“We’re off the record, don’t forget. I know you did the tax returns for Jonas Valur and Bjartmar’s companies. So where did it go?”
Bjarki shrugged helplessly. “Abroad, mostly. Bjartmar was already running Landex, and a lot of his cash went into setting up Sandex in Spain. Sindri bought two hotels and a golf course in Portugal. It’s a delightful place. We’ve been there a couple of times,” he said wistfully, and then regretted his words.
“I hope you had a lovely time,” Gunna said acidly. “What I want to know is how Sindri Valsson was made aware that Steindor Hjalmarsson found out about this scam—because I have no doubt as to who battered him to death.”
“No? Surely not?”
“There’s enough evidence to make a case,” Gunna lied as Helgi coughed discreetly. “Maybe you weren’t aware of quite how ruthless these people are? Come on, Helgi, I think we’d better be on our way.”
Helgi dusted crumbs from the front of his jacket and rose unwillingly to his feet, taking a longing glance at a banana and chocolate cake on the table that he had already done some serious damage to.
“This was off the record, Bjarki,” Gunna warned him. “That goes for both of us, and there’s no need for you to pass any of this conversation on to Jonas Valur or anyone else, otherwise what you’ve told me might suddenly be on the record. Understood?”
“Understood,” the accountant said, looking miserably after them as they made for the door and he clicked it shut behind them.
“There’s a man who’s in the shit up to his neck,” Helgi said knowingly, as they heard the muffled sound through the heavy door of Bjarki Steinsson’s wife asking him questions of her own. “Where now, chief?”
THE DOCTOR ON duty was a woman with greying roots and serious eyes behind unfashionable glasses in heavy frames.
“How’s the patient?” Gunna asked as she matched her pace to keep up with the striding doctor and Helgi scurried behind.
“As good as can be expected,” the doctor said, an answer that they both knew meant nothing. “But there’s something I really think you need to see.”
Hallur Hallbjornsson lay in a pristine hospital bed. An oxygen feed was connected to a tube leading into one nostril, and his face appeared peaceful.
“Is he … ?” Gunna asked, but lapsed into silence as the doctor put a finger to her lips.
“He’s heavily sedated but may be able to hear us,” she murmured, beckoning Gunna closer and gently rolling Hallur’s head to one side to part the brown hair.
“See?”
A livid bruise was visible beneath the thick waves.
“This is recent? You mean he was smacked on the head?”
“Hit or fell,” the doctor said. “Could be either.”
Gunna stared at the discoloured bruise.
“That puts a whole new complexion on things,” she said. “You’re certain this happened prior to the incident in the car?”
The doctor folded Hallur’s hair back and stepped away, beckoning Gunna to follow.
“The question is, did it happen while he was being manhandled out of the car?” she said severely. “Because it certainly didn’t happen after he was brought in here.”
Gunna thought back frantically to the events outside Hallur’s house.
“I grabbed his jacket and pulled him out of the seat. When he was leaning half out of the car, I gripped him under the arms and hauled him out,” she said, half to herself and half to the doctor, putting out her arms to demonstrate. “I dragged him backwards away from the car and laid him down. No, he certainly didn’t receive a blow to the head then, I’m certain of that.”
The doctor nodded slowly. “In that case, I think you might have some investigation ahead of you, because with a blow to the head like that, it’s doubtful that he’d have been able to tie his own shoelaces, let alone rig up a car with a hosepipe and get in it.”
“Attempted murder, not suicide, then?”
“You’re the detective,” the doctor replied. “But it looks that way to me.”
GULLI OLAFS WA S alone in the Verslun office, picking at a laptop with one hand and holding a sandwich in the other. “Busy?” Gunna enquired.
“Hell! You took me by surprise,” he said, his headjerking back as the sandwich dropped from his hand.
“Sorry. The door was open. Where’s the rest of the staff?”
“There’s some kind of team-building exercise going on for an hour or two. Rubbish, really, but I said I’d look after things to get out of going.”
“Sensible man,” Gunna said. “I won’t keep you. Which newspaper were you working on when Steindor came to you with the story you told me about the other day?”
“Dagurinn,” Gulli Olafs answered. “My first proper job. It was very new then, back when it was a real newspaper and not a freebie propaganda sheet.”
“So who did you tell about the story?”
“The editor was Arnar Tomasson. He died a couple of years ago. He was getting on a bit and smoked like a chimney, so it wasn’t a surprise. I think he’d had three or four heart attacks already by then.”
“And who else knew about it?”
Gulli Olafs looked down at his laptop as it pinged quietly and he rattled the keyboard in a flurry of fingers. “Only Arnar. He was quite interested, but a couple of days later he told me to back off.”
“What conclusions did you draw from that?”
There was no hint of laughter in his grim smile. “The obvious ones. That Arnar had asked a few questions and found out that one of his cronies had a stake in it, so he wanted it glossed over.”
“And what research had you done? Did you approach anyone about it?”
“Oh, yes. The mayor’s office. No reply, as far as I remember. I tried the committee that was responsible for what was then called spatial resources as well, but didn’t get far.”
“Do you remember who you spoke to?”
Gulli Olafs laughed and gestured at a copy of that morning’s paper on his desk.
“Him.”
Gunna looked down at a black-and-white portrait of Hallur Hallbjornsson smiling from a lower corner of the front page.
“That’s the guy. It says here he had an ‘accident at his home,’ but the word is he tried to do himself in yesterday.”
“What was his reaction when you approached him?”
“Very positive, actually. He seemed keen to meet so he could refute any wrongdoing. But then …”
“Then what?”
“Arnar quietly warned me off,” he said, squinting as he peered down at the newspaper. “Then I had that rope round my neck in the car and figured I’d best leave well alone. Putting your job on the line’s one thing, but your life’s something else.”
“You didn’t think to go to the police at the time?”
“God, no.”
“You’d recognize the voice if you heard it again?”
“Absolutely,” Gulli Olafs said firmly. “It was a long time ago, but I assure you it’s burned into my memory. A death threat’s not something that happens every day.”
“WHAT D’YOU RECKON, chief?” Helgi asked. “Hallur’s place next?”
“Yup,” Gunna instructed, stabbing at her phone. “Somebody let Sindri or Jonas Valur know that Gulli Olafs was sniffing around, and presumably they put two and two together to figure out where the leak had come from. Gulli gets a warning, and Steindor gets a punishment that went too far. That’s my take on it.”
“Sounds about right to me,” Helgi said morosely, changing lanes too fast and earning an angry blast on the horn from the car behind. Slowing right down, he negotiated the quiet street, where Hallur’s Mercedes now occupied a place in the road instead of the drive.
“H?, Eirikur,” Gunna bellowed into her phone. “Where are you?” Oh, right. No, listen. A little task for you,
