“I don’t know if I’d call it a scam,” Bjarki said with the first sign of any kind of authority that Gunna had seen.

  “What do you call it, then? What would the newspapers have called it if they had found out? What about Steindór Hjálmarsson?” she asked suddenly, and Helgi looked up quickly.

  “Who?”

  “Come on. A young man who was a bookkeeper at Kleifaberg. He died in 2000 after smelling a rat.”

  “Oh, him. Very sad. Didn’t he get beaten up or something? It was a long time ago now.”

  “It was sad. But he’s no less dead for it having been ten years ago.”

  “I, er, I don’t know. It’s not something I could safely comment on.”

  “I assume Kleifaberg made a considerable amount of money out of this,” Gunna said flatly, and Bjarki nodded.

  “It was a highly profitable venture,” he said finally.

  “Where did all the cash go?”

  “That’s not for me to say.”

  “We’re off the record, don’t forget. I know you did the tax returns for Jónas 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 Steindór Hjálmarsson 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 Jónas 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 Hallbjörnsson 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 ÓLAFS 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 Steindór came to you with the story you told me about the other day?”

  “Dagurinn,” Gulli Ólafs 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 Tómasson. 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 Ólafs 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 Ólafs 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 Hallbjörnsson 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 Ólafs 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 Jónas Valur know that Gulli Ólafs 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 Steindór 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.

  “Hæ, Eiríkur,” Gunna bellowed into her phone. “Where are you?” Oh, right. No, listen. A little task for you, and it needs to be done today. But first I’d like you to tell Technical that I’m at Hallur Hallbjörnsson’s place and we need them to cast beady eyes over something, OK? As quick as you like.”

  As Helgi waited patiently, he looked up the drive towards Hallur’s house, where a small face peered from the corner of the kitchen window at them. He smiled back and the face disappeared.

  “Clutching at straws here, Helgi, but it’s worth a go,” Gunna said grimly, appearing at his side and marching towards the house. She noticed that the carved wooden sign proclaiming that Hallur, Helena Rós, Margrét Anna and Krist’n Dröfn live here was now protruding from the dustbin by the gate.

  Helgi reflected that it seemed to be a day for angry women. Helena Rós sat with ill-controlled fury in her pristine front room, while two small girls sat quietly in the next room, engrossed in the television.

  “How long has this been going on?” she demanded.

  “Has what in particular been going on?” Gunna asked.

  “How long had my husband,” she snarled the word, “been seeing that woman?”

  “Ah, you mean the affair with the late Svana Geirs,” Gunna said. “Some considerable time, several years. Unfortunately, we’re not in a position to ask the lady herself.”

  Helena Rós picked irritably at a plait that snaked lazily over one shoulder of her sweater, a traditional knitted one but with a modern cut that did without arms and which Gunna thought looked ridiculous.

  “Several years? Jesus,” she muttered to herself. “Years?”

  “How is your husband now?” Gunna asked, trying to speak gently.

  “You mean how is my soon-to-be ex-husband?” Helena Rós snapped back. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Last night he was awake but sedated. I haven’t been to the hospital today, and I don’t think I’ll bother. I guess his parents and his brothers are there to soothe the poor boy.”

  “Obviously we will need to ask him rather a lot of questions once he’s fit to answer them. Have you spoken to the doctors today? Do you know how he is or what the prospects are?”

  “No idea. He may well be brain-damaged,” she said in a voice that fizzed with emotion. “Why the hell did you have to come and drag him out of the car? Why couldn’t you just have left him there for a few more minutes?”

  “I’m afraid …” Gunna began, taken aback by the virulence of the woman’s fury. “I don’t need to tell you that would amount to murder. I have to ask you about your husband’s movements, in particular what he was doing on the eleventh. Are you aware of where he might have been that day, or what he might have been doing?”

  “No idea. He leaves the house. I have no idea what he does or where he is until he comes back.”

  “You didn’t suspect that he was having a liaison outside his marriage?” Helena Rós stood up and paced back and forth in front of the window with short, sharp steps.

  “Of course I suspected. He’s that kind of man. I thought I had that side of him under control, though, at least since the girls were born. But what the hell do I know? The bastard, how could he do this …?” she said, as much to herself as to Gunna and Helgi.

  “We need access to some of your husband’s bank details. There are transactions that need to be traced and his business interests need to be accounted for.”

  “Feel free. You know where his office is,” Helena Rós snarled. “You were down there with him long enough the other day.”

  “When were you aware that your husband was being blackmailed?” Gunna asked, letting the jibe sail past without acknowledgement.

  “He was what?” Helena Rós screeched, knotting her elegantly manicured hands into fists. “How dare you?” she demanded, her face turning a deep red.

  “It’s possible that your husband’s mistress was blackmailing him, probably for a considerable amount of money.”

  “Good God.” Helena Rós suddenly gulped, letting herself fall back into a chair. “I don’t believe this. The bloody man, the bloody, bastard, bloody man. I knew there was something, just knew it.”

  “Do you have a joint or separate bank accounts?” Gunna asked.

  “Both. We have one for the family finances and we each have our own accounts for anything else. God knows how many accounts Hallur had. I think he’d lost count himself,” she said, and Gunna noticed that she was already referring to her husband in the past tense. “Why on earth couldn’t you have come five minutes later or five minutes earlier? That way he’d have been either dead, or at least alive and healthy enough to be made to suffer,” Helena Rós wailed. “Do I need a brain-damaged husband? Me?”

  At last a flood of tears broke and she ran for the bathroom, hand to her face to stifle the nosebleed that Gunna saw with satisfaction had left a trail of bright drops on the rich cream of the carpet.

  “Not easy to feel sorry for her, is it?” Helgi observed.

  “Not really,” Gunna agreed. “She feels so sorry for her bloody self that any pity from us would be overkill.”

  “Next, chief? Think we’ll get anything out of her?”

  “Nope, but I’m going to leave you here, if you don’t mind, Helgi.”

  “What? With that witch?”

  “Yup. I want you to go down to Hallur’s office in the basement. She’ll show you where it is. Start going through it and see what you can find.” Gunna stood. “I need to get back to Hverfisgata and see if Eiríkur has finished the little job I asked him to do.”

  ANNA FJÓLA SIGURBJÖRNSDÓTTIR’S lips pursed into a thin, bloodless line as Gunna appeared in the doorway.

  “Good afternoon, Anna Fjóla,” Gunna offered, willing herself to be civil. “Is the lord and master in?”

  “I think so,” the secretary said quietly. “I’ll see.”

  She gingerly opened the door behind her and said a few muttered words before swinging the door open and unwillingly ushering Gunna in.

  Jónas Valur sat behind his antique desk, and Gunna could sense immediately that her appearance was less than welcome. “What now, officer?”

  The light from his desk lamp cast sharp shadows over the hands that held a sheaf of papers, neatly clipped together.

  “Why did you state that you’d been here all day without a break on the eleventh?” Gunna demanded without waiting.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have witnesses and evidence that put you outside this office around midday on that day. You were out and about for at least an hour.”

  “Jesus, are you never going to let this go?” Jónas Valur groaned. “All right. I may have gone round the corner for a bite to eat. I don’t remember.”

  “Anna Fjóla would, and pressuring her to commit perjury on your behalf is hardly a reward for all those years of loyal service, is it?”

  Jónas Valur glowered back and said nothing.

  “How much was Svana Geirs after?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Svana had called time on the syndicate, and she wanted a goodbye present. How much?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then what was the emergency meeting of the syndicate the night before she died all about?”

  “Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about, officer,” Jónas Valur said coldly.

  “Bullshit,” Gunna said brusquely. “Jónas Valur, where is your son?”

  “How dare you speak to me like that? Watch your step, Sergeant, I have plenty of influential friends.”

  “I’m supposed to take that as a threat, am I?”

  “As far as I am aware, my son is travelling on business. As I expect you know, he no longer lives in this country.”

  “If anyone knows where he is, I’m sure you do.”

  “I have no comment to make,” Jónas Valur said, his face visibly pale even in the warm cast of the desk lamp.

  “You’d best give your friendly lawyer a call, in that case, because I’ll be back,” Gunna said, sweeping from the room without waiting for a reply and closing the door behind her.

  “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 Ólafs 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.”

  Eiríkur 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?”

  Eiríkur 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 Bjössi over at Keflavík 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,” Eiríkur admitted, plugging a pair of small speakers into the laptop. “Ready?” he asked, looking up at Gulli Olafs.