Gunna pursed her lips and frowned. “I have. I’m no closer to Svana’s killer than I was a week ago. If anything, I’m further away, as Ómar Magnússon was a prime suspect and now he isn’t.”
“How so?”
“I know more or less precisely when Svana was murdered, but Ommi doesn’t. I know, but he doesn’t, that he has an alibi. Though that might not be much of an alibi unless the chap he was administering a pretty brutal beating to at just that time agrees to identify him as his assailant.”
Ívar Laxdal supported his chin in one hand and Gunna could hear his stubby fingers rasping the bristles.
“So who’s your suspect for the murder of Steindór Hjálmarsson?” he asked suddenly.
“Sindri Valsson, Jónas Valur Hjaltason’s boy. He lives in Portugal now, as far as I’m aware. He and his father have some business interests there. What’s the procedure on this? Can we ask the Portuguese police to sling him on to a flight to Iceland for us?”
“Ah, you’ll be interested to hear that there are already enquiries being made in that direction. The financial and computer crime division have been watching the gentleman for a while now, so you’d better liaise with them and see if you can pool some resources. Who knows, you might get a trip to Portugal out of it,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “But, Svana Geirs. We need some progress there. The papers are on to this and we can do without the bad publicity, or that’s the word from above that’s filtering downwards.”
“And you’re filtering it down to me? Point taken. Give me a day or two and hopefully we’ll see things start to move. But I’m practically at square one again on this.”
Ívar Laxdal nodded slowly. “A few days, Gunnhildur. Report back to me when you have a lead, will you?” He stood up, collecting both empty mugs from the table. “I’ll see you at nine, and give my regards to Unnsteinn, would you?” he added, and marched from the room.
SIGRÚN DISSOLVED INTO tears a second time over the remains of the pork steaks that Steini had cooked slowly to tenderness with tomatoes, onions and a few herbs that he flatly refused to identify.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed.
Gunna and Steini glanced at each other helplessly while Laufey fed a laughing Jens with a portion of mashed-up food. Sigrún looked at Jens, gurgling and smiling to himself in the high chair that he was almost too big for, and dabbed her eyes.
“He looks so much like his father,” she said miserably. “The bastard.”
“Have you heard anything from Jörundur?” Gunna asked as a grim look passed over Steini’s face and he stood up to start collecting plates. Gunna motioned to Laufey to lend a hand, but she pretended not to notice.
“No. He’s at this place near Trondheim. His sister told me today when she called to ask about clothes that he’s working on a tunnel, and the slag he took with him’s had no trouble walking into a job. Would you believe it, I don’t even know the cow’s name?”
“I thought she was going to collect his stuff?”
“So did I, and if she doesn’t, she can pick it all up from the dump.” Sigrún poured herself another glass of wine. “Jörundur wants the house sold,” she blurted out. “But he can bloody well think again.”
“Is it worth anything these days?” Gunna asked. “I haven’t even had the heart to have a look at the property pages and see what this place might be worth now, but I guess it’s not much. Yours is quite a big place, though, so it should be worth a bit, shouldn’t it?”
“Yeah. But we’re in Hvalvík, not Reykjavík. Jörundur always was crap with figures and he can’t understand that anything we might get for the house is going to be less than what we owe on it. If we sell, neither of us gets anything and Jens and I would have nowhere to live. But he doesn’t want to see that side of it.”
It was painful to see the change that had taken place in Sigrún and the growing bitterness in her since Jörundur had left so suddenly. Gunna and Sigrún had known each other since Gunna had arrived in Hvalvík, with Laufey as a toddler and a school-age Gísli, to take over the village’s policing from the retiring officer in charge. She had found that her personal history was already well known and the subject of intense debate.
She looked up and saw the reassuring image of Ragnar Sæmundsson, complete with his uniform cap at a slightly more than officially jaunty angle and a mischievous smile on his face, laughing down at her from the top shelf in the living room.
She shook herself from brooding and felt deeply sorry for Sigrún, having watched the burgeoning romance with Jörundur from its beginnings and Sigrún’s longing for children of her own that had culminated in the difficult and overdue arrival of Jens Jörundsson almost three years ago. Gunna had known deep inside her that Jörundur would only last a few years before straying elsewhere. The hand that had unexpectedly cupped a buttock and been swiftly swept away one evening in Sigrún’s darkened hallway had confirmed that for her, and she had watched helplessly as Sigrún lavished all her love and attention on Jens, while Jörundur increasingly occupied himself elsewhere.
“Y’know, Rúna, I don’t know how I’d have managed without you that first year we lived in Hvalvík,” Gunna said as Sigrún upended her wine glass. “You remember all the trouble with the school? A real nightmare that was. If you hadn’t been there to look after Laufey, I’d never have got through it all.”
“God, yes,” Sigrún recalled. “It’s never easy in a small place like this. When I came here it was the same non-stop speculation about who I was, where I came from, who I was related to, what my bra size was, why I’d decided to live here and not in Reykjavík any more, why I was single, if I’d always been single. It was endless, and nobody asks you anything straight out. Crazy.”
“Isn’t it just? It was the same in Vestureyri, but I didn’t notice quite how nosy people can be until I came to live here. And it’s all just gossip and whispers, nothing said out loud.”
“You remember that rumour that we were, y’know, lady friends who were more than just good friends?” Sigrún crowed.
“Good grief. The blabbermouths have a lot to answer for sometimes,” Gunna said.
“You’re lucky with Steini,” Sigrún said with the minutest trace of envy. “He even cooks. What a gem.”
“Yup,” Gunna agreed. “There’s a lot to be said for a bloke who’s old enough to be retired.”
“Not talking about men again, are you?” Steini asked, reappearing and shaking his head in mock despair.
“We are indeed. Tell me, Steini, how do you know Ívar Laxdal? He sends you his regards, by the way.”
Steini sat down, looked at the empty wine bottle and took a sip from Gunna’s glass.
“Little chap, built like a barrel? He joined the Coast Guard the same year I did. He was as sharp as a knife, certainly smarter than the rest of us and undoubtedly destined for great things.”
“So why did he end up as a copper?”
“He had a touch of colour blindness, nothing serious, but enough to put the lid on a career as a ship’s officer, as far as I remember. So I guess he decided to go elsewhere. What’s he doing in the police force?”
“He’s my boss at the moment, at least until Örlygur comes back from sick leave. If Örlygur comes back from sick leave.”
“Well say hello to him from me, will you? It must be twenty years since I saw him last. What’s he like to work for?”
“Y’know, I really don’t know yet. Like you said, he’s as sharp as a knife. But every time I have to talk to him, I feel like a schoolgirl who hasn’t done her homework properly. And tomorrow I have to see him for an official reprimand.”