‘How goes it?’
‘Fine. I have two guys chasing up Clean Iceland and I’m off in a minute to talk to the guy who calls himself the strategic director.’
‘Good. Play it cool, will you? We don’t want to alarm anyone. Now, is everyone here? I need to speak to you all together.’
The incident room was just a large office with a few desks, phones and PCs. A planner pinned to the wall showed the dates when Einar Eyjólfur had been last seen and when his body had been discovered.
Gunna stood before it with the sheaf of notes she had picked up from the station in Hvalvík, along with Snorri, who had been given the whole story in a staccato barrage on the way after they had left a bewildered Haddi in sole charge at Hvalvík.
‘Right, ladies and gentlemen.’ She looked around at Bára and Bjössi. ‘Where’s Snorri?’
‘Here, chief,’ he said apologetically, slipping in around the door.
‘I’ll keep this quick,’ Gunna announced, pinning the passport picture of Ström staring blankly out of it to the wall board. ‘This man is someone we need to eliminate. We don’t have anyone else at all. Einar Eyjólfur appears to have had no enemies at all, everyone liked him, so there doesn’t seem to be anyone anywhere who would have wanted to harm him.’
She tapped the noticeboard with one finger.
‘Name of Ström, presumed Swedish national, has probably been to Iceland more than once. I have established that he rented a car of the kind seen on the dock that night, a BMW X-three jeep with JA in the number. Don’t worry,’ she warned, seeing the expression on Bára’s face. ‘I’ve spent a day already eliminating every vehicle that doesn’t fit. We need to know what his business is, who he is, why he’s been here and what his movements have been.’
‘Is this man a suspect or a witness?’ Bára asked.
‘Initially a witness. We’ve placed him provisionally, time and place, where Einar Eyjólfur was found. Also, we have a possible link to him and the stolen blue jeep that was lifted from Sandeyri harbour. Now, Bjössi, will you investigate, assuming the jeep hasn’t been disposed of? If we link this to Egill Grímsson’s death as well, as I firmly believe we can, then we have something uncomfortably big on our hands.’
Bjössi looked pensive for a moment. ‘Fuck. You mean this guy’s killed two people?’
‘It looks that way to me,’ Gunna agreed.
He whistled. ‘Vilhjálmur and Ívar Laxdal are going to love you. Iceland hasn’t had a double murder since . . . ?’
‘I suppose since Gréttir did his stuff. So, I want this investigated as a priority. Bjössi, I want you to start by contacting Stockholm. Then Interpol. Snorri will email you the picture of our boy to send out.’
She put the sheaf of documents from Swiftcars on to the desk in front of him.
‘His passport, driving licence and credit card details are all in there, so hopefully our herring-munching friends in Sweden can tell us something straight away. Get on to Visa. The credit card trail might help us as well.’ Gunna took a long breath. ‘We don’t know if he’s still in the country. We have no idea if he thinks we might be on to him. We can only assume he’s dangerous and not to be approached. OK? That’s all for now.’
The group scattered, leaving Gunna and Snorri behind as they all hunched behind phones and computers or disappeared from the room.
‘What now, chief?’ Snorri asked.
Gunna thought. ‘I want to know where Matti Kristjáns is in all this. He was nowhere to be found yesterday, so you’d better be off to Reykjavík for the afternoon and see if you can track the old bastard down. Have a quick look at the taxi ranks and if he’s not there, get straight down to Nonni the Taxi’s place. Be as heavy as you like if they don’t cooperate.’
‘OK. I can do that.’
‘It’s getting on for one now, and there’s the briefing with Vilhjálmur Traustason at five, so hopefully I’ll have something for him by then. You’d better be off and see if you can find anything out before then.’
With everyone else busy, Gunna tapped a computer until it awoke from its sleep, typed ‘Clean Iceland’ into a search engine and waited impatiently for the machine to do her bidding.
A list of choices appeared, Gunna clicked on the most obvious one and instantly the website of the Clean Iceland Campaign emerged in front of her. She saw that it was largely in English and began to pick her way through the panels of information, starting with news. Here she scrolled down to the beginning of the year, quickly found a bulletin on Egill Grímsson’s death and read through a short biography of the man, detailing his commitment to the cause of opposing heavy industry in Iceland and his devotion to his family, alongside his dedication to his job as a schoolteacher in the grey Reykjavík suburb where he had lived for most of his forty-four years.
Gunna made a few notes, including that he had been one of the founders of the movement and had lobbied the Ministry of Environmental Affairs tirelessly, while being involved in an international campaign of protests outside Icelandic embassies across the developed world in cooperation with environmental groups abroad that formed a loose network across much of Europe, North America and some Asian countries.
She closed the window on the screen and sat back.
So, he was a bit of a firebrand on the quiet, was our Egill, she mused.
23
Sunday, 21 September
This time Matti Kristjáns wasn’t just worried — he was frightened. He ran the conversation with Hardy over in his mind as he packed those of his meagre possessions that he didn’t dare leave behind.
‘Meet me in an hour and we’ll talk it over,’ Hardy had said nonchalantly, too nonchalantly, Matti thought. Had it been a mistake to tell Hardy a little bird had whispered in his ear that the police were looking for him? Although no stranger to a little persuasion himself, Matti couldn’t forget Hardy’s coolness after having so effortlessly broken the wrist of the man in the farmhouse outside Borgarnes.
Rooting under his bed, he hauled out a seaman’s canvas kitbag and stuffed clothes unceremoniously into it, dirty clothes and clean going in together, and a sleeping bag on top of the lot. From the drawer in the bedside table he took a few papers, driving licence, health insurance card, passport and a couple of bank cards, all of which he stowed in the inside pocket of his jacket.
Sadly he surveyed the stack of glossy pornography peeking from under his bed. Antiques, some of these, he thought with a pang, recalling that the airbrushed nudes had been with him through plenty of tough times without a word of complaint.
Matti shoved the stack back under his bed and clicked the door shut on his way out. At the bottom of the stairs he paused and listened for the TV in the living room. A daytime soap meant that the old woman was in. In fact, she wasn’t older than Matti, but years of hard living had taken a grim toll.
‘Tóta! Going out for a bit,’ Matti called, hoping she wouldn’t hear him, but the door swung open and the heavy-set woman stood in the doorway leaning on the frame.
‘Going to be long?’ she demanded without taking the cigarette from her lips.
‘Day or two,’ Matti lied.
‘Paid up, are you?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ he lied again as Tóta’s eyes narrowed, and he knew that she could smell something wrong. Set a thief to catch a thief, he thought bitterly.
‘Well, if you’re not sure how long you’re going to be, then I’d better have another month’s rent so’s I can be sure,’ she said in a sandpaper growl.
Matti knew when not to argue. He pulled a handful of notes from his trouser pocket and handed them over.
‘That’s all I’ve got right now. Nonni’s supposed to be paying out at the end of the month for the booking work and we’ll square up then if that’s OK.’