Saturday, 30 August
‘He got pissed and passed out, fell in the water. Drowned while unconscious,’ said the barrel-chested man squeezed into the passenger seat.
‘S?valdur, we know that,’ Gunna told him sharply. ‘How the hell did he get from a bar in Reykjavik to Hvalvik harbour? He didn’t drive and he was already so drunk he could hardly walk. So who helped him?’
S?valdur Bogason yawned and tried to stretch. Gunna frowned, drumming on the wheel with the fingers of one hand. She wondered whether or not to call home and find out if Laufey was out of bed. She stifled the idea straight away, telling herself that there was practically no chance that her daughter would be awake at this early hour of a Saturday morning without a particularly good reason.
Gunna forced her thoughts back to Einar Eyjolfur. She was concerned that her interviews at Spearpoint had yielded nothing concrete beyond a picture of a young man who kept very much to himself and did his job well. Unusually, he had no immediate family and only a small circle of friends made up mostly of past and present colleagues from work, with the exception Disa had mentioned of Egill Grimsson.
Disa’s comments that Einar Eyjolfur had been worried during his last few months of life stuck in Gunna’s mind, especially as Sigurjona claimed to have been unaware of anything out of the ordinary. She made a mental note to search for Egill Grimsson’s name among filed reports.
‘So, where are we now?’ S?valdur asked. ‘I vote we just sit here until it stops raining.’
‘This is Reykjavik. It’s not going to stop raining.’
Gunna scanned the notes she had been keeping as they tracked Einar Eyjolfur’s last night. He had been with Jon Oddur and the Danish chewing gum manufacturers on Monday evening. After a meal at a Chinese restaurant on Laugarvegur, the group had moved on to a faux-Irish bar called McCuddy’s. Around eleven, the Danes politely bowed out, pleading an early flight home the next day, while Einar and Jon Oddur had carried on to several bars, of which the Emperor was the last, a bar where trouble could generally be easily found.
Gunna looked up through the rain-streaked windscreen at the Emperor’s windows across the street. The place looked no more inviting than had McCuddy’s half an hour ago. A narrow face peered out at the street through the glass panels of the door and vanished.
‘Come on then,’ Gunna instructed, swinging open the car door.
It was dark inside the deserted bar. Chairs were still stacked on tables and the floor was littered with last night’s debris.
‘Hey! Anybody about?’ S?valdur called out.
The lights flickered on and the face Gunna had seen at the window scowled around a door.
‘What do you want?’
‘A word with the manager,’ Gunna replied, stepping forward. At the sight of the uniform, the man scowled again. ‘Monday evening. Who was here then?’
‘That was days ago. How should I know?’
‘You mean you don’t keep staff records?’
‘Well, yeah. Of course I do.’
‘Then you’d better look it up.’
In the bar’s cramped back office the man flipped through a diary while trying to stop himself yawning.
‘OK,’ he announced at length. ‘Me, Adda, Noi and Gugga on the bar, Geiri and Gusti on the door.’
‘Full names? And is that all of them?’
The man groaned.
‘Look,’ S?valdur broke in. ‘We’re not looking for dodgy work permits and I couldn’t give a shit about who’s working on the black. Just tell us who these people are, all right?’
The manager nodded his understanding, tore a page from the back of the diary and wrote a series of names on it, adding phone numbers from the mobile hanging on a cord around his neck.
‘Thank you,’ Gunna said smoothly as he handed over the sheet of paper. ‘Now, you wouldn’t recall this face, would you?’
She held up Einar Eyjolfur’s photograph.
‘Dunno, sweetheart. Get all sorts in here. Ask the guys on the doors. They’d remember if there was any trouble.’
Satisfied, Gunna put the photo back in her folder.
‘Geiri and Gusti. Where do these guys live?’
‘I don’t know,’ the man groaned again.
‘Surely you have a record of all your staff’s legal addresses?’ Gunna said, handing back the sheet of names.
‘Shit. All right.’
He scribbled on the page and Gunna noticed that there was no need to look anything up.
‘Thanks. Now, I’m sure there won’t be any need for you to call these guys and warn them that we’re on the way, will there? Any more than there’ll be any need for us to pass anything on to the tax office?’
She raised an eyebrow. Boxed into a corner, the man shook his head.
30-08-2008, 1205
Skandalblogger writes:
It’s who you know . . .
Just how does Scaramanga stay open? Mundi Gretars still has the enviable reputation of running Iceland’s last-remaining house of ill repute. Of course, we all know that the place is supposed to be a club like all the others. But unlike Odal and Bohem, where what you see is pretty much all you’re going to get, Mundi has a different set of rules. He knows that not discouraging the dancers from having their out-of-hours freelance activities doesn’t do the bar takings any harm at all.
So just how much public money goes across Mundi Gretars’ bar, and how much of it makes its way back again? Skandalblogger hears that there’s a surprising number of our elders and betters who find their way to Scaramanga now and again, and some of these fine gentlemen are so concerned about the young ladies’ well-being that they send after-hours taxis to drive them home . . .
A little bird whispers to Skandalblogger that several of our respected public servants, including a gentlemen’s club of highly placed law enforcement officials, have repeatedly torpedoed civic plans to withdraw Scaramanga’s licence. One of these guys, so we’re told, has formed a frequent and meaningful relationship with a young lady who dances. We’re sure his missus would be delighted if she knew . . .
We’re the soul of discretion . . .
B?jo!
‘You know either of these guys, Geiri and Gusti?’ Gunna asked as she parked the car outside the block of flats in Breidholt among everything from wheelless wrecks perched on blocks to shiny SUVs.
‘Gusti’s an old favourite. Goes back a long way, assault, dope, the usual.’ S?valdur grinned. ‘It’ll be interesting to catch up with him again. Agust Asgeirsson, his name is. Didn’t you come across him when you were on the city force?’
‘You mean Gusti the Gob? Remember him well, a right creep he used to be. Wonder if he’s mellowed since we last met?’
The outside door was wedged open and S?valdur stepped inside to peer at the mailboxes. He wrinkled his nose at the sour smell in the block’s lobby.
‘You’ve forgotten what fun it is going to places like this, eh, Gunna?’ he said grimly as they ascended the bare concrete stairs.
‘Not having to deal with slobs like these is one of the perks of being a country copper. Maybe you should try for a transfer to Skagastrond?’
‘Bloody hell, no. I don’t know how you manage with all those yokels. Right, this should be it,’ he said, hammering on the door.
There was silence. S?valdur hammered again.
‘Gusti! Open the bloody door, will you? It’s the law!’
An eye appeared at the peephole and after a moment the door inched open to reveal a stubbled face, puffy
