She pulled on her coat and zipped it up in the lift, preparing herself for the cold shock of the car park after the warmth of the office, and wondering if she would find time to read the records she had printed out.
Shoving open the door, she scrolled through the numbers on her mobile and dialed, listening to the phone on the other end buzz once.
“Comms.”
“Hæ, Siggi. Gunnhildur.”
“I know. I recognized the number. We are supposed to be the communications wizards, after all.”
“Apologies for underestimating you, in that case. Listen, do me a favor, would you?”
“I never say yes without knowing what it is first,” Siggi laughed.
“It’s all right. It’s not your body I’m after.”
“That’s a relief.”
“You cheeky young pup. Just keep an eye out for that number, would you?”
“Yeah. Will do. I’ve been monitoring it, but it still hasn’t been switched on.”
“Okay, thanks. Just send me a text it if it pops up, can you? All quiet, otherwise?”
She heard Siggi yawn on the other end of the phone as she opened the car door.
“Yeah. Not a lot happening on a night like this. There was a fight of some kind an hour ago and the victim’s in casualty having his face sewn up. Quite nasty, I’m told.”
“Not something for me to deal with? Not tonight, anyway?”
“Nope. Uniform are dealing with it. The guy’ll be in hospital until tomorrow at least. Something for you to look forward to.”
“Oh, joy. Hoodlums fighting over a bit of dope, I expect. I’ll see about it tomorrow. G’night.”
“Sleep well, Gunna,” Siggi replied, yawning again. “Another four hours and I can go as well.”
Steini put down his book and clicked off the television. Gunna lay on the sofa, her eyes closed and with the reports she had promised herself she’d read in disarray on her chest. The place was blissfully quiet for once after an awkward few days with Drífa among them.
Gunna knew that the girl felt uncomfortable there, but guessed that the flat she was sharing in Reykjavík with a gaggle of first-year university students had also become less comfortable as her pregnancy progressed. Gunna had tried to probe gently and find out if Drífa intended to return to her parents in the Westfjords town of Vestureyri, but understandably the fear of small-town gossip and notoriety meant she had no desire to go home to her mother and stepfather. She wondered if the girl were waiting for Gísli to come home, but there were still more than three weeks left before he returned from sea-the second to last trip he had planned before Soffía was due to give birth in April. Even more worryingly, Gunna wondered if Soffía would let Gísli back into the little flat they had rented in Kópavogur, raising the specter that the lad might have to come home to his mother as an emergency measure.
Steini knelt next to her and lifted the papers, squaring them neatly and laying them on the table. Concern registered on his face as he saw Gunna frowning to herself in her sleep.
“Hey, sleepyhead.”
When there was no response, he stroked the tip of one finger down her cheek and was rewarded with a bleary eye opening.
“What time is it?”
“It’s tomorrow, and some of us have to get up in the morning.”
“Tomorrow, as in after midnight?”
“Yup, coming to bed?”
Gunna yawned and lifted herself up on one elbow. “Can’t you just bring me a duvet and I’ll go back to sleep here?”
“You’re telling me to sleep alone?”
“You should be so lucky,” she said, swinging her feet to the ground. “It’s a cold night and I don’t want to freeze to death before morning.” She yawned. “Where are the girls?”
“Laufey’s babysitting for Sigrún while she has a date with some new man, and Drífa went with her.”
“Steini, are you all right?” Gunna asked, noticing the more than usually serious expression on his face.
“Yeah, fine.”
“That doesn’t sound convincing to me. What’s the problem?”
Steini shifted from squatting uncomfortably to sitting on the floor. “Well,” he said in an awkward tone.
“Well, what?”
“I was just wondering if I’m, y’know, up to the mark?”
Gunna wrinkled her forehead in incomprehension. “What are you driving at?”
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “You see, it’s like this,” he said and paused, while Gunna looked expectant.
“For a man who normally gets straight to the point, you’re not doing a great job.”
“All right, then. I was using your computer yesterday and I saw your browser history.”
“And what about it?”
“I couldn’t help but see that you’d been looking through personal.is a lot. I’m just wondering if there’s something going on that I should know about?”
Perplexed and still half asleep, Gunna realized Steini’s predicament. “Ah, you mean you’re wondering if I’m up for a threesome or looking for a like-minded, discreet couple, or if I fancy trying out riding crops and leather underwear with studs on the inside?”
Steini coughed, embarrassed for the first time since she’d known him. “Well. Yes, I suppose that’s what I’m asking.”
“In a good way or what?”
“You mean would I be interested in all that stuff? A threesome with a nineteen-year-old who waxes his chest or a horny housewife from down the street? Actually, no. I was just wondering if there might be something I wasn’t doing right.”
Gunna yawned, stretched and sat upright on the sofa. “That’s good, because if you were expecting an interest in fluffy pink handcuffs, then I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed. My trawl through personal.is is purely work-related as that’s where it seems a now-dead punter made his arrangements to meet a potential witness we’re trying to track down. That’s about it,” Gunna said, yawning. “And that’s about all I can tell you as well.”
She studied his reaction and was relieved that he didn’t seem visibly disappointed.
“So we’ll just keep to the old-fashioned way, shall we?” he asked.
“Ten minutes every other Saturday night before I put my curlers in, you mean?”
“Yeah. Something like that,” he said with a grin and Gunna could hear relief in his voice, which he tried to conceal.
She stood up and looked at her watch. “Well, as officially I don’t have to be in at eight tomorrow, and Laufey’s at Sigrún’s place, we can give it a trial run if you feel like it.”
Steini’s grin spread across his face. “In ten minutes before the curlers go in? I should be able to manage that.”
Tuesday
It took hours for the doctor to clean up Baddó’s wound as best he could, lips pursed in concentration and frustration.
“It’s going to be painful,” he said long after midnight when the job was done, pushing his glasses back up his nose with the back of his hand. The nurse who had assisted whispered in the doctor’s ear and he nodded.
“It’s going to leave you with something of a scar,” he told Baddó sorrowfully, who wanted to snap back that the guys in the boots and combats had probably been paid a decent wedge of cash to do just that.
“I know, doctor,” he sighed, his face stiff and numb with local anaesthetic. “Looks like my catwalk days might be over, doesn’t it?”
The doctor ignored the quip, although Baddó could see that it had been registered and wasn’t appreciated. He stood up and looked down at him disapprovingly. “I’d like to keep you in overnight for observation,” he said. “And I believe there are a couple of police officers who would like a word with you.”
“It was an accident, doc. Honestly,” Baddó told him. “I had the knife in my hand and fell down. It caught my face as I tried to break my fall,” he said.