“You know her mother’s downstairs?”

“What? Evil Eyglo? Well, she’ll have a long wait.”

SELMA WAS NO more collected or calm than she had been when she and Ommi had been delivered to the police station at Hverfisgata to be searched and checked in, while Addi the Pill was having treatment for his injuries and roaring about police brutality to anyone who would listen.

She sat tearfully opposite Gunna, who spread her elbows on the table in front of her to provide even more of an imposing figure than normal. A middle-aged man in an ill-fitting grey suit had been appointed as Selma’s lawyer and sat next to her, flipping unconcernedly through sheets of notes that Gunna guessed had little to do with Selma’s case.

“Is my mum here?” Selma asked querulously.

“Yup,” Gunna said.

“Can I see her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You are aware that everything that happens in here is recorded?” Gunna asked, ignoring the question.

“Yeah.”

“Right, then. I’ve read your statements from yesterday when you spoke to my colleague. You helped Omar to abscond from prison? Why did you do it, Selma?”

“I didn’t know he was running away,” Selma wailed. “Not until he said for me to drive out of that place, y’know, whatsitcalled? You have to do what Ommi says. He’s a sweet guy, but he can be really angry sometimes.”

“Like when?”

“If someone doesn’t agree with him, or doesn’t respect him properly.”

“Like this person?” Gunna held out a photograph of Diddi, and Selma studied it carefully.

“I don’t know,” she replied innocently. “Who’s that?”

“Kristbjorn Hrafnsson, otherwise known as Daft Diddi. He’s a nice enough lad, but has some mental problems and has lived in a hostel for years. Right, then. The truth, please, Selma. Have you seen this guy before?” Gunna demanded.

“Yeah.”

“When? Where?”

“In town. Last week. With Ommi and Addi. The guy was downtown so Ommi offered him a lift and we went for a drive around.”

“Who was driving? You?”

“Yeah.”

“In your mother’s car?”

“No! In Ommi’s car that he bought the other week. The red one.”

“He bought it? Who from?”

“I don’t know. Some guy.”

“Some guy who stole it,” Gunna said.

“Oh.”

“When Diddi was in the car, what did they talk about?”

“Money and stuff. I didn’t listen much.”

“And what was your impression of Diddi? How did he come across? Frightened?”

“Er, maybe. A bit,” Selma said after a long moment’s thought.

“Come on, Selma. Don’t play games with me. I think Ommi and his mate threatened Diddi and forced him to go into a bank with a knife. In fact I know so, and unless I’m convinced otherwise, I won’t have much of an option but to see you as an accessory.”

“Please, officer,” the lawyer at Selma’s side said without looking up from his notes.

“What’s an access … sery?” Selma asked.

“It means that you would be seen as having taken part in the alleged crime,” the lawyer said in a dry voice.

“But I didn’t! It was them!” Selma squawked.

“Ah. So now we’re getting somewhere. You’re saying that Ommi and Addi forced Diddi to commit a crime?”

“Yeah,” Selma said sulkily.

“What did they tell him to do?”

“They said that he owed them money from sometime years ago before your lot put my Ommi in prison. Diddi said he didn’t have it. Ommi said he could help him find it and all he had to do was go into the bank and get it. Look, I was just driving them around, OK?”

“Which one of them gave Diddi a lift on the day?”

“When?”

“Don’t act stupid, Selma. Which one of them drove Diddi to the bank, parked in the next street and drove him away afterwards?”

“I don’t know. Not me.”

“Selma, why did Ommi abscond from Kviabryggja?”

“Ab-what?”

“Do a runner.”

Selma’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Dunno.”

“There has to be a good reason for it. He had less than a year to go and then he would have been out on parole. Why jeopardize that? Something to do with this Addi? Did they have some business together?”

“Dunno,” Selma said quietly, the sour looked fixed to her features.

“Come on, Selma. I know you’re not as thick as you make out. Ommi’s going away again for a good long time and if you’re not careful, so will you. What was Addi there for? Why did Ommi do a bunk? Something to do with Addi’s business, or was it something else?”

“Dunno,” Selma repeated stonily. “Look, I want a cigarette. I’ve been here for hours.”

“Sorry,” Gunna said. “It’s a government building, so it’s a smokeless zone.”

IT WAS PAST six o’clock when Gunna, Eirikur and Helgi gathered to compare notes. All of them were tired after spending a full day in the interview rooms with Ommi, Selma and the taciturn Addi the Pill when he was brought back, one wrist in plaster and prepared only to comment bitterly on his ill-treatment. Gunna felt her uniform shirt sticking to her back and longed for a shower.

“I’m leaving in …” She looked at her watch, “five minutes and not a second longer. What have we found out?”

Helgi yawned and his phone yodelled to him as he switched it on. “Daft Diddi’s escapade was orchestrated by Ommi and Addi. No doubt. Even if Ommi didn’t have a good few years of his sentence ahead of him, we’d have grounds for keeping him. We have custody for Addi and it won’t be a problem to keep him in. What about Selma?”

“We’re letting her out tomorrow morning. Evil Eyglo has been shouting about her daughter being banged up without good cause all day, so no harm in giving her a bit more to yell about.”

“Did you get anything out of Selma?” Helgi asked, scrolling through a day’s worth of accumulated text messages. “Shit. Halla wanted me home at four. Oh well. It’s the doghouse for me tonight,” he said, almost cheerfully.

“Selma knows a lot of it, certainly more than she’s letting on. What I really want to know is the Ommi- Bjartmar-Svana triangle. How do these three tie up? What are the links? Who owes who a favour? Who did Ommi do time for, and in return for what? If there was some kind of a deal, why abscond? Is Ommi acting on his own initiative or what? Did he do a runner because of something happening outside? If so, what? Was it Bjartmar he was doing the time for?”

Eirikur looked blank. “I’ve no idea, chief. Really no idea. It’s like talking to a wall in there. I don’t know how long Addi the Pill has been sampling his own merchandise, but the guy is completely spaced out.”

Gunna shuffled through papers on her desk and screwed up tired eyes to look at the screen of her computer,

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