‘I hardly think so, young lady.’
Laufey yawned and kneaded her eyes with the backs of her fists. ‘That’s all right, then.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Nothing. Just some of the kids at school said that my mum’s got a boyfriend at last and I said no she hasn’t.’
Gunna sighed. Dinner with Steini had been a pleasure. They had both enjoyed themselves and Gunna had forgotten for a few hours much of the weight she felt she had been carrying since Raggi’s death. Steini had called again but she hadn’t had time to do more than promise vaguely to meet.
‘Laufey, my darling. One day you’ll understand that a young man like Skúli is hardly likely to be interested in an old lady like me.’
‘You’re not old,’ Laufey said, swinging her legs down to the floor. ‘And Finnur says his dad said he’d give you a portion. What does that mean, Mum?’
Gunna spluttered as she choked back laughter. ‘And who is Finnur?’
‘A really stupid boy in my class.’
‘All right. Who’s Finnur’s dad?’
‘I’m not sure. I think he works for the council.’
‘Thank you. I’ll look out for him and see if I can give him a parking ticket.’
‘All right. I’m going to bed now.’
‘But don’t you tell Finnur that tomorrow, will you?’
Laufey yawned again, pulled off her socks and dropped them on the floor.
‘In the basket, please,’ Gunna pointed out as Laufey scowled in perfect facsimile of her father’s face, giving Gunna a sudden pang. ‘I have to go early tomorrow, so you’ll be all right to get yourself up for school, won’t you?’
‘Sure, Mum. I’m not a kid, you know.’
28
Friday, 26 September
Clean Iceland’s offices were two rooms between an artist’s studio and a health food shop a street back from Mýrargata and the slipways of Reykjavík harbour. Looking out of the window behind Kolbeinn Sverrisson’s head, Gunna could see the masts of the whaling boats that had been there for a decade without putting to sea.
Bára stood by the door while Gunna took the only other chair in Kolbeinn’s cramped and crowded cubbyhole of an office. Every surface was covered with snowdrifts of paperwork, folders, books and papers. The floor could only be seen in the shape of a corridor threading its way between boxes of more files.
‘It’s a mess,’ Kolbeinn sighed. ‘We only moved in here last week and there hasn’t been time to sort anything out yet. We don’t even have phones connected yet.’
‘How many of you are there here?’ Gunna asked.
‘Just two of us. Me and Ásta full time, then there’s loads of people who donate a few hours a week to the cause.’
Kolbeinn Sverrison was a raw-boned man with cropped dark hair and an open, engaging face cross-hatched with several days’ worth of stubble. Gunna had seen him in the distance at the march and wondered if the anger and passion he had shown then were far below the surface. He looked different, more vulnerable than the clown-like figure she had seen in his outsize green hat at the head of the march and later addressing the crowd with a fury that had left him drained.
‘Are you here to donate a few hours to Clean Iceland?’ he asked wryly, pouring coffee from a thermos into three cracked cups on the edge of his desk.
‘No, sorry. Do you have the pictures, Bára?’ Gunna asked, swivelling in her seat. Bára passed forward a folder and Gunna extracted pictures of Egill Grímsson and Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson. She placed them one by one alongside the row of cups.
‘Anyone here you recognize?’
‘Could be.’
‘And?’
Kolbeinn’s brows knitted in a frown as he lifted a cup and sipped.
‘Why do you need to know?’ he asked finally.
‘Because, as you must be aware, these two people are dead and we’d like to know why and who’s responsible.’
‘InterAlu is responsible,’ he said flatly.
‘Would you care to explain?’
‘Both of these men were close to us here at Clean Iceland. Egill was one of the founders of the movement and one of our most energetic campaigners. He poured a huge amount of energy into lobbying politicians and government departments, highlighting illegal acts, generally making himself a nuisance to InterAlu and all the other aluminium manufacturers who want to set up shop here.’
‘But particularly InterAlu? Why?’
‘Because it’s just so fucking blatant. The environmental survey was a sham to begin with. Then there was the issue of power, when the National Power Authority refused to supply them. So they went ahead and started building their own hydro-electric plant in a nature reserve, after they had bribed or bamboozled the government into declassifying the reserve and allowing the power station to be built. The pollution will be horrendous when it’s finished. It’s crooked government. It’s worse than that. It’s stupid government being diddled by a pack of crooks.’
Gunna felt that she was seeing a burst of the same passion: the man’s presence had gone from quiet to electrifying in a matter of seconds. ‘And Einar Eyjólfur?’
The passion vanished as soon as it had appeared. ‘Ach. Einar. He was a great guy.’
‘You knew he worked at Spearpoint and that Spearpoint is involved with the power plant?’
‘Involved? Don’t you know that the owners of Spearpoint also own fifty per cent of ESC, the company that’s building the power station? They’re more than just involved and it’s even more of a fucking scandal if you remember that one of these people is a government minister,’ Kolbeinn spat. ‘But yes, we were fully aware that Einar Eyjólfur was working at Spearpoint and he was an invaluable source of inside information. I have no doubt this is why he was killed.’
‘Why haven’t you contacted the police about this?’
Kolbeinn laughed. ‘What? And you think anyone would believe us? Come on.’
Gunna picked up the pictures from the desk and replaced them with one of Gunnar Hårde. ‘Recognize this guy?’
‘Nope. Who is he?’
‘OK. And this one?’
This time she placed a picture of Arngrímur Örn Arnarson on the table.
‘I know this one. He’s a computer programmer who did some work for us years ago. In fact, he set up our first website in the nineties. Haven’t seen him for a long time. I thought he’d moved away?’
‘Not far. He moved to Borgarnes. We believe he was murdered a couple of weeks ago and that he could be linked to Egill and Einar Eyjólfur. Do you know anything of Arngrímur’s activities?’
‘Shit. No.’
‘When did you last see him or have any contact with him?’
Kolbeinn looked briefly at the ceiling. ‘I’m not sure. Probably six, seven years ago. To be honest, I wasn’t too comfortable around him, always got the feeling there was something dodgy he was up to. Know what I mean?’
Gunna nodded. ‘Perfectly. It’s part of the job description. But can you be more precise? What was it made you uncomfortable?’
‘It’s hard to say. He was a highly competent systems guy and a very clever programmer. But he was one of those people who would do any kind of work for the right price. I don’t think he had much in the way of principles. He made our website and kept it secure, as we certainly had a good few hacking attempts that Arngrímur did his best to trace. But we had to pay him the going rate, even though this isn’t a rich organization and it’s supposed to be on a non-profit basis.’
‘So what happened?’
‘He was too expensive for us after a while. That was that.’
‘Who took over his work?’
‘Egill, mostly, to begin with. Actually my little sister is our webmaster now but we have a much simpler site that’s easy to maintain and we have a series of blogs and a Facebook presence instead.’