‘Not me. It must have been someone who looks like me.’
‘The interesting part is that someone was assaulted in one of the houses on that street a week ago. There’s some compelling evidence to suggest that person was you. Fibres found at the scene match perfectly those of your fleece. There are bloodstains on the floor and I would imagine that the DNA sequencing will show it’s yours. Any comments, Orri?’
‘It wasn’t me. I was at home on Tuesday night.’
‘You’ll notice I didn’t say the assault took place on Tuesday night. We were called to the scene on Wednesday, but it could have been any of several days or nights before that.’
‘You said a week ago, so I assumed Tuesday.’
‘So why Kópavogsbakki? I have a list of sightings with times and dates over the last couple of weeks, although not one in the week since the mysterious assault took place there. I suppose you’ll be able to tell me exactly where you were on all these occasions, as you weren’t walking around Kópavogsbakki?’
Orri shrugged again and looked blank. ‘I don’t know. Like I said, nothing to do with me.’
‘You know Alex Snetzler.’
‘Yeah, He works with me.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Search me.’
‘You’re not aware that Alex is dead?’
Orri’s pale face rapidly went paler. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘You’re a dangerous person to know, Orri. Juris worked at Green Bay Dispatch and was fencing stolen property, and he’s disappeared. Alex works at Green Bay Dispatch and his flat was stuffed with stolen property, and now he’s dead.’
‘Excuse me, officer,’ the lawyer broke in. ‘Are you insinuating that my client might have something to do with the disappearances of these men?’
‘I’m keeping an open mind,’ Gunna retorted. ‘It strikes me as too much of a coincidence that two fences appear to have come to sticky ends.’
‘I don’t know. I reckon Juris went back to Latvia. I don’t know about Alex. We work together but we don’t get on all that well.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘He’s a loudmouth. I don’t like people like that. He does his work. I do mine. Otherwise we don’t get in each other’s way.’
‘And you don’t know how he came to have a wardrobe stuffed full of stolen laptops and iPads. That’s just wonderful. Orri, it just beggars belief. You’re all over the place. There’s stolen gear in your basement that you completely forgot to tell us about, plus you sold that gold clasp to Aunt Bertha-’
‘It was my mother’s,’ Orri said.
‘No, it absolutely wasn’t. It belonged to a lady whose house was broken into sometime in the last couple of weeks by someone who took a couple of envelopes of foreign currency and a smart wristwatch that looks remarkably similar to one of the half dozen or so watches we found in your basement with all the other bits and pieces. Tomorrow my colleague will be asking its owner to identify it and if that goes the way I expect it to, then that places you right there.’
Orri sat silent and the lawyer pursed her lips in frustration.
‘Enough,’ Gunna decided and stood up. ‘Eiríkur, will you finish up, please, and then escort this gentleman upstairs to the executive suite?’
Orri opened his mouth and glanced at the lawyer sitting next to him. ‘I, er. .’ he mumbled.
Gunna sat down again and glared at him. ‘What?’
‘I want to speak to you in private. Just you and me.’
‘Orri,’ the lawyer began. ‘This isn’t clever.’
‘Without prejudice,’ Orri said. ‘That’s the legal term, isn’t it? I have stuff to tell you, but no recordings, no witnesses. Just you and me.’
‘You know I can’t do that.’
‘I’m advising you against this,’ the lawyer said sharply.
Orri shrugged, looking Gunna in the eyes. ‘Up to you. I’ll go off to Litla Hraun and keep quiet if you don’t want to hear it.’
Gunna hurtled out of the city with the wipers fending off the spring drizzle that had left the roads slippery with water. Passing through Gardabær she overtook more cars than she should have done and told herself to slow down, rattling a fingertip rhythm on the wheel as she waited by the lights outside Hafnarfjördur.
She curbed her impatience on the slope and put her foot down to surge past a truck the moment the road was wide enough, again reminding herself that there was no need for this kind of speed, but frustrated with herself that her mood demanded it.
She crunched the car to a halt in the gravel outside Green Bay Dispatch and hurried inside, spying out Dóri immediately a second before he saw her and grimaced at the sight of her.
‘Dóri, a word,’ Gunna demanded and swept him along in her wake to the canteen. ‘Out of here please, gentlemen,’ she ordered unzipping her coat and opening her wallet to show them her warrant card.
‘When did you last see Alex?’ Gunna fired at Dóri as he limped into the canteen and she shut the door behind him.
He looked at her suspiciously, pushing his wire-framed glasses up to perch them on his thinning crown.
‘Alex was here on Friday. He hasn’t shown up since.’
‘He hasn’t asked for any holiday or anything like that?’
‘No, nothing. Why? Where is he?’
‘And Orri? When did he leave yesterday?’
‘He went home as usual yesterday and hasn’t been back. What’s going on?’
‘Just so you know, Orri is in a cell right now and Alex is on a slab at the National Hospital. He was murdered some time at the weekend, I guess, and his body was dumped in a trench that was about to become the foundations of a new house.’
Dóri went pale and sat down, shaking his head in short, sharp movements, as if unable to comprehend.
‘Is there anyone here that Alex used to go around with?’ Gunna demanded. ‘Any special friends? How long had he worked here? And while I’m asking awkward questions, who is Juris?’
‘To start with,’ Dóri said, ‘I’ll answer your questions in order if I may. Alex and Orri are the youngest staff here and they both kept fairly much to themselves. Alex has always been a sociable sort of character, but no. No particular friends as far as I’m aware. He started here a little under two years ago. Juris is a young man who used to work here and who left suddenly. One day he was here and the next he wasn’t. He left a forwarding address for his outstanding wages to be paid by cheque, which as far as I know was done. What else would you like to know?’
‘Alex spoke reasonable Icelandic, right? So he must have been here in Iceland for a few years. Do you know where he was working before?’
‘Building work. That’s all I know. But his work permit was in order.’
‘Orri and Alex, how do they get on?’
‘Well enough, I think. I gather there has been some tension on occasions, but nothing they weren’t able to sort out between themselves. We’re all adults here, you know. It comes from having an older workforce.’ Dóri looked dazed. ‘This is serious stuff, isn’t it? What happened to Alex?’
Gunna extracted a print from her pocket. ‘Recognize this face?’
‘Sorry.’ Dóri shook his head. ‘Should I?’
‘Not necessarily. It was a long shot,’ Gunna said and poured herself a coffee from the flask on the table without being invited. ‘What did you make of him? Be honest.’
‘Alex? A sweet enough boy, but he was a crook.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I’m an observer of people, officer. I haven’t always been a clerk in a transport company, you know. I was a teacher for many years. You grow a sixth sense after dealing with adolescents for all those years and I was rarely wrong about which ones would come off the rails somewhere. I could sense it with Alex. He was charming enough, but abrasive at the same time. My suspicion is that he was shipping things that weren’t part of the company’s regular business.’
‘Stolen goods? Drugs?’
‘I don’t know. I need this job so I take care not to ask.’
‘What brought Alex to work here?’