Jón’s own house had been away down the hill in a decent, yet less exclusive neighbourhood. If things hadn’t gone so terribly wrong, Ragna Gústa could have found herself mixing with children at school from this very street.
Jón knew that Bjartmar and his snobby wife had no children. The gossip around town was that they weren’t getting on well lately, and that the man had set up some woman he’d brought to Iceland with a business in the city centre. Jón didn’t make a habit of listening to gossip, but any mention of the bastard who had tipped his business over the edge was always going to make him prick up his ears.
He sighed, gritted his teeth and started the van’s engine. A woman in the western end of town with two small children was waiting for him to again patch up the worn-out washing machine that she couldn’t afford to replace.
“YOU KNOW SOMEONE called Gunnlaugur Ólafsson?” Gunna asked, phone to her ear as she marched across the street to her car.
“Er. Not sure,” Skúli said slowly. “Know anything more about him?”
“Not a lot,” Gunna replied, switching the phone to the other ear as she unlocked the car and got inside. “He’d be in his early thirties, works for a magazine.”
“Sales or editorial?”
“No idea. Editorial, I guess.”
“I’ll ask around, see what I can find. Is that all right?”
“Skúli, that would be wonderful,” Gunna said, realizing that she had been unnecessarily sharp with him.
“Cool. Leave it with me, then,” Skúli said crisply, and closed the connection before Gunna could say anything more.
She started the car and listened to the engine hum into life. She let it roll gently down the street and stopped at the end, wondering whether to go left or right at the junction. A few years of frantic property speculation had left the sprawling peripheries of the city criss-crossed with streets that she had no recollection of, as well as confusing new junctions that appeared to lead nowhere, left unfinished as the estates they were supposed to reach were boarded up.
She opted to turn left, immediately regained her bearings and decided to continue through the quiet estate of houses set back from the speed-bump-studded road. This was a smart neighbourhood, not fashionable, but populated by younger, two-and three-car families who clearly took the look of their homes seriously.
Gunna’s phone rang and she pulled over to the side of the road to answer it. “Skúli, that was quick.”
“And easy as well. Someone knew the guy straight away. He shortens his name to Gulli Ólafs, that’s what threw me.”
“Understandable. But do you know where I can find him?”
“You’re not going to give him a story before me, are you?” Gunna could hear the grin behind his voice.
“Of course not. Hey, are you back at Dagurinn?”
“Yeah, just covering a few shifts for someone else.” Skúli’s cheerful tone vanished. “Two days a week at the moment. Gulli Ólafs works for a business magazine called Verslun. It went bust last year and someone came along and bailed them out, so it’s still running and he is one of only about half the staff they kept on. They used to be in smart offices on Borgartún, but now they’re above a garage down at Grandi.”
“Excellent. Thanks, Skúli.”
“No problem. Just wondering, do you have anything to tell me?”
“Not right now. But progress is being made. I’ll let you know when I can say anything. Keep your eyes open, though. This could be bigger than I thought. But not a word out of place. All right?”
“You know, Gunna? Anyone else saying that and I wouldn’t believe them for a second.”
“But you know you can trust your Auntie Gunnhildur, don’t you?”
“If you say so,” he said dubiously.
“OH YES. ARE we just the finest detectives around or what?” Eiríkur asked, rubbing his hands with pleasure.
“We are, Gunna and me. Don’t know about you, young feller,” Helgi grunted in reply.
“Don’t mind him, Eiríkur. He’s had a bad night,” Gunna said. “Teething again, Helgi?”
“Yup.” Helgi yawned.
“Put ’em to sleep, boys. Calpol works wonders. I’d have cheerfully strangled both of mine without it,” Gunna said. “What have you found that’s making you so happy, then?”
Eiríkur put a stack of printouts on his desk and patted them. “Witness statements from the Ómar Magnússon case. Dug them out from the archives, and guess what? There are a couple of very interesting witnesses who say they saw Ómar having an argument with Steindór Hjálmarsson the night he was murdered.”
He paused for effect.
“Go on, get it over with,” Helgi grumbled.
“There’s a statement from the lead singer of the band, Svanhildur Mjöll Sigurgeirsdóttir, and also from one of the doormen, Óskar Óskarsson, currently in hospital in Keflavík.”
“Weren’t you on that case, Helgi?” Gunna asked.
“Not really. I was with the team that arrested Ommi, but it wasn’t actually him we were looking for. If I recall correctly, we were searching Evil Eygló’s summer house for stolen goods when Ommi came wandering out of the bedroom rubbing his eyes. I don’t know which of us was more surprised.”
“So Skari and Svana both gave witness statements saying that Ommi and Steindór had a ruck?” Gunna asked.
“Yup. That’s it. There are plenty more and I thought I’d check through the rest of them, just to see if there might be a name that pops up anywhere, and there’s one that made me think. Sindri Valsson, the man’s name is. He was also interviewed at the time and claimed not to have been aware of anything. So I did a bit of a check and it seems he lives overseas now, Portugal.”
“Any relation to …?”
“Spot on. Jónas Valur Hjaltason’s son. It threw me to start with because he calls himself Valsson and not Jónasson. But he’s still a director of a few of his dad’s companies, including the one that owns property in Portugal and Spain, and he’s also a director of one of Bjartmar Arnarson’s companies, Rigel Investment.”
“So how did you stumble on all this?”
“Well, I’d already been checking out the ownership of Rigel Investment and saw the name there as a director. It wasn’t until I saw the witness statement in his name that it jogged my memory and I put two and two together. But guess what? He was here last week, left on Friday on a flight to London.”
“How did you find that out so fast?”
“I had a look through the passenger list archive and it seems he’s a regular traveller, four or five times a year normally.”
VERSLUN OCCUPIED A cramped space with a row of desks along one wall decorated with posters from the magazine’s more prosperous days. A sharp-faced young man with gelled hair looked up from the front desk.
“Yes?”
“Gunnlaugur Olafsson?”
He looked at her suspiciously.
“Gulli’s in a meeting. Is it important?” he demanded sharply. “What’s it about?”
Gunna felt her hackles rise. She dug in her pocket and flashed her police ID card at him.
“Yes, it is important, and no, I’m not going to discuss it with you. Where is he?”
The young man deflated and retreated, opening a glass door and holding a conversation in whispers, punctuated with quick looks over one shoulder.
“Gulli’ll be right with you,” he said, returning and sitting back at his desk, where he proceeded to ignore Gunna and concentrate on the computer in front of him. In the glass door behind him, Gunna noticed a reflection of the young man’s screen and saw he was devoting his attention to his Facebook page. Finally the glass door opened and a tall man with a harassed manner came out, sweeping a lock of untidy hair away from his face and frowning.