When the caretaker had finished copying the camera files onto a USB stick and handed it over, he let something slip that explained why he was being so obliging. ‘Helgi gave me an extremely generous tip at Christmas. He said it was a bonus for the good job I’d done during the past year. None of the other residents have ever bothered to make a gesture like that. Oh, they’ll say “Happy Christmas” if they bump into me, but otherwise they behave as if the holiday didn’t apply to me.’
‘That was nice of him.’ Huldar didn’t know what else to say.
‘Anyway, I hope you find something on those recordings that’ll help you catch the guy who did it. And I hope you don’t dig up any dirt on Helgi. I’d like to think he was a good bloke.’
‘We’re not out to dig up dirt on the victim.’ Huldar watched as the caretaker scribbled down the name of the contact at the security firm that maintained the system. He pocketed the note.
‘There are quite a few cameras around the place but I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about the files. The man at the security firm knows how it all works.’
Doddi stood up and escorted them out. He locked the office conscientiously behind him and, when asked, confirmed that he always kept it locked, which meant that no one could have got at the keys hanging on the large corkboard above the desk. Among them was the key to Helgi’s flat, as Huldar had noticed when Doddi returned the car keys to the same hook. Logically, then, whoever brought the boy there must have used Helgi’s own set of keys, which implied that it was almost certainly the killer. Unless the boy had been brought there by Helgi himself. The child’s account had been ambiguous.
As they were saying goodbye in the lobby, the caretaker suddenly seemed embarrassed, his eyes flickering shiftily away from theirs, which Huldar found odd given that they had been getting on perfectly fine up to that point. But all was explained when the man eventually blurted out: ‘I know you’re bound by confidentiality, but can you tell me what exactly happened? How and where he died and so on?’
Huldar clicked his tongue. ‘Sorry, no can do.’
Chapter 8
Monday
‘Can somebody sum up what we know about the victim so far?’ Erla’s question wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, merely projected across the open-plan office. She still had her coat on. Most people began the day with a coffee and a chat before getting stuck into work, but not her: she was on the job from the moment she walked in the door. Usually she’d have been the first person to arrive, too, but she’d stayed late the previous night.
Huldar watched as she strode over to her glass cage, trying and failing to make eye contact with her team, most of whom appeared suddenly very intent on their computer screens. The only head sticking up above the parapet belonged to Lína, whose red hair was tied back in a thick ponytail today. She had bobbed up the instant she heard Erla’s voice. When Erla pretended not to notice her, Huldar waited for Lína to raise her hand, like one of the keen girls in his class at school.
Instead, Lína got up and set off in pursuit of Erla. Huldar looked round and met Gudlaugur’s eye. The young man still had the desk opposite him, despite the cooling of their friendship. His apprehension mirrored Huldar’s own. Huldar pushed himself to his feet, muttering: ‘I’d better go after them.’
Thanks to his longer legs, Huldar caught up just as Erla entered her office with Lína hot on her heels, and witnessed the moment when his boss turned and realised that the student was right behind her. Erla’s incredulous expression was confirmation that Huldar had done the right thing to follow them. You’d have thought she’d just spotted a piece of loo paper stuck to her shoe.
‘What?’ she snapped.
‘I’ve been round and talked to everyone,’ Lína said with breathless eagerness, ‘and I’ve compiled a report of what we know so far about the deceased, Helgi Fridriksson.’
‘Yes, thanks, I do know his name,’ Erla said with heavy sarcasm. She took off her coat, hung it on a peg and sat down at her desk. ‘Out with it, then.’ But before Lína could begin, Erla rounded on Huldar: ‘What do you want?’
‘I was going to update you about the kid. Just thought you might be interested.’ Huldar had spoken to Freyja earlier that morning, having rung her as soon as he was confident she’d be up. It wouldn’t take him long to tell Erla everything they knew about the boy, since they were getting absolutely nowhere with tracing his parents.
Erla snorted and directed her gaze back to Lína. ‘Fire away, then.’
Lína snapped to attention and held the page of notes up to her face. Again, Huldar was reminded of the keen girls at school. ‘OK, so, the deceased was thirty-five years old and would have been thirty-six in December.’
‘I see the case is about to be solved.’ Erla rolled her eyes.
Lína blushed and the paper shook in her hands, but she went on doggedly: ‘He graduated from the Commercial College with the third highest marks in his year.’ She looked up from her summary, having apparently recovered from Erla’s mockery. ‘He must have been gutted. To just miss being top of your year like that. Not even second best. After all, there are no bronze medals when it comes to school-leaving exams. It must have been pretty demoralising.’
Huldar had a sneaking suspicion that Lína was speaking from personal experience.
Erla was too astonished to come up with a cutting remark. Instead she just stared at the young woman, who, oblivious to the impression she was making, peered back at the page, which was no longer trembling in her hands. ‘Regardless, it was good enough to secure him a place at a respected university in America. According to his parents, he graduated three years later with a degree in finance, as one of the top students in his year, before moving to an even more respected university to do his master’s. He subsequently took a job at an investment bank on Wall Street and stayed there until he changed direction and started working for a hedge fund, where he was in charge of buying and selling the creditors’ claims that flooded the market following the collapse of the Icelandic banks. Since he was on a bonus contract, he’d made a killing by the time the proceedings were wound up. After that he seems to have had enough and moved back to Iceland just over a year ago. By then he was so wealthy he could afford to retire and live off his fortune for the rest of his days. Though of course he only lived for just over a year, so he never got a chance to see if his money would have lasted him into old age. Having said that, he was still managing his own investments.’
‘Who stands to inherit?’ Erla had pricked up her ears at the mention of money. It had already been obvious that the man had had an expensive lifestyle, but his wealth could have been illusory. However, since it now appeared he really was worth a packet, there was every chance that his murder had been motivated by money. People were prepared to kill for far lower sums than the billions of krónur he must have stashed away.
‘Um …’ Lína looked back at her notes. ‘He’s never been married and doesn’t have any children in Iceland. So far, we haven’t had a response from the American authorities to our enquiries. Of course, it was Sunday yesterday, and because of the time difference the working day hasn’t yet begun over there, so we probably can’t expect an answer until after lunch. But it would be surprising if he did have children in America as his parents aren’t aware of any. In addition to his father and mother, there’s one brother. The parents will inherit if it turns out he died intestate and didn’t have any offspring. We’ll need to talk to them again as the initial interview was taken when the news of their son’s death was broken to them. According to the officers you sent round, the parents didn’t feel up to talking much. Which is understandable.’ Lína paused to snatch a quick breath before carrying on. ‘We’ve also received details about the company Helgi set up to manage his assets. From what I understand, the situation’s very complicated. Apparently several of the accounts and subsidiaries are in tax havens, so there’ll be a delay before we can find out exactly how much he was worth – assuming we ever do manage to untan
gle his affairs. There are so many subsidiaries, offshoots and offshore companies with accounts all over the place. We’re assuming the set-up is designed for tax evasion.’
‘Meanwhile, our wages for investigating his murder are paid out of the contributions of ordinary Icelandic taxpayers.’ Erla snorted in disgust. ‘Perhaps we should just send the case to Tortola and leave it to the police there to solve.’
Lína shuffled her feet, clearly unsure whether she was supposed to respond to this. In the end, she decided to let it go and continued reading her summary. ‘Right, we’ve also requested information from his bank, credit-card company and telephone provider, most of which should be sent over today. We’re still examining his computers and hopefully something will turn up there, though I haven’t heard anything yet. They found one desktop computer and one laptop at his flat, but it’s very probable that others will come to light when we search the office he rented in town. We’re waiting for you to allocate the task to someone.’
Erla didn’t reply to this. She wasn’t about to discuss her staffing plan with Lína. ‘Carry on.’
‘OK. The man who examined the plank used as a gallows is fairly sure it can’t have been transported to the scene on Saturday night. He says it’s almost inconceivable that the perpetrator could have dragged along an object that heavy and cumbersome, while simultaneously forcing Helgi to walk through the lava-field. There would have to have been a second person involved, or he could have moved the plank there earlier. Then there’s the question of whether you want to go on searching the area for the missing piece of paper that was nailed to Helgi’s chest. Yesterday’s search found nothing. No nail gun, no paper. And no sign of the victim’s phone or keys.’
Since Erla didn’t appear to think she owed Lína a response, a silence fell until, growing impatient, the younger woman coughed and continued: ‘They’ve checked if Helgi had any connection to Bessastadir but it doesn’t look like it. He didn’t have any links to China either, from what we can see, though it’s not impossible that he had dealings with Chinese clients during his time in America. The bank and hedge fund where he used to work should be able to help us with that. I understand you’re planning to get in touch with them.’ At this point Lína digressed from her dry recitation of facts to add a personal reflection: ‘If you ask me, that’s a sensible decision. It’s more likely they’ll respond to you than to a junior officer. Though perhaps you should consider asking someone even more senior, like the Police Commissioner himself, to request the information.’
Erla blew her top: ‘How about the prime minister? Or, no, I know – the Pope! They’re sure to get back to him.’
Huldar suppressed a smile. Lína had unwittingly touched a nerve. It had nothing to do with Erla’s relative seniority or the question of whether she was important enough to avoid being put on indefinite hold if she rang an American bank. No, her touchiness was related to her linguistic abilities – or lack of them. Unusually for an Icelander, Erla was terrible at English; so bad that it was hard to see how she was hoping to conduct a conversation about Helgi’s complex financial affairs. If she hadn’t been so quick to flare up at Lína, she could have seized on the escape route that the young woman had inadvertently offered, and asked one of the senior officers to step in for her.
Instead, Erla changed the subject. ‘What about Saturday evening? Have we got a clear picture of his movements yet?’
Lína dropped her eyes to her summary again. She hadn’t blushed as much as usual at Erla’s mockery; perhaps she was getting used to it. ‘There are still a few gaps but what we know so far is that he went out to dinner. His parents said he was planning to meet some old school friends, who we haven’t interviewed yet. The receipts in his pockets show that he took a taxi from his home at 7.30 p.m., then paid a restaurant bill at 10 p.m. From the receipt it appears that he was paying for himself and three other people. There were also receipts for drinks at the 101 Bar. The last transaction on his credit card was from there. After that we lose sight of him. There are no more card payments, so it doesn’t look as if he went anywhere else, unless he paid for further drinks or food with cash. As you’ll remember, his wallet was full of money, so it’s possible. Or perhaps he didn’t buy anything else. Hopefully we’ll be able to get an answer soon, because the CCTV from the city centre is ready for analysis. We’re still waiting for you to assign the job to someone. Oh yes, and we got a message from the pathologist about the post-mortem. He’ll be ready soon and wants you to give him a call.’
Erla sighed. ‘That’s all we bloody need. Why couldn’t he just name a time?’ When Lína failed to leap to the pathologist’s defence, Erla asked instead: ‘What about the CCTV from his building? Any problems?’ Huldar had dropped by Erla’s office when he’d taken the files back to CID the previous evening, and filled her in on what he and Gudlaugur had learnt during their visit to Helgi’s apartment block. When he had gone home an hour later, she had still been hard at it. From the team’s central attendance record, it was clear that she hadn’t gone home until around two in the morning.
Lína nodded and Huldar seized the chance to take over. Although he hadn’t made notes like Lína, he was more or less up to speed with the progress of the investigation and knew she could have nothing to add. ‘I’ll go through the recordings if you don’t have anyone else in mind. I’m familiar with the building and probably in a better position than anyone else to recognise the boy. With any luck the CCTV footage will establish when he arrived and who brought him. I’ve got the name of a contact at the security firm that installed the system.’
Erla didn’t reply to his offer, which Huldar chose to interpret as assent. She switched on her computer and stared at the screen as it was booting up. ‘Have they found the boy’s parents yet?’
‘No.’ Huldar decided not to complicate his answer with any explanations, just state the bald truth.
‘I see.’ Erla looked up from the screen. ‘So you barge in here before anyone else basically to tell me that there’s no news about the kid?’
He resisted the temptation to point out that Lína had got in ahead of him. ‘We’re doing all we can. I’ve been speaking to the National Register and they’re going to check if there are any children called Sigurdur of the right sort of age living in Reykjavík but registered elsewhere. Gudlaugur’s already got hold of the parents of eleven of the sixteen relevant Sigurdurs living in Reykjavík and none of them are missing their son. He’s going to keep trying the parents of the other five boys. Since the kid says he has a mother and a father we’re bound to track them down in the end. Maybe they’re one of the couples we haven’t been able to get hold of yet. Or they’re druggies, totally out of it somewhere, though none of the parents in question crop up on any of our lists of addicts. And, for what it’s worth, the boy shows no signs of having grown up in a problem home.’
‘Maybe his grandparents step in when necessary. It’s not unusual.’
‘Yes, possibly.’ Huldar was sceptical, though he couldn’t come up with any good reason why.
‘Where’s the boy now?’
‘He’s been taken into temporary care by social services. That’s where he spent the night. I rang this morning to see if he’d said any more about his parents, but no luck. Seeing as no one’s reported him missing, either they’re not aware he’s gone or they’re in trouble of some kind. And in that case, we have to consider the possibility that they’ve fallen victim to the same person who killed Helgi.’
Erla nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s occurred to me too, of course. As well as the chance that they were responsible for the murder, assuming the kid was right when he said Helgi might have brought him to the flat – in the middle of the night. Which would have been after Helgi’s night out on the town? Or before he went out?’
Huldar couldn’t answer this, so Erla asked instead: ‘How’s the timeline coming along?’
Lína jumped in at this point, pleased to be able to answer. ‘We’re working on it but there are sti
ll quite a few gaps, including the precise time of death.’
Ignoring her, Erla returned to grilling Huldar about Siggi. ‘What about the person who rang to tip us off about the boy? Have we identified them yet?’
‘No. The call was made to emergency services but the number was withheld, and no one saw any reason to try and trace it. The sad fact is that children’s services receive around ten thousand similar calls every year, and although most don’t go through the emergency number, it’s not unheard of. It’s a bit odd that none of the neighbours will admit to making the call. Mind you, given the state-of-the-art insulation, I’d be surprised if a bit of crying would have been overheard next door, let alone in the flats further down the corridor. It’s also rather suspicious that the phone call came such a short time before the boy’s alarm clock started ringing. He’d been told not to open the door or answer the phone or make any noise until the alarm had gone off. Maybe it was just a strange coincidence, but I don’t buy it.’
Erla frowned. ‘We’ll go over all that later at the meeting.’
Lína cleared her throat. ‘There’s one thing I think you should look into.’
‘I can’t wait.’ Erla’s expression said the exact opposite.
‘The choice of location. Why the Gallows Rock? Surely we need to ask ourselves that?’
‘Do you really imagine you’re telling me something I don’t know?’
‘No.’ Bright red spots appeared on Lína’s cheeks, but she ploughed on anyway. ‘If it’s OK with you, I’d like to see if I can find any possible links or reasons why that particular spot was chosen.’
Gallows Rock - Freyja and Huldar Series 04 (2020) Page 7