“Ommi was really angry. He could be just totally crazy when he was angry. Said I should come up there and get him when he next had a day pass ’cos he had business to do in town. He said that he’d been double-crossed and the man he was doing time for didn’t have the money to pay him for being there any more so he was going to sort things out himself,” Selma said quickly, the words tumbling out. She took a deep breath that ended on a sob. “I was frightened. Really frightened. Ommi can be so scary when he’s in a rage.”
“I see,” Gunna said as Selma’s sobs receded and developed into hiccoughs. “And you don’t know who this person is?”
“It’s somebody rich. That’s all I know.”
“No ideas, no suspicions?”
Selma shook her head. “No. If I knew, I’d tell you. I never wanted to ask who Shorty was.”
“Shorty?”
“Ommi always called him Shorty. He said Shorty would see us all right. And now Shorty won’t.”
“YES? CAN I help you?” asked a young woman who appeared around the side of the house with a disarming smile. “I was in the garden, didn’t hear the bell the first time,” she explained as a small boy hid behind her legs.
“You must be Hulda Björk?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“My name’s Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, I’m from the police, the Serious Crime Unit. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Steindór Hjálmarsson,” she said, and the smile disappeared from the woman’s face as if it had been turned off with a switch.
In the long garden Hulda Björk collected herself and they sat in the lee of the house’s back wall in a patch of sunshine that had fought its way through a break in the thick cloud.
“That’s a name I didn’t expect to hear,” she told Gunna.
“I’m sorry if I’ve reopened old wounds, but it’s a serious case and I’m afraid I might have some uncomfortable questions.”
Hulda Björk breathed deep and set her face firmly. “I’m OK now. Just ask.”
“As you can imagine, it’s Steindór’s death that I’m interested in, and particularly the events leading up to it, but especially his, your, circumstances. How were you living at the time? Were you both working?”
“We rented a flat out in Mosfellsbær. We were both from Dalvík and felt more comfortable up there out of town than down in the city. I was finishing my teaching degree and Steindór was an accountant with a job at an import-export company. It was fun, we were enjoying living in Reykjavík, but we both agreed that when we had children, we’d want to move back up north somewhere. Not Dalvík, but maybe Akureyri. Now I can’t even visit Dalvík any more without it all coming back. Every house and every street remind me of him.”
“But you’re settled here now?”
“Yes. I met someone. Never expected to. He’s been great and now we have Gunnar as well,” she said, her proud gaze following the small boy as he rode unsteadily around the garden on a bicycle with stabilizers. “I never thought I’d get over it when Steindór … died so suddenly.”
“I’m interested especially in the days and weeks leading up to his death. How was he? Was there anything odd you noticed about his behaviour?”
Hulda Björk spread her hands, palms upwards. “It’s hard to say. We were both so busy then and not seeing as much of each other as we would have liked. Steindór was a workaholic. He’d work hours of overtime and he’d always been like that—a little obsessive. If there was something that interested him, he’d absorb himself in it. It was a bit annoying sometimes and I dreaded the thought of him discovering golf.”
“But no unusual behaviour?”
“It’s so hard to think back. He was a bit preoccupied. I don’t think he enjoyed the job he was doing, but it was quite well paid and we needed the money after all those years of being poor students.”
“The night he was attacked. Were you there?”
“No,” Hulda Björk said abruptly. “It was some kind of outing with his uni friends. I wouldn’t have gone anyway. It was a boy thing.”
“Had either of you ever had any kind of acquaintance with Ómar Magnússon?”
“You mean the bastard who …?” Hulda Björk’s eyes flashed with a sudden fury. “Of course not,” she spat. “Neither of us had ever laid eyes on that scumbag. I saw him in court, sitting there with a smirk on his face. If I could meet him now, I’d …”
Her face was set in a hard mask.
“So there was no reason that you could think of for the assault on Steindór, other than, as Ómar alleged, that they had been arguing?”
“Nothing. I’m certain their paths never crossed. I suppose it’s possible they could have had an argument. Steindór didn’t drink often, but he enjoyed it when he did and could be quite boisterous. Whatever, that’s no reason for beating him so badly that he died, surely?”
“No. But these people live by different rules,” Gunna said sadly. “Can you tell me more about Steindór’s colleagues and his work?”
Hulda Björk shook her head. “Not really. He hadn’t worked there for more than a couple of months and didn’t like it much, but the money was good. I don’t think he got on well with the office manager. I met her once, a very cold woman, I thought.”
“So what was he doing there?”
“Bookkeeping and invoicing, as far as I remember. He used to tell me and it went right over my head. Sometimes he had to talk to people in Taiwan or Nigeria, places they exported to.”
“Exports?”
“Fish, mostly. Stockfish to west Africa, herring to the Ukraine, all sorts. That’s what he was working with for the most part. But there was some property as well, buying and selling commercial buildings, I think. Workshops and shops, that sort of thing.”
“Do you remember what the company was called, or if it still exists?”
“Kleifaberg Trading, at least the part that Steindór worked for. They used to have offices in the city centre, off Tryggvagata, I think.”
“And there’s nothing else that springs to mind? Nothing about Steindór’s behaviour that you recall as being anything different?”
Hulda Björk shrugged. “I’ve tried to remember everything, but there’s so much that’s too hazy. You try and recall these things but it’s like they’re just that little way out of reach. Know what I mean? Of course you don’t,” she added.
“Actually I do,” Gunna said quietly. “I know precisely what you mean and I know how hard it is when someone is taken away in a flash.”
Hulda Björk looked at her with a new recognition, half screwing up her eyes against the unaccustomed spring sunshine that shone in her face and highlighted the band of freckles across her nose. She stood up and cast about the garden for the small boy, who had gone quiet.
“He must be up to something if he’s not making a noise,” she said, forcing a smile. “I don’t think there’s anything more I can tell you.”
Gunna laid a card on the slats of the garden table. “My number’s there. I’d appreciate a call if there’s anything you remember.”
“Ah, there he is,” Hulda Björk said. She pointed to her son at the far end of the garden, using a bamboo cane to push an offcut of wood across a puddle. “I’d better stop him before he gets too filthy.”
She turned to Gunna awkwardly.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve been a lot of help to you somehow,” she apologized. “But there’s a friend of Steindór’s you might want to talk to. He was at college with us. I haven’t seen him for a long time, but he works for a magazine now. Gunnlaugur Ólafsson, his name is.”
THE BASTARD HAD a big enough house, Jón thought, staring at the sprawling building on the far side of the quiet street. He’d taken a detour to see the place yet again. He had done this more than once, stopping by the curb on the other side of the road to glare at the house with its double garage, set between lines of young birch trees that already were bushy enough to shield the place from prying eyes either side.