where are you, anyway?’

‘Yeah. Still here. I’m in the petrol station in Blönduós. No, I’m not sure Reynir’s friend would want to go to court, somehow.’

‘Ah. Like that, is it? Well, I’ll leave you to it. Stuff to be dealing with here.’

Helgi smiled thinly as Anna Björg sat next to him where Mæja had been sitting, stretching out in the uncomfortable seat and grinning at him.

‘Where are you taking this?’ Helgi asked. ‘Any leads?’

‘To be honest, I’m just hoping you going up there wasn’t a wild-goose chase, as Laxdal will jump on me for your expenses otherwise. But we have something to go on. I’m emailing you a few pictures of the Land Cruiser that place it right where we want it on Sunday afternoon. You’d best get to the station in Blönduós and have a look at them before you go much further, all right? How much longer do you reckon you’ll be up there?’

‘Depends what these pictures show, I reckon,’ Helgi said, avoiding Anna Björg’s eyes.

‘Good, that suits me. Tinna Sigvalds said there was something about it that rang a bell and she’s looking into city centre footage, so if she comes up with anything I’ll let you know. How’s Anna Björg? Seen her yet?’

‘You know her?’ Helgi asked, startled.

‘Of course I know Anna Björg. We were at college together. Give her my regards, would you?’

‘Will do, Chief. Will do,’ he said, and ended the call.

He sat back and reached for his paper cup, shaking his head.

‘Good morning,’ Anna Björg said. ‘Up early today? Sleep well, did you?’

He resisted an urge to place his hand on hers, and felt his face redden.

‘Like a log,’ he admitted. ‘Look, Anna Björg, about yesterday. I really like you a lot, but. .’

‘I know,’ she said soothingly. ‘You’re a married man and you want to go home to your wife without feeling too guilty. Is that it?’

‘Yeah. I suppose so.’

She put out a hand and patted his reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, Helgi. I’ve heard it all before and I’ve been five minutes’ weakness on a married man’s part once or twice before, so don’t worry about it. I’ll just be a pleasant memory you won’t mention to anyone, won’t I?’

He could see the concern in her eyes.

‘Of course. I’m not someone who needs to brag,’ he said, hurt that she thought he might boast about his night with her. ‘I just hope you enjoyed it,’ he said softly. ‘Because I certainly did.’

‘Hafdís?’ Gunna asked.

The tall woman sitting in the interview room looked her up and down. ‘That’s me. You are?’

‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir. I’m investigating your husband’s death.’

She shut the door and took a seat while Hafdís looked somewhere between bored and irritated. ‘I’ve been here for almost an hour,’ she said. ‘Just so you’re aware.’

Gunna wanted to snap back that she had been on her feet since before six that morning, but bit back the reply she knew would do no good. ‘I appreciate your coming in. I believe you spoke to my colleague Helgi yesterday? Unfortunately he’s been called away so things aren’t as smooth as they should be. Anyhow, apologies for making you wait. Where do you live now?’

‘Oslo. I got a flight home last night. Borgar and I are still married on paper, so I’m his next of kin, I suppose, and someone has to deal with everything. I can’t expect his brothers to do much.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘The day after the trial.’

‘Almost five years ago. Were you in the process of divorcing him, or what?’

‘It was happening but there was no hurry. It’s not as if Borgar and I were likely to run into one another.’

‘Was your relationship amicable?’

Hafdís sighed. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. I never met him and have no idea what he was like. That’s why I’m asking.’

‘We spoke when we had to, although it’s not easy trying to discuss a divorce settlement with someone who’s only on the end of a payphone for a few hours a day. The children miss him, but they’re not aware of the whole story. They were teenagers when he was. .’ She gulped. ‘When Borgar was sent to prison.’

‘You knew he was out on parole?’

‘When your boss called me yesterday was the first I knew of it.’

Gunna opened her mouth to put Hafdís right, but decided against it.

‘Tell me about Turkey.’

Hafdís dropped her gaze to the table between them. ‘We had planned to move there one day; there, or somewhere in North Cyprus.’

‘How far did you take that?’

‘Well,’ she said uncertainly, ‘to be quite honest, I’m not entirely sure. We had been there several times before the children were born and we had some friends there, although they were more Borgar’s friends than mine and I haven’t had contact with them since I moved to Norway.’

‘Did you invest there?’

‘Not to my knowledge,’ she said and a look of frustration crossed her face. ‘But I never knew how much money Borgar’s businesses had. Sometimes we were awash with spare cash. Sometimes there was hardly enough to buy food or pay any bills. He wasn’t an easy man to live with.’

‘So you don’t know if there were any investments there, or if Borgar had any business in Turkey?’

‘Who knows? Why?’ she demanded as if a sudden realization had just dawned on her. ‘What do you know? I’m his next of kin so whatever assets Borgar had are legally mine.’

Gunna sat back, pleased that she had pressed the right button. ‘I don’t have anything concrete. Just a few leads that I still have to follow up. Who had a grudge against your husband? Who might have had enough of a grudge to want him dead?’

This time Hafdís sat back as if she had been slapped. ‘So many people,’ she said bitterly. ‘He had screwed so many people for money it was unbelievable. Why do you think I wanted to leave the country? I used to have a comfortable life, of sorts. Living with Borgar was never predictable. But now I’ve had to go back to work to support the children while their father was in jail for that stupid drunken escapade. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t told him. I always knew he’d do something like that one day.’

‘Any names?’ Gunna asked.

‘There’s Henning who ran the boatyard, which was about the only business Borgar had that was steady. Losing that hit him hard and I did feel sorry for him. But the rest of them were the same wide boys as Borgar and it’s difficult to feel any sympathy for them if they lost some money. They’d have done exactly the same to him.’

‘Mæja?’ Anna Björg looked puzzled. ‘I was on traffic duty all day on Sunday. I saw Ingi Aronsson heading north on Sunday morning and around midday I saw Hjörtur Sighvats coming this way. That’s Mæja’s husband.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Hjörtur drives a big Econoline van that they travel around the country in sometimes. You can’t miss it, plus he waved as he went past.’

Helgi’s fingers formed a steeple in front of his face as he thought. ‘He wouldn’t have gone back to work that night?’

Anna Björg shook her head. ‘I doubt it. But I can check,’ she decided, phone to her ear while Helgi went back to the fish and potatoes that had been forgotten in front of him.

His talk with Mæja that morning had left him disturbed. Her agitation had been palpable and it was clear that she was terrified, although he wasn’t sure if this was because of Reynir himself or if she was more frightened of her husband.

Anna Björg returned and sat down opposite him. ‘Hjörtur Sighvats was on a four-day shift that ended at eight on Sunday morning,’ she said. ‘I spoke to the supervisor at the power station and he confirmed it. Hjörtur goes back to work tonight.’

‘So you reckon Mæja is lying to protect Reynir?’

‘Who knows? You’re from round here, Helgi. You know what people are like. Sometimes it’s a nightmare figuring out just why someone does something, and sometimes there’s no reason to it.’

‘I know,’ Helgi said gloomily. ‘Why do you think I left?’

‘I always thought it was because Halla wanted to live in Reykjavík?’

‘That was part of it. Anyway, how long has this been going on between Mæja and Reynir? And is it Reynir or her husband that she’s so frightened of?’

‘It’s been going on for years. There can hardly be anyone in the place who doesn’t know about it.’

‘Apart from Hjörtur?’

‘Yes. Except Hjörtur.’

‘He goes to work at the power station and Reynir moves in for a couple of nights to keep his bed and his wife warm for him? Could you maybe speak to Mæja while I go out to Tunga again?’

Anna Björg looked dubious. ‘It’s up to you, but you’re sure you want to be going there alone?’

‘So if Reynir wasn’t with Mæja, where was he? In Reykjavík dealing with big brother Kjartan’s unfinished business?’ he asked as his phone began to buzz.

It was late in the evening and Helgi was tired, knowing that it would be hours before he would be able to shut his eyes. Reynir hadn’t gone happily, snarling angrily as Helgi and Anna Björg escorted him from the farmhouse at Tunga, the old lady, a scowling Össur and a newly arrived Ingi watching with worried eyes as they marched him across the farmyard in the gathering gloom. Anna Björg had been all for using handcuffs. Against his own better instincts, Helgi decided to do without them. As they walked him from the car into the police station, he felt the muscles in Reynir’s arm tense and tighten for a second, as if ready to explode, and he braced himself for a fight before Reynir relaxed.

Reynir looked smaller than his usual outdoors self, a different character once out of his natural environment, as if cowed by the artificial light and the formal atmosphere of the police station.

‘Reynir from Tunga?’ asked Anna Björg’s colleague, Arnar, a young man on his first posting who spent most of his time in the western half of the county. Reynir’s reputation had clearly gone before him.

‘Yes, Arnar. That’s Reynir from Tunga in that cell and we’re going to have our work cut out now,’ she said grimly. ‘I’d like you to sit in with Helgi, to start with at least. I have a few other enquiries to deal with right now.’

The interview began late, delayed by the difficulty of tracking down a lawyer to represent Reynir, but when the puffing, elderly man finally arrived with profuse apologies, Helgi set the computer to record and went through the formalities.

‘You know why you’re here?’

‘I can guess,’ Reynir said in a truculent tone. ‘Something to do with Borgar Jónsson, I’d say, and someone giving the bastard who killed Kjartan’s boy what he deserved.’

‘Where were you on Sunday?’

Reynir shrugged. ‘At home. Did a bit of work in the barn, but I didn’t tire myself out. Stayed in all afternoon, watched the football. Arsenal won.’

‘I have a sighting of that Land Cruiser in your yard down south on Sunday.’

‘Not me. Sorry, Helgi,’ Reynir grinned. ‘And I told you where I was on Sunday night.’

‘That’s just it. Mæja’s Hjörtur wasn’t at work on Sunday night, so you could hardly have been keeping Hjörtur’s bed warm for him.’

Reynir’s face darkened. ‘I don’t know where Hjörtur was, but he wasn’t in his own bed. That’s for sure.’

‘Were you in Reykjavík on Sunday, Reynir?’

‘Don’t be stupid. I was at home during the day and I was cuddled up with Mæja from before dinner time. She’ll tell you.’

‘We’ll see. I spoke to Mæja today and it doesn’t take a genius to work out she was lying. Why, Reynir? Why’s she so frightened of you? Handy with your fists, are you?’

‘I can take care of myself,’ Reynir growled, less convincingly now.

‘I know you don’t mind mixing it up outside Húnaver or Kántrybær now and again. But slapping your girlfriend around? Come on, that stinks. You think nobody’s noticed?’

‘Hell, you keep out of what’s not your business, Helgi from Hraunbær!’ Reynir shouted. ‘Throwing your weight around because you’ve got a badge or something. You should be ashamed of yourself. Some of us remember what a snot-nosed brat you used to be. We’ll see how good you are at standing up for yourself one day.’

‘Am I supposed to take that as a threat, Reynir?’ Helgi asked quietly and the lawyer whispered in Reynir’s ear.

‘Get away from me, you old fool,’ Reynir swore at the old man, who sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘Helgi, you can take that any sweet way you want,’ he sneered.

‘Fair enough. In that case I’ll interpret it as a threat against a police officer,’ Helgi said, raising an eyebrow at the old lawyer, who waved a hand in disgust. ‘At 13:45 on Sunday a blue Toyota clipped another car’s wing going round the roundabout on Reykjanesbraut, right by the Læjkargata turnoff in Hafnarfjördur, and if the old fella who had his car scraped hadn’t called 112, then a patrol car wouldn’t have turned up at the scene with its lights on.’

Reynir grimaced in impatience. ‘Where is this shit going?’ he demanded.

‘All in good time. I don’t suppose you know that all police cars are fitted with cameras that record automatically when the blue lights are on?’

‘And? So what?’

‘Your black Land Cruiser drove past the scene at 14:02 and the number’s there as clear as day. So thanks to an idiot in a Toyota, we have positive evidence that you were in Reykjavík on Sunday afternoon.’

‘Not me. It’s a mistake.’

‘It’s your vehicle, Reynir. You were there.’

‘I wasn’t. This has been fabricated by the police.’

‘So where did you go? Straight to Hafnarfjördur? How did you know Borgar was at the NesPlast unit?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You’re an ugly bastard, Reynir, who pushes his girlfriend around when her husband’s away. But you’re not stupid. What were you doing in Reykjavík on Sunday? Delivering a few gallons of moonshine? And you stopped off at Borgar’s unit on the way to beat the crap out of him? Is that how it happened?’

‘You’re still talking shit. I don’t do moonshine, and I haven’t seen Borgar Jónsson,’ he spat. ‘If I had finished the bastard it’s not something I’d be ashamed of.’

‘You’re talking to Helgi Svavarsson from Hraunbær, not some wet-behind-the-ears lad from Reykjavík who’s never been north of Borgarnes. You and Össur and your dad before you are famous from Laugarbakki to Hofsós for your moonshine, so don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. How much are you producing these days?’

Reynir looked away and folded his arms. ‘Just a few bottles for Christmas. That’s all.’

‘That’s bullshit. Where did the cash come from for that Land Cruiser? And all the other bits and pieces at Tunga, and two new tractors? Don’t try and tell me you won the lottery.’

‘We saved up over the years.’

‘And I’m sure you have financial records to prove just that?’

‘I believe in cash, not bankbooks.’

‘You’re trying to tell me that you’ve been saving your benefits money for the last twenty years in a biscuit tin under your bed, and all of a sudden you decided to buy yourself a Land Cruiser and your mum a 72-inch TV?’

Reynir sat back, arms folded, his heavy shoulders threatening to burst his shirt. ‘Yeah. That’s just what I’m telling you. It’s up to you to prove me wrong.’

‘Sorry. But that’s not the way it works,’ Helgi said with a sad smile. ‘I think you’ll be finding out before long that it’s exactly the other way around when the taxman gets his teeth into you.’

Reynir sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘I have nothing to say. I want a lawyer.’

‘You have a lawyer,’ Helgi said, pointing to the elderly man in his ill-fitting suit sitting beside him.

Reynir glanced at the old man. ‘No. A real lawyer,’ he said as the old man’s chest swelled in anger and his mouth opened to protest. ‘Not an old boy who sells houses and writes wills. A proper lawyer.’

Anna Björg stretched and pushed her coffee aside. She looked at her watch and shook her head. ‘How did it go?’

‘Not great,’ Helgi admitted.

‘No progress?’

‘I don’t know. He’s rattled, I can see that. But I’m not sure I have enough to hold him. He swears blind he was with Mæja all afternoon on Sunday, and she’s confirmed that.’

‘But Mæja’s husband wasn’t at work on Sunday,’ Anna Björg said. ‘You think she’s lying to protect Reynir?’

‘Could be.’ Helgi yawned. ‘So if Reynir didn’t drive south, beat Borgar Jónsson to death and drive back that evening, who did? Or has this been a complete wild-goose chase and we need to be looking for the murderer somewhere else completely, like one of the clients Jónsson ripped off over the years?’

‘Couldn’t say. I don’t know anything about the background to all this, except that Reynir has a fearsome reputation.’

‘Just a bit,’ Helgi agreed. ‘He killed a man once, or so they say.’

Anna Björg frowned. ‘Really? I’ve heard rumours about him. Is it true?’

‘Kjartan and Reynir went to Grindavík to work in the cod season down south and they went on a binge afterwards with all the money they’d earned. There was an old scrounger in Reykjavík called Bassi who tagged along with them for a while and they ended up being dropped off at Tunga in a taxi.’

‘This was a while ago, then?’ Anna Björg said doubtfully.

‘It was a long time ago, back in the eighties some time, and I was just a kid. I remember Ingi came over to us at Hraunbær while the three of them carried on drinking with old man Aron.’

‘Their father?’

‘Yup. He died a good few years ago now. Anyhow, they had a good old session and the next morning the old man had sobered up and expected his boys to do the same. Bassi didn’t take kindly to sobering up and being put on a bus south, and the tale goes that Reynir caught this guy with his fingers in the old woman’s purse trying to lift himself some money so he could carry on with his own personal drinking spree. So somewhere on the Tunga lands there’s a set of old bones that only Kjartan and Reynir know where to find. There was an investigation at the time that concluded old Bassi had got himself lost somewhere, fallen asleep by the side of the road and died of exposure.’

‘And nobody linked this with Kjartan and Reynir?’

‘No. The only person who could have done that was the taxi driver who took the three of them up there. But he firmly denied having seen Bassi. He’s dead as well now, so that’s where the trail ended, not that it was followed up all that energetically, as it was months after his disappearance that someone finally reported Bassi missing. The man had no family to speak of and nobody made a fuss when the investigation came to the easy conclusion.’

‘But you know all this stuff,’ Anna Björg said. ‘Surely. .?’

‘Just countryside gossip. There’s no body. There are no witnesses, and it was all a very long time ago.’

Anna Björg nodded slowly. ‘I suppose so. What can you do? But you think Reynir killed Borgar?’

‘He has the temper, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s done it before,’ Helgi said. ‘Not that I can put that in writing anywhere.’

‘But he has an alibi.’

‘He has an alibi that doesn’t ring true and I don’t imagine Mæja would be prepared to stand up in court and give evidence on his behalf.’

Helgi yawned and rolled his aching shoulders. ‘Enough for tonight. We’ll pick this up in the morning, shall we?’

‘I’ll speak to Mæja again in the morning. It might be worth bringing her in for a formal interview. What do you think?’

Helgi stood up and pulled on his coat, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. ‘You’re quite right,’ he decided. ‘This has to be clarified so there’s no doubt there. How long has this been going on between Mæja and Reynir?’

‘For the last five years, to my knowledge — every time Hjörtur goes off on shift for four days, Reynir comes in the back door.’

‘Five years? And it still hasn’t dawned on him?’

Anna Björg kneaded her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘You know, Helgi, some men are the weirdest creatures. Sometimes they see dragons where there are none, but fail to see what’s right under their noses.’

‘Present company excepted, I take it?’

‘Hmm. Possibly. But don’t bank on it. Anyway, while you’ve been talking, I’ve sent Arnar out to Tunga where he’ll meet three of the guys from the station at the Hook. They should be closing down the brothers’ amateur distillery so that will all be done by the time we have to release Reynir tomorrow. I’ve sent his fingerprints to Gunna as well and she can get them checked against those from the murder scene.’

Helgi sat back, his mind numb as he fought back a yawn. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m shattered.’

Thursday

Gunna studied the CCTV footage carefully. With hours of screen time to go through, she had begged, wheedled and promised favours to get more pairs of eyes and fortunately the bad weather meant that Reykjavík had seen a fairly quiet night. Two officers on the night shift had pored over the digital recordings and flagged up where the black Land Cruiser from Tunga had crawled around the centre of Reykjavík on a quiet Sunday morning. Four stops had been recorded only a few hundred metres apart, all of them outside bars and nightclubs.

She slowed the replay down and magnified the images as best she could, but even the high-gain cameras that could normally pick up a number on a credit card struggled to produce clear images in the heavy rain. At each stop the Land Cruiser’s broad-shouldered driver carried a couple of boxes inside, stayed for a few minutes and emerged to put boxes back in the car and drive away, but at no point did he pull back the hood of his sweatshirt or lift the brim of the baseball cap pulled low over his face.

Gunna wondered if the man was aware of the cameras, considering how skilfully he avoided looking directly at any of them.

Leaving Sunday’s recordings, Gunna selected the previous week’s footage and quickly scrolled through the view from the same camera a week before. That Sunday had also been wet but marginally less dark, so the quality of the pictures was sharper. She was almost ready to give up when what she was looking for appeared. Instead of the Land Cruiser, Elmar’s blue van came to a halt at precisely the same spot and Gunna could clearly make out the young man slamming the door behind him before he carried a box inside, while Bjarni Björgvinsson’s unkempt blond head could be seen on the passenger side, his head nodding in time to the beat of whatever the two iPod wires were delivering to his ears.

Satisfied, she collected the relevant screengrabs of the Land Cruiser and attached them to an email to Helgi with a feeling of satisfaction at some progress being made.

The bar was in the centre of the city behind an inconspicuous set of doors. A girl in a pale blue tunic answered when Gunna hammered on them, and looked through the narrow opening with suspicion.

‘There’s nobody here,’ she said as Gunna flashed her identification and stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. ‘Honest.’

‘Where’s the manager?’

The girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘He won’t be here for hours yet. He only left at six this morning.’

‘You’re here every morning, are you?’

‘There’s a team of us. We rotate. I do four mornings a week.’

Gunna looked around curiously. The bar had a dead feel to it with normal lights on, which illuminated the shabby paint and scratched furnishings that night-time punters would never see under the dim lights of business hours.

‘So where are the rest of you?’

‘They’ll be here any minute. I though that was them banging on the door.’

‘You’re employed by the club, or is this a cash-in-hand arrangement?’

‘It’s an agency, Reindeer Cleaning. I think the guy who runs this place owns Reindeer as well. Listen, I’m not going to get into trouble telling you all this, am I?’ she asked and frowned suspiciously. ‘I mean, I need this job,’ she added.

‘Not if you don’t tell him, I suppose,’ Gunna said, taking a series of printed-out screengrabs from her folder. ‘Look at this. Tell me if you recognize this guy.’

The girl glanced at the picture. ‘That’s the water cooler guy.’

‘Water cooler?’

‘Yeah. I don’t know his name. He turns up once or twice a week, always mornings when it’s quiet. He says it’s easier to park if he does his round early. He delivers the refills for the water coolers. You know, those plastic drum things,’ she said. ‘With water in,’ she added, as if speaking to a child.

Gunna looked around. ‘So where’s the water cooler?’

Clearly impatient to be working, the girl disappeared behind the bar and began sweeping. ‘I don’t know. In the office, I expect.’

‘Which is where?’

The girl stopped sweeping for a second and pointed. ‘That way,’ she said, indicating some double doors. ‘And I haven’t seen anything,’ she called as Gunna pushed them open.

Gunna saw stairs and climbed them in the dark, feeling for a switch that she didn’t find until the top step. As the light flickered on, she saw another door on the far side of an open area with a large table in the middle, its surface scarred and stained underneath a scattered covering of playing cards, empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays. The water cooler stood by what was certainly the office door that refused to budge as Gunna tried the handle. The cooler itself was switched off and empty, its plastic bottle upended in position, and looked to have been that way for a long time, with old newspapers and an empty pizza box balanced on top of it.

Wondering whether or not to give the office door a kick, Gunna saw that next to a leather sofa long past its sell-by date against the other wall was another door, and with a little effort this one swung open to reveal a much-used and long uncleaned toilet, as well as a shower cubicle. Sweeping aside the curtain, Gunna saw that the shower had also clearly not been used for a long time, as it was stacked high with boxes of the kind that Elmar and the Land Cruiser driver had delivered.

She opened the flaps of the box at the top and found herself looking at an empty plastic drum. Prising off the cap, she sniffed, closed the bottle and its box and made her way back downstairs, waving to the girl wiping tables who nodded in curt acknowledgement.

A message was stuck to Gunna’s computer monitor when she arrived back at her desk at the Hverfisgata station.

Check your email, it read.

Gunna scrunched it into a ball, threw it into the bin and prodded her computer into life. She read the message, rattled her fingernails in a tattoo on the desk as she did so and reached for the phone.

Helgi’s phone diverted straight to voicemail. She cursed, flipped through a chart on the wall, found the number she was looking for and dialled again.

‘Hæ, Anna Björg? Gunnhildur. Is Helgi behaving himself?’

‘He’s being a good boy, most of the time anyway,’ Anna Björg said with what Gunna felt was a catch in her voice. ‘He’s in the interview room with Reynir Aronsson now. We’ll probably have to let him go this afternoon if there’s no progress.’

‘Ah, that’s what I wanted to talk to him about. Could you get him to call a halt and give me a buzz back?’

‘Yep. No problem. Give me five minutes and he’ll call you back.’

Gunna tapped the desk with her index fingernail, the one that seemed to grow irritatingly faster than the others, scrolling through her other messages and deleting as many as could safely be ignored while she waited for Helgi to call. She was deep in a report when her desk phone finally buzzed.

‘Gunnhildur.’

‘Hæ, Chief,’ Helgi said. ‘What news?’

‘How are you getting on?’

Helgi sounded tired, as if two days in his sparsely populated home territory had exhausted him.

‘We called in some reinforcements last night and cleared out Össur’s and Reynir’s distillery at Tunga, except that Össur and Ingi obviously did some very sharp work and managed to get the still and some of the production equipment hidden away somewhere,’ Helgi chuckled. ‘I can hazard a guess as to where it is, but that’s for Anna Björg to follow up if she feels inclined.’

‘And Reynir Aronsson?’

‘He’s bloody hard work, that’s all I can say. He won’t admit to anything. He reckons the CCTV footage of his vehicle is falsified and swears blind he wasn’t in Reykjavík on Sunday even though Anna Björg has been working on his girlfriend and demolished his alibi.’

‘Some good news for you, in that case. According to forensic, we have a positive identification of a set of Reynir Aronsson’s fingerprints at the murder scene. Sigmar found a couple of handprints on a section of galvanized pipe that had been thrown in with a lot of other old tools under a workbench. So I guess you can have a quiet word with the sheriff, formally arrest Reynir for the murder of Borgar Jónsson, and we can ship him south.’

Gunna could hear the sigh of relief. ‘Perfect, Chief. Just what we needed. I was dreading having to let him go this afternoon. So that’s cut and dried, is it?’

‘Well, I’m not so sure,’ Gunna said, re-reading the email from Sigmar. ‘The fingerprints are definitely there, but they’re not as clear as we would like them to be. There’s no doubt that Reynir handled this piece of pipe and I’ll email you the photos so you can show them to him. But Sigmar said that it looks as if the prints aren’t fresh, as if they were made quite some time ago.’

‘But if it places Reynir in the NesPlast unit, that’s good enough grounds for arrest, isn’t it?’

‘It’s grounds to haul him south and take our time getting the story out of him,’ Gunna decided. ‘So go for it.’

Helgi wanted to punch the air, but maintained a sober expression as he and the lawyer who had gone outside for a quiet smoke made their way back to the interview room.

‘Can’t have been good news if you don’t have a smile on your face,’ Reynir said as Helgi sat down opposite him.

He fanned out the photographs he had printed out and laid them on the table so that Reynir and the lawyer could see them.

‘You and your Land Cruiser at four locations in Reykjavík. Tryggvagata and Bankastræti, and two in Hafnarstræti, all within forty minutes of each other on Sunday morning,’ he said in a flat voice as Reynir stared. ‘Then there’s this one of your vehicle driving past an incident in Hafnarfjördur that same afternoon that I showed you yesterday. I take it you did your deliveries and then went off to find Borgar Jónsson in Hafnarfjördur? How come Elmar wasn’t doing the deliveries as usual? Because you wanted to find Borgar and did the run south with the week’s production at the same time? Is that how it worked? Killing two birds with one stone, if you’ll pardon the expression?’

Reynir lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing to do with me.’

‘In that case, how about this?’ Helgi asked softly, placing two more pictures on the table. ‘Recognize this?’

‘No. Why? Should I?’

‘I’d say so. It’s more than likely the metal bar used to beat Borgar Jónsson to death, and it has your fingerprints all over it as well as blood traces from the victim.’

Reynir stared at the picture and a vein began to throb in his temple. Helgi braced himself for an explosion and the lawyer gently shifted his chair sideways, as if sensing the tension in the air. Reynir picked up the printout and looked at it at arm’s length for a long time while Helgi and the lawyer sat in tense silence.

Helgi opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it as Reynir sat back and squared his shoulders.

‘I admit it,’ he said finally. ‘I killed the bastard.’

‘In that case, I arrest you, Reynir Aronsson, on suspicion of the murder of Borgar Jónsson. You do not have to say anything, but you are required to answer truthfully any questions put to you,’ Helgi intoned as Reynir bowed his head. ‘Just so you know, we’ll be travelling south later today.’

Mæja’s eyes flashed from side to side. With the only interview room already occupied by Helgi and Reynir, Anna Björg made space in her office for Mæja to perch nervously on the edge of a chair.

She glanced at the door.

‘Is that closed? Can anyone hear us?’

‘Nobody’s listening, Mæja. Don’t worry.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she shot back.

Anna Björg squared away her notebook and watched Mæja fidget nervously. ‘Is Hjörtur back at Blanda today?’

‘He left this morning.’

‘Four days?’

‘Yep. Back on Sunday night.’

Anna Björg pursed her lips, wondering how to start. ‘Look, Mæja. You’ve had a long-running affair with Reynir Aronsson for. . what? Five years at least. I’m not out to judge. Your private life’s your private life. Understand?’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Mæja said hesitantly. ‘So what’s this about? I’ve already told you Reynir was with me on Sunday.’

‘Are you afraid of Reynir?’

Mæja’s gaze dropped to the desk between them. ‘Not afraid of him, but I take care not to upset him, if that’s what you mean. You know what Reynir’s like. He has a temper.’

‘But you still see him?’

‘Nobody’s perfect. He’s a good man. It’s just deep inside.’

‘You’re not being coerced at all?’

Mæja’s brows knitted in concentration. ‘You mean saying he was with me when he wasn’t?’

‘Exactly.’

‘No! I haven’t even seen him since he left on Sunday night. It’s not as if we’re teenagers texting each other all the time,’ she said angrily, her face reddening.

‘So give me the times,’ Anna Björg said sharply. ‘When did Reynir arrive and when did he leave?’

‘He turned up on Friday night about nine and left early in the morning. Then he was back Saturday evening some time. I can’t remember what time and he stayed until about four.’

‘Four in the morning?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All right. So you say he was with you on Sunday as well. When did he show up?’

‘About four, five, something like that. It was after the football was on TV and he was happy that his team had won. I made some dinner, Reynir washed up. We watched TV, had an hour in bed and he left just after midnight. OK? Are there any other details you’d like?’ Mæja asked in a snide tone. ‘Curious about what other people get up to, are you? No secrets in this town — and there are all kinds of things going on that people think nobody knows about. Like at the hotel on a weeknight when it’s quiet.’

‘I’m not being curious by choice,’ Anna Björg retorted, stung by Mæja’s jibe. ‘But there’s a man here who may well be facing a murder charge and years in prison, so maybe you can see why I have to be sure.’

‘Well, yes, I suppose there is that,’ Mæja mumbled.

‘I saw your husband here in Blönduós on Sunday morning. He wasn’t on shift on Sunday night. So how come Reynir was able to be with you on Sunday evening? That’s what I want to know.’

Gunna arrived back at her desk with a mug of coffee in one hand to find Ívar Laxdal sitting in Helgi’s chair and looking through the pile of books under the table.

‘I never thought of Helgi as an admirer of Laxness,’ Ívar Laxdal said, flicking through a much-thumbed hardback and placing it reverently back where it had come from. ‘Independent People. Marvellous stuff, I always thought.’

‘Why, did you think he was more of a one for Westerns and whodunnits? He’s a dark horse, is our Helgi. You know what these country boys are like. Speaking of which, he’s up in Húnavatnssysla and he’s made an arrest.’

‘This is the killing in Hafnarfjördur?’

‘It is,’ Gunna confirmed and sipped her coffee. ‘Actually, Helgi has done all the important work on this one.’

‘You mean you feel he deserves an afternoon off?’ Ívar Laxdal asked with a trace of a smile.

‘Steady on. I wouldn’t go that far, but a bag of sweets, maybe.’

‘So who’s the killer?’

‘Reynir Aronsson. The brother of the man whose son was run over by Borgar Jónsson. But there’s a hell of a lot of ground to go over here. There are four brothers and they have a long history of sorting out each other’s grudges — going back decades, or so Helgi says.’

‘You think you can tie this in with any cold cases?’

Gunna shook her head. ‘I doubt it. It’s more a case of figuring out if any of the other brothers were party to this and how much of it was arranged in advance.’

‘So this was premeditated murder?’

‘Without a doubt, I’d say.’

‘And the young man who had an accident? Was he part of this too?’

‘I’d say so. There’s been a little business going on here as well. Two of the brothers were brewing moonshine on a practically industrial scale up north, and the man, Elmar, was delivering it to bars and people who were selling it by the half-bottle to the city drunks. He was close to his father’s brothers and they supplied him with a van so he could deliver for them, or that’s the way it looks. That lad has a lot of questions to answer once that morphine feed is turned off. But my guess is that he was the one who had tracked down Borgar Jónsson and shadowed him. Maybe he found out about Borgar’s plans to skip the country and they decided between them on some rough justice. Who knows? He’s still in hospital and too doped up to answer questions — not that he’s going far, so it can wait a day or two.’

‘We might have to open a whole new wing at Litla-Hraun just for them. Anyhow, an announcement needs to be made. A man is helping police with enquiries, etc, do you think?’

‘A man has been arrested, kind of thing, I’d say. But no names, obviously. Not that the press won’t work out who he is soon enough.’

‘Excellent. The commissioner will be relieved. I’ll tell him.’

‘If you don’t mind, don’t forget to mention Helgi as well. It’s his work that’s done this.’

‘Of course,’ Ívar Laxdal said, levering himself from Helgi’s chair. ‘Credit where it’s due. Just so you know, the gentlemen of National Security were very interested in what I had to show them yesterday. The passport is, however, a fake.’

‘So Borgar must have bought it for some reason. In case he needed to make a quiet exit, maybe?’

‘Who knows? Anyhow, it’s a fake, but a very good one of the kind that when it was made eight or nine years ago would have cost a lot of money. They doubt it would pass inspection now. Airport checks are so much more rigorous and he probably wouldn’t have got far with it, although it’s not easy to say if it would be a problem somewhere further south in Europe with a fifty-euro note tucked between the pages. There’s no Turkish embassy here, so the unit is in touch with their Oslo embassy. If anything more surfaces, I’m sure they’ll let us know.’

‘So Borgar could have left the country as himself, gone to Rome or somewhere, and travelled on from there under another identity?’ Gunna speculated.

‘Quite. But the bankbook is very real and the figures in it are euros, so there’s a respectable amount of money there, the deposits all made over six years or so, and the last one just a few months before Borgar was convicted. There were no withdrawals,’ he added.

Gunna sat back and looked at the ceiling for a moment. ‘I’m sure he was going to vanish,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s not as if he had all that much to keep him here. So,’ she said, ‘I owe the gentlemen of National Security a favour, do I?’

‘Let’s say that I do. But if they decide you owe them a favour as well, then I’m sure they’ll let you know soon enough.’

It was a journey he wasn’t looking forward to and he spent half an hour longer than he had meant to sitting moodily in Rúna’s kitchen. His big sister talked about grandchildren without apparently being concerned as to whether or not he was listening. Helgi left Rúna’s house with a promise to drop by later, by which time his brother-in-law would be home, and drove slowly through Blönduós past the petrol station where he had spoken to Mæja. He wondered how she would cope with Reynir being so suddenly removed from her life, probably for five or six years assuming he were to behave himself in Litla-Hraun. Maybe Mæja and Hjörtur would rekindle their relationship with Reynir off the scene, but Helgi thought it more likely that she would find a replacement soon enough.

Turning off the main road and out towards the long coastline where farms were dotted between the highlands and the sea, he thought to himself what a peaceful childhood it had been where a car passed no more than half a dozen times a day and he had been on horseback or driving the tractor at an age when city boys were riding bicycles. Where he had grown up at Hraunbær and where his father had tended sheep and a few cows was a less prosperous farm. On higher ground on the valley slopes, the winters were colder than on a good farm like Tunga close to the shore where there had once been driftwood and seals to be had in the spring, as well as the wild salmon that could be discreetly caught in nets and which visiting city dwellers these days would pay a fortune just for the sight of.

He could see the turning for Tunga in the distance and slowed down long before he reached it. A knot of ponies in a field watched him as he stopped by the sign to the farm and got out to walk over to the fence where a piebald mare stood with her head over the wire. He scratched her ears while behind her the rest of them stood warily watching this strange man who got out of his car to talk to horses by the side of the road.

The Daihatsu bumped down the track to Tunga and the same dog barked at him as he rolled into the yard. The old lady’s face appeared at the window and a moment later the door opened.

‘Hæ,’ Helgi greeted her as he got slowly out of the Daihatsu and walked towards her.

‘The boys aren’t here,’ she said shortly, her face strained. ‘Össur and Ingi are down at the long barn, though I don’t know how pleased they’ll be to see you.’

‘I have to speak to them,’ he said simply.

‘Be it on your own head, Helgi,’ she said, looking past him as Ingi’s van drove into the yard and stopped by the farmhouse door. The old lady watched with her arms folded just as Reynir had done in the interview room.

‘You’ve a nerve, showing up here,’ Össur said shortly and walked straight past him, kicking his boots off at the door and disappearing inside. Ingi got slowly out of the van and stretched his legs.

‘Helgi. What’s the news?’

‘Not great.’

‘Come inside.’

‘Your mother and Össur aren’t exactly going to welcome me with open arms, are they?’

Ingi spat into a puddle. ‘Ach. Össur’s Össur. We all know what he’s like. The old lady doesn’t like it but she knows you don’t have a choice. When are you taking Reynir south?’

In the kitchen Ingi folded his arms over his broad chest and leaned against the stove while the old lady sat at the table and lit a cigarette, waiting for Helgi to say something.

‘We’ll be going south this evening,’ he said finally and the old lady nodded in reply.

‘That bastard deserved everything he got,’ she said finally. ‘It’s a scandal that he took away Kjartan’s boy like that and they just let him out after a couple of years. He should have been in prison for life. An eye for an eye,’ she said in a bleak, harsh voice. ‘That’s what the book says.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ Helgi said as the clock ticked accusingly on its high shelf over the door. ‘But I don’t make up the rules.’

‘You should never have gone to live down there, Helgi. You used to be one of us when you lived here. You’re not any more.’

‘You know as well as I do that I couldn’t stay here, and what was there to stay for?’

The old lady coughed and ground out her cigarette in a saucer. ‘I don’t know, Helgi. But you’re not the man your father expected you to be,’ she said, getting to her feet with some effort. ‘I’ll pack a bag for Reynir and Ingi can take it with him into Blönduós.’

Helgi drove faster this time and Ingi followed him in his van. It was getting dark already and he was not looking forward to the long drive south with Reynir and probably Arnar in the back of the Daihatsu. The street lights were already on as they drove into Blönduós, shining on a film of black water. Clouds had collected over the distant mountains and Helgi could almost smell snow in the air as he wondered whether to postpone travelling south until the morning. The previous night’s escapade and Anna Björg’s good-humoured dismissal of his concern had made him increasingly anxious to get home, but at the same time he wanted to be cautious.

‘It’s a while since I’ve been in here,’ Ingi said, Reynir’s bag on his shoulder as he slammed the van’s door in the car park.

‘You didn’t learn to run away as fast as I did,’ Helgi said.

‘Nope. I was always the idiot who stood his ground and didn’t know when to stop. Listen, before we go inside. .’

Helgi turned and saw that Ingi’s face was lined with concern.

‘What is it? Look, Reynir will be fine. He’s as tough as they come.’

‘I don’t blame you in the least. You had a job to do, and, well, you’ve done it.’

‘Thanks. I don’t expect that Kjartan or Össur or your mum will see it like that.’

‘Mum and Össur, of course they won’t. They’ve hardly ever been further than Blönduós or the Hook. You can’t expect them to.’ He took a deep breath and shifted the bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘The thing is. .’

‘Helgi!’

He turned round to see Anna Björg coming down the steps and striding towards him.

‘Excuse me, Ingi. I’ll be right with you.’

‘We have a problem here,’ she muttered, her eyes flicking to Ingi as he went up the steps into the police station, the bag on his shoulder weighing heavy. ‘I know Reynir has admitted to the murder, but Mæja has confirmed his alibi and it’s convincing.’

‘But Hjörtur wasn’t doing a shift that night. Wasn’t that the problem?’

‘It was. He wasn’t at work. He went to Akureyri and stayed there overnight to have a minor operation on Monday morning. The offending toenail’s been dealt with and he came back on Monday. The man wasn’t at home on Sunday and there’s no reason to doubt Reynir’s alibi. He couldn’t have murdered Borgar within the time frame we have and still have been tucked up in Hjörtur’s bed with Mæja. Give me an hour or two and I can probably find some nosey neighbour who saw Reynir sneaking in through Mæja’s back door.’

‘You’re certain?’ Helgi scowled and swore furiously. ‘But all the evidence points to him. Not just the cracked alibi. There’s the footage, the fingerprints,’ he said in exasperation as a new idea dawned on him. ‘Oh, no. Please, no,’ he said as his heart sank, his eyes on the door leading into the County Sheriff’s offices and the police station inside.

‘The thing is, what?’

‘You’ve got the wrong man.’

Helgi took a step towards him. ‘What?’

‘Reynir’s not your man. He was screwing Hjörtur’s missus all weekend as usual. I went to Reykjavík in that before he came back from Blönduós on Sunday morning,’ he said in a flat voice, pointing at Reynir’s Land Cruiser where it had been parked behind the police station ready to be examined.

‘Ingi, you’re not talking sense here.’

‘That’s the way it was. I had a talk with Árni Geir this afternoon. .’

‘The lawyer?’

‘Yep. He came out to the farm and told us that Reynir had been charged. Look, Helgi, normally Reynir would meet Elmar somewhere between here and the tarmac on a Friday or a Saturday. On Saturday the boy wanted to go to some party, so I said I’d go south in Reynir’s truck and do his deliveries as Reynir doesn’t much like going south of the tunnel. I did the deliveries to the clubs and then I went out to Hafnarfjördur. Elmar had told me Borgar was at his old unit and there he was. I hit him once in the face with my hand and once with a length of pipe that Reynir had in the back of the Land Cruiser. Like a fool, I threw it in a corner instead of taking it with me.’

Helgi stared. ‘Ingi. .’

‘You’ll find my prints all over the Land Cruiser. You won’t find them on the pipe or in Borgar’s unit. I wore gloves while I was there and you’ll find the gloves in the back of the car with the rest of Reynir’s junk.’

‘Ingi, why? Come on, you’re not serious.’

Ingi shrugged. ‘It was always going to be one of us. You know we’ve always helped each other out. Nobody messes with the Tunga people.’

‘But Reynir confessed. He admitted he’d murdered Borgar. Why are you telling me this?’

‘Ach. It just seems like the right thing, y’know?’ he said as Helgi fought back an urge to grab the front of Ingi’s coat and shake him. ‘I guess Reynir must have twigged that it was me and he’d rather do the time than see me inside.’

‘But why?’

‘This isn’t on the record or anything, is it, Helgi? This is between us, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Reynir feels he owes me. You remember that time I came out to stay with you at Hraunbær when Kjartan and Reynir turned up on a bender with that old drunk who disappeared?’

‘Go on. .’ Helgi said, his blood beginning to run cold.

‘It was Reynir who found the man. He’d set fire to the barn, splashed Dad’s moonshine everywhere and lit it. Luckily Reynir caught it just in time to be able to get a hose on it and put the fire out before it reached the hay. But that old guy. .’

‘Bassi. That was his name.’

‘That’s right. Bassi. He was already dead. He hadn’t sobered up and I guess the smoke killed him. Reynir was a wreck and he’s been a bag of nerves ever since. That’s how Reynir got to be the way he is.’

‘All right. So what does Reynir owe you that he’d do a prison term for you?’

Ingi shook his head and spread his palms wide. ‘He doesn’t, but he doesn’t see it like that. Dad and I put Bassi over the back of a horse and buried him down at the bottom of the north pasture. That’s where he is.’

Helgi wanted to hold his head in his hands. ‘Ingi, it’s not too late. Reynir has made a confession and it’ll stick. You don’t have to go down this road,’ he said desperately.

‘Ach, hell. A good lawyer will screw up your case against Reynir and you know it,’ he said with a wintry smile. ‘Come on, do your stuff and I’ll come quietly.’

‘But why, Ingi? If you’re certain, we’ll go inside and I’ll arrest you.’ Helgi shook his head in despair. ‘But it goes against the grain. Just tell me why you did it?’

Because if I hadn’t, then Kjartan would have killed the man.’

‘You did this to keep Kjartan out of trouble?’

Ingi nodded. ‘That’s about it. Kjartan’s had enough anguish already and he doesn’t need to have his life screwed up any more. So I did it. Mind you,’ he said with a short, humourless laugh, ‘that bastard Borgar deserved it.’

Content

Quentin Bates
Winterlude

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday