“Was this before or after your relationship with Gunnlaugur began?”

  “Before. Gulli confirmed it and told me what the arrangement was.”

  “Which was what?”

  “You know perfectly well,” Helena Rós said in a voice that dripped scorn.

  “I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

  “Hallur and three other dirty old men were paying to take turns on that plastic Barbie doll. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “That will do nicely, thank you,” Eiríkur said politely. “You know Jónas Valur Hjaltason?”

  “Of course. He sits on a couple of committees with my husband.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “A heart attack, I suppose?”

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Eiríkur said with a frown.

  “He was overweight and unhealthy.”

  “He was murdered. It’s not public knowledge yet. Where were you on Friday evening?”

  “At home, I think. Yes, I’m sure of it, I was at home.”

  “Anyone who could corroborate that?”

  Her cheeks flushed pink. “Gulli. He stayed the night and left early in the morning.”

  “What time did he arrive?”

  “Eight-ish. Something like that.”

  Eiríkur shot a glance at Gunna. “The threats and demands posted to your husband. Who had this bright idea?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Gunna opened the file on the desk and passed two sheets of paper across. Helena Rós ignored them.

  “There are more,” Eiríkur said. “Some of these were retrieved from the bin in your husband’s office at your home. A couple more are from his parliamentary office.”

  “So who was blackmailing my husband?”

  “That’s what we’d all like to know, and I have to consider your involvement in it.”

  “This is absolutely ridiculous! How dare you!” Helena Rós lifted herself to her feet and towered over Eiríkur.

  “Sit down, will you?” Gunna growled, speaking for the first time.

  “Idiots,” Helena Rós hissed, ripping the two letters into shreds and dropping the pieces with a flourish on the desk as she dropped back into the chair.

  ÍVAR LAXDAL RUBBED his chin irritably, the first indication Gunna had seen that he might be tired.

  “What’s the situation with Hallur now?” he asked.

  “He’s not doing well. It seems he has a level of brain damage due to oxygen starvation. It could be weeks or even months before we can understand quite how much damage has been done, and all the indications are that he may never be fit to stand trial. One doctor says he’s going to be a twelve-year old for the rest of his life. Another says he should make at least a partial recovery, so we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “But there is some good news for you,” Ívar Laxdal said. “Högni Sigurgeirsson is being flown back to Reykjavík right now from Tórshavn.”

  “What? Out there in the east? What was he doing there?”

  “No, Tórshavn in the Faroes. It seems he arrived there the day before yesterday. Showed up on a flight from Reykjavík with a bag full of money, still with Jónas Valur Hjaltason’s name tags on it, and brandishing Jónas Valur’s passport.”

  “Sounds weird, doesn’t it?” Eiríkur asked. “Why the Faroes?”

  “He had a ticket for the next morning to Copenhagen, but Faroese customs only picked him up as he was waiting for his flight from there to Kåstrup, not when he landed from Reykjavík,” Ívar Laxdal explained patiently.

  “If you want to fly to Denmark, there are direct flights all the time. Why go through the Faroes? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if you want to avoid the airport at Keflavík, where he would have been picked up like a shot,” Helgi pointed out. “But the only flights leaving the country from Reykjavík airport go to the Faroes, and I suppose he was travelling on Jónas Valur’s ticket. How much money did he have on him?”

  A phone rang shrilly on a desk and Eiríkur swept it up, speaking in an undertone as Ívar Laxdal continued.

  “A hundred and ten thousand euros in cash and he’s saying nothing. Faroese customs took one look at him and decided he wasn’t Jónas Valur, then had a look in his baggage and found the cash. He refused to tell them who he really is and we got the identification from pictures of him that the Faroese police sent as soon as he couldn’t pretend to be anything other than Icelandic. Once we was realized who it was, we asked them to send him right back.”

  “So he knocked you on the head, banged Jónas Valur a bit harder, grabbed the man’s car keys, suitcase, tickets and passport, and ran for it. Is that what you reckon, Gunna?” Helgi asked.

  Gunna cradled her chin in her fingers. “It sounds plausible, doesn’t it? It also sounds like I was just in time to see what Jónas Valur was up to, if he had flight tickets and some pocket money on him. I don’t think he was coming back, y’know. Maybe I held him up long enough for Högni to intercept him on his way out of the country for good. I assume they were oneway tickets that he had?”

  “Sounds about right to me,” Eiríkur interrupted, with the phone to his chest and the palm of one hand over the mouthpiece. “But you want some more news? Bjarki Steinsson has disappeared. His wife’s reported him missing, hasn’t seen him since last night. His car’s missing as well. Do we put out an alert for him?”

  THE FAINT AROMA of something spicy hit her nostrils even before Gunna had left the car. It was late, and she felt exhausted by the tension of the long day. At the door she kicked off her shoes and left wet prints across the kitchen floor.

  “Hæ, people,” she offered as Steini looked up from the book in front of him and Laufey acknowledged with the briefest of nods that her mother was home before turning her attention back to a TV sitcom.

  “Good day?” Steini asked. “We thought you were only going to be an hour or two.”

  “A bloody long one, and I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve pissed off.”

  “A successful day, then?” Steini grinned. “We kept some food for you. Chicken and stuff with it.”

  “Spicy?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Will I need a litre of milk to wash it down?”

  “Not that hot.”

  “That’s all right, then.”

  Gunna heard the ten o’clock news start on the TV through the bathroom door just as the hot water had started to wash away the day’s aches. She emerged swathed in towels to find a steaming plate waiting for her and Laufey sitting at the kitchen table. Steini’s eyes were closed and the book had slipped down to his lap. Work seemed blessedly far away from Hvalvík, where only an occasional car could be heard in the distance to break the soft quiet.

  “How was school?” Gunna asked.

  “Not bad, same as usual. Mum, I had lunch at Sigrún’s today and she’s still so angry at Jörundur.”

  “Well that’s understandable. It’s something that really knocks you sideways when that kind of trust is betrayed.”

  Laufey nodded slowly. “Has that happened to you, Mum?” she asked quietly. “With Gísli’s dad?”

  A shiver went down Gunna’s spine at the question she had expected for years, and she instinctively looked around to see if Steini were awake.

  “Sort of. Gísli’s dad is a strange man and I haven’t seen him for years. Not since Gísli was about ten, I suppose. We never lived together, just were together for a little while, and didn’t get on all that well. So there was no real betrayal like Sigrún’s going through. It was a million times worse when we lost your father, sweetheart.”

  “I think Gísli’s seen his dad recently.”

  “You’re sure?” Gunna asked in sudden alarm, but warned herself to think rationally. “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t, and I suppose it’s something he ought to do. He’s a big lad now and doesn’t need to ask me for permission to do anything.”

  Laufey yawned.

  “You should be asleep soon, young lady,” Gunna observed. “Homework done, is it?”

  “Yeah. Steini helped me with the maths. It’s easy when you know how, all those cosines and things,” she said, getting up and trying to stop herself yawning again.

  “Put that in the dishwasher, would you?” Gunna said, handing her the plate and fork. “I need my bed as well.”

  Laufey disappeared to her room and Gunna turned off the kitchen lights. In the living room, she looked down at Steini and leaned forward to place one fingertip gently on the end of his nose. His eyes opened and he looked up.

  “I’m shattered, so I reckon it’s bedtime.”

  “I don’t need telling twice,” he said, and smiled back.

  In the darkness, Gunna stretched out, feeling her toes tingle as the fatigue drained out of them and Steini settled beside her with a sigh. Exploring fingers gently stroked her thigh and she stretched a hand to cover and encourage them when the phone on the floor beside the bed began to buzz and chirp.

  “Hell!” she swore, fumbling for it in the darkness. “What?” she barked into it.

  “Tucked up with Steini already, are you, you randy old cow?”

  “Bjössi, always a pleasure to hear from you. Yes, I’m in bed and I’ve been on my feet since six.”

  “Well you’d better get out of bed, darling. We’ve got someone out at the airport you might want a word with.”

  “SO WHAT MADE you want to leave so suddenly right now, with so much money?” Gunna asked.

  “Just trouble,” Bjarki Steinsson replied in a voice laden with despair that echoed in the bare interview room at Keflavík international airport. “Always more trouble. The phone calls and the texts.”

  “What calls and texts?”

  “Demanding money, more and more money. Threatening to tell Kristrún.”

  “Who was this?”

  “I don’t know.” He waved a hand towards the jacket hanging on the back of a chair. “Look in the pocket. You’ll see.”

  Gunna gestured for Bjössi to look as Bjarki continued, speaking faster, his voice rising from a whisper to a more normal tone.

  “Yesterday there was a text as well. So I thought, why bother? I’d just go. I have enough to live on. I was just going to walk away and leave whoever it is to tell Kristrún whatever he wants. I don’t care any more. The house and the business are all in her and the children’s names. She can keep the lot, all those stupid crystal knick-knacks and pictures that give you a headache. I’ve had enough.”

  Behind her, Bjössi carefully unfolded a sheet of paper, typed with a dozen lines. Gunna saw with relief that he had put on gloves to read it. “Have you any idea where these demands were coming from?”

  “Some man. I have no idea who. Just a phone number, nothing else.”

  “And the note? How did that get to you? Post?”

  “It was pushed under the windshield wiper of my car yesterday morning. I heard about Hallur and then Jónas Valur, and I decided that was all the warning I needed after I went to see Hallur in hospital yesterday.”

  “What do you know about what happened to him?”

  “Only that he would never have taken his own life, never,” he said with conviction. “Hallur always comes out smiling. He’s one of nature’s survivors.”

  Gunna turned to Bjössi. “What is it?”

  “Demand for cash. Twenty thousand euros. ‘Have it ready. You will be told when and where to hand it over,’ it says here.”

  “A classy sort of blackmailer, then, wanting foreign currency.”

  “Understandable, I’d have thought, considering how valuable Icelandic cash is these days.”

  “All right. We’d best get that to Technical as soon as we can and see what they make of it,” Gunna said, and turned back to Bjarki. “I’m sorry. I can’t allow you to leave the country.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet. But you tried to leave the country with a large amount of foreign currency, which I’m sure a man in your position is aware is illegal. Plus you’re a key witness in a serious case. If you attempt to leave the country, I’ll make sure you’re stopped and I’ll get an injunction to prevent you from travelling.”

  “I can’t go back to Kristrún,” he said with certainty.

  “In that case we’ll get you a hotel room for the night. I’ll be along to see you again in the morning, and then you can make other arrangements.”

  Tuesday 30th

  GUNNA BANGED WITH a fist on the door of Bjarki Steinsson’s room, with Eiríkur behind her.

  “Don’t tell me the bloody man’s not here. Eiríkur, run down to reception again, will you, and find out if anyone’s seen him. Failing that, get somebody up here with a pass key,” she instructed. Eiríkur left at a jog along the corridor, his footfalls soundless in the deep beige carpet.

  Beige and boring, Gunna thought. Just like Bjarki bloody Steinsson.

  “Bjarki! Open the bloody door, will you! It’s the police!” She yelled, hammering on the door again.

  She paced the corridor back and forth, banging the wall with her fist and feeling her knuckles sting. Eventually Eiríkur appeared at the far end of the corridor with the portly figure of the hotel’s manager puffing at his side.

  “Open that, will you?” she instructed the manager.

  “It’s extremely irregular,” the manager grumbled. “I can’t open a guest’s room just like that.”

  “Yes you damn well can, and quickly. We’ve had enough bodies as it is,” Gunna told him grimly.

  At the mention of bodies, the manager’s eyes bulged in immediate alarm and he swiped a card through a slot. The door swung open and he stood back to let Gunna and Eiríkur enter the room first. The clatter of running water was the first thing Gunna noticed, followed by the steam coming past the slightly ajar bathroom door, and the reek of sulphur.

  “Bjarki!” Gunna called out. “Are you there?”

  The bedroom was empty, the duvet on the bed thrown back. Gunna took a deep breath and pushed open the bathroom door. A cloud of steam billowed past her. She peered into the gloom, the room’s light hardly piercing the steam and reduced to a white orb in the middle of the ceiling. She could see the water running at full power in the shower cubicle, and a dark shape against the cubicle wall showed her where Bjarki Steinsson was.

  Here we go again, she thought, turning to Eiríkur. “We’re going to need an ambulance, I reckon. Get one called, will you?” she told him and gingerly opened the cubicle door.

  Gunna looked down at the body curled against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief as Bjarki Steinsson gazed up at her with water cascading through his thin hair and down his face. There was misery in his eyes—but at least he was alive.

  She gestured to Eiríkur to take a step back before she squatted down on her haunches and looked into Bjarki Steinsson’s blank brown eyes rimmed with red.

  “Bjarki?” she said gently. “What happened?”

  “It’s just too much,” he said hollowly.

  “Look, come on out of the shower, will you? You’ve been in there for a long time.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said finally, after a long moment’s thought. “None of it matters now.”

  Gunna stood up. She leaned over him to turn off the flow of scalding water and there was a sudden silence. She pulled a thick towel from the rail, opened it and held it out to him.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she said softly. “Come on, we’ll get you dried off and sorted out. All right?”

  He nodded dumbly and dragged himself unsteadily to his feet, every movement seeming to cost him pain. Gunna was surprised at just how thin his limbs were as he stepped, shivering already, from the shower cubicle. He immediately sat on the closed toilet seat and his shoulders hunched forward, emphasizing the pale paunch that contrasted with the thinness of the rest of his body. She wrapped the towel around his shoulders and pulled another from the rack.

  “Get the manager out of here, and make sure he keeps quiet,” she said to Eiríkur in a matter-of-fact voice so as not to alarm the forlorn man sitting in front of her. “And look out for that ambulance, will you?”

  Eiríkur disappeared, taking the manager with him.

  “All right, Bjarki. They’ve all gone. Stand up again, please.”

  He obeyed as if in a trance, and she reached around him to wrap the second towel about his waist before taking his hand to lead him to the bedroom. She sat him down on the end of the bed and crouched down in front of him.

  “Bjarki, tell me what happened. Have you taken any pills or anything like that?”

  The question seemed to spark him into consciousness.

  “God, no.”

  “What then?”

  “I was just going to go away. Away from everything. I’ve wanted to do it for years, just walk away.”

  “Where to?”

  “To the house in Spain.”

  “You have a house there?”

  Bjarki nodded. “Nobody knows about it, not even the witch,” he whispered. “Bjartmar fixed it up for me at a good price. I was going to go there and not bother coming back.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “You did,” he said with a first flash of animation. “Stopped me at the airport yesterday.”

  “Customs stopped you leaving the country with an illegal amount of foreign currency,” Gunna reminded him.

  “Illegal, crap. All the top dogs can do it. If you know the right people, you can do what you want.”

  “But why yesterday? What brought this on if you’ve been planning it for so long?”

  Bjarki shook his head. “We went there a couple of times, Svana and I. Nobody knew us. It was perfect. Then she died.”

  Gunna felt a presence behind her and look round to see Eiríkur and a green-suited paramedic. She looked back at Bjarki Steinsson, who seemed to have slipped into a trance.

  “He’s all yours,” she told the paramedic. “Look after him. He’s had a bit of a tough time.”