Cold Comfort (14 page)

“So who wants what?” Helgi asked.

“We might be best taking some of them in pairs, I reckon,” Gunna decided. “Eiríkur, can you chase up the phone records and suchlike? I can continue to be brutal with Hallur as I’ve already had two goes at the slimy bastard and he’s not as squeaky clean as he wants me to think. Helgi can come with me to see Bjartmar, Bjarki and old Jónas. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Helgi said, rattling his mug on the table. “You know you get a free refill here, don’t you?”

K
LEIFAR’S OFFICES OCCUPIED
half the ground floor of a squat old building with little to indicate that it housed a successful export company with a subsidiary in Portugal. It was a stone’s throw from what Gunna still thought of as the old Morgunbladid building overlooking the open space of Ingólfstorg with its skateboard rink that fizzed with life during the long summer days. But on a chill winter’s afternoon the square and the empty restaurants surrounding it exuded a forlorn air, with only a handful of hiking-booted tourists to be seen, going from one shop window to another huddled into their thick parkas, tutting over the prices of Icelandic woollen sweaters.

Kleifar’s outer office was pleasantly warm, and a secretary with an air of discipline about her looked up as Gunna entered with Helgi behind her.

“Can I help you?” she asked, head back and eyes heavylidded. She took off a pair of black-rimmed glasses and let them fall to hang on a chain around her neck.

“We’re here to speak to Jónas Valur Hjaltason. Is he in?” Gunna said, trying to sound friendly in the face of this clearly unfriendly woman.

“I’m afraid Jónas Valur has a busy schedule and is occupied in a meeting all afternoon. Could I ask who you are?”

“Police,” Gunna replied. “His name has been mentioned in connection with an investigation and we need to go over a few points with him.”

“Can I ask what it concerns?” the woman asked in a razor voice. “I handle all of Jónas Valur’s appointments.”

Gunna was aware that Helgi was showing a great deal of interest in the antique maps hung on the walls of the office, standing with hands behind his back and bending forward to peer at the faded gothic lettering of some place names.

“I’m afraid that I can’t tell you. But I assure you it’s a serious matter and it’s important that we speak to him.”

“And I’m afraid he’s not available.”

“His car’s outside,” Gunna pointed out, reasoning that the Mercedes with the personalized number had to be his. “So I assume he’s here.”

The woman’s face remained a mask. “Jónas Valur sees people by appointment only.”

“People like Svana Geirs?” Gunna asked in the sweetest voice she could manage.

The woman’s eyes bulged for a fraction of a second.

“Wait,” she ordered, and disappeared through a door behind her. Helgi stood behind Gunna, lifted himself on tiptoe and leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

“You’re going to get in trouble again,” he half sang, stepping back and exhibiting an innocent smile by the time she had turned round to frown at him. She burst into a grin just as an animated but muffled conversation could be heard through the panelling of the wall.

“I’ll say it was you,” she decided.

“And I’ll say you told me to,” Helgi responded, smothering his crooked smile as the secretary slipped in through the door, as if she had wheels instead of feet.

“Jónas Valur will see you shortly, if you’d like to wait.”

Gunna could almost imagine icicles cracking and falling from her voice. The woman indicated an uncomfortablelooking sofa against the far wall, the cracked leather of its ancient covering not designed to encourage waiting.

“We’ll stand, thanks. I’m sure he won’t be long.”

I
N CONTRAST TO
Jónas Valur Hjaltason’s smooth confidence, Bjarki Steinsson blinked like a small animal caught in the beam of a headlight. He hardly looked like a high-flying accountant, dressed in faded jeans and a polo shirt embroidered with a discreet logo that quietly proclaimed the name of the company he worked for and ostensibly owned a substantial share of.

“You’re here about Svana?” he asked before Helgi even had the opportunity to open his mouth, and Gunna guessed that Jónas Valur had passed on a warning, probably before they had even left Kleifar for the five-minute drive to where Bjarki Steinsson’s company occupied a floor of one of the Shadow District’s newer office blocks.

Gunna clicked the door shut behind them. While this stopped any sound escaping from the man’s office, she noticed that a pair of eyes at every desk was keeping tabs on the two strangers talking to the boss. This time Helgi would ask the questions while Gunna watched and listened.

“We are investigating the murder of Svanhildur Mjöll Sigurgeirsdóttir,” Helgi confirmed portentously.

“So it was definitely murder?” Bjarki asked, eyes wide, brimming with a sadness he could not conceal.

“Without a doubt.”

“She didn’t just, er, fall or something?”

“Absolutely not. Can you tell me where you were on Thursday afternoon last week?”

Bjarki Steinsson sat down heavily while Helgi kept him fixed in the headlight beam. “I couldn’t tell you offhand. Here, probably. I can ask my secretary to check the diary if you like.”

“I’ll ask myself. Of course I’ll need to have confirmation of where you were at that time. Now,” Helgi said, sitting down without being invited to do so, “your relationship with Svana Geirs. Tell me about it.”

Gunna stood by the door and listened, hands behind her back, concentrating on watching Bjarki Steinsson’s face as he responded to Helgi’s questions. As far as she could make out, the man was genuinely distressed, with beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“What do you need to know?” he asked quickly.

Helgi sat back as if he had the whole day and the evening stretching ahead of him. “Let’s just say I need to know everything?”

Bjarki Steinsson slumped as if deflated. “All right. Svana and I had a relationship that went back two, three years. Something like that. I don’t recall precisely. We used to meet occasionally.”

“How often?”

“Sometimes we wouldn’t meet for a month. Sometimes we might see each other several times in a week.”

“And what did you do?”

“What did we do?” he asked blankly. “How do you mean?”

Helgi sighed. “Surely I don’t have to spell it out for you? Did you go out? Hold hands? Screw?”

The sudden coarseness jolted Bjarki Steinsson and his eyes bulged.

“Our relationship was a physical one,” he said finally, as if overcoming a painful barrier. “Look, how far is this going to go? I have a wife …”

“This is just an informal talk, nothing more,” Helgi assured him, and paused. “For the moment, that is.”

“Which means what?”

“It means that if I have reason to believe you’re concealing something that has a bearing on Svanhildur Mjöll’s death, then we’d need to make this more formal.”

“I see,” he replied and was silent.

Gunna rocked imperceptibly on her heels, watching the man in distress behind his vast granite desk, and at the same time watching his staff in the open-plan office outside at their chipboard workstations, trying not to stare too obtrusively.

“I, er,” he began, and coughed. “I take it you’ve spoken to the others already and you know about the, er, arrangement?”

“Let’s pretend I don’t, shall we?” Helgi said softly.

Bjarki Steinsson looked down at the floor under his desk and Gunna imagined him as a small boy caught with a pocketful of purloined sweets.

“A group of us. We, er, shared Svana’s time. She acted as an escort to us all in turn, by prior arrangement. In return for a financial consideration,” he said bleakly.

“Ah. There is a word for this, and I presume you’re aware the law is also quite clear on this kind of activity?”

He nodded without raising his head. “Yes. I know. Look, officer. Nobody was hurt or harmed or did anything they were unwilling to do or was in any way coerced or forced. Everything in this arrangement was entirely consensual and amicable.”

“I can see that. But Svanhildur Mjöll was selling her company, which included sexual services. An offence has been committed by each of the participants. As I said, there is a less pleasant word for this kind of arrangement.”

A tiny spark of anger could be seen deep behind Bjarki Steinsson’s eyes.

“Officer, have you any clue what a loveless marriage is like?” he asked bitterly. “My wife … My wife and I have had nothing to say to each other for years. We live in the same house. A divorce would be a disaster financially, and for her it would be deeply uncomfortable in social terms. The circles she moves in …” He sighed. “Listen. We know and trust each other to that extent. I earn a considerable amount. My wife has a comfortable position based on that income. We each respect that the other has a private life. Understand?”

“An open marriage, sort of thing?”

“If you want to put it like that.”

“And have you made a habit of procuring services of this kind?”

“If you’re going to be offensive, I’d prefer it if this interview was recorded so that I have grounds for complaint,” the accountant snapped.

“I’d prefer it if you would just answer the bloody question,” Helgi replied with a new harsh note in his voice.

“Not … not recently.”

“During your relationship with Svanhildur Mjöll?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why ‘of course not’?”

“That was the agreement. No other partners, spouses excluded.”

“Do you think the others kept to this agreement?”

Bjarki Steinsson shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not something we discussed. Possibly not.”

Helgi seemed satisfied with the answer and Gunna saw an air of defeat in the man’s reply.

“Now,” Helgi said. “When did you last see Svanhildur Mjöll?”

“On Thursday,” he whispered. “In the morning.”

D
IDDI SAT CRUMPLED
between his lawyer, a young woman with a plump, friendly face, and a social worker huddled in a denim jacket.

“All right, Diddi? How are you?” Gunna asked, taking a seat opposite him.

“I’m OK,” Diddi replied, a dazed expression on his round face.

“You’re aware that everything is recorded in here and anything you say could be used in evidence in court?”

“I’d like to make it plain,” the plump young woman began, “I’d like to state, that my client has a history of mental illness.”

“Actually, I know Diddi of old.” Gunna smiled. “Isn’t that right, Diddi?”

“Yeah, Gunna.”

“So, for the record, you’re Kristbjörn Hrafnsson, you’re thirty-four years old and you’re on invalidity benefit. Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“Now, Diddi. Would you like to tell me about what happened to your face?”

The lawyer frowned but said nothing.

“I fell over,” Diddi said finally.

“If you say so. But how did you manage to fall over on both sides of your face at the same time?”

“Is this relevant?” the lawyer asked.

“If it wasn’t relevant, I wouldn’t be asking,” Gunna answered, glaring at her. “All right, Diddi. Your dad brought you into the station on Monday night. The branch of Kaupthing in Grafarvogur was robbed by a man with a knife that morning. Now, Diddi, it was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fine. I just wanted you to confirm it, because there’s no doubt that it was you. You understand that?”

“Yeah,” Diddi answered. He appeared to be close to tears.

“What I really want to know is where you went after the robbery. How did you get back to town? You don’t drive and I’m sure you didn’t catch a bus, did you?”

Diddi sitting in silence, staring at the floor, reminded Gunna immediately of Bjarki Steinsson looking guiltily at the floor of his own office that afternoon.

“Come on, Diddi. You have to tell me, like you said you would. The truth, remember?”

“Promised I wouldn’t.”

“Who did you promise you wouldn’t tell? Was it Long Ommi?”

“No!’ Diddi squeaked. “No. I haven’t seen Ommi. It wasn’t Ommi!”

“Diddi, we’ve known each other for a long time. You remember how long? You remember when I hauled you out of the bus station that time those boys set fire to your coat? Remember that?”

Diddi nodded.

“And you remember when all that money was stolen from the kiosk on Sólgata? That wasn’t you, was it? But those guys said it was and I didn’t believe them. Remember that?”

Diddi nodded again, while the lawyer knitted her plucked eyebrows and pretended to understand what was happening. The social worker glanced at his watch.

“Now, Diddi, my friend,” Gunna said softly. “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me the truth?”

This time his features crumpled and tears flowed down his cheeks as he howled as if in pain, turning to the social worker with an imploring look on his face. Gunna sat impassively and looked over at Diddi as the volume of his howls increased.

“Can we stop? Please?” the social worker demanded. “He’s distressed enough as it is.”

Gunna nodded without taking her eyes off Diddi, who stared right back through his wails of anguish.

“Interview suspended,” she said sharply, and immediately the volume from Diddi went down a notch. “Eiríkur, would you get Diddi some water.”

“Can I have a word, outside?” the young lawyer asked.

The top of the lawyer’s head came roughly up to Gunna’s shoulder.

“What are you doing in there?” she demanded with a pugnacious curl of her lower lip.

“I don’t know about what you might think, but what I have here is a pretty watertight case, what with witnesses, CCTV and all that. No weapon or cash, but we don’t even need that. Why? What’s your problem?”

“You’ll never get a conviction, never.”

“Really? You’d better tell my colleague Sævaldur that.”

“Come on. Look at the man. There’s a history of mental health problems going back years. We’ll plead diminished responsibility and he’ll be off. So why are you pushing him so hard?”

Gunna looked down into the young woman’s earnest face and wondered if she had graduated yesterday or the day before.

“Look, Valbjörg,” she said, and a look of surprise shot into the woman’s eyes as she realized Gunna had remembered her name. “I know Diddi of old and he’s had an absolutely miserable time since the day he was born. D’you really think I want to see him banged up in Litla-Hraun? Even with a GBH charge he’ll probably get a suspended sentence at worst, and that’s fine with me.”