“That’s it. Suddenly everything changed. They started lending stupid amounts to homeowners. Bjartmar saw what was happening and put all his fish money into property, bought up land and houses all over the city. Within a year, property prices had gone through the roof. He bought and sold dozens of properties and made an absolute killing. That’s when he became respectable.”
“And started wearing a suit?”
“That’s it. Got himself a trophy wife at the same time and started making even more money when he set up a property agency. You must know it, Landex? They advertise all the time, or used to. Business must have taken a hit recently, but I’m sure he has a good bit salted away somewhere. We know he has significant deposits overseas, as Landex had been expanding into Mediterranean property as well. The Spanish operation is called Sandex. Right on the beach.” Bjorgvin squeezed the empty cup until it crackled and dropped it into a bin by the water cooler.
“So how respectable is Bjartmar? Is he all legal these days?”
“It’s hard to tell. I doubt it. But he’s not involved with any of the banks or the financial institutions in a serious way and he’s nowhere near the top of our list of priorities. He can be confident that Economic Crime won’t be knocking on his door for a few years yet, unless it’s linked to laundering cash or avoiding currency controls, in which case we’d jump on him. But he’s too smart for that.”
“Well, thanks for your time,” Gunna said with a smile. “That certainly helps me out on the man’s background.”
“You’re welcome. D’you think he might have had any involvement in this fire? He wasn’t always a criminal with a briefcase, and there are stories about extracting cash with menaces from years ago. But of course, nobody’s ever been prepared to point the finger.”
“At the moment I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Bjorgvin nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me informed. Bjartmar is pretty ruthless. He’s cut out business partners in the past and left them high and dry. It’s amazing when you think about it that he’s not a financial genius, just a dope-dealer who got lucky,” he said with a thin smile. “Unlike the real financial whizzes, who are mostly bankrupt now.”
HELGI HAD THE radio tuned to a classical station. As a young man he’d preferred prog rock, but as his hair gradually fell out, he felt the call of the old-fashioned music that his father liked to listen to in the cowshed, claiming that it helped the milk yield. Helgi had even toyed with the idea of getting his old accordion out, but the look on Halla’s face on the rare occasions he had mentioned it had been enough to make him think again. Although they got on well, the difference in their ages was a source of occasional discomfort for him.
When Halla’s forty, I’ll be past fifty, he mused, sitting in the dark and watching the house where Eyglo Grimsdottir, mother of Long Omar Magnusson’s girlfriend Selma, lived with her cherished BMW on display in the drive. The area was one of the better parts of the city’s suburbs, a quiet few rows of newish houses flanked on both sides by empty developments that were likely to stay empty now that the property market had come to a crashing halt. Halla had even taken Helgi to view one of these brand-new terraced houses and they liked both the area and the price. But with as much chance of selling their flat in a faded 1970s block as of a winning lottery ticket, there was little choice but to stay put.
Helgi reflected that if Eyglo were to decide to go for a drive, his Skoda would struggle to keep up. The clock in the dashboard had stopped months ago, so he tapped the keypad of his mobile phone to light the screen and saw that the time was later than he’d thought.
Ten minutes more, then I’m going home, he decided, peering through the dark at the lights of the long living- room window. He had always been a patient man, something he had learned in his teens waiting on the moors with a shotgun cradled in his arms for migrating geese to pass within range.
He could see people moving in the living room and guessed that there were at least three present: Eyglo, Selma and a third person, a man, he guessed, judging by the silhouettes. He turned down the radio and eased the window open, listening to the night and the music coming from the house. The germ of an idea came to him and he picked up his communicator from the passenger seat.
“Control, zero-two-sixty. Is there a patrol car at a loose end anywhere near Vesturmoar?”
“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Just coming up to Hamraborg. Need us for something exciting, do you?”
“Just a quick look at something. Meet me in the bus stop at the top of Vesturmoar. I’m in a green Skoda.”
“We all know what your old rattletrap looks like, Helgi. See you in a minute.”
The squad car pulled up behind him and Helgi got out to talk to the officers sitting in it, a burly youngish man and a young woman new to the force. He quickly explained what he wanted them to do and set off on foot down the slope towards the row of houses that backed on to Vesturmoar, cursing the mud at the side of the road where the new streets still had no proper pavements. When he felt he had a good view of the back of Eyglo Grimsdottir’s house, he clicked his communicator.
“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty. In position.”
“OK,” came the laconic reply.
Helgi peered through the clear night air and watched. He could see the lights of Eyglo’s kitchen window and guessed where the back door was.
“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Silla’s knocking on the front door now.”
“Got you.”
“Door’s opening.”
As the words crackled into his earpiece, the back door swung open and a figure stepped out of the house and into the night.
“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty, that’s great. Stick around for ten minutes just in case, then you can wrap up.”
Helgi jogged along the road, keeping the dark figure in sight as it flitted from the glare of one street light to the next. Suddenly it disappeared, and Helgi set off down the slope, trying not to let his footfalls crunch too much on the rubble underfoot. He caught a glimpse of the bulky figure turning a corner ahead of him and realized that he would hardly be able to keep up without making more noise and risking alerting the man to his presence, when the sound of a door clicking shut stopped him in his tracks. He concentrated on the direction the sound came from and pointed himself towards it, emerging into the next street of empty houses made up of terraces of six. Every one was dark and empty, the first street of a new development.
Feeling uncomfortably conspicuous, he walked along the street as if he had a perfect right to and was simply taking a short cut. At the far end of the second set of six blank-eyed houses, a narrow ribbon of light glimmered faintly past one edge of a badly fitted garage door.
So, Ommi. That’s where you’re keeping yourself, he congratulated himself. I think you might be getting a visit in the morning.
JON STUMBLED AND leaned against the wall. His head was swimming. He had always been a thirsty man, but his love of a good drink was something he had easily suppressed during the years when he had worked hard and had a happy home life.
That had all changed now, and he felt his thirst clawing at him more often, whispering to him that a drink would help and that the day would pass more easily with a sharpener. With no more contract work to be had, he found himself relying on word-of-mouth jobs paid in cash to keep himself in funds. Friends of friends kept his phone number pinned to a board somewhere, just in case the dishwasher developed a leak or something went wrong with the heating.
He was enjoying it in some ways. For years he had meticulously kept records and rarely did black work other than for friends. Now, with the taxman and the child support people all chasing him, he had found a pleasurable release in ignoring them all. In any case, with no home to go to any more, it would take a while before their letters started reaching him again.
Slumped against a shop front, Jon lifted the half-bottle from his pocket and spun the cap, which flew off and tinkled as it hit the pavement. He cursed briefly and decided that as the bottle now didn’t have a cap, he’d just have to drink it all.
“All right, are you?”
He turned to see a pair of police officers in uniform looking down at him.
“Yeah. I’m doing OK.”
