Skúli opened his mobile and thumbed buttons before holding it to his ear.
‘Hi, Lára? Skúli at Dagurinn. Yeah, fine, thanks. And you? Cool.’
Gunna sat and listened to Skúli’s half of the conversation, fascinated at the way his entire manner changed when speaking to someone of his own age.
‘Yeah, er, Lára. I need a favour if that’s OK? I have someone here who wants to see any pictures you have of the march at Hvalvík. Yeah, it was a great day, wasn’t it? Just wondering if you’re on the way over here at all?’
Gunna frowned and motioned to Skúli for him to pass the phone to her. He frowned back.
‘Er, Lára, just a moment,’ he said, and held the phone in the palm of his hand. ‘She says she has more pics, but wants to know who wants to see them?’
‘Let me speak to her.’
‘Er, OK.’
He handed the phone across with a second’s reluctance.
‘Good morning. Lára? This is Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, Hvalvík police. I’m working on an investigation and need to identify someone in one of your pictures of the march. Could you help out?’ Gunna asked in a tone that clearly expected a positive reply.
Lára’s voice crackled through a poor line. ‘Yeah, that’s OK. I can bring my laptop and you can go through all the pictures I took if you want.’
‘Excellent. When?’
‘Depends where you are? Are you in town or out at Hvalvík right now?’
‘I’m in Skúli’s office at the moment.’
‘No problem. I’ll be right with you. Five minutes.’
‘Good. Thank you,’ Gunna finished, snapping Skúli’s phone shut. ‘She’ll be here in a few minutes.’
‘She’s here already,’ Skúli said, looking over Gunna’s shoulder. She swung her head round to see Lára’s gangly form approaching, lopsided with a camera bag slung over one shoulder. She stopped at Dagga’s desk, where some exaggerated air kisses took place as Jonni scowled.
‘You know,’ Skúli said, looking at the image on his computer screen, ‘I spoke to this man at the march.’
‘What? Why didn’t you say so before?’
‘Should I have?’
‘Ach, I’m sorry, Skúli. Now, tell me more.’
‘Well, not much really. He came and chatted for a minute, and then he was gone. Didn’t think much of it.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Not much. Asked if I was a journo and I said yes. He said he was working for a German magazine called Eco Zeit, but I googled it afterwards and it doesn’t seem to exist.’
‘Did he say his name?’
‘No, don’t think so.’
‘And is he German or what?’
Skúli thought. ‘Sorry, I don’t know. He spoke English very well, better than I do, but I couldn’t tell you if he had an accent or not.’
There was a tap at the door and Lára appeared, grinning.
‘Hi,’ Skúli responded with a warmth that told Gunna he was more than a little pleased to see her. ‘That was quick.’
‘Wasn’t it just? I was upstairs. Been doing some pictures for Home and Garden magazine on the next floor,’ she said, unfolding a laptop and tapping it into life. She quickly located a folder of image files, swiped across them and opened the whole series.
‘These are the pics from the march. That was a pretty good day, I even sold some photos of it in Denmark and Sweden. Now, what was it you wanted to look at?’
Skúli turned his computer towards her and pointed to the man’s face behind Gunna’s shoulder.
‘Oh, that creep,’ Lára said.
‘You spoke to him?’
‘Briefly. He asked for my phone number and said we ought to meet for a drink sometime.’
Gunna was amused to see Skúli bridle visibly.
‘A bit too smooth, I thought,’ Lára continued.
‘Where did you think he was from?’
‘Not from here, at any rate. He spoke English, but he could be from anywhere. Not England, though. His English was too precise, too perfect. Y’know what I mean? Like he’d learned it at school.’
‘Lára knows. She studied in England,’ Skúli butted in.
‘What were you studying? Photography?’ Gunna asked.
‘No. Human resource management, actually.’
‘What?’
‘Well, I wanted to study abroad, but to get a student loan it had to be something that isn’t offered in Iceland. So I went for human resource management.’
‘And now you’re a photographer?’
‘That’s right. I trained to manage a big department, and now I work for myself. Good, isn’t it?’ Lára asked brightly.
‘OK, good. But if you’re sure this guy wasn’t a native English speaker, that helps. Now, any photos?’
‘Yeah, there are a few more of him somewhere. What’s he done?’
‘Not sure yet, and as it’s an ongoing inquiry, I couldn’t tell you anyway at the moment,’ Gunna grunted, hunched over the screen as Lára tapped the space bar to toggle between pictures.
‘There he is again, behind those guys who didn’t want to let anyone pass.’
‘That’s him,’ Gunna agreed. ‘Any more?’
They scrolled through the several hundred pictures and found half a dozen showing the man’s face, each time at the periphery of the march and never far from the police presence. Lára copied the picture files and handed them to Gunna on a disk.
‘Here you are.’
‘Thanks. It’s not a problem to let me have these? Journalistic integrity and all that?’
‘Hell, no,’ Lára replied. ‘As long as you’re not stopping me doing my job, it’s not a problem. I’m happy to help the police, and I’d be even happier if they found the bastard who burgled my flat.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Breidholt.’
Gunna thought for a moment. ‘Sævaldur Bogason’s patch, I think. I’ll remind him when I see him. Anyway, Skúli, I’m afraid I might have to ask you not to publish the photo of me with our man in the background, or at least to crop him out if that’s possible. If he is someone we’re looking for, then I’d prefer not to spook him. When does it all go to print?’
‘Week after next, I think.’
‘Right. I’ll let you know. Give me a day or two. Lára, thank you for your assistance, it all helps.’
26
Wednesday, 24 September
Although Gunna had seen the County Sheriff before, she had never had a reason to speak to him. Seated in the incident room in front of her and flanked by Vilhjálmur Traustason and Ívar Laxdal, he looked surprisingly youthful in faded jeans and an open-necked shirt instead of his usual office wear.
‘So, what do you want to tell me about?’ the Sheriff asked as Gunna stood up in front of the whole group. Bjössi, Bára and Snorri sat behind them and waited.
‘I have some information about the person who may have been in the vicinity when Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson was murdered—’
‘Allegedly,’ Vilhjálmur broke in.
‘Allegedly,’ Gunna repeated. ‘But I felt that in the light of what we’ve been told, I’d best call you all together to save myself from having to repeat this later.’
Vilhjálmur fidgeted while the Sheriff nodded. Gunna took a deep breath and thumbed copies of a series of pictures to the wall.
‘The team have been in touch with police forces in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Sweden came up trumps and this is the man we want to talk to.’
‘And he is?’ Vilhjálmur asked querulously.
‘Gunnar Ström. He’s been identified as having hired a car that appears to have been on the quay at Hvalvík the night Einar Eyjólfur died. He bears a striking resemblance to the person who stole the jeep that is likely to have been used to murder Egill Grímsson. We are absolutely certain he was present at the march on the InterAlu compound at Hvalvík.’