Gunna felt a presence behind her and look round to see Eiríkur and a green-suited paramedic. She looked back at Bjarki Steinsson, who seemed to have slipped into a trance.
“He’s all yours,” she told the paramedic. “Look after him. He’s had a bit of a tough time.”
The man nodded. He kneeled down where Gunna had squatted and patted Bjarki’s knee.
“All right, are you? My name’s Siggi and I’m here to help you,” he said cheerfully.
Gunna squatted again and looked at Bjarki’s blank face.
“It’s going to be all right, Bjarki,” she said softly. “These gentlemen are going to take you over to the hospital for a few checks and some rest. I’ll look in on you later if that’s all right.”
GUNNA FELT HER head spin as she sought out Ívar Laxdal. As the last few days had become increasingly complex, she had found the man’s presence in the background a reassurance that she was on the right track, even when she seemed to be getting nowhere.
“Gunnhildur,” Ívar Laxdal’s rich baritone intoned behind her. “Coffee? I’m just going to the canteen.”
“Good idea.”
“What’s happened? Did you locate Bjarki Steinsson?”
“Yup. Last night at Keflavík, trying to skip the country like all the rest of Iceland’s brightest and best criminals. Put him in a hotel and took his passport away. He seems to have suffered a breakdown during the night. He’s at the National Hospital now, under sedation and observation.”
“Has his wife been informed?”
“Not yet.” Gunna smiled. “I thought we’d spare the poor man that for the time being at least.”
“You want to question him further?”
“Absolutely, the sooner the better. Yesterday he visited Hallur Hallbjörnsson in hospital, and that’s a conversation I’d like to have listened to.”
“What do you propose to do next?”
Gunna thought for a moment, taking the opportunity while Ívar Laxdal punched buttons on the hulking machine that had replaced the canteen’s percolator.
“There are buttons for all sorts of weird and wonderful drinks here, but no mention of ordinary, old-fashioned Icelandic coffee,” he grumbled.
“You’ll find number 56 comes closest,” Gunna said.
The machine hissed, threatened and administered a plastic beaker of brown liquid that he passed over to Gunna.
“At the moment I have Högni Sigurgeirsson and Gulli Ólafs in cells, Helena Rós Pálsdóttir spitting venom in my direction, and Bjarki Steinsson and Hallur Hallbjörnsson in hospital, not to mention Svana Geirs, Jónas Valur and Bjartmar Arnarson on the slab, plus Jón Jóhannsson on suicide watch. Doing well, don’t you think?”
“It looks to me like you have all the ingredients there. All you have to do is fit them together,” Ívar Laxdal said with a rare smile.
“I hope you’re right. Helgi’s starting on Högni soon, and then I think I’ll have a run over to the hospital.”
“JÓNAS VALUR AND Bjartmar are both dead, and I have every reason to believe that you were responsible for both of those deaths,” Helgi suggested.
“I wasn’t!” Högni yelped. “I never touched Bjartmar!”
“You did harm Jónas Valur, then?”
“I never said that,” Högni said, retreating and throwing an uneasy glance at Gunna, sitting behind Helgi.
“My colleague was speaking to Jónas Valur when you attacked both of them.” Helgi nodded his head slightly sideways towards Gunna. “What happened? You attempted to murder a police officer, and then assaulted Jónas Valur with fatal consequences?”
“It wasn’t like that …”
“So how was it? I’ve all day to listen to you tell us.”
“Jónas said I was an idiot and if I thought he was going to hand over any money then I’d better think again. I told him I didn’t know what he was on about. He laughed when your mate hit the ground,” Högni said, looking at Gunna.
“Was Jónas Valur expecting someone else?” Helgi asked.
“How should I know?”
“I’m asking you. Could he have been expecting to see you?”
“No,” Högni said truculently. “Why?”
Helgi looked sideways at Gunna and raised an eyebrow, at which she nodded back.
“Jónas Valur was being blackmailed for a considerable amount of money, and you’re the most likely candidate. I believe that he refused to hand over the money in his suitcase when he saw it was you, so you attacked and killed him.”
“I didn’t!”
Högni pounded the table with the flat of his hand while the silent lawyer sitting next to him flinched and the uniformed officer by the door took half a step forward until a quick shake of the head from Gunna stopped him.
“So how was it, Högni?” Helgi asked quietly.
“He laughed at me, said I was a fool. He said the city wasn’t a place for people like me and I should go home to the country.” Högni’s eyes bulged with recalled anger as he carried on. “That bastard said Svana had got what was coming to her and he wasn’t going to hand over a penny. Then I got angry.”
His fists bunched into thick balls and trembled on the table. The officer at the door looked doubtful.
“So you and Svana were blackmailing Jónas Valur and your sister’s other men? And when Jónas Valur refused to pay up, you cracked his skull?”
“No! Nothing like that!” Högni howled. “What’s this blackmail shit about?”
“And Svana?”
“No! Svana’d never do anything like that.”
“She had every reason to, so she could cash in on these guys.”
Högni shook his head wildly. “No, it wasn’t like that. She was packing them in, going back on TV again with the fitness show. She wanted to get rid of them.”
“Why? Surely it was a profitable arrangement for her?”
“I don’t know. But she said that somebody had found out about it and had been stalking her, sending her texts. She said she just deleted them and never replied, but she wasn’t happy. She was edgy, bad-tempered.”
“So what happened when you had that argument with Jónas Valur?”
“I hit him and he fell down. So I ran for it.”
“But you took his car and luggage with you?”
He hung his head. “Yeah.”
“So you knew he had a flight booked and you decided to go instead when you saw all the money in the case?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you hit my colleague and Jónas Valur with?”
“A bit of wood. It was a chair leg once.”
“And where is it now?”
Högni lifted and dropped his shoulders. “Dunno. By the road somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Near the airport, I suppose.” He sighed. “What’s going to happen to me?” he asked, suddenly deflating and in a small voice.
“I’m sorry, that’s not for me to say. But this weapon you used, was it the same one you used to assault Hallur Hallbjörnsson when you tried to choke him?”
“Yeah.”
“And you fixed up the car so it would look like he had committed suicide?”
Högni nodded. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Helgi ignored the question and carried on. “And the same weapon you used on your sister in her flat?”
“No!”
This time Högni’s hands smacked hard on the table and he half rose from his seat.
“I never hurt Svana!” he yelled, his face going an even deeper shade of red, and the officer by the door took a step closer, ready to intervene.
“We have witnesses who have stated they saw the two of you having a serious argument outside Fit Club a few days before her death.”
“That was different!”
“Sit down,” Helgi instructed in a calm voice, but Högni continued to rap at the table with his fists and seemed ready to jump from his chair, unable to stay still.