“You’ve been to see Kaya?” Eiríkur asked, awe in his voice. “Alone?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“Watch yourself, chief,” Eiríkur said as Helgi laughed. “She’s a right lezzie, that one is.”
“Ach, get away with you.”
“True, chief,” Eiríkur said. “An out-and-out lady in comfy shoes.”
“Private is private, boys. Leave that stuff outside work, will you?” Gunna admonished. “Eiríkur, you were with me when we interviewed Svana’s parents. Can you find the phone numbers, please, especially the number for Högni.”
Pink at the ear lobes after having been gently scolded, Eiríkur went to do as he was told and disappeared behind his partition.
“Don’t encourage the boy, Helgi,” Gunna murmured to him. “Gossip is one thing, but it’s different when it’s in here. I know Kaya lives with a woman, but she doesn’t need her personal life raked over by everyone in the building.”
“Sorry, chief.”
“Will you get on to Steingrímur and find out how far his team extended their hot search around Bjartmar’s house? All right?”
“Already on to it. What about you?”
Gunna sighed. “Sævaldur’s holding another briefing at five. You know, I have a nasty feeling he’s angling to take over Örlygur Sveinsson’s duties, assuming Örlygur’s back finally gets him retired. Now, that would be fun and games, wouldn’t it?”
Helgi looked blank.
“But right now, I’m going to have a little drive in the country while you gentlemen get some real work done,” she said cheerfully. “See you at Super-Sævaldur’s briefing.”
• • •
THE DOOR CLANGED behind them and the warder took his place next to it as Ommi lounged behind the table. Gunna eyed him curiously. She suspected that his tough veneer was thinner than before.
“You know who I am, Ommi, so let’s go straight to it, shall we?”
“You know my mum, don’t you?” Ommi asked. “How is the old bag these days? Haven’t seen her for years.”
“She’s fine, as far as I know. It’s not as if I see her very often.”
“And how are the rest of the idiots in that dump?”
“You tell me, Ommi. You were there not long ago.”
“Haven’t been there for years,” he said sharply. “You’d have to pay me to go near that hole.”
Gunna looked him squarely in the eyes. “Ommi, let’s leave out the crap, just for once. I know that you and another man, probably that deadbeat Addi the Pill, went out to Hvalvík looking for your old friend Óskar. I have enough witnesses and evidence to place you there on that day and I’m not interested in listening to you arguing about it. Understand?”
“Evidence, yeah. You can fix up a few witnesses easily enough to lie for you in court.”
Gunna declined to rise to the bait. “It’s your pension scheme I’m interested in, Ommi. Tell me what the arrangement was.”
Looking him in the face, Gunna was silently pleased to see a moment’s panic behind the façade before Ommi’s sharp-cut features returned to their normal sneer.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Who really killed Steindór Hjálmarsson? Ommi, I know it wasn’t you, so who have you been doing the time for?”
“You’re talking shit now.”
“Am I? You’ve been inside for the best part of nine years and would have been out next year. In those nine years there have been some fantastic advances in forensic science. There’s all kinds of evidence from the crime scene that’s been carefully preserved that we can take a much better look at these days. A victim’s clothes, that sort of thing. We don’t throw anything away and you’d be amazed what we can come up with now.”
“Don’t be stupid. The guy got in my way, so I smacked him. That’s what happened. He saw me outside afterwards and wanted another go, so I gave it to him.”
“No, Ommi. You were inside the whole time. I have witnesses who state that you didn’t leave the building.”
“What witnesses?”
“Never you mind. They’re there,” Gunna said. “You know, it’s very strange, this is. Normally it’s the other way round: crims trying to tell me they didn’t do things. Why are you so keen to be guilty, Ommi? Normally you’d have been screaming blue murder about police brutality, fabricated evidence and miscarriages of justice.”
“Show me these witnesses.”
“All in good time. This isn’t a formal interview. You’re not going anywhere and we’ve plenty of time to go through it all with you in every painful detail.”
This time Ommi looked genuinely uncomfortable. “What have you been told?”
“All kinds of interesting stuff. You’d be surprised what clear memories people have, even after all these years.”
“Was it Selma?”
“I can’t tell you now, Ommi.”
“Skari?”
“So you have seen Skari?” Gunna asked quickly.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But I’ve spoken to him, and very interesting it was. He’s not the brightest, is he?”
This time Ommi glared sullenly, but Gunna could sense that there were a dozen questions eating away at him.
“I’m interested in what happened that night when Steindór Hjálmarsson was murdered, but you know what, Ommi? It’s ancient history now, water under the bridge. It doesn’t look good for us to be reopening a case after almost ten years, admitting that we got it wrong.”
“So what the hell are you here for?” Ommi demanded, angrily enough for the warden standing by the door to stiffen and frown.
“It’s all right,” Gunna assured him and turned back to Ommi. “What I’m really here about is Svana Geirs. I can place you at the scene. Your dabs are right there in her kitchen, where she was killed.”
“That’s stupid,” Ommi protested. “I’d never have hurt Svana.”
“Come on, be serious. Skari testified against you and was beaten to within an inch of his life. Svana testified against you and gets killed. I can place you at both locations.”
“But I didn’t hurt Svana. I’d never hurt her.”
“So why did you go and see her?”
Ommi glared back sullenly.
“A quick shag for old times’ sake?” Gunna suggested.
“Fuck you, you old bitch,” Ommi retorted furiously.
“I can hang this one on you, Ommi. Between ourselves, this’ll mean another ten years inside, and with your past form, it won’t be in some soft open nick like Kvíabryggja. Think about it,” Gunna said quietly and turned to the warder. “Ómar would like to go back to his cell now,” she told him.
GUNNA JUST MADE it in time for Sævaldur’s briefing. Out of breath after trotting from the car park, she took a seat at the back.
In her precise, heavily accented English that Gunna knew practically every male officer found deeply exciting, the severe Miss Cruz drily described Bjartmar Arnarson’s injuries. As Albert had predicted, there was little relevant information that hadn’t been known at first glance.
“Caucasian male, good general health, one hundred and ninety-one centimetres in height, one hundred and fifteen kilos in weight. No illnesses, no evidence of drug use. The injuries were caused by a shotgun with small-gauge lead pellets that resulted in multiple lacerations of the feet, which were bare at the time the injury occurred,” she intoned, using one finger to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.
“I would estimate that the perpetrator was standing no more than one metre from the victim and he would certainly have been splashed with blood from the victim’s injuries.”
She paused to draw a deep breath and push her glasses up a second time.
“The fatal injury was undoubtedly administered at very close range, within thirty centimetres of the victim’s chest, with a second round delivered from the same weapon. Mortality was instantaneous,” she said flatly, and sat down.