“Er, how long between the two shots, do you think?” Eiríkur ventured.
“Not more than a few seconds. Very soon after. With the first shot, the victim fell to the floor. He collapsed first on to his knees, which show evidence of the impact marks on the floor, and then on to one side. The floor was also badly damaged by the shot and there are slivers of glass from the surface of the ceramic tiles everywhere. It’s possible that these may have hit the perpetrator as well, but there are slivers of glass in the victim’s right buttock and side, indicating that he fell on to that side. He was lying flat on his back when the second shot was delivered, so he may have rolled that way by himself or he may have been moved by the perpetrator into a suitable position. The victim’s chest was completely destroyed by the second shot, with extensive damage,” she said.
Extensive damage—an interesting understatement, Gunna reflected, thinking quickly to cope with Miss Cruz’s English.
“Do the footprints tell us anything?” Eiríkur asked, more confidently this time.
“Just that the perpetrator stepped towards the victim to fire the second round,” Miss Cruz said. “There are three footprints. I believe he stepped forward, right foot first, then left, fired, then stepped left foot back and right foot out of the door. There’s nothing remarkable about the prints, nothing special. Training shoes that are quite well worn, size forty-eight, I estimate, so we could be looking at a perpetrator around two metres tall.”
Helgi and Gunna looked at each other, thinking back to the witness’ recollection of seeing a tall man in dark clothes walking fast. “Thank you, Miss Cruz,” Sævaldur said.
“What’s the situation with the criminal profiler?” Gunna asked, knowing that this would elicit a sour response from Sævaldur.
“Coming from Denmark and should be arriving tomorrow,” he said shortly. “Now, ideas? What are we looking for? To my mind this was a professional job.”
Gunna shook her head and scowled to herself, which Sævaldur immediately picked up on.
“You don’t agree, Gunnhildur? Reasons?” he asked.
“The weapon, mainly,” she said firmly. “A shotgun’s messy. Someone setting out to kill and wanting to keep it quick and simple would use a handgun, probably with a silencer, not a shotgun.”
“Handguns are illegal. Have been for years,” Sævaldur objected.
“Yeah. Anyone who wants to can get hold of one for the right price,” Gunna said. “If this guy was a professional, it would have been a handgun. This wasn’t a professional job.”
The rawboned figure of Steingrímur from the Special Unit nodded in agreement.
“I agree with Gunna,” he said. “A shotgun’s awkward. From the way the pellets spread out, even at such short range, I’d guess we’re dealing with a sawn-off weapon here. It looks premeditated, but sawn-off says home-made to me.”
“And there are shotguns everywhere,” Gunna added. “Anyone who wants a shotgun can find one somewhere. Is there anyone here who doesn’t know someone who shoots? See?” she said, as not a single hand went up. “This may well have been a perfectly legal, licensed weapon for all we know.”
“All right, so what the hell are we looking for?” Sævaldur demanded. “I’ve no idea,” Gunna replied. “I think what’s certain here is that this isn’t the usual Icelandic murder. This wasn’t carried out by some doped-up bum who didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Whoever did it knew exactly what he was doing, and we need to find out if it can be linked to the fire at the same house. What I have been able to ascertain is that all the locals who would normally be mad enough to do something like this are already behind bars, or have solid alibis.”
“Either this was premeditated and carefully planned, or else whoever did it was very lucky,” Steingrímur said absently, as if he were thinking out loud. “I mean, we were there within minutes. You don’t get all that far in a couple of minutes on foot, unless he—assuming it’s a he—lives nearby and just went home.”
“Or unless he had a car parked nearby and was able to drive off without attracting attention?” Helgi suggested. “There’s the white van that was parked a couple of streets away that might have disappeared about the time of the killing, except that nobody remembers seeing it coming or going.”
“What do you want to do? Check every one of the hundreds of white vans in the south-west corner?” Sævaldur sneered.
“That’s just what we’ve been doing,” Helgi said.
Behind him, Ívar Laxdal nodded in tacit agreement.
THE ELDEST OF the three children was the last one to fall asleep. The little boy looked angelic as his head lolled to one side and Jón lifted him gently into the top bunk.
“I always struggle with that,” Elín Harpa said.
They had spent the day together in the little flat, with the children engrossed first in the television and later in a game they made up for themselves in their room.
“I thought kids didn’t do that any more,” Jón said, pleasantly surprised.
“Do what?”
“Play by themselves. I thought it was all TV and video games these days.”
“It is most of the time,” Elín Harpa said. They drank cans of beer from the fridge and talked about themselves with difficulty in staccato sentences.
“How about you?” Elín Harpa asked finally. “What went wrong?”
Jón shrugged. “Same as so many people, I suppose. Debts, lost the house. Not enough work. Wife pissed off back to her mother’s.”
“So where have you been living?”
“At my brother’s. It’s only a one-bedroom flat and we don’t get on. He’s a spoiled little poof. And you?”
“Boyfriend walked out three months ago, said he’d had enough and wanted some fun again.”
“That’s shit,” Jón said bluntly.
“Yeah. I thought so.”
“Is he the father of all of your kids?” Jón asked, and his voice faltered. “I mean, I know it’s personal and I shouldn’t ask, really.”
“I don’t care. No, the eldest two are from boyfriend number one. We split up when the second one was born and I moved south to the refuge.”
“He beat you up?”
“A bit. Enough to get into the refuge, and then I got this place. Boyfriend number two moved in with me and it was fun to start with, while that lasted.”
“What went wrong, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“He’s only nineteen and couldn’t handle the whole kids thing, especially the baby. So he just went.”
“Do you see him?”
“Not since the day he left.”
“God, doesn’t he even want to see his baby?”
“I guess not.”
Jón’s mind wandered to Ragna Gústa and the thought brought tears to his eyes. They sat in silence as Jón drained his can and opened another.
“You can stay, if you want,” Elín Harpa said suddenly. “You’re quite a nice man.”
“Thanks. I’d like to but I don’t think it’ll be for long.”
“Why’s that?”
Jón hesitated. Because I shot a man in cold blood yesterday and tomorrow I’m going to shoot another one, he wanted to say. And after that I’ll be in prison for the rest of my life.
“Æi, there’s just so much shit going on at the moment. I need to try and get my head straight,” he said lamely.
“Up to you. The offer’s there,” Elín Harpa said simply. “You were kind to me the other day, and it’s nice to return the favour.”
“I couldn’t do anything else,” Jón said helplessly.
“Whatever. The kids will be awake early and I have to get them to playschool in the morning. So I’m going to bed,” she said, pulling her shirt over her head. “You coming?”
• • •