Cold Comfort (40 page)

“Sure, Helgi? Sure he didn’t fall or something and then try to drive himself to hospital afterwards?”

“What? With a hosepipe gaffer-taped around the exhaust and put through the back window? I think not, somehow.”

“Of course,” Gunna replied. “What are you up to next?”

“I’m having the car impounded and then I’ll start knocking on doors.”

“All right. Get some uniform chaps as well if there are any spare.”

“There are never spare uniformed coppers these days, chief. But I’ll get hold of some for an hour or so all the same.”

“Good man. Look, got to go. Let me know what happens,” she told him, and prepared to end the call.

“Hang on, chief.”

“What?”

“In Hallur’s office. Nothing useful in any of his files that I could see, but I had a look in the bin as well, just to be sure, and there it was.”

“Make sense, will you, Helgi? What was there?”

“At the bottom of the bin, screwed into a ball. A letter demanding twenty-five thousand euros in cash. You were right.”

“Bloody hell … Anything on there that could lead us anywhere?”

“Nah. It’s on the way to Forensics to be checked out, but I don’t expect there to be anything useful somehow.”

A
NNA FJÓLA SIGURBJÖRNSDÓTTIR
sat with pinched cheeks by the reception desk.

“You wanted to speak to me?” Gunna asked, surprised.

“I do. But not here.”

“There’s an interview room upstairs we can use.”

Anna Fjóla looked sour. “I’m not a criminal.”

Not yet, anyway, Gunna thought, realizing that there had to be a very good reason for this prim woman to come to the police station in person.

“I take it what you want to discuss is sensitive?”

“And confidential.”

“Come with me, then.”

At Café Roma, Anna Fjóla sat at the furthest table from the window as Gunna returned from the counter with coffee in a mug and tea in a cup.

“Now, what did you want to tell me about?”

“My employer, Jónas Valur Hjaltason.”

“What about him?”

“He’s not a bad man, you understand.” Anna Fjóla hesitated. “He’s a fine businessman, but he’s … weak in other ways.”

“Such as?”

“Women in particular.”

“Such as Svana Geirs?”

“Yes,” Anna Fjóla whispered.

“How long have you worked for him?”

“Nineteen years.”

“So you remember Steindór Hjálmarsson?”

“Of course. A pleasant young man. Such a shame about him.” Anna Fjóla finally took a sip of tea.

“He worked there for about six months, as I remember,” she continued haltingly. “But the company was bigger then. There were the exports to Spain and Portugal that we still have today, but there were also the property and entertainment businesses that were Sindri’s interests. There were three bookkeepers then, myself and some salespeople.”

“And Sindri Valsson?”

Anna Fjóla glanced up sharply and immediately looked down at her cup.

“How did Sindri and Steindór get on?”

“Not well, but not badly. We could all see they didn’t like each other. Steindór thought Sindri was a spoiled brat and he didn’t do a very good job of hiding what he thought. Sindri thought that Steindór stuck his nose into things that didn’t concern him.”

She took another sip of tea and wiped her lips delicately on a handkerchief from her handbag.

“I daresay they were each partly right about the other,” she said with a thin smile.

“So why are you here today, Anna Fjóla?” Gunna asked gently.

“It’s been nagging at me for days, what you said,” Anna Fjóla said quietly. “The day that woman was murdered, Jónas Valur was out of the office for part of the morning.”

“What time was that?”

“He came in a little later than usual, around nine thirty, and left at eleven. He was back soon after twelve, as far as I remember.”

Gunna had no doubt that Anna Fjóla remembered correctly. She frowned to herself and thought out the possibilities. The timing put Jónas Valur as able to have been at Svana’s flat at the edge of the time frame that Miss Cruz had given them. “You’re certain?”

“Yes,” Anna Fjóla said in an icy voice, as if the possibility of her being mistaken was a ludicrous idea.

“You realize the implications?” Gunna asked grimly. “That’s why I want to be sure you’re certain of the timing.”

“I’m certain.”

Gunna sat back and finished her coffee while Anna Fjóla sipped delicately.

“I’m just wondering why you’re telling me this, after all the years with Jónas Valur.”

Anna Fjóla’s thin shoulders rose and fell with a barely perceptible shrug. “To set the record straight, I suppose. I have worked hard and honestly for all these years for a salary that’s reasonable, but no more than that. But next month I’ll be joining the unemployed and I suppose I’m, well, upset about that.”

“How come?” Gunna asked.

“Kleifar is being sold. Jónas Valur is selling his shares and I happen to know that Sindri has already sold his. Between them they owned eighty per cent of the company.”

“Who’s it being sold to?”

Anna Fjóla smiled. “That’s just it. On paper it’s a fairly simple transaction. A few thousand euros change hands and Kleifar has new owners. But so that Jónas Valur can retire somewhere warm near his son, the new owners will quietly make over to him a couple of large villas in Portugal. That’s the real price of the company. The new owners get an established saltfish trading company in Iceland at a good price, and Jónas Valur gets the value of it without having to worry about currency restrictions.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“Please. After almost twenty years, I know Jónas Valur as well as I know my own husband—better, if anything. Jónas Valur has never been able to remember a password or a username, and if I didn’t have all that information at my fingertips, the company would come to a halt tomorrow. I check his emails, bank statements, everything, even the ones he thinks are secret.”

“And when is all this due to happen?”

“It’s been going on over the last few months. Jónas Valur thinks I don’t know what’s been happening under my nose. His friends Bjarki and Hallur are part of it as well, not to mention that Ólafur Jacobsen.”

“The legal expert.”

“Yes, a vile man. Bjarki Steinsson has been falsifying figures for the last year to make the company look less profitable so that the low purchase price doesn’t appear suspicious, and Hallur Hallbjörnsson arranged for the port authority to buy the office building. The port doesn’t need it and actually can’t afford it either, but you should never underestimate what Jónas Valur can get his friends to do for him.”

“And what happens to you? Don’t you get to work for the new owners?”

“I don’t think so,” Anna Fjóla said with a thin smile. “They don’t want an old woman telling them how to run their business. Kleifar will officially cease to exist and may well even be insolvent if Bjarki Steinsson has done his work well. Its activities will be absorbed by a holding company, so there’s no need to worry about redundancy for an old woman.”

“Another quick visit to Jónas Valur might be in order,” Gunna mused, half to herself.

Anna Fjóla drank the rest of her tea, put the cup down firmly in front of her and stood up. “In that case, I’d suggest you don’t wait too long. All the contracts have been signed and I don’t believe he has much left to wait around Reykjavík for.”

She marched out of the café with her mouth pursed and her nose in the air, leaving Gunna wondering what was in the thick envelope that she had discreetly left on the table where her handbag had rested.

Friday 26th

G
UNNA DROVE THE
few kilometres to the Keflavík police station, where Bjössi lounged in his habitual smoking spot by the back door, chatting to Helgi. As she parked, he crushed out his cigarette and shook the last drops of coffee from a mug and let it hang on his little finger.

“Good morning, gentlemen. And how are you on this lovely day, Bjössi?” Gunna greeted him.

“Tired, got cold feet, my hair’s still falling out, I hate my job and it’s going to rain. Apart from that, fine,” Bjössi grumbled back at her as she marched into the station. A muffled angry mutter of distant shouts could be heard from deep inside the building.

“What’s the racket, Bjössi? Got the choir practising in there?”

“Bugger the choir. You know what that is,” Bjössi told her grimly.

“Ah. Our friend, is it?”

“I don’t know about our friend. Not the cleverest in the class, but he’s all yours.”

The volume of sound grew as they approached the cells, and the hammering on the steel door echoed throughout the building.

“Æi, shut the fuck up, will you?” Bjössi yelled, banging on the door and lifting the flap to give Gunna a view inside. “You really want to go in there? He’s bouncing off the fucking walls.”

“Yeah. We’ll be all right.”

Bjössi shook his head in resignation as he slid back the bolt and the hammering inside faded away.

“About fucking time …” Skari rasped, falling silent as Gunna stalked into the cell with Helgi trying to look tough behind her and Bjössi standing by the door. The bruises on his face had subsided, but there were still livid patches across his cheekbones where the stitches had been taken out.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he challenged. “I told you before—”

“Sit down, Skari,” Gunna told him coldly.

“I don’t have anything to say to you. I told you that before, didn’t I?”

“For fuck’s sake, sit down and shut up for a few seconds, will you, you selfish twat?” Gunna spat at him.

Taken by surprise, Skari dropped onto the bunk and glowered back at her, muttering under his breath.

“What did you say?” he demanded, scowling. “Fucking … brutality, that’s what it is. Bastards …”

“Skari, give over, will you. Now listen. Two thousand, remember that year? I have you positively and reliably identified as issuing threats. There’s no ifs or buts here. Understand?”

“Is that what that bloke wanted yesterday?” He nodded towards Bjössi. “Asked me to read something out for him?”

“Precisely. Bang to rights, Skari.”

His brow darkened as he struggled to take it in. “That was fucking years back.”

“But it’s still an offence and the victim would be only too happy to press charges, even at this late stage. You could be looking at a year or two for this, even now.”

Skari’s hands curled into fists and the anger turning his face red was plain enough. Bjössi stepped forward and Helgi took his hands out of his coat pockets.

“You’ve three minutes to come up with the whole story. Otherwise there’ll be a formal charge and not much chance of bail.”

Cornered, Skari’s eyes flitted from Bjössi to Helgi and back to Gunna. “Mum said you were a hard bitch.”

“Your mum wouldn’t say anything of the kind. Who wanted you to frighten this guy?”

“Come on. This was years ago.”

“Who?”

“Sindri.”

“Sindri Valsson?”

Skari nodded and hung his head.

“What, precisely, did Sindri want you to do?”

“I don’t remember. It was a long time ago, for Christ’s sake.”

“Then start remembering,” Gunna said with quiet menace. “You have another minute.”

“Sindri said there was this bloke who worked in an office on Skipholt. Didn’t tell me his name or anything, just gave me the number of his car. He said the bloke’d come out around seven, and I should scare the shit out of him and tell him to keep his nose out of what’s not his business. So I did.”

“This was just Sindri?”

“Sindri and his old man, both of them.”

“Where did this conversation take place?”

“At the club.”

“Blacklights?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

Skari shook his head as if he were talking to an idiot. “It was years ago. How the fuck should I know?”

“How soon was this after you beat Steindór Hjálmarsson to death?”

In a second, Skari was on his feet. “I didn’t! That was

Sindri! It wasn’t me and you can’t prove anything!” he yelled, eyes bulging.

“Sit down, Skari. I know it was Sindri.”

“So why d’you say that?”

“Because I wanted to be sure,” Gunna said sharply. “Now I can be. What do you know about it? Did you see it happen?”

“Might have.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

Skari heaved a deep breath. “Bjartmar was there. He pointed this bloke out to me and told me to kick him out, said he was a troublemaker.”

“Bjartmar did, not Sindri?”

“Yeah. I collared the bloke and walked him out, easy as you like, and slung him out the back door into the car park.” He paused. “Sindri just laid into the guy. I don’t know why, I’d never seen him before. Sindri fucking hammered him, knocked him flying and kicked him a few times, then went back inside like nothing had happened.”

“And he said nothing to you?”

Skari shook his head. “Bjartmar just said, ‘You saw nothing, right?’ And that was all.”

“You know who Gunnlaugur Ólafsson is?”

“Who?” Skari asked, mystified.

“Bjarki Steinsson?”

“Look, I don’t know who you’re on about,” Skari replied angrily. “Who the hell are these people?”

“Högni Sigurgeirsson?”

“I said, I don’t know who these bloody people are. All right?”

“Who was it who beat you up and put you in hospital?”

“Told you,” he said, dropping his eyes to the floor. “Polish bloke.”

“No, Skari,” Gunna corrected him. “I’m sick of listening to this particular broken record. Most of the Poles have already gone home and there isn’t a single Pole, Latvian, Lithuanian or even Mongolian who answers your description. So how about you come clean and admit it was Ommi?”

“What?” he asked, eyes wide. “Because …”

“Because what? I know you and Ommi go way back, but that’s not going to make a bit of difference.”

Skari hung his head and at last his fists unclenched.

“It was Ommi,” he muttered angrily. “Ommi and some little pipsqueak mate of his. I’d have had Ommi on his own, but his mate batted me round the head with a plank and I couldn’t think straight after that.”

Gunna turned to Bjössi in the doorway. “Got that?”