Cold Comfort (25 page)

“Yeah. Sometimes. Here, I’ve been thinking,” he said and lapsed back into silence.

“About what?”

“Long Ommi. Svana Geirs was murdered between twelve and three in the afternoon, right?”

“As far as we’re aware. That fits in with the last call on her phone, and Miss Cruz said that body temperature indicated she’d been dead between six and three hours.”

“All right. So if she was killed at two, give or take an hour or so each way, twelve-ish at the earliest, then it would have been a bit of a rush for Ommi to get to Keflavík to give Óskar Óskarsson a hiding, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re saying he couldn’t have done both?” Gunna hazarded.

“That’s it. Óskar turned up at Casualty at six that evening, by which time it was already a couple of hours since he’d been beaten. So what do you think? Is Óskar Ommi’s alibi?”

Gunna gnawed a lip in discomfort. The idea had been at the back of her mind, but for some reason she had deliberately not thought it through.

‘I don’t know, Helgi. I really don’t know. It strikes me that he could have done both if he’d been quick off the mark, but it doesn’t look good, does it? It’s an hour’s drive, give or take ten minutes or so. Ommi could have bashed Svana’s head, run for it and been in Keflavík an hour later to administer some punishment to Óskar. It could just fit.”

“All right. So Ommi knew exactly where to find Óskar, did he? He didn’t have to search around for him?”

“It’s impossible to say until one or the other of them throws us a rope. We’d better have another go at Ommi tomorrow. Fancy a little drive in the country?”

The route to Óskar’s room at the hospital was becoming familiar. Gunna pushed open the door to see an orderly stripping the bed.

“Where’s Óskar? The man who was in this room?”

“I not know. Ask sister,” the orderly replied with a heavy accent.

In the corridor, Gunna cornered a tired-looking nurse who could only say that her shift had just started and went off to find someone more senior. Finally Gunna recognized the nurse she had spoken to the first time she had been there to interview Óskar.

“I can guess who you’re looking for, and he’s gone,” Sjöfn Stefánsdóttir said. “He discharged himself very much against doctor’s orders and left about half an hour ago.”

“Dammit, couldn’t you have told us?” Gunna exploded. “Can’t you keep people in here?”

“Actually, I left a message on your voicemail as soon as I knew what was happening,” Sjöfn replied sharply. “And no, we can’t keep people against their will unless they’re sectioned. That’s a major step and it’s not something we can do lightly; even then it’s almost exclusively done when there are mental health problems, not when someone is fed up with being harassed,” she added.

“I’m sorry. Really, I shouldn’t have gone off the deep end like that. Do you know where he’s gone?”

“No idea. But he left with his wife half an hour ago, so I don’t suppose they’ve got far yet.”

“Helgi, will you get on to the local coppers and see if they can have a look for Skari and Erla’s car? They may well be on the way out to Hvalvík,” Gunna instructed, then turned back to Sjöfn. ‘I’d like to speak to the doctor who treated Oskar when he was brought in. Is that possible?”

’I think he’s here at the moment. Come with me and I’ll see if he’s in the common room.”

They padded along corridors with Helgi behind them, muttering into his communicator. In the common room, Sjöfn gently tapped the shoulder of a tall man dozing in an armchair with his feet crossed at the ankles and resting on a low table covered with notes.

“Jónmundur,’ she said, looking down at him as he adjusted his glasses. “This lady is from the police and would like a word with you about Oskar Oskarsson.”

The doctor removed his feet from the table and put them on the floor, coughing as he did so.

“The guy who discharged himself?” he asked.

“That’s him,” Gunna said. “You treated him when he was admitted? What were his injuries?”

“Bruises to the face and upper body, certainly received during a fight of some kind. There was concussion, a broken clavicle, broken ribs and broken fingers, as well as a broken jaw and half a dozen teeth knocked out. Not something we see every day, quite a thorough beating.”

“All right, he arrived here around six in the evening, right? What I’m keen to establish is how long after the event that was? I need to establish the time the beating took place.”

“That’s not easy to say. The bruises were well developed, and he was black and blue all over, though that doesn”t take long to happen. But he was suffering from borderline hypothermia. He was quite badly chilled and it seems he”d been unconscious or asleep outside for some time, quite possibly a couple of hours.”

“Two, maybe?”

The doctor thought carefully.

“You understand I’m not a specialist in this,” he warned. “He was quite well dressed, that is in terms of protection from cold, in a thick fleece, a shirt and a singlet. I doubt that his core temperature was near a danger level, but his extremities were badly chilled.”

“Three hours, possibly?”

“I’d say so, perhaps even more as the weather wasn’t particularly cold, but it depends if he was exposed or out of the wind.”

Gunna tried to adjust her calculations and resorted to fingers. “So, Óskar appeared here that evening, after being badly beaten and lying unconscious for as long as four hours, would you say?”

“I’d say that would be probable. Why are you so interested in this?”

“Because I have a strong suspicion that the person responsible for Óskar’s condition committed another crime the same day, and I’d like to know if he had time to do both, or if I should be looking for two people. By the way, how was he brought in?”

“Ah, in that case I see why the timing’s so important. A serious crime?”

“Oh yes.”

“All right. I won’t ask. Óskar wasn’t brought in. He walked in himself and practically collapsed by the door. You could ask him yourself, but he discharged himself this afternoon, very much against my advice. Though I doubt it’ll be long before he’s back to get some more painkillers.”

“Don’t you be so sure. Óskar’s not one to have too much trouble getting hold of pills if he needs them.”

“H
E’S ASLEEP,
” E
RLA
said querulously, opening the door a crack.

“He should be in hospital,” Gunna replied. “Open the door, Erla.”

She swung it back warily, and Gunna could see her haggard face, eyes red with tears and lack of sleep.

“I suppose you’d better come in,” she said resignedly. “He’d still be in hospital if you lot didn’t keep hassling him,” she accused.

The little house’s front room was a mess of mismatched furniture and toys scattered across the floor, dominated by a vast TV screen on which characters in a soap opera mimed to each other with the sound turned off. Fanney sat upright on a hard chair and looked accusingly at Gunna.

“Can’t you leave my boy alone?”

“I’ll leave him alone when he tells me the truth,” Gunna replied grimly. “Look, somewhere out there is the villain who did this to him, and it’s not just your Óskar who’s been on the receiving end of all this. I’d love to catch the bastard, but I can’t if Óskar won’t say anything and just sticks to this stupid story about some Pole we all know doesn’t exist. So, who’s going to start the ball rolling?”

She looked from one woman to the other, challenging them to speak out. Erla gazed down at the floor. Gunna saw that a dewdrop had formed on the tip of her nose and she sniffed as she wiped it away. Fanney sat rigidly, staring into the distance, hands crossed in her lap.

“I told you,” Fanney said at last, her fury surging to the surface, then she lapsed back into silence while Erla sniffed. Gunna stood by the door and watched the pair of them, waiting for one of them to say something.

“It was that Ómar,” Erla suddenly sobbed. “He came here looking for Skari, him and another man. I tried to call him and let him know, but his phone was dead. They must have found out where he works and gone there.”

With the tension broken, Erla continued to sniffle, her shoulders hunched and convulsed with each new spasm of misery, while Fanney sat, still in her overcoat, her mouth set in a thin, hard line.

“Have you caught him?” she demanded abruptly.

“Oh, yes. Ómar is firmly back in Litla-Hraun.”

“That’s a blessing, I suppose,” the old lady admitted. “Erla, my girl. The man’s back in prison. Don’t you think it’s high time you two stopped being so stupid and told this lady what’s been going on?”

Erla’s shoulders heaved, but a series of nods could be made out among the tremors.

“Where is Óskar?” Gunna asked softly.

“Up-up-upstairs,” Erla said finally, parting the mane of wild ringlets that spilled over her face. “He’s asleep and you won’t be able to wake him up. He’s taken a few pills to help him sleep.”

Instinct began to ring an alarm bell in Gunna’s mind.

“Show me where he is,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument. Fanney stood up while Erla sat looking stupidly ahead of her with an open mouth.

Gunna took the steep stairs two at a time and Fanney followed behind. There was only one room in the house’s attic, and Óskar lay sweating profusely and muttering to himself in a king-sized bed surrounded by the detritus of a family living in not enough space.

“Skari, can you hear me?” Gunna demanded loudly, sitting herself at his side while Fanney stood in the doorway, her habitual angry expression replaced for the first time by something approaching true concern.

The duvet that Óskar had thrown off was drenched with sweat, and Gunna felt for the man’s pulse, finding it racing.

“What’s the address here?” she asked suddenly.

“Sjávarbraut 18,” Fanney replied. “Why?”

Without taking her eyes off the man in the bed, Gunna clicked her communicator. “Control, ninety-five-fifty.”

“Ninety-five-fifty, control,” the instant laconic answer came back. “I’m at Sjávarbraut 18 in Hvalvík. Can you get an ambulance to me? Possible overdose.”

“Will do. Conscious?”

“Semi-conscious,” Gunna replied.

“They’re on their way. Can you find out what he’s taken? I’ve opened the channel so the ambulance team can call you direct. OK?”

“Thanks. Out.”

Fanney looked horror-struck in the doorway at the wreck of her son in the bed. Gunna glanced at her questioningly.

“Fanney, would you tell Erla to come up here? Right now?”

Fanney disappeared, and moments later the clumping of Erla’s heavy footfalls could be heard on the wooden staircase.

“Is he all right?” she asked fearfully.

“He will be. Now, Erla, come over here,” Gunna instructed, placing Óskar’s hand carefully across his chest and patting the bed beside her. “I want you to sit here.”

She stood up and steered Erla into position.

“Right, all I want you to do is hold his hand and talk to him. I don’t care what you say, just keep talking. Tell him what the weather’s like or something. Just so he hears your voice. All right?”

Erla nodded and immediately launched into a patter about how much rain there had been, while Gunna backed down the stairs.

Fanney was standing at the bottom, fear in her face. “Is my boy going to be all right?”

“He’s going to be fine. But he should never have left hospital, and he’s going back there. Where are the kids, Fanney?”

“They’re at Jóna’s house.”

“Jóna?”

“My daughter. The one who lives next door to the old bakery.”

“That’s fine, then. Can they stay there for a while?”

Fanney nodded.

“Good. Right, I’m going back upstairs to make sure Erla’s all right. What I want you to do is stay here by the front door, wait for the ambulance to turn up and then show them where to go. OK?”

The old lady nodded her agreement a second time, and Gunna climbed the stairs again to where Erla was rattling through a childhood story while Óskar’s eyes rolled in his head. She held his hand with an unfaltering iron grip.

“Skari, my sweet. It’s a lot easier that way. Then you don’t have to do it twice like we used to,” Erla rambled. “But if you can get the old car fixed, then it would be so much easier to get to the shops.”

Gunna took in the tiny bedroom with its huge bed, the TV in one corner with DVD cases stacked on top of it, the clothes spilling out of a rickety wardrobe and the pile of unwashed clothes heaped by the door. She quickly swept a collection of pill bottles into a bag and hunted around for more. It was a relief when she heard the wail of the ambulance.

J
ÓN
J
ÓHANNSSON STRODE
through the dusk and the drizzle. He had thought hard about how to do this, and knew that short and sweet would be best. His feet crunched on the gravel of the garden path and he saw with amusement the blackened door of the garage and the smart 4 x 4 parked in front of it.

He stood at the door and rang the bell, hearing it chime sonorously deep inside the house and taking a step back. The door opened and light flooded out. A barefoot Bjartmar Arnarson, dressed in a white shirt and suit trousers, glared back at him.

“Yes?”

“You don’t know me …” Jón began.

“So I don’t know you. What do you want?”

He’s pissed, Jón thought, and stepped forward to put a foot inside the door as Bjartmar took in Jón’s bulk and clear menace and retreated instinctively.

“It’s because of you that I’m fucking bankrupt, you thieving bastard,” Jón snarled, unable to stop himself even though he had vowed that he would say nothing.

“Look, get out of here, will you?” Bjartmar protested angrily. “I’ll have the police here in two minutes.”

“Two minutes is fine with me,” Jón said calmly, drawing the shotgun from inside his coat and watching alarm dart across Bjartmar’s face.

He pointed it downwards and pulled the trigger. The report was louder than he had expected and echoed in the lobby of the house. The lead pellets sprayed Bjartmar’s bare feet and ricocheted off the tiled floor as he howled and collapsed back against the wall.

Screams like a girl, Jón thought, stepping forward. He grabbed a handful of Bjartmar’s shirt and hauled him sideways so that he lay on his back. The floor was already slippery with blood and he remembered to be careful not to lose his footing. He levelled the shotgun and looked into Bjartmar’s eyes a second time.