Hallur jammed the car key into the ignition. “I’m sorry, officer. I have a meeting that I’m already late for. Can I drop you somewhere?”

  “Right here will do. You still haven’t answered the question I asked you.”

  “And I don’t have time to now. Understand, Sergeant?” There was a new harshness in Hallur’s voice.

  “Perfectly. If you’re not prepared to co-operate with a serious police investigation, then you don’t leave me too many options.”

  “What are you going to do? Arrest me?”

  Gunna opened the door and swung herself down to the ground, not sorry to be out of the car.

  “Maybe not yet. But I’m already wondering what else a smart young MP might have to be so nervous about. See you soon,” she said, slamming the door before he could reply. She set off towards the lake with a smile on her face, wondering idly why she should be pleased with herself when Hallur’s car sped past.

  JÓN LAY ON his back in a widening puddle as his phone began to play the theme tune from Star Wars. It was too far away to reach easily and he decided to let it ring. He patted the floor at his side for the wrench he knew was there and closed his hand around it, the other holding the isolation valve in place under the kitchen sink. With a few swift turns the valve was secured and he hauled himself stiffly to his feet.

  There was no number under the missed call message on his phone’s screen. Jón put it back on the kitchen table and rummaged in his toolbox to come up with a set of mixer taps, as good as new, left over from another job.

  This time he whistled as he set about fitting them to the kitchen sink, first taking the old leaking taps off and dropping them in the bin that normally occupied the space where he had been lying in the puddle.

  “Almost done?”

  “Yeah. Not long. Done the hard part,” he said without looking round at the thin, blank-faced young woman who lived in the flat strewn with the debris left by small children with not enough space to play. Not bad-looking, apart from that miserable expression on her face, he thought. How old? No more than twenty-three or twenty-four? And how many sprogs?

  “D’you want a coffee?”

  “Yeah, please.”

  He heard her take the jug from the percolator and fill it in the bathroom. Before long it was spluttering and hissing as the aroma of fresh coffee filled the room. Jón swung himself back under the sink with a tap spanner in one hand and gently tightened the nuts holding the new tap unit in place. As he emerged, he saw her sitting at the table with two mugs in front of her.

  “Almost done,” he told her, and she nodded as he delved into his toolbox for a tube of silicone.

  “I’ll just put a squirt of this around the back of your sink. If you get water into the worktop, it’ll swell up and rot, and that’s a hell of a job to replace,” he said.

  Jón stretched and flexed his shoulders after an hour hunched under the sink, just as his phone began to ring again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Jón?” a voice asked. “This is Hrannar Antonsson at the bank.”

  Jón instantly regretted answering the phone, as “private number calling” on the display generally meant trouble.

  “Yeah, what do you want now?” he demanded, dreading the reply and noticing for the first time that the woman sitting at the table had brushed some life into her limp hair and changed from the loose sweatshirt she had been wearing when he arrived into a blouse that hid nothing.

  “We’d really like you to come in so we can review your status,” the personal financial adviser gabbled. “Of course we realize that things aren’t easy for any of us right now, but there are a few items that we need to regularize.”

  Regularize? Jón thought. Is that really a word?

  “All right,” he sighed. “When?”

  “Well, no pressure, obviously, but this is getting urgent and we’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of days now …”

  “So there is pressure, if you say it’s getting urgent.”

  “Well, yes. Er, no. I don’t want to pressure you, but we do need to achieve a settlement that’s agreeable to everyone so that we can normalize your banking status and hopefully reinstate your privileges—”

  “This afternoon?” Jón broke in. “I can be there in an hour or so.”

  “Er, yeah,” Hrannar said, taken aback. “Could we make it tomorrow, maybe?”

  “It’s today or next week,” Jón said, anger rising inside him as he imagined the young man sitting behind his desk at the bank. The woman stared at him with a vacant expression as she listened to the conversation.

  “My diary’s already full for today and I just don’t have a slot for any more appointments,” the personal financial adviser protested.

  “Look, mate. I’m at work and I don’t have time to mess about. Today, or next week.”

  “In that case it’ll have to be Tuesday. How’s about three twenty-five? OK for you?”

  “No, it’s not. What time do you open?”

  “We’re here at nine thirty.”

  “Nine thirty, then. I’m not going to pack up a day’s work somewhere to come into town just to hear more bad news.”

  “If that’s the way you feel, I can make you an appointment at nine fifty,” Hrannar shot back, irritation plain in his voice.

  “I have to say, I feel you could be more co-operative—”

  “I’ll be there when you open,” Jón told him, and ended the call without waiting to hear more, tossing his phone into his open toolbox. “Bastards …”

  “Finished?” the woman asked.

  “Pretty much. I’ll just give it all a wipe-down,” Jón replied, turning on the new tap and watching the water gush into the sink. He snapped the water off and put the rest of his tools and unused parts back in the toolbox.

  “Your coffee’s on the table,” she reminded him softly and with the first smile he had seen from her.

  “Thanks,” Jón said, sitting down and taking a mouthful. “Good coffee. Lived here long?”

  “Almost a year. It’s too small for us, but it was all I could afford.”

  “How many kids?” Jón asked.

  “Three. All under five.” She sighed. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Call it fifteen thousand for cash. That’s an hour’s work and I’ll only charge you five thousand for the taps as they were off another job. How does that sound?”

  “That’s great. But, er …” She looked down at the table and leaned forward, providing a clear view down her blouse. “The thing is, I don’t have fifteen thousand right now. My maintenance hasn’t come through and the kids needed shoes and I’m a bit short.”

  Bloody hell, another one. Poor cow, Jón thought, staring at her timid smile and deliberately looking into her face and not at the nipples on display. Hardly even a handful, not like Linda’s.

  She glanced down at his hands clasped around the mug.

  “Maybe there’s some other way we can settle this?” she said in a silky voice, looking him in the eyes and giving her shoulders a discreet shake that set off tiny tremors across her bosom.

  Jón sighed. “Sorry, love. I’d rather have the cash. I’m a bit short as well right now.”

  “But I don’t have fifteen thousand.”

  “I really don’t want to take those taps off again.”

  “God! No! Don’t do that! Five, and I’ll blow you off?” she suggested with a weak smile.

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Elín Harpa.”

  “Are you on your own?”

  “Yeah. Guys don’t hang around me for long,” she said with resignation.

  “Bloody hell. You shouldn’t have to offer plumbers blow jobs, darling. Tell you what,” Jón said firmly. “Make it five and I’ll pop back next week for the other ten.”

  DROPS OF WATER glittered on the man’s beard and spiky iron-grey crewcut hair. He concentrated as he tied a spoon to the end of his line, gave it a quick tug to check the knot and looked at Helgi with one eye closed in a quizzical half-wink.

  “What brings you out here, then, Helgi? How’s business at the old firm?” The retired chief inspector cast his line and listened to it spin off the reel with a satisfying hum. It hit the surface of the lake with scarcely a sound, but sent out a widening ring of ripples that died before they came close to the strip of black rock and sand that separated water and deep turf.

  “Biting, are they?”

  “There’s a big feller in there. I’ve seen him before, but he’s too smart to take a hook. You know I don’t come up here to fish. I’m here to get out from under the old woman’s feet for an hour or two. If she wants fish for dinner, I’ll buy a couple of haddock fillets on the way home.”

  “You might get lucky one day.” Helgi shivered. He wasn’t prepared for the damp that the mist deposited on him, and wasn’t dressed for outdoors.

  “You remember Ómar Magnússon? Long Ommi?”

  “How could anyone forget an evil bastard like that one? Why? Is he bothering you?”

  “Don’t watch the news, do you, Thorfinnur? He escaped from Kvíabryggja. We’ve got him back now, but there’s something shady to all this that we haven’t figured out.”

  Thorfinnur nodded sagely, his eyes on the line as he gently reeled it in.

  “There’s plenty going on,” Helgi continued. “He’s implicated with another murder, a couple of beatings and a bank job. Now the chief has the idea that Ommi was sitting out his stretch for someone else.”

  “He’s been a busy boy. Go on.”

  “You were on the case. One of your last, wasn’t it? I’m wondering if you recall anything that might cast light on all this?”

  Thorfinnur Markússon watched his hook emerge, reeled it in and cast again before he replied, his eyes fixed on the point where the spoon had sliced into the water.

  “It was all pretty straightforward, as I remember it, like most murders. Two drunks had an argument, took it outside and it went too far. All the witnesses corroborated each other’s statements, more or less, so it was just a case of finding the bastard, which was something we had you to thank for, wasn’t it, Helgi?”

  “Yup, stumbled across him pretty much by accident.”

  “Makes no difference,” Thorfinnur Markússon rumbled. “You got the bastard and brought him in. So why are you here? What is it you want to know?”

  “One of the witnesses, Sindri Valsson. D’you remember him?”

  “Vaguely. A young chap, wasn’t he?”

  “Same age as the deceased, more or less. Very well connected, and with a rich dad. But he had a record.”

  “For what?”

  “Mostly assault, but nothing recent. There are a good few arrests on his sheet for fisticuffs of one kind or another. It seems the man has something of a short fuse.”

  “And you think we got it wrong and he might be the real killer?”

  “I don’t know,” Helgi admitted. “The chief thinks so, although she hasn’t said so outright.”

  “What’s this chick like, then? Good grief, serving under a woman would have been unthinkable in my day.”

  “She’s tough and she gets results,” Helgi said. “There was a scandal a good few years ago when she arrested a city councillor for drunk driving. The bloke got a bit shirty so she cuffed him, had a look in his car and found a couple of wraps of coke.”

  “Oh, her!” Thorfinnur Markússon whooped. “I remember that! No end of a fuss. Normally that sort of thing could have been sorted out quietly, but she wouldn’t have it. I can’t remember the man’s name, but that was the end of politics for him.”

  “That must have been a good fifteen years ago. Before I joined the force.”

  “It was impressive,” Thorfinnur Markússon said. “She was as stubborn as a mule on that one, said that the man had been abusive and she wouldn’t back down. Rumour has it he called her an ugly fat bitch and said he’d have her up in front of a tribunal if she didn’t back off. So what’s she like to work for? Is she an ugly fat bitch?”

  “She’s fine,” Helgi said. “Very straight, no hide-and-seek office politics. Just likes to get things done.”

  The hook again appeared from the water, and this time Thorfinnur laid the rod down on the bank and lit a cigarette. The mist seemed to Helgi to be thickening, and the scrubby trees at the top of the slope on the far side of the lake had dissolved into the grey shroud that surrounded them and muffled their voices.

  “How about … ?” Thorfinnur asked, miming an hourglass figure with his hands and grinning.

  “She’s a big girl. Plenty up front. I’d bet she’s a bundle of fun in the sack.”

  “A word to the wise, Helgi. Keep work and play separate. Even if she has a shirtful of goodies that could keep you happy every night of the week, it’s not worth it.”

  Helgi felt distinctly uncomfortable and shuffled his feet, while Thorfinnur Markússon grinned broadly, sensing his embarrassment. “Lay off it, will you? I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “Anyone’d think you had a crush on her, Helgi,” he teased.

  “Yeah, right. I’m on marriage number two as it is, so I definitely need shenanigans in that department like a hole in the head,” he snorted. “About this Sindri Valsson. Anything you recall?”

  The retired chief inspector blew out smoke from his nose and thought for a moment before shaking his head.

  “Nothing that springs to mind. I remember him vaguely: young chap, and arrogant with it. Now that you come to mention it, everything tied up very neatly, open and shut. Long Ommi confessed as nice as pie after you brought him in. But this Sindri, well, I suppose we must have interviewed and taken statements from several dozen people altogether, and I can’t say that he stood out particularly.”

  “How about the singer?”

  “You mean the one who was in the band there that night? Who’d forget that! Tits like ripe peaches and legs up to here, gorgeous. It’s just a shame the poor girl was so dim,” Thorfinnur said, tapping one temple with a gloved finger. “Like they say, nice bodywork, shame about the electrics. But, here! Isn’t she the one who was done in?”

  Helgi nodded. “That’s her all right.”

  “Any connection there?” Thorfinnur Markússon asked sharply.

  “No idea. It’s starting to look that way, but nothing you could pin down. Gunna’ll get to the root of it. Look, I’d better be on my way. Good to see you again, Chief. I’ll pop by again in a day or two and see if you’ve remembered anything more.”

  “You do that, Helgi. Good to see a face from the past now and again,” the older man said gruffly, picking up his rod and casting once more. He reeled the hook in slowly this time, his mind elsewhere as he heard Helgi’s car start up and drive away. Far out on the water, ripples formed around the line and he felt a tug.

  “Yah! A shame the lad didn’t see that,” he crowed, reeling the line in until it went slack.

  “Blast!”

  He reeled in the rest of the line and laid the rod down before pulling a phone from his coat pocket. He dialled a number that wasn’t in the phone’s memory and waited for the voicemail announcement.

  “Hæ, it’s your old friend. Listen. Mention to your boy that questions are being asked, all right?”

  Friday 19th

  IT WAS LATE morning and it was Helgi’s interview. He was relaxed behind the desk while Long Ommi sat slouched in a chair opposite him. Ommi’s lawyer, a middle-aged man with thick glasses and a bored manner, sat uncomfortably next to his client leafing through a sheaf of documents. Gunna felt she had been right to wear uniform for a change, deciding that it lent an air of formality to the proceedings and contrasted with Helgi’s habitually baggy brown clothes. She sat back behind Helgi and admired a tapestry hung on the wall. The interview room was much airier and lighter than anyone would have imagined, with comfortable chairs and walls hung with pictures dotted about.

  Helgi turned to the computer on his side of the desk and inserted a blank disk.

  “You know the procedure well enough, don’t you, Ommi?”

  “Yeah. Been here before once or twice.”

  Helgi pointed a finger upwards at a microphone hanging above the desk and the opaque dome of a surveillance camera in one corner. “You’re aware that everything that happens in this room is recorded?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Ommi settled himself deeper in the chair and thrust his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He folded his arms, displaying lurid tattoos peeking from the sleeves of his shirt.

  “All right. We’re ready to roll. Present are suspect Ómar Magnússon and legal representative Karl Einar Bjarnason, police officers Helgi Svavarsson and Gunnhildur Gísladóttir,” Helgi said formally for the benefit of the recording. “Agreed?”

  The lawyer nodded without looking up from his papers.

  “Right, Ommi, it’s been a while. How have you been keeping?” Helgi asked in a friendly tone.

  “Not bad, until I saw your ugly mug in front of me,” Ommi responded.

  “You absconded from Kvíabryggja prison on the eighteenth of last month and set a record for being on the run. How about telling me what you’ve been up to in the meantime?”

  The lawyer rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and Ommi bridled. “I’ve been keeping to myself. Having some fun with Selma. Y’know.”

  “And the man in the garage with you? What’s your relationship with him?”

  “Dunno. He just turned up.”

  Helgi smiled. “As it happens, we had been watching you for a couple of days. Considering you spent the best part of a week in the man’s company, you must have spoken to him once or twice.”

  “He’s just a mate,” Ommi retorted.

  “Don’t play the fool. Addi the Pill’s up to his ears in Ecstasy, and don’t try and tell me that you didn’t know.”

  Ommi shrugged. “I thought there was something dodgy about him. I’d have called the police if I’d known.”

  “What were the two of you doing in Selfoss? Or was that just a little drive in the country?”

  “Selfoss? Never been there.”

  “We have definite evidence that you were there last week with Addi. What were you up to?”