Cold Comfort (12 page)

Björgvin grimaced. “He’s as sharp as a knife, I’ll give him that. He’s been up to his eyeballs in all kinds of dirty tricks but has always kept himself at enough of a distance to avoid too much investigation, let alone any kind of a case to be built against him.”

“All right. Background?”

“Unusually for the crimes we investigate here, he’s not a lawyer or a banker. He was a wheeler-dealer of some kind for a few years and the drug squad took an occasional interest in him, but nothing concrete. He owned part of a place called Blacklights at the end of the nineties.”

“I remember it well,” Gunna said grimly.

“Bjartmar was doing all right for himself, but things really took off when his dad died. Our boy inherited a boat in the Westmann Islands with a few hundred tonnes of cod quota. He promptly sold the lot and became straight virtually overnight. You remember when the banks were privatized?”

“Around 2000?”

“That’s it. Suddenly everything changed. They started lending stupid amounts to homeowners. Bjartmar saw what was happening and put all his fish money into property, bought up land and houses all over the city. Within a year, property prices had gone through the roof. He bought and sold dozens of properties and made an absolute killing. That’s when he became respectable.”

“And started wearing a suit?”

“That’s it. Got himself a trophy wife at the same time and started making even more money when he set up a property agency. You must know it, Landex? They advertise all the time, or used to. Business must have taken a hit recently, but I’m sure he has a good bit salted away somewhere. We know he has significant deposits overseas, as Landex had been expanding into Mediterranean property as well. The Spanish operation is called Sandex. Right on the beach.” Björgvin squeezed the empty cup until it crackled and dropped it into a bin by the water cooler.

“So how respectable is Bjartmar? Is he all legal these days?”

“It’s hard to tell. I doubt it. But he’s not involved with any of the banks or the financial institutions in a serious way and he’s nowhere near the top of our list of priorities. He can be confident that Economic Crime won’t be knocking on his door for a few years yet, unless it’s linked to laundering cash or avoiding currency controls, in which case we’d jump on him. But he’s too smart for that.”

“Well, thanks for your time,” Gunna said with a smile. “That certainly helps me out on the man’s background.”

“You’re welcome. D’you think he might have had any involvement in this fire? He wasn’t always a criminal with a briefcase, and there are stories about extracting cash with menaces from years ago. But of course, nobody’s ever been prepared to point the finger.”

“At the moment I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Björgvin nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me informed. Bjartmar is pretty ruthless. He’s cut out business partners in the past and left them high and dry. It’s amazing when you think about it that he’s not a financial genius, just a dope-dealer who got lucky,” he said with a thin smile. “Unlike the real financial whizzes, who are mostly bankrupt now.”

H
ELGI HAD THE
radio tuned to a classical station. As a young man he’d preferred prog rock, but as his hair gradually fell out, he felt the call of the old-fashioned music that his father liked to listen to in the cowshed, claiming that it helped the milk yield. Helgi had even toyed with the idea of getting his old accordion out, but the look on Halla’s face on the rare occasions he had mentioned it had been enough to make him think again. Although they got on well, the difference in their ages was a source of occasional discomfort for him.

When Halla’s forty, I’ll be past fifty, he mused, sitting in the dark and watching the house where Eygló Grímsdóttir, mother of Long Omar Magnússon’s girlfriend Selma, lived with her cherished BMW on display in the drive. The area was one of the better parts of the city’s suburbs, a quiet few rows of newish houses flanked on both sides by empty developments that were likely to stay empty now that the property market had come to a crashing halt. Halla had even taken Helgi to view one of these brand-new terraced houses and they liked both the area and the price. But with as much chance of selling their flat in a faded 1970s block as of a winning lottery ticket, there was little choice but to stay put.

Helgi reflected that if Eygló were to decide to go for a drive, his Skoda would struggle to keep up. The clock in the dashboard had stopped months ago, so he tapped the keypad of his mobile phone to light the screen and saw that the time was later than he’d thought.

Ten minutes more, then I’m going home, he decided, peering through the dark at the lights of the long living-room window. He had always been a patient man, something he had learned in his teens waiting on the moors with a shotgun cradled in his arms for migrating geese to pass within range.

He could see people moving in the living room and guessed that there were at least three present: Eygló, Selma and a third person, a man, he guessed, judging by the silhouettes. He turned down the radio and eased the window open, listening to the night and the music coming from the house. The germ of an idea came to him and he picked up his communicator from the passenger seat.

“Control, zero-two-sixty. Is there a patrol car at a loose end anywhere near Vesturmóar?”

“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Just coming up to Hamraborg. Need us for something exciting, do you?”

“Just a quick look at something. Meet me in the bus stop at the top of Vesturmóar. I’m in a green Skoda.”

“We all know what your old rattletrap looks like, Helgi. See you in a minute.”

The squad car pulled up behind him and Helgi got out to talk to the officers sitting in it, a burly youngish man and a young woman new to the force. He quickly explained what he wanted them to do and set off on foot down the slope towards the row of houses that backed on to Vesturmóar, cursing the mud at the side of the road where the new streets still had no proper pavements. When he felt he had a good view of the back of Eygló Grímsdóttir’s house, he clicked his communicator.

“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty. In position.”

“OK,” came the laconic reply.

Helgi peered through the clear night air and watched. He could see the lights of Eygló’s kitchen window and guessed where the back door was.

“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Silla’s knocking on the front door now.”

“Got you.”

“Door’s opening.”

As the words crackled into his earpiece, the back door swung open and a figure stepped out of the house and into the night.

“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty, that’s great. Stick around for ten minutes just in case, then you can wrap up.”

Helgi jogged along the road, keeping the dark figure in sight as it flitted from the glare of one street light to the next. Suddenly it disappeared, and Helgi set off down the slope, trying not to let his footfalls crunch too much on the rubble underfoot. He caught a glimpse of the bulky figure turning a corner ahead of him and realized that he would hardly be able to keep up without making more noise and risking alerting the man to his presence, when the sound of a door clicking shut stopped him in his tracks. He concentrated on the direction the sound came from and pointed himself towards it, emerging into the next street of empty houses made up of terraces of six. Every one was dark and empty, the first street of a new development.

Feeling uncomfortably conspicuous, he walked along the street as if he had a perfect right to and was simply taking a short cut. At the far end of the second set of six blank-eyed houses, a narrow ribbon of light glimmered faintly past one edge of a badly fitted garage door.

So, Ommi. That’s where you’re keeping yourself, he congratulated himself. I think you might be getting a visit in the morning.

J
ÓN STUMBLED AND
leaned against the wall. His head was swimming. He had always been a thirsty man, but his love of a good drink was something he had easily suppressed during the years when he had worked hard and had a happy home life.

That had all changed now, and he felt his thirst clawing at him more often, whispering to him that a drink would help and that the day would pass more easily with a sharpener. With no more contract work to be had, he found himself relying on word-of-mouth jobs paid in cash to keep himself in funds. Friends of friends kept his phone number pinned to a board somewhere, just in case the dishwasher developed a leak or something went wrong with the heating.

He was enjoying it in some ways. For years he had meticulously kept records and rarely did black work other than for friends. Now, with the taxman and the child support people all chasing him, he had found a pleasurable release in ignoring them all. In any case, with no home to go to any more, it would take a while before their letters started reaching him again.

Slumped against a shop front, Jón lifted the half-bottle from his pocket and spun the cap, which flew off and tinkled as it hit the pavement. He cursed briefly and decided that as the bottle now didn’t have a cap, he’d just have to drink it all.

“All right, are you?”

He turned to see a pair of police officers in uniform looking down at him.

“Yeah. I’m doing OK.”

“On your way home, are you, mate?” the youngish policewoman asked kindly, handing him the bottle cap while her older, larger, male colleague surveyed a party of revellers clattering along on the other side of the street.

Jón nodded. “Yeah. I’m going to get my head down now,” he slurred. “Far to go, is it?”

“S’just up there.”

He waved a hand vaguely uphill and tried manfully to get to his feet.

The male police officer frowned down at him, still keeping an eye on the other side of the street.

“Where do you live?” the policewoman asked, squatting on her haunches to talk to him.

“Dunno,” Jón admitted. “It’s up there, big green house in Sölvagata. Top floor. It’s my little brother’s place. He’s a poof,” he added, and then wondered why he’d said it.

“All right, mate. Look, if you can stand up and walk as far as the next corner without falling over, I haven’t seen anything. All right?” the policewoman said in the same friendly tone, extending a hand to help him up.

Tears came unbidden to Jón’s eyes and coursed silently down the red stubble on his cheeks as he pulled hard on the woman’s hand and found himself upright.

“G’bless you, darling,” he muttered, weaving from one side of the pavement to the other as he made his way uphill.

“Job done,” the policeman said appreciatively to his colleague. “And no paperwork.”

Wednesday 17th

H
ELGI’S DELIGHT COULDN’T
be concealed.

“And what are you so damn cheerful about this morning?” Gunna demanded.

“Found where Long Ommi’s hiding away.”

“Really? Well done. The sooner we can get the bastard back to the nick, the better for all of us. Spill the beans, then. How did you find him?”

Helgi beamed. “Easy. I got a patrol to knock on Eygló’s front door, asking if anyone had noticed a joyrider in a stolen car belting around the area. The back door opened as soon as the patrol rang the doorbell, and all I had to do was follow him.”

Gunna nodded appreciatively. “Nice work. So where is he?”

“You know that new district in Gardabær, just above the Smárinn sports hall? All those new houses?”

“Yup. I drive past it every day.”

“He’s in one of those. The whole place is empty, not a single one’s been sold yet and it’s like a ghost town. The place he’s camped out in is Hátúnsbraut 21 and I think he’s using the garage to live in as it doesn’t have any windows, so nobody looks in and no light gets out—or it wouldn’t if the garage door hadn’t been put in crooked.”

“What’s that?” Eiríkur asked, dropping his briefcase on to his chair and shrugging himself out of his coat.

“Our man has tracked down Long Ommi. Now we’d better go and collect him,” Gunna replied.

Helgi frowned. “I’d like to track him for a day or two, find out what he’s up to. He’s a right evil bastard and I’m positive he’s up to no good.”

“You think so?” Gunna asked sharply. “I reckon we get the uniform boys to pick him up and ship him over to a month in solitary at Litla-Hraun once we’ve asked him a few questions. Job done.”

“I don’t know,” Helgi murmured. “It doesn’t make sense, to my mind. He had less than a year of a long stretch to go, in a low-security nick where life isn’t hard. So why abscond? Why now? All right, he’s set a national record for being on the run, which is an achievement in itself. But I’m sure setting a record wasn’t what he set out to do.”

Gunna watched as her computer started up, wondering how many of the emails in her inbox could safely be deleted unread.

“Ommi’s from Hvalvík, Gunna. Didn’t you ever cross paths with him?” Helgi asked.

“He’d left Hvalvík before I went to live there. I know who his mother is, though. Nice enough lady, very strict, I always thought. Religious as well, sings in the church choir.”

“I really think we ought to watch Ommi for a day or two. I’m certain it was him who gave Skari a beating in Keflavík, and Daft Diddi, and the word is that there have been more broken noses than usual around. But I’m sure he didn’t abscond from Kvíabryggja just to settle old scores that could have kept for a few more months.”

Gunna thought quickly. The unit had more than enough to do with the murder of Svana Geirs and now the suspected arson at Bjartmar Arnarson’s house.

“We don’t have the time or manpower to keep tabs on Ommi, but Eiríkur, can you keep a watch and log who goes in and out of there tonight, and we’ll pick him up in the morning. Until then, please get on to finding out about Bjartmar’s dirty deals when you have an hour. A list of business interests and property would be handy, and his tax records.”

• • •

H
ALLUR
H
ALLBJÖRNSSON’S SMILE
of welcome was sicklier than it had been when they last met, and Gunna’s expression was grimmer. This time a dowdy and flustered researcher showed her to the rooftop office, which seemed smaller as Hallur glowered behind the desk in the corner. Today the sun was out and slanted in through the window to bring out a touch of bronze in the hair that swept unfashionably down to his earlobes.