“I assume you heard most of that?” she said to secretary, who was sitting behind a pile of binders and pretending to be busy. “Just so you’re aware, perjury is something the courts take a dim view of, and the women’s prison isn’t a particularly cozy place.”
IT WAS GETTING dark, and a brisk spring wind was sweeping in off the sea to batter the windows with raindrops as Gulli Olafs sat in the interview room.
“Thanks for coming in,” Gunna said, yawning. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“What am I here for? To make a statement or something?”
“I think you might want to,” Gunna told him, opening the door. “My colleague will be right with us and there’s something I want to show you. That’s all.”
Eirikur bustled in with an open laptop in his hands and put it on the table.
“That was quick, young man. How did you get it all done so fast?”
Eirikur fingers flickered over the keyboard. “Simple, chief. I got one of the warders to do it for me and then email me the sound file. Your mate Bjossi over at Keflavik did the other one. Said you owe him a huge favour now.”
Gunna glowered. “I’ll bet the foul-mouthed old goat said something a bit more graphic than that. Am I right?”
“Um. You’re not wrong,” Eirikur admitted, plugging a pair of small speakers into the laptop. “Ready?” he asked, looking up at Gulli Olafs.
“Ready for what? What do you want to show me?”
“I’d like you to turn your chair around and face away from the desk for a moment, if you don’t mind,” Gunna said, moving towards the door. A perplexed Gulli Olafs did as he was asked.
Gunna nodded, and Eirikur clicked the laptop’s mouse as she dimmed the lights.
“Back off. Leave it. You know what,” a harsh voice rasped.
“Familiar?” Gunna asked. “Want to hear it again?”
“Shit … you could have warned me,” said Gulli Olafs plaintively.
“Sorry. But does it ring any bells?”
“No. That’s not the same voice.”
Gunna nodded again at Eirikur, and this time Gulli Olafs jumped to his feet, his teeth chattering, as a deeper voice, thicker and slower, intoned the same threat.
“F-f-fucking hell … that’s him. That’s the voice,” he gibbered. “The bastard. You know who it is? You must do, surely?”
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Completely. Two hundred per cent certain.”
“All the same, I’d like you to listen to them both again, just to be sure.”
Gulli Olafs sank back into the chair and listened in stunned silence as both voices read out the same threat several times.
“No doubt. The second one. Absolutely no doubt,” he said.
“Thank you,” Gunna told him, flicking on the lights and opening the door. “In that case, you’re free to go and my colleague will show you out. If this goes further, I’ll call on you for a statement in the next couple of days.”
GUNNA WAS FRETTING over what she might have overlooked when she was hauling a half-dead Hallur Hallbjornsson from behind the wheel of his antique Mercedes, wondering what she had not seen that she should have. It could take less than ten minutes to die of carbon monoxide poisoning in a closed car. Whatever had happened at Hallur’s house had taken place only moments before she and Helgi had turned up. Now Helgi was back at the house, this time with a technical team to sift through whatever evidence could be gleaned after the trail had gone cold.
Pacing furiously, she opened her mobile and called Helgi’s number, listening to it ring as she strode twenty paces one way and twenty back. “Helgi? Yeah. What news?”
Helgi’s voice crackled through a poor connection and she could hear both traffic in the background and the puttering of a generator.
“Blood spots on the headrest, chief. They’re taking samples, but I’d bet any money you like that Hallur was in that car with a sore head when the engine was started.”
“Sure, Helgi? Sure he didn’t fall or something and then try to drive himself to hospital afterwards?”
“What? With a hosepipe gaffer-taped around the exhaust and put through the back window? I think not, somehow.”
“Of course,” Gunna replied. “What are you up to next?”
“I’m having the car impounded and then I’ll start knocking on doors.”
“All right. Get some uniform chaps as well if there are any spare.”
“There are never spare uniformed coppers these days, chief. But I’ll get hold of some for an hour or so all the same.”
“Good man. Look, got to go. Let me know what happens,” she told him, and prepared to end the call.
“Hang on, chief.”
“What?”
“In Hallur’s office. Nothing useful in any of his files that I could see, but I had a look in the bin as well, just to be sure, and there it was.”
“Make sense, will you, Helgi? What was there?”
“At the bottom of the bin, screwed into a ball. A letter demanding twenty-five thousand euros in cash. You were right.”
“Bloody hell … Anything on there that could lead us anywhere?”
“Nah. It’s on the way to Forensics to be checked out, but I don’t expect there to be anything useful somehow.”
ANNA FJOLA SIGURBJORNSDOTTIR sat with pinched cheeks by the reception desk.
“You wanted to speak to me?” Gunna asked, surprised.
“I do. But not here.”
“There’s an interview room upstairs we can use.”
Anna Fjola looked sour. “I’m not a criminal.”
Not yet, anyway, Gunna thought, realizing that there had to be a very good reason for this prim woman to come to the police station in person.
“I take it what you want to discuss is sensitive?”
“And confidential.”
“Come with me, then.”
At Cafe Roma, Anna Fjola sat at the furthest table from the window as Gunna returned from the counter with coffee in a mug and tea in a cup.
“Now, what did you want to tell me about?”
“My employer, Jonas Valur Hjaltason.”
“What about him?”
“He’s not a bad man, you understand.” Anna Fjola hesitated. “He’s a fine businessman, but he’s … weak in other ways.”
“Such as?”
“Women in particular.”
“Such as Svana Geirs?”
“Yes,” Anna Fjola whispered.
“How long have you worked for him?”
“Nineteen years.”
“So you remember Steindor Hjalmarsson?”
“Of course. A pleasant young man. Such a shame about him.” Anna Fjola finally took a sip of tea.
“He worked there for about six months, as I remember,” she continued haltingly. “But the company was bigger then. There were the exports to Spain and Portugal that we still have today, but there were also the property and entertainment businesses that were Sindri’s interests. There were three bookkeepers then, myself and some salespeople.”
