“You mean you don’t know anything?” he asked disbelievingly.
“That’s about the shape of it. It’s S?valdur Bogason who’s in charge, not me. I’m just a foot soldier on this one.”
“But you must have something, surely? Is it linked to Svana Geirs, d’you know?”
This time Gunna felt uncomfortable with Skuli being so close to the mark. “Who knows? All I can say, and completely off the record, is that’s one possibility we’re exploring.”
“No suspects? No leads?” Skuli asked plaintively.
“So far, nothing. No witnesses, no dabs, no ballistic evidence, nothing. So no bones to throw.”
“Hell. This has to be the front page tomorrow, and we haven’t anything to put on there. The whole story is two paragraphs and some waffle. Was it a professional killing, d’you think?”
“I’m sorry, Skuli, I can’t speculate. But if you were to dig into Bjartmar’s business affairs, you wouldn’t go far wrong.”
She heard the grin in his voice. “Thanks, Gunna.”
“The companies are Rigel Investment, Arcturus Construction, Arcturus Management, Landex and Sandex Property. It’s all public record stuff. All you have to do is join the dots and you should find something spooky.”
“Thanks, Gunna. You’re a star,” Skuli said with evident delight, and rang off.
THE VAN WHINED and complained, but eventually started. Jon waited for it to settle down and stop belching smoke before he chivvied it into the morning traffic heading out of town. It rattled through Gardab?r as he thought about Elin Harpa and the unreal day he had spent in her tiny flat, numbed and isolated from the world outside.
It was yet another relief to think that he wouldn’t have to worry about the van’s exhaust, ready to drop off into the road at the slightest bump. After today, he’d have other concerns.
He took a detour past his old house, and then wished he hadn’t. A car was parked in the driveway and there was a light in the kitchen. Somebody was having breakfast in the kitchen he had built, probably the same somebody who had started making an effort to tidy up the garden that had been at the bottom of Jon’s list of priorities.
He felt physically sick as he gunned the van down the street and back to the main road that took him towards Hafnarfjordur and the half-finished industrial area where the workshop stood. According to the plans, it should have been demolished already to make way for a new development, but construction had come to a halt a year before and the workshop had been given a reprieve.
Jon fired up the stove and the heat spread quickly, the bare walls drinking in the warmth and the metal of the stove dticking happily. From force of habit he cleared up, sweeping dust and debris from the floor straight out of the door to be caught by the breeze and whipped away.
At the workbench, he took his bag from an overhead locker and carefully unwrapped his shotgun. The barrels were blackened and he was shocked to see that there were blood spots on them as well. He carefully wiped the weapon down with a cloth and ejected the used cartridges. These he dropped into the stove that had already eaten up the trainers and overalls he had taken off after the shooting at Bjartmar’s house.
Wondering why he was being so careful, he clicked on the kettle. He hadn’t been able to face breakfast as Elin Harpa’s children had wolfed down cereal, but there was time for a mug of coffee before he needed to get to his appointment.
“HIS NAME’S JON Johannsson,” Eirikur said, eyes on the screen as he clicked and scrolled.
The man’s image appeared before him, a cheerful character who looked unused to having his photograph taken and had a serious expression on his face that didn’t suit him.
“You’re sure?” Gunna asked, leaning forward to see Eirikur’s screen better.
“Yup. We have CCTV footage of a white van registered to this guy taken within ten minutes of the shooting at the intersection below the Setberg district. We could only make out three numbers on the registration plate, but that combination only fits one pale-coloured van on the vehicle registry—Jon Johannsson’s.”
“So this certainly points to our man. If not, he’s still going to have a lot of questions to answer,” Gunna said grimly.
“He’s a plumber, apparently.”
“How do you know that?” Gunna asked.
“His ID number. Then looked him up in the phone book.”
“Address?”
“Here,” Eirikur said, holding out a slip of paper. “He lives in Hafnarfjordur.”
“Then we’d better get the Laxdal to call the Special Unit out to pay him a visit, hadn’t we? I hope he hasn’t gone to work.”
STEINGRIMUR AND HIS two black-clad colleagues emerged from the van and got into position. Helgi took a deep breath and marched up the garden path beside Gunna, gulping as she hammered on the door.
“Coming,” sang a cheerful voice an instant before the door opened and a smiling young woman appeared, hair in a turban made from a towel. “Yes?”
Gunna flashed her ID.
“I’m Gunnhildur Gisladottir from the CID Serious Crime Unit. This is my colleague Helgi Svavarsson,” she said grimly. “We’re looking for Jon Johannsson.”
Her heart was pounding and she hoped her nerves didn’t show.
“Jon? There’s no Jon here,” the woman said with a laugh that died on her lips as she looked past Gunna and Helgi to see three black-clad men with their weapons trained on the house. “What’s going on?” she quavered.
“Jon Johannsson has this place registered as his legal residence,” Gunna said with relief as the tension subsided. “As you can see, we need to speak to him rather urgently.”
“But there’s nobody here with that name,” the woman said plaintively. “There’s just me and Smari, and he’s gone to work.”
“I think we’d best come in and look around,” Gunna said firmly, stepping into the hallway.
Inside, she took in the stack of cardboard boxes in the living room and the piles of belongings that had obviously been moved recently. Helgi, Steingrimur and the other two officers moved swiftly through the house and checked every room before returning to the hall where Gunna stood with the woman, whose makeshift turban was gradually coming adrift to unleash locks of damp hair.
“It might be the guy who lived here before us,” she ventured. “There’s some post over there.”
Helgi picked up the pile of envelopes and flipped through it. “Letters for Linda Orvarsdottir and Jon Johannsson,” he said. “We’ve not been here long,” the woman said plaintively. “In that case, I owe you an apology,” Gunna told her.
“Need us, do you?” Steingrimur asked, his semi-automatic weapon slung on his shoulder behind him.
“All done, thanks, guys,” Gunna said. “Sorry about the false alarm, but hopefully we’ll need you sooner rather than later.”
“No problem. There’s two teams ready to go when you find him,” Steingrimur rumbled as he and his colleagues disappeared with an unnerving swiftness on silent feet.
Gunna turned back to the woman, who had given up on the towel and let her wet hair fall down her back.
“When did you move in here?”
“Only a few days ago. We’re still unpacking.”
“I can see that. Didn’t you meet the previous owner when you bought the house, or is it rented or something?”
“It was a repossession. We bought it from the bank and were really lucky to get a good price on it. I think the previous owner left a couple of weeks ago.”
Gunna nodded as she took this in.
“Fine. Sorry to have troubled you, in that case. We’ll leave you in peace now, but you’d better let me have a contact at the bank that handled the sale.”
WITH A HEAVY heart, Jon parked the van near the middle of Kopavogur. He set off towards the centre, taking a detour, partly to kill time and partly because it was something he didn’t expect to be able to do again.
