Cold Comfort (18 page)

Jón sighed. “Sorry, love. I’d rather have the cash. I’m a bit short as well right now.”

“But I don’t have fifteen thousand.”

“I really don’t want to take those taps off again.”

“God! No! Don’t do that! Five, and I’ll blow you off?” she suggested with a weak smile.

“What’s your name again?”

“Elín Harpa.”

“Are you on your own?”

“Yeah. Guys don’t hang around me for long,” she said with resignation.

“Bloody hell. You shouldn’t have to offer plumbers blow jobs, darling. Tell you what,” Jón said firmly. “Make it five and I’ll pop back next week for the other ten.”

D
ROPS OF WATER
glittered on the man’s beard and spiky iron-grey crewcut hair. He concentrated as he tied a spoon to the end of his line, gave it a quick tug to check the knot and looked at Helgi with one eye closed in a quizzical half-wink.

“What brings you out here, then, Helgi? How’s business at the old firm?” The retired chief inspector cast his line and listened to it spin off the reel with a satisfying hum. It hit the surface of the lake with scarcely a sound, but sent out a widening ring of ripples that died before they came close to the strip of black rock and sand that separated water and deep turf.

“Biting, are they?”

“There’s a big feller in there. I’ve seen him before, but he’s too smart to take a hook. You know I don’t come up here to fish. I’m here to get out from under the old woman’s feet for an hour or two. If she wants fish for dinner, I’ll buy a couple of haddock fillets on the way home.”

“You might get lucky one day.” Helgi shivered. He wasn’t prepared for the damp that the mist deposited on him, and wasn’t dressed for outdoors.

“You remember Ómar Magnússon? Long Ommi?”

“How could anyone forget an evil bastard like that one? Why? Is he bothering you?”

“Don’t watch the news, do you, Thorfinnur? He escaped from Kvíabryggja. We’ve got him back now, but there’s something shady to all this that we haven’t figured out.”

Thorfinnur nodded sagely, his eyes on the line as he gently reeled it in.

“There’s plenty going on,” Helgi continued. “He’s implicated with another murder, a couple of beatings and a bank job. Now the chief has the idea that Ommi was sitting out his stretch for someone else.”

“He’s been a busy boy. Go on.”

“You were on the case. One of your last, wasn’t it? I’m wondering if you recall anything that might cast light on all this?”

Thorfinnur Markússon watched his hook emerge, reeled it in and cast again before he replied, his eyes fixed on the point where the spoon had sliced into the water.

“It was all pretty straightforward, as I remember it, like most murders. Two drunks had an argument, took it outside and it went too far. All the witnesses corroborated each other’s statements, more or less, so it was just a case of finding the bastard, which was something we had you to thank for, wasn’t it, Helgi?”

“Yup, stumbled across him pretty much by accident.”

“Makes no difference,” Thorfinnur Markússon rumbled. “You got the bastard and brought him in. So why are you here? What is it you want to know?”

“One of the witnesses, Sindri Valsson. D’you remember him?”

“Vaguely. A young chap, wasn’t he?”

“Same age as the deceased, more or less. Very well connected, and with a rich dad. But he had a record.”

“For what?”

“Mostly assault, but nothing recent. There are a good few arrests on his sheet for fisticuffs of one kind or another. It seems the man has something of a short fuse.”

“And you think we got it wrong and he might be the real killer?”

“I don’t know,” Helgi admitted. “The chief thinks so, although she hasn’t said so outright.”

“What’s this chick like, then? Good grief, serving under a woman would have been unthinkable in my day.”

“She’s tough and she gets results,” Helgi said. “There was a scandal a good few years ago when she arrested a city councillor for drunk driving. The bloke got a bit shirty so she cuffed him, had a look in his car and found a couple of wraps of coke.”

“Oh, her!” Thorfinnur Markússon whooped. “I remember that! No end of a fuss. Normally that sort of thing could have been sorted out quietly, but she wouldn’t have it. I can’t remember the man’s name, but that was the end of politics for him.”

“That must have been a good fifteen years ago. Before I joined the force.”

“It was impressive,” Thorfinnur Markússon said. “She was as stubborn as a mule on that one, said that the man had been abusive and she wouldn’t back down. Rumour has it he called her an ugly fat bitch and said he’d have her up in front of a tribunal if she didn’t back off. So what’s she like to work for? Is she an ugly fat bitch?”

“She’s fine,” Helgi said. “Very straight, no hide-and-seek office politics. Just likes to get things done.”

The hook again appeared from the water, and this time Thorfinnur laid the rod down on the bank and lit a cigarette. The mist seemed to Helgi to be thickening, and the scrubby trees at the top of the slope on the far side of the lake had dissolved into the grey shroud that surrounded them and muffled their voices.

“How about … ?” Thorfinnur asked, miming an hourglass figure with his hands and grinning.

“She’s a big girl. Plenty up front. I’d bet she’s a bundle of fun in the sack.”

“A word to the wise, Helgi. Keep work and play separate. Even if she has a shirtful of goodies that could keep you happy every night of the week, it’s not worth it.”

Helgi felt distinctly uncomfortable and shuffled his feet, while Thorfinnur Markússon grinned broadly, sensing his embarrassment. “Lay off it, will you? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Anyone’d think you had a crush on her, Helgi,” he teased.

“Yeah, right. I’m on marriage number two as it is, so I definitely need shenanigans in that department like a hole in the head,” he snorted. “About this Sindri Valsson. Anything you recall?”

The retired chief inspector blew out smoke from his nose and thought for a moment before shaking his head.

“Nothing that springs to mind. I remember him vaguely: young chap, and arrogant with it. Now that you come to mention it, everything tied up very neatly, open and shut. Long Ommi confessed as nice as pie after you brought him in. But this Sindri, well, I suppose we must have interviewed and taken statements from several dozen people altogether, and I can’t say that he stood out particularly.”

“How about the singer?”

“You mean the one who was in the band there that night? Who’d forget that! Tits like ripe peaches and legs up to here, gorgeous. It’s just a shame the poor girl was so dim,” Thorfinnur said, tapping one temple with a gloved finger. “Like they say, nice bodywork, shame about the electrics. But, here! Isn’t she the one who was done in?”

Helgi nodded. “That’s her all right.”

“Any connection there?” Thorfinnur Markússon asked sharply.

“No idea. It’s starting to look that way, but nothing you could pin down. Gunna’ll get to the root of it. Look, I’d better be on my way. Good to see you again, Chief. I’ll pop by again in a day or two and see if you’ve remembered anything more.”

“You do that, Helgi. Good to see a face from the past now and again,” the older man said gruffly, picking up his rod and casting once more. He reeled the hook in slowly this time, his mind elsewhere as he heard Helgi’s car start up and drive away. Far out on the water, ripples formed around the line and he felt a tug.

“Yah! A shame the lad didn’t see that,” he crowed, reeling the line in until it went slack.

“Blast!”

He reeled in the rest of the line and laid the rod down before pulling a phone from his coat pocket. He dialled a number that wasn’t in the phone’s memory and waited for the voicemail announcement.

“Hæ, it’s your old friend. Listen. Mention to your boy that questions are being asked, all right?”

Friday 19th

I
T WAS LATE
morning and it was Helgi’s interview. He was relaxed behind the desk while Long Ommi sat slouched in a chair opposite him. Ommi’s lawyer, a middle-aged man with thick glasses and a bored manner, sat uncomfortably next to his client leafing through a sheaf of documents. Gunna felt she had been right to wear uniform for a change, deciding that it lent an air of formality to the proceedings and contrasted with Helgi’s habitually baggy brown clothes. She sat back behind Helgi and admired a tapestry hung on the wall. The interview room was much airier and lighter than anyone would have imagined, with comfortable chairs and walls hung with pictures dotted about.

Helgi turned to the computer on his side of the desk and inserted a blank disk.

“You know the procedure well enough, don’t you, Ommi?”

“Yeah. Been here before once or twice.”

Helgi pointed a finger upwards at a microphone hanging above the desk and the opaque dome of a surveillance camera in one corner. “You’re aware that everything that happens in this room is recorded?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Ommi settled himself deeper in the chair and thrust his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He folded his arms, displaying lurid tattoos peeking from the sleeves of his shirt.

“All right. We’re ready to roll. Present are suspect Ómar Magnússon and legal representative Karl Einar Bjarnason, police officers Helgi Svavarsson and Gunnhildur Gísladóttir,” Helgi said formally for the benefit of the recording. “Agreed?”

The lawyer nodded without looking up from his papers.

“Right, Ommi, it’s been a while. How have you been keeping?” Helgi asked in a friendly tone.

“Not bad, until I saw your ugly mug in front of me,” Ommi responded.

“You absconded from Kvíabryggja prison on the eighteenth of last month and set a record for being on the run. How about telling me what you’ve been up to in the meantime?”

The lawyer rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and Ommi bridled. “I’ve been keeping to myself. Having some fun with Selma. Y’know.”

“And the man in the garage with you? What’s your relationship with him?”

“Dunno. He just turned up.”

Helgi smiled. “As it happens, we had been watching you for a couple of days. Considering you spent the best part of a week in the man’s company, you must have spoken to him once or twice.”

“He’s just a mate,” Ommi retorted.

“Don’t play the fool. Addi the Pill’s up to his ears in Ecstasy, and don’t try and tell me that you didn’t know.”

Ommi shrugged. “I thought there was something dodgy about him. I’d have called the police if I’d known.”

“What were the two of you doing in Selfoss? Or was that just a little drive in the country?”

“Selfoss? Never been there.”

“We have definite evidence that you were there last week with Addi. What were you up to?”

“Sorry, mate. You must have made a mistake.”

“What made you want to run off from Kvíabryggja?” Helgi asked cheerfully. “A year to go of your stretch in a comfortable open prison. Breakfast in bed, conjugal visits, everything a man could ask for. Come on, Ommi. There has to be a good reason.”

For the first time some anger showed in a flush that suffused Ommi’s face. “Mind your own business.”

“This is my business.” Helgi leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms to mirror Ommi, who immediately uncrossed his arms and leaned forward.

“Look, I just wanted a break, man. Been in there for too long and I felt like a break. That’s it.”

“I don’t believe you. Someone like you doesn’t do that. You had less than a year to go, now you’ll get a good bit more and you’ll be back in Litla-Hraun instead of comfy old Kvíabryggja.”

The lawyer coughed. “Er, I ought to point out that you should not be threatening my client.”

“Threatening?” Helgi asked.

“Yes, you intimated that he would receive an extended sentence. Nothing has been proved.”

Helgi shook his head.

“Keflavík. A week ago. What were you doing there?” Gunna broke in.

“Keflavík? Haven’t been near it.”

“If you can’t account for your movements, we’ll have to assume that you were there. There’s witness evidence to support it.”

Helgi glanced to one side at Gunna, his face one big question, and Ommi grimaced.

“D’you want me to check my fucking diary?” he sneered.

“Please do. I’d love to know how Óskar Óskarsson wound up in hospital with a broken jaw, missing a few teeth, and with four broken ribs, broken fingers, bruises everywhere. Care to elaborate?”

“Nothing to do with me, but I guess he had it coming.” Ommi grinned.

“Explain, please, Ómar,” Gunna said quietly.

“Well, Skari’s always been a twat. He’s always winding up the wrong people. Sooner or later someone gives him a good smacking. It’s not the first time.”

“And by coincidence, someone looking remarkably like you happened to be there that very day. There are broken bones here and GBH is a serious matter. You could be looking at a good few years on top of what you’ve already got left.”

“Fucking hell, come on, man, call her off, will you?” Ommi appealed to his lawyer, who spoke with a voice as smooth as milk.

“I have to agree with my client. This appears to be an unrelated matter and therefore I would ask that you confine your enquiries to the case in hand.”

“I assure you that this is very relevant to the case,” Gunna replied. “But we can come back to it. Helgi, would you continue?”

Helgi sat back and knitted his fingers together over his paunch. “Tell me about Svanhildur Mjöll Sigurgeirsdóttir.”

“Who?” Ommi asked. “No idea.”

“Svana Geirs.”

“Svana?”

“When did you last see or speak to her?”

Ommi frowned and glared at Helgi. “Years ago, man. Years ago. We had a bit of a thing going back in the nineties. Ancient history.”

“All right. Tell me about your relationship with Svana.”

Ommi whistled. “That’s so long ago. Like I said, we got together for a while, had some fun.”

“All right, where did you meet, and when was this?”

“In some club, I guess. When, hell, I don’t know. Ninetysix, something like that. Before she started to get popular. Anyway, what’s all this about Svana?” he demanded. “What d’you want to know for?”