can do is whine that it was some slip of a girl who took the gun off him! The man’s locked up and nobody’s hurt. If that’s not a result, then I don’t know what is.”
S?valdur quailed at the virulence of Gunna’s outburst.
“Yes, well …” he blustered.
“You should be bloody ashamed of yourself,” Gunna continued. “The girl deserves a fucking medal.”
“Of course she did a fine job, but we all played our part in it.”
“We didn’t all play our part in it. You spent your bastard time in fucking meetings making sure you got noticed by someone upstairs while the rest of us did the legwork,” Gunna shouted.
S?valdur paled. “We’ll continue this conversation at Hverfisgata,” he said finally as Gunna headed for the door with Eirikur at her heels.
EIRIKUR SAT IN silence while Gunna drove out of the city and towards the east. She was collected and hummed to herself, as if a gathering storm was the thing that brought her inner peace. Eirikur wondered how long it would be before S?valdur initiated a disciplinary procedure.
“You’re very quiet, Eirikur. What’s eating you?”
“Well …”
“Well what?”
“I was just thinking how great it was that you should yell at S?valdur like that,” Eirikur blurted out.
“Ah yes,” Gunna sighed. “I’ll probably get a rap over the knuckles for that.” She smiled wanly. “But I’m a big girl and I can take it. It’s not as if it hasn’t happened before.”
“Is S?valdur after Orlygur’s job?”
“Don’t know, but I’d be amazed if he wasn’t.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t you want to work for the big man, then?” Gunna teased. “He gets results, as we’re constantly being told.”
“I know. But he’s such a bastard.”
The pass over the heath still looked to Eirikur like a scene from another planet, with its bizarre rock formations, unexpected pastel colours, and gouts of steam issuing from the ground at the side of the black two-lane highway. The descent down to the inhabited lowlands was almost a relief and the sharp sulphur smell of the steaming highlands receded. Eirikur saw fields starting to turn to green as the first signs of spring showed themselves, while the layers of snow on the mountain peaks inland displayed a stolid determination to ride out the coming summer. He looked out of the window in the other direction and saw the distant blue shimmer of the sea in the distance.
“You’re a city lad, aren’t you?” Gunna asked.
“Yup, Seltjarnarnes.”
“So this countryside stuff’s a bit alien to you?”
“I’m afraid so. My parents were both from the country and moved to Reykjavik when they were young, but they never dreamed about going back to a farm or anything like that.”
“So you weren’t brought up on haggis and boiled sheep heads?”
“God, no. Mum and Dad used to love that sort of stuff, but they never made us eat it.”
“I’ll tell you a secret, young man,” Gunna said, taking her eyes off the road to look over at him. “I never liked it much either. But don’t tell Helgi. He’d eat sharkmeat and boiled skate for breakfast if his Halla would let him.”
“Not a word, chief,” Eirikur promised. “What’s the score with Ommi now?”
“Not sure,” Gunna said. “I was going to leave him to stew for a few more days, but I reckon he’ll have had a day and a night to think and maybe make a few calls that won’t be answered. So we’ll give him another go now. It all depends on how unsure of his ground he is, I think. He was nervous yesterday, and by now I’m hoping he’ll be closer to frantic.”
Gunna showed their ID and drove in through the main gates to park in front of the prison. She stopped the engine and listened to it tick. “If anything sounds odd, just play along with me, all right?”
“Sure, chief.”
“Good. Let’s go. By the way, don’t worry about S?valdur. His past misdeeds are going to come back and haunt him one day, don’t you fret.”
THE DOOR CLANGED shut and the same warder took his place in front of it, staring over their heads. Eirikur stood next to the warder and noticed immediately that Ommi looked haggard and irritable.
“J?ja, Ommi. How are you?” Gunna greeted him jovially. “Sleep all right?”
“Yeah. Like a baby,” Ommi sneered. “Who’s the kiddie?” He motioned towards Eirikur with his chin.
“That’s Detective Constable Eirikur Thor Jonsson, a rising star of the police force. I thought the lad needed to have a good look at you for future reference.”
“Yeah. Right. What’re you back for, anyway? You were only here yesterday.”
“Been thinking, Ommi?”
“Might have.”
“Come on. You haven’t slept a wink.”
Ommi shuffled his feet under the table and rubbed his hands together as if trying to comfort himself. It wasn’t cold in the interview room, but he shivered.
“I might look at doing a deal,” he muttered, eyes on the table between them.
Gunna sat and looked at him sideways before leaning forward with a sly smile.
“Ommi, you don’t have anything to bargain with,” she said slowly and clearly, not loud enough for Eirikur to hear without listening carefully, although she was certain he was doing just that. “I have everything I need to hang Svana’s murder on you and put you away until you’re an old man. How old are you now? Thirty-three? How does being in here until you’re past fifty sound?”
Ommi’s jaw stiffened and his eyes blazed, but the colour drained from his face.
“You’ve spent too many years in here already,” Gunna continued, keeping her gaze on Ommi, waiting for him to lift his eyes. She wondered how far he could be pressured before his temper would burst its banks and have him back in solitary confinement. “If you don’t want to still be here when your hair’s falling out, you need to start telling me some secrets, Ommi. It’s not as if the people you’re protecting give a shit about you.”
Ommi sat up straight-backed, and Gunna did the same, maintaining eye contact and waiting for him to blink.
“I know already how the story fits together. All I need you for is to fill in the gaps,” she said.
“It’s between you and me,” he grated with an effort, blinking at last, and his chin jutted again towards Eirikur and the warder. “Send them out.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Gunna said gently.
“You and me,” he snarled with lips drawn back to reveal discoloured teeth.
Gunna looked enquiringly at the warder, who shook his head. She sighed.
“Maybe we can go for a walk around the yard,” she said finally, and turned to the warder. “Can we do that?”
A QUARTER OF an hour later, Gunna and Ommi walked their first circuit of the yard. Eirikur and the warder followed at a cautious distance as a biting wind from the north made Gunna shiver in spite of the heavy coat she had borrowed. Ommi appeared not to feel the chill through his hooded fleece.
“Tell me what happened that night at Blacklights. What really happened,” Gunna began.
“I don’t know it all. There was this bloke Sindri had some problem with. Sindri has a temper, just like his old man, and when he saw this bloke there, he blew. They had an argument and some people calmed them down, and that was that. Sindri was fucking furious; he’d been snorting and drinking all day and was really on a roll.”
“So it wasn’t you?”
“No. Didn’t even see it.”
“What do you think happened, then?”
“I reckon Sindri hauled this Steindor bloke out into the car park, gave him a good kicking and didn’t know when to stop.”
“So where were you when all this was going on?”
“With Svana and the rest of the band. They’d just come off stage.”
