“Duly noted,” Gunna replied. “Svana had a sexual partner the day she died. You?”
“Shit!” Hallur looked shocked.
“Fair enough. I have to ask, you understand. But I need an answer,” Gunna said with iron in her voice.
“I find it very uncomfortable, Sergeant, having my personal life dug into in this way by a woman. If you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I don’t mind your saying so and I do appreciate your position. But these questions need answers.” She tried not to smile, and bit back a suggestion that he could at least stop trying to unobtrusively check out her legs.
Hallur grunted non-committally.
“So when did you last see Svana?”
“Like I told you. On the fourth. That was my turn.”
“I’m not saying I disbelieve you, but there is evidence to the contrary. If you have anything to tell me, I’d imagine a man in your position would be very well advised to come clean. There’s DNA evidence that’s being tested now.”
“Shit! Am I a suspect?” he demanded suddenly. “Because unless I am, I think you should stop pressuring me like this.”
“If I’m pressuring you, it’s because I don’t believe you’re telling me everything that a man in your position would have a duty to,” Gunna said gently, but with a firmer tone behind the softness.
Hallur jammed the car key into the ignition. “I’m sorry, officer. I have a meeting that I’m already late for. Can I drop you somewhere?”
“Right here will do. You still haven’t answered the question I asked you.”
“And I don’t have time to now. Understand, Sergeant?” There was a new harshness in Hallur’s voice.
“Perfectly. If you’re not prepared to co-operate with a serious police investigation, then you don’t leave me too many options.”
“What are you going to do? Arrest me?”
Gunna opened the door and swung herself down to the ground, not sorry to be out of the car.
“Maybe not yet. But I’m already wondering what else a smart young MP might have to be so nervous about. See you soon,” she said, slamming the door before he could reply. She set off towards the lake with a smile on her face, wondering idly why she should be pleased with herself when Hallur’s car sped past.
JON LAY ON his back in a widening puddle as his phone began to play the theme tune from Star Wars. It was too far away to reach easily and he decided to let it ring. He patted the floor at his side for the wrench he knew was there and closed his hand around it, the other holding the isolation valve in place under the kitchen sink. With a few swift turns the valve was secured and he hauled himself stiffly to his feet.
There was no number under the missed call message on his phone’s screen. Jon put it back on the kitchen table and rummaged in his toolbox to come up with a set of mixer taps, as good as new, left over from another job.
This time he whistled as he set about fitting them to the kitchen sink, first taking the old leaking taps off and dropping them in the bin that normally occupied the space where he had been lying in the puddle.
“Almost done?”
“Yeah. Not long. Done the hard part,” he said without looking round at the thin, blank-faced young woman who lived in the flat strewn with the debris left by small children with not enough space to play. Not bad-looking, apart from that miserable expression on her face, he thought. How old? No more than twenty-three or twenty-four? And how many sprogs?
“D’you want a coffee?”
“Yeah, please.”
He heard her take the jug from the percolator and fill it in the bathroom. Before long it was spluttering and hissing as the aroma of fresh coffee filled the room. Jon swung himself back under the sink with a tap spanner in one hand and gently tightened the nuts holding the new tap unit in place. As he emerged, he saw her sitting at the table with two mugs in front of her.
“Almost done,” he told her, and she nodded as he delved into his toolbox for a tube of silicone.
“I’ll just put a squirt of this around the back of your sink. If you get water into the worktop, it’ll swell up and rot, and that’s a hell of a job to replace,” he said.
Jon stretched and flexed his shoulders after an hour hunched under the sink, just as his phone began to ring again.
“Yeah?”
“Jon?” a voice asked. “This is Hrannar Antonsson at the bank.”
Jon instantly regretted answering the phone, as “private number calling” on the display generally meant trouble.
“Yeah, what do you want now?” he demanded, dreading the reply and noticing for the first time that the woman sitting at the table had brushed some life into her limp hair and changed from the loose sweatshirt she had been wearing when he arrived into a blouse that hid nothing.
“We’d really like you to come in so we can review your status,” the personal financial adviser gabbled. “Of course we realize that things aren’t easy for any of us right now, but there are a few items that we need to regularize.”
Regularize? Jon thought. Is that really a word?
“All right,” he sighed. “When?”
“Well, no pressure, obviously, but this is getting urgent and we’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of days now …”
“So there is pressure, if you say it’s getting urgent.”
“Well, yes. Er, no. I don’t want to pressure you, but we do need to achieve a settlement that’s agreeable to everyone so that we can normalize your banking status and hopefully reinstate your privileges—”
“This afternoon?” Jon broke in. “I can be there in an hour or so.”
“Er, yeah,” Hrannar said, taken aback. “Could we make it tomorrow, maybe?”
“It’s today or next week,” Jon said, anger rising inside him as he imagined the young man sitting behind his desk at the bank. The woman stared at him with a vacant expression as she listened to the conversation.
“My diary’s already full for today and I just don’t have a slot for any more appointments,” the personal financial adviser protested.
“Look, mate. I’m at work and I don’t have time to mess about. Today, or next week.”
“In that case it’ll have to be Tuesday. How’s about three twenty-five? OK for you?”
“No, it’s not. What time do you open?”
“We’re here at nine thirty.”
“Nine thirty, then. I’m not going to pack up a day’s work somewhere to come into town just to hear more bad news.”
“If that’s the way you feel, I can make you an appointment at nine fifty,” Hrannar shot back, irritation plain in his voice.
“I have to say, I feel you could be more co-operative—”
“I’ll be there when you open,” Jon told him, and ended the call without waiting to hear more, tossing his phone into his open toolbox. “Bastards …”
“Finished?” the woman asked.
“Pretty much. I’ll just give it all a wipe-down,” Jon replied, turning on the new tap and watching the water gush into the sink. He snapped the water off and put the rest of his tools and unused parts back in the toolbox.
“Your coffee’s on the table,” she reminded him softly and with the first smile he had seen from her.
“Thanks,” Jon said, sitting down and taking a mouthful. “Good coffee. Lived here long?”
“Almost a year. It’s too small for us, but it was all I could afford.”
“How many kids?” Jon asked.
“Three. All under five.” She sighed. “How much do I owe you?”
“Call it fifteen thousand for cash. That’s an hour’s work and I’ll only charge you five thousand for the taps as they were off another job. How does that sound?”
“That’s great. But, er …” She looked down at the table and leaned forward, providing a clear view down her blouse. “The thing is, I don’t have fifteen thousand right now. My maintenance hasn’t come through and the kids
