It was much later when she crawled into bed, draping one arm over Steini’s sleeping form.
“Y’all right?” he enquired drowsily. “Tough job?”
“Yup. Exhausted.”
She squeezed him gently and Steini snaked an arm behind him to rest a hand on her thigh as he began to snore musically again.
THE NEWLY PROMOTED chief inspector Sævaldur Bogason took charge of the briefing. Gunna yawned as he preened at the front of the room, and noticed with interest that Ívar Laxdal stood at the back.
“Right, people,” Sævaldur said loudly, calling the room to order, even though everyone there was already sitting in silence and waiting for him to start. “The deceased, Bjartmar Arnarson, killed at twenty-one forty last night, two rounds from a shotgun at extremely close range. No witnesses. What do we have?”
Albert from the technical team stood up and cleared his throat. “Like you said, Sævaldur. Two shots. The first probably downwards and into the victim’s feet. This wasn’t a fatal injury, but would have been completely debilitating. No way he could have escaped or resisted. The second shot to the chest was the fatal wound. Death would have been instantaneous.”
“Where’s Miss Cruz?” Sævaldur demanded. “Why isn’t she here?”
“She’s still at the crime scene,” Albert apologized. “She’ll be carrying out the autopsy this afternoon, but in broad terms I don’t think it will tell us much more than we know already.”
“OK. Is there anything else to go on?”
“The place is like a slaughterhouse,” Albert continued. “Blood everywhere. The splash patterns tie in with what I’ve already described. There are a couple of footprints. The victim was barefoot, so we assume the tracks are the killer’s; look like very ordinary training shoes. We’re going through the data to try and get a match, but it’s a long shot.”
“Any dabs?”
“Not that we’ve found so far. We’re still checking the house.”
“Ballistics?”
“Working on it. But without a cartridge case, there’s not a lot to go on.”
Gunna could see that Sævaldur was enjoying his role at the front. He looked at the assembled faces and singled her out.
“Gunnhildur. You’ve been investigating this man already. Can you give us a rundown?”
Unlike Albert, Gunna decided to stay seated, and saw Sævaldur frown.
“He had a complex set of businesses that are, as far as we can see, all legal, based on the cash he made in property. Before that he was involved in narcotics, but didn’t get his own fingers dirty and nothing was ever pinned on him. He ran a club called Blacklights that many of us will remember fondly, which is now a smart restaurant, but he still owns the building,” Gunna explained, habit making her refer to Bjartmar in the present tense.
“What’s your angle on him? Why have you been chasing this character?”
Gunna hesitated, remembering Ívar Laxdal’s instructions to keep the investigation into the Svana Syndicate as low-key as possible.
“Bjartmar had a number of companies, including one called Rigel Investment. The ownership is complex, to say the least. But Rigel Investment owns the building that Svana Geirs lived in, also the car that she had the use of.”
“D’you think there’s a link?”
Gunna threw her hands up. “Undoubtedly. Bjartmar had upset a great many people over the years with all kinds of business deals that were, strictly speaking, legal, but far from honest. He didn’t have many friends and seemed to have a talent for making enemies as well as money.”
Sævaldur grunted in acknowledgement. “Motives?”
“This wasn’t a robbery. Nothing appears to have been stolen and the killer didn’t go further into the house than the lobby,” Eiríkur ventured. “It was quick as well. The 112 call was made at twenty-one forty-one by one of the neighbours who had heard the shots. The first car was on the scene at within three minutes and the Special Unit was right behind them, by which time the killer was gone. He probably walked up the hill and away. None of the neighbours recalled any kind of traffic along the street until we got there.”
“Motive, if this wasn’t a robbery?” Sævaldur asked, throwing the question to the whole room.
“Revenge,” Gunna said firmly. “Bjartmar’s wife is still in hospital after what looks to have been an arson attack. I don’t know if that was an attack that was intended for Bjartmar himself, but it seems possible. Bjartmar and his wife weren’t on good terms and he resented propping up her business, while I understand that she was pretty much a trophy wife. He had another woman on the side, who runs a seafood bar called the Fish Lover a few doors from his wife’s restaurant. Bjartmar seems to have taken a perverse delight in setting this woman up in a business in direct competition with his wife’s.”
“That sounds bloody mad,” Helgi observed, speaking for the first time.
“It does,” Gunna agreed. “But we have no shortage of people only too happy to do the man a bad turn.”
Sævaldur looked at his watch. There was no need to, as there was a clock on the wall, but the gesture was theatrical.
“We’ll adjourn until seventeen hundred. Albert, could you report then with Miss Cruz on developments, and Gunnhildur, will you draw up a file of the man’s particular enemies and coordinate interviews?”
He clapped his hands to dismiss the group, clearly enjoying the moment, while Ívar Laxdal caught Gunna’s eye: the barely perceptible lifting of one eyebrow indicated that he wanted a quiet word.
JÓN OPENED HIS eyes with difficulty and wondered where the strange low ceiling had come from. Then the previous night came flooding back and he shut his eyes and began to shake.
“You’re awake, then?”
Elín Harpa sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him questioningly.
“You’ve had a bad time,” she observed.
“Yeah,” Jón grunted, his throat dry, struggling to sit up. “Look, I’m really sorry about yesterday. I was desperate and didn’t know where to go.”
“S’all right. There’s plenty of desperate people about these days.”
“I’m really grateful you let me stay here. I’ll be out of your way now.”
“S’all right,” Elín Harpa repeated, shrugging off the long-since-white dressing gown and wriggling back under the duvet. “Stay if you want. You’ll have to buy some food, though. There’s none here and I don’t get any money until tomorrow”.
GUNNA DEEPLY FELT the need for a cigarette, something she was sure she had conquered over the last few weeks and months of withdrawal. Sævaldur’s briefing had triggered a craving inside that she tried to cure with a brisk walk around the car park in Ívar Laxdal’s company.
In spite of his shorter legs, Ívar Laxdal walked at a pace slightly faster than Gunna’s and she matched it by keeping to the inside track.
“Bjartmar Arnarson. Is this linked to the case you were already investigating?” he asked bluntly.
“Probably, yes. I’d be amazed if there wasn’t some kind of link, even if not directly. The number of people the bloody man had upset over the years, we’re spoil for choice for suspects until Technical come up with something to work on or we can find a witness to give us a lead. The best we have so far is a tall man in dark clothes and a van parked two streets away. That’s it. No fingerprints, no witnesses, bugger all, in fact.”
Ívar Laxdal’s pace picked up and Gunna wondered how soon she would find herself jogging to keep up.