eliminating persons who are known to have been at or near the scene on the day in question. That is all. Questions?’
There was an immediate chorus that was cut short as the broadcast returned to the studio.
‘No statement on their website yet,’ Dagga said, looking up from her laptop. ‘I’ve emailed and asked for the text and I suppose it’ll be here soon. What are we doing on this, Jonni?’ she asked.
‘We can cobble most of it together from the statement when it comes and the TV reports, but I suppose we’d better find a few comments. Any ideas, Skuli, as you’re our crime man?’
‘What’s Reynir Oli’s take on this?’
‘Oh, the usual.’ Jonni yawned. ‘Play along with the others, make it a front page if we can get an angle no one else will have.’
‘Like what?’ Dagga asked.
‘Well.’ Jonni smiled cruelly. ‘I was thinking Sigurjona Huldudottir. She’s been on the receiving end of Skandalblogger more than most people, so I’m sure she’d love the chance to sound off. It’s just a question of which one of you two darlings wants to go and listen to her ranting. Make it early, though. She’s normally a bit pissed by mid-afternoon.’
At the Keflavik station Gunna had already banged the doors aside when she realized that she didn’t know where her own incident room was, but catching sight of Bara at the end of a corridor she set off to follow her.
‘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 Eyjolfur 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 Hvalvik, 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 Hvalvik.
‘Right, ladies and gentlemen.’ She looked around at Bara and Bjossi. ‘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 Strom 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 Eyjolfur 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 Strom, 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 Bara’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?’ Bara asked.
‘Initially a witness. We’ve placed him provisionally, time and place, where Einar Eyjolfur was found. Also, we have a possible link to him and the stolen blue jeep that was lifted from Sandeyri harbour. Now, Bjossi, will you investigate, assuming the jeep hasn’t been disposed of? If we link this to Egill Grimsson’s death as well, as I firmly believe we can, then we have something uncomfortably big on our hands.’
Bjossi looked pensive for a moment. ‘Fuck. You mean this guy’s killed two people?’
‘It looks that way to me,’ Gunna agreed.
He whistled. ‘Vilhjalmur and Ivar Laxdal are going to love you. Iceland hasn’t had a double murder since . . . ?’
‘I suppose since Grettir did his stuff. So, I want this investigated as a priority. Bjossi, 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 Kristjans is in all this. He was nowhere to be found yesterday, so you’d better be off to Reykjavik 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 Vilhjalmur 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 Grimsson’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 Reykjavik 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 Kristjans 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
