“Someone wanted to disguise it.”
“And there was a lot of petrol,” Helgi added. “The firemen say there must have been petrol all over the seats and the whole interior for it to go up like a firework like that. Someone wanted it disposed of, and wanted to do a decent job of it.”
Gunna rattled her fingernails on the desk. “The last sighting we have of Magnús is when he left his girlfriend’s house. Nothing at all after that. So where did he go and why? And as he’d hardly drive out to the quarter-mile track and break his own neck, who was with him?”
“That’s what we’d all like to know, isn’t it? But he’s nowhere on CCTV, and if he went direct from her place to the quarter-mile track, it isn’t more than a twenty-minute drive.”
“But if we have anything to tell us who that might be, it’ll be in that car. So you’d best get down to forensics and pester them to go over it with a magnifying glass until they find something. If it’s any consolation, as far as your problems with Halla are concerned, by the time you finish tonight, you’ll be far too tired for anything in that department.”
Helgi smiled weakly and Gunna sensed the return of the usual good-humored Helgi she knew and preferred.
“And then it’s Óskar Hjálmarsson for you.”
“Who?”
“The father of Magnús Sigmarsson’s girlfriend. I want him grilled properly about his movements on the night Magnús disappeared.”
“You reckon it could have been him?”
Gunna scowled and rubbed her chin. “No,” she said slowly. “My guts say it wasn’t him. But the man has a motive and if it wasn’t him, then we need to have him properly eliminated. So take your time and make sure. He’s not a pleasant character so you can make him sweat if you like.”
The round face of the blonde girl behind the desk at the Harbourside Hotel fell as Gunna walked in and smiled.
“Símon’s not here at the moment. The MD’s back and there’s a management meeting over at the Gullfoss this afternoon.”
“That’s good,” Gunna told her, “because this time it’s you I want a quiet word with.”
The girl’s bottom lip protruded in a pout. “But I don’t know anything.”
“You don’t know anything about what?” Gunna asked, her curiosity aroused by the instant denial.
“Anything,” the girl replied after a few moments’ thought.
“Are you on your own here, or is there a supervisor about?”
“I’m the reception supervisor.”
“Is that since Magnús is no longer here? In that case, who are you supervising?”
She jerked her head toward a door behind the reception desk. “I’ve got a trainee with me.”
Gunna looked past the girl and into the office behind where a young man with a fringe over his eyes was sitting at a computer screen.
“Hey, you.”
The young man looked up cautiously and pointed a finger at his own chest. Gunna nodded back and beckoned. He stood up, clearly awkward in the smart hotel-issue trousers that he still managed to wear as low on the hips as decency would allow.
“What’s your name, young man?”
“Eggert Thór.”
“Listen, Eggert Thór. I need a quiet word with your colleague, so while she and I go over there and have a quiet talk …” Gunna said, jerking a thumb toward a set of armchairs in the hotel’s echoing lobby. “You’re a smart lad and you can manage to run things by yourself for ten minutes, can’t you?”
“Er … yeah,” he replied, with an uncertain look on his face.
“All you have to do is stand there and look like you know what you’re doing. Any problems and we’re right over there. All right?”
“Yeah!” The lad said, a happy smile stealing across his face as Gunna marched the girl to the set of armchairs and sat opposite her. “Magnús was murdered,” she said bluntly and watched the shock register in her eyes.
“Why? Do you know who did it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to pin down,” Gunna said, catching sight of the girl’s name badge. “Look, Eva. Something shady has been going on here and Símon hasn’t exactly been helpful, any more than your colleagues at the Gullfoss have.”
“I think Símon’s really worried about something. Normally he’s quite cheerful, but these last few days he’s been mega-grumpy.”
“There’s a scam been going on here and at a few other hotels across Reykjavík. You have an idea of this, right?”
“A what?” Eva asked and Gunna inwardly cursed the girl’s slow-wittedness.
“People being tied up in rooms. That’s happened a few times, hasn’t it?”
Eva chewed her lip and looked nervously over toward Eggert, standing like a sentry behind the reception desk. “We’re not supposed to say anything.”
“Says who?”
“Símon. And Magnús. They said that if anything about this got out and it affected business, we could find ourselves out of work, and it’s not easy to find work at the moment.”
“When did they tell you this? Recently?”
“It was before my birthday. I remember because it was the day before my party.”
“And when was that?”
“August the ninth’s my birthday.”
Gunna was surprised that Sonja’s scam went back so far; Eva twisted her fingers nervously.
“Am I going to get the sack if they find out I told you this?” she asked abruptly.
“I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t think so. But if you don’t tell them, I won’t. This was Símon, right? And Magnús told you the same thing?”
“They told all of us. But not all together. Just in ones and twos.”
“How did Magnús seem to you? Was he nervous or upset in any way?”
“Not that I noticed. His girlfriend threw him over because her parents didn’t like him, or so he said. He tried to make out he didn’t really care, but he was well pissed off,” Eva said. “I mean, it’s not as if Magnús was the kind of dreamboat who was going to find another girlfriend just like that.”
The hostility in the air was unmistakeable. Jóel Ingi Bragason and Már Einarsson sat on one side of the polished table, practically identical young men in suits that Gunna felt made them look like youngsters ready for confirmation, while Ívar Laxdal sat at one end of the table and glowered.
“So this is a MacBook that has been mislaid and you want it back, or so Ívar tells me,” Gunna opened.
“Who are you?” the slimmer and younger-looking of the pair demanded with outright distrust in his tone.
Gunna sighed and put her identification on the table for them both to see.
“As I’m sure smart gentlemen like you are already aware, I’m Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and I’m a sergeant with the serious crimes unit. I don’t doubt that my colleague”-she nodded toward Ívar Laxdal-“has already told you exactly who I am, so let’s stop wasting everyone’s time, shall we?”
The younger man with the narrow face and the darting eyes-Jóel Ingi, according to the hurried briefing Ívar Laxdal had given her-sat back and pouted sulkily while his colleague Már smiled winningly and clasped his hands together in front of him.
“Jóel Ingi, would you like to explain exactly what happened?” Mar invited.
“Yes, well …” he floundered for a moment before regaining his footing. “It was a few days before Christmas, I think.”
“You think? You don’t know for certain?”
“Of course I do. I’ll just have to check my diary,” Jóel Ingi snapped back. “I was walking home and had my laptop in a bag on my shoulder, as usual. There were two boys in the street, and one of them had a bicycle. They were having an argument,” he recited.
“So what happened?” Gunna prompted.
“One of them pushed the other quite hard in the chest, and he fell backward against me. I stumbled and fell. The boy who had pushed the other grabbed my laptop case and made off on his bicycle.”
“And the other boy?”
“I … er, I don’t know. I ran after the one on the bicycle, but couldn’t catch him. When I looked around, the other boy had gone as well.”