‘Run that by me again.’ Erla was close to losing her rag. The day that had begun badly was rapidly deteriorating and she was feeling the pressure from all sides. The head honchos at the Police Commissioner’s office, desperate not to lose face in front of the other state institutions, were breathing down her neck. They had already torn a strip off her when she informed them that she’d had to leave the body behind in the lava-field. Huldar hadn’t envied her as he listened to her trying in vain to get in a word of explanation between the storms of invective at the other end.
No one in CID was in any doubt that Erla had reacted appropriately. No one apart from Lína, that is. She would have preferred it if the investigation had continued in defiance of the state visit. Erla’s bosses, on the other hand, would rather the body had been whisked away, regardless of whether or not it was murder. Erla’s reaction had been a compromise: she had put the investigation on hold while the visit lasted and made do with camouflaging the body. But, as so often when you try to please everybody, she had ended up satisfying no one. At least the Chinese delegation had finished their visit to Bessastadir, and the body had been taken to the mortuary while Huldar was at Helgi’s flat.
‘When we knocked on the door, they were already inside,’ Huldar repeated. ‘Freyja, the little boy, and the guy from Reykjavík City Council – that hipster over there.’ He jerked his chin towards the young man who was tending to the boy at Freyja’s side. To be fair, the guy had done nothing to earn Huldar’s dislike, apart from apparently making a good impression on Freyja. Perhaps, after all, the lipstick had been for the hipster, not him. Huldar’s mood darkened at the thought, though he had almost given up hope of winning her over. Still, a man could dream, and a hipster like that had no place in his fantasies, especially not when he put his hand on Freyja’s shoulder and whispered in her ear. Huldar quickly turned his attention back to Erla. ‘They’d been called to the address after receiving a tip-off about a child in trouble. The boy opened the door but I gather he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. Doesn’t know the man who owned the flat and can’t explain what he was doing there.’
Erla made a face. She had a piece of heather caught in her hair, which Huldar was trying not to stare at. No one else had had the courage to point it out to her, and she wouldn’t be amused when she discovered later that she’d been walking around with it, looking like an idiot, ever since they’d covered the body in grass. ‘Why not get in touch with his mother or father, then?’ she asked impatiently. ‘They must know what their son was doing there.’
‘All he can tell us is that his father’s called Sibbi and his mother’s called Systa. Which isn’t exactly helpful. He doesn’t know his patronymic or when his birthday is, only that he’s four years old. Lína’s searching the National Register for all the four-year-olds called Sigurdur. With a name that common there are bound to be loads, so it’s going to take a while to track the parents down.’
‘And what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Turn the office into a kindergarten? Maybe I should order a Lego table, like the ones they have at the bank?’ Erla snorted derisively. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got more than enough on our plate right now. Can’t she … what’s her name … take the boy to the Children’s House and sort it out there?’ Erla was perfectly aware of Freyja’s name. ‘It’s too early to interview possible witnesses, especially witnesses who can barely talk yet. If he doesn’t even know his own name, what are the chances that he’ll be able to point us to the murderer? In fact, I can’t understand what the hell you thought you were doing, bringing him into the office at a time like this. Don’t you ever fucking think?’
Huldar reminded himself that Erla needed a safety valve, that this wasn’t really about him. Ignoring her outburst, he explained patiently: ‘I brought them here because I couldn’t decide what else to do. And I thought the boy might be able to shed some light on the case. Are you seriously telling me you don’t find it a strange coincidence that an abandoned child should turn up at the murder victim’s flat?’
‘Sure, I find it bloody strange. But not as strange as a man being hanged on the Gallows Rock. I mean, it’s a tourist attraction. It hasn’t been used to execute anyone for centuries.’ The desk phone rang and Erla snatched up the receiver. Almost in the same instant, Lína appeared in the doorway holding a sheet of paper. Without waiting for Erla to finish her phone call, she announced to Huldar: ‘There are a total of four thousand five hundred Sigurdurs in Iceland, most of them first names. But there are only a hundred and three who were born between three and five years ago. I widened my search a bit in case the boy got his age wrong.’
‘Over a hundred is a lot of kids, Lína.’
‘It’s not quite so many if we assume he’s right about living in Reykjavík. Thirty-eight boys are registered in the city.’
‘That’s not quite so bad, but can’t we narrow it down further? Use his dad’s nickname to rule some of them out?’
Lína smiled, looking pleased with herself. ‘I’ve already done that. I checked which men’s names are most likely to be shortened to Sibbi, but unfortunately it’s rather a lot. Sighvatur, Sigurbjörn, Snæbjörn, Sindri, Steingrímur and Sigurdur were the ones that cropped up most often. I also found examples of a Thorsteinn and an Ingibergur who were nicknamed Sibbi. There doesn’t seem to be any logic to it, except that most of the names begin with an S. If we work on that basis, we’re down to fifteen boys with the right sort of patronymic. Plus three who are named after their mother, rather than their father. But one of those is only just three and the other is five, going on six. I don’t think our boy’s that young or that old.’
‘OK, so we’re talking fifteen or sixteen boys?’
Lína nodded.
That would make the task more doable, though the list didn’t cover those Siggis who lived in Reykjavík but were legally domiciled elsewhere. Or those with fathers whose names didn’t begin with an S, but were still nicknamed Sibbi. Let alone boys who were known as Siggi though their full name wasn’t Sigurdur. ‘Does Siggi exist as a name in its own right?’
‘Yes, actually. There are two Icelanders christened Siggi, but in both cases it’s a middle name and they’re the wrong age.’
Erla ended her phone call and got to her feet. ‘That was the pathology department. They’re ready to examine the body.’
Huldar sucked in his breath as if that would make him more inconspicuous, and prayed that she wouldn’t ask him to go with her. He had a better idea: if he took on the little boy’s case, that would give him an excuse to spend some time with Freyja. Besides, he had an ingrained horror of corpses. But it was no good. Erla announced that Gudlaugur could take care of the Siggi business, and ordered Huldar and Lína to accompany her to the National Hospital. Evidently, she hadn’t given up hope of rattling Lína’s composure.
The dead man lay fully dressed on the pathologist’s steel table, arms at his sides, legs straight out, one foot wearing a shoe, the other only a sock. There were bits of moss and dried grass caught on his clothes following the hasty attempt to camouflage him, and two of the fingers on one hand appeared to be dislocated or broken. They could have been fine before the man had been dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Fortunately for Huldar’s delicate stomach, he could only glimpse these injuries through the ‘dead man’s gloves’, transparent plastic bags tied over the hands to preserve any potential biological traces under the victim’s nails.
It was a grim, unsettling sight but, no doubt contrary to Erla’s hopes, Lína appeared unmoved. She bent so close to examine the corpse’s contorted features that for a moment Huldar thought she was going to kiss it on the forehead. Even the pathologist was disconcerted and asked her to step back.
‘The post-mortem won’t happen until tomorrow.’ The pathologist, noticing that Erla was about to protest, forestalled her: ‘It can’t be helped, I’m afraid. We’re closed at weekends and I’ve only come in to carry out the preliminary examination as a special favour. Yo
u’ll have to be content with that for now.’
Huldar hid his relief and made a mental note to avoid being anywhere near Erla the following day, to avoid being dragged along. Lína, he felt sure, would take it in her stride.
The pathologist finished doing up his white overalls, donned a paper mask, then pulled on his latex gloves with practised ease, snapping them over his wrists. His assistant followed suit and the atmosphere lightened a little once the man’s sour expression was concealed behind a mask. He seemed even more resentful than the pathologist about being called out on a Sunday.
‘Any theories about why that particular site was chosen?’ It was the pathologist who had spoken, though they couldn’t see his lips moving. ‘It’s a bit off the beaten track.’
‘Maybe that had something to do with it. You wouldn’t expect to bump into anyone in the middle of the night in a lava-field. No chance of being disturbed. No one around to hear any screams. Yet still close to Reykjavík.’ Erla shrugged. ‘Then there’s the name, Gálgaklettur – the Gallows Rock. Maybe that had something to do with it. It certainly fits the crime.’
‘Is it an old execution site?’ The pathologist trained a large lamp on the corpse.
‘Apparently,’ Erla said. ‘They’ve found bones thought to be the remains of criminals buried on the spot. I suppose it saved the bother of lugging their corpses to an official burial ground. But we haven’t come across anything like that so far and I hope to God it stays that way. We’ve got enough to contend with. A bunch of archaeologists grubbing around on the site wouldn’t make my life any easier.’
The pathologist’s eyes narrowed above his white mask and he retorted testily: ‘Speaking of which, your treatment of the body hasn’t exactly made my life easier either.’
After a bit more grumbling about the state of the corpse, the two men began going through the victim’s coat pockets and extracted three credit-card receipts. ‘I’ll have these scanned in and sent over to you. They might shed some light on his final hours.’ The pathologist dropped the receipts into the open evidence bag held out by his assistant, then continued his search. The resulting meagre haul consisted of an open packet of chewing gum, a book of matches and an expensive cigar, still in its wrapping. That was it.
As soon as the police had got the all-clear and returned to the scene, they had removed the man’s wallet and discovered his name and address. Their initial research had provided little information: the man, who was listed in the telephone directory as an investor, apparently lived alone and didn’t have a social media presence. A trawl of the news archive resulted in no hits either, though these days you’d expect a self-styled investor to make plenty of appearances. Especially when, on the evidence of his luxury apartment, the man must have been doing very nicely indeed.
As the pathologist and his assistant dealt methodically with the material they had taken from the victim’s pockets, Huldar caught the gleam of satisfaction in Lína’s eyes. No doubt she was smiling under her mask. He could read her mind: finally, here was something being done by the book. They removed the bags from the dead man’s hands, scraped under his nails and placed the results in small evidence bags. Next, they took off his coat and examined it carefully both inside and out to make absolutely sure that there was nothing else to be found. Inspection completed, they crammed it into a much larger plastic bag. The pathologist watched as his assistant placed this on the bottom shelf of the trolley beside them. ‘Cashmere,’ he remarked. ‘Must have cost a bloody fortune. He clearly wasn’t short of money.’ Using a small set of tweezers, he lifted the victim’s left shirt cuff. ‘Bloody expensive watch, too.’ He dropped the cuff again before Huldar, Erla or Lína could get a proper look at it. Not that it made any difference, since none of them were particularly clued up about luxury items.
‘Whereas the nail in his chest looks like the kind of thing you could pick up in any DIY store.’ The pathologist bent over the body to examine the head of the nail, then straightened up and made way for his assistant, who was armed with the inevitable camera.
‘Which do you think killed him, the nail or being hanged?’ It was impossible to tell from Erla’s expression which cause of death she’d prefer.
‘Being hanged,’ a female voice piped up. ‘That’s obvious. You can see from the distorted face and protruding dark tongue. The typical appearance of a strangulation.’ Lína turned pink above her mask as the pathologist looked at her with raised eyebrows, unaccustomed to being interrupted. Erla, meanwhile, was scarlet with rage at the tactless intervention, which had made her look ignorant.
‘And you are?’ The pathologist sounded more surprised than annoyed.
‘She’s here on work experience,’ Erla said grimly. ‘I promise you she won’t open her mouth again. Please, carry on with what you were saying.’ Erla directed a murderous look at Lína, who dropped her eyes to her feet, turning even pinker.
‘May I point out that we’ve found no phone or keys in the deceased’s possession, which is unusual, to say the least.’ The pathologist glanced at Lína, as if waiting for her to contradict him. When she kept her eyes meekly lowered, he asked: ‘Were these removed at the scene, like the wallet?’
‘No, that’s all we took.’ Erla stared thoughtfully at the dead man’s face. ‘There was no sign of a phone or keys, though we haven’t actually finished combing the area yet. We’ve tracked down his mobile number but the phone’s switched off. We’ll just have to hope it turns up.’
The pathologist didn’t comment on this, and remained silent until his assistant had finished taking pictures and stepped back, leaving the way clear for him to resume his examination. ‘I can’t quite work out what the nail’s doing there – what purpose it could have served, other than to inflict pain. Is the victim known to have owed money to drug dealers or had debt collectors after him?’
Erla answered hastily, as if doubting Lína’s ability to obey orders and keep her mouth shut: ‘We know next to nothing about him yet. The investigation’s only just getting off the ground. But I understand from those who’ve seen his apartment that he must have been seriously loaded. Even if it turns out that he was a user, it’s unlikely he’d have had any problem paying up. When we spotted the nail originally, there was a scrap of paper under the head, but it seems to have become detached in all the commotion. I’m guessing the nail was there to fasten a piece of paper – presumably a message of some sort – to his chest. But it must have been torn away by the wind before we got there.’
Huldar bent down to take a closer look. The pattern on the head looked familiar. ‘I’m guessing it’s a three- or four-inch nail fired from a nail gun,’ he said, adding: ‘I trained as a carpenter.’
‘Three to four inches.’ The pathologist was silent for a moment. ‘That’s not very precise.’
‘Aren’t you going to pull it out?’ Like everyone else, Erla was staring, transfixed, at the nail.
‘No. We’ll do that during the post-mortem. All I’m going to do now is remove his clothes, bag up his belongings and record them, take a blood sample and measure his body temperature. The rest can wait until tomorrow.’
Huldar stepped back smartly. He’d always managed to avoid seeing the thermometer plunged into the corpse’s liver at the scene and he had no intention of watching now, or of seeing the blood sample taken. When his phone rang, he seized on the excuse it offered to withdraw into a corner. Gudlaugur’s name flashed up on screen and Huldar prayed his colleague would be characteristically slow to get to the point.
But for once Gudlaugur didn’t beat about the bush. ‘We’re having no luck finding the boy’s parents. I tried calling Erla but her phone’s switched off. Freyja and the social worker are getting restless. He can’t see why the kid should have to hang around at the station while we’re trying to identify him. He’s insisting on taking him away and getting him a proper meal and stuff.’
‘Why can’t he go out and buy something for him? We’ll be back in half an hour, an hour at most. It’s
not like he has to stick around. Freyja can wait with the kid. That bloke’s not helping at all, as far as I can see. Seems like a waste of space.’
‘You’re wrong about that. He’s a good guy.’
Huldar bit back a mischievous comment about Gudlaugur not being able to see past Didrik’s good looks. That kind of teasing wouldn’t go down well, especially since their friendship still hadn’t recovered its former warmth. That was Huldar’s fault. Ever since Gudlaugur had told him he was gay, Huldar had found it hard to behave naturally around him. It wasn’t because he objected to Gudlaugur’s sexuality – far from it – he just found himself permanently walking on eggshells. He was terrified of saying or doing something that could be misconstrued, which only made his behaviour seem even more forced and unnatural. ‘Try and keep them there until we get back,’ he said instead. ‘I’ll pick something up for the kid on the way. A hamburger or a pizza, or both.’
‘OK, I’ll try, but I’m not promising anything. It’s not like they’re under arrest. They’re free to leave whenever they like.’
‘All right, thanks.’ Once he’d rung off, Huldar was forced to turn back and face the body on the table. He tried to distract himself from what was going on by plotting how best to talk Erla into letting him handle the boy’s case with Freyja. He would have to word his request very carefully, in case she got the idea that he had ulterior motives. Which was, of course, partly true.
Chapter 5
Brief though the video was, its contents were so bizarre that Thormar had to play it twice to work out what it was showing. It didn’t help that a noisy children’s party was going on in the background and by the time he’d given in to the impulse to check his phone, the mayhem had reached its height. Tanked up on sugar, the knee-high guests were tearing around the flat to a cacophony of screeches, squeals and wails. Although most were no more than three years old, they had been quick to grasp the layout of the rooms and establish a circuit. Now they were racing from kitchen to dining room to sitting room to hall, then back into the kitchen to start a new lap.
Gallows Rock - Freyja and Huldar Series 04 (2020) Page 4