Winterlude

by Quentin Bates

  Anna Björg looked dubious. ‘It’s up to you, but you’re sure you want to be going there alone?’

  ‘So if Reynir wasn’t with Mæja, where was he? In Reykjavík dealing with big brother Kjartan’s unfinished business?’ he asked as his phone began to buzz.

  It was late in the evening and Helgi was tired, knowing that it would be hours before he would be able to shut his eyes. Reynir hadn’t gone happily, snarling angrily as Helgi and Anna Björg escorted him from the farmhouse at Tunga, the old lady, a scowling Össur and a newly arrived Ingi watching with worried eyes as they marched him across the farmyard in the gathering gloom. Anna Björg had been all for using handcuffs. Against his own better instincts, Helgi decided to do without them. As they walked him from the car into the police station, he felt the muscles in Reynir’s arm tense and tighten for a second, as if ready to explode, and he braced himself for a fight before Reynir relaxed.

  Reynir looked smaller than his usual outdoors self, a different character once out of his natural environment, as if cowed by the artificial light and the formal atmosphere of the police station.

  ‘Reynir from Tunga?’ asked Anna Björg’s colleague, Arnar, a young man on his first posting who spent most of his time in the western half of the county. Reynir’s reputation had clearly gone before him.

  ‘Yes, Arnar. That’s Reynir from Tunga in that cell and we’re going to have our work cut out now,’ she said grimly. ‘I’d like you to sit in with Helgi, to start with at least. I have a few other enquiries to deal with right now.’

  The interview began late, delayed by the difficulty of tracking down a lawyer to represent Reynir, but when the puffing, elderly man finally arrived with profuse apologies, Helgi set the computer to record and went through the formalities.

  ‘You know why you’re here?’

  ‘I can guess,’ Reynir said in a truculent tone. ‘Something to do with Borgar Jónsson, I’d say, and someone giving the bastard who killed Kjartan’s boy what he deserved.’

  ‘Where were you on Sunday?’

  Reynir shrugged. ‘At home. Did a bit of work in the barn, but I didn’t tire myself out. Stayed in all afternoon, watched the football. Arsenal won.’

  ‘I have a sighting of that Land Cruiser in your yard down south on Sunday.’

  ‘Not me. Sorry, Helgi,’ Reynir grinned. ‘And I told you where I was on Sunday night.’

  ‘That’s just it. Mæja’s Hjörtur wasn’t at work on Sunday night, so you could hardly have been keeping Hjörtur’s bed warm for him.’

  Reynir’s face darkened. ‘I don’t know where Hjörtur was, but he wasn’t in his own bed. That’s for sure.’

  ‘Were you in Reykjavík on Sunday, Reynir?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I was at home during the day and I was cuddled up with Mæja from before dinner time. She’ll tell you.’

  ‘We’ll see. I spoke to Mæja today and it doesn’t take a genius to work out she was lying. Why, Reynir? Why’s she so frightened of you? Handy with your fists, are you?’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ Reynir growled, less convincingly now.

  ‘I know you don’t mind mixing it up outside Húnaver or Kántrybær now and again. But slapping your girlfriend around? Come on, that stinks. You think nobody’s noticed?’

  ‘Hell, you keep out of what’s not your business, Helgi from Hraunbær!’ Reynir shouted. ‘Throwing your weight around because you’ve got a badge or something. You should be ashamed of yourself. Some of us remember what a snot-nosed brat you used to be. We’ll see how good you are at standing up for yourself one day.’

  ‘Am I supposed to take that as a threat, Reynir?’ Helgi asked quietly and the lawyer whispered in Reynir’s ear.

  ‘Get away from me, you old fool,’ Reynir swore at the old man, who sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘Helgi, you can take that any sweet way you want,’ he sneered.

  ‘Fair enough. In that case I’ll interpret it as a threat against a police officer,’ Helgi said, raising an eyebrow at the old lawyer, who waved a hand in disgust. ‘At 13:45 on Sunday a blue Toyota clipped another car’s wing going round the roundabout on Reykjanesbraut, right by the Læjkargata turnoff in Hafnarfjördur, and if the old fella who had his car scraped hadn’t called 112, then a patrol car wouldn’t have turned up at the scene with its lights on.’

  Reynir grimaced in impatience. ‘Where is this shit going?’ he demanded.

  ‘All in good time. I don’t suppose you know that all police cars are fitted with cameras that record automatically when the blue lights are on?’

  ‘And? So what?’

  ‘Your black Land Cruiser drove past the scene at 14:02 and the number’s there as clear as day. So thanks to an idiot in a Toyota, we have positive evidence that you were in Reykjavík on Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘Not me. It’s a mistake.’

  ‘It’s your vehicle, Reynir. You were there.’

  ‘I wasn’t. This has been fabricated by the police.’

  ‘So where did you go? Straight to Hafnarfjördur? How did you know Borgar was at the NesPlast unit?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re an ugly bastard, Reynir, who pushes his girlfriend around when her husband’s away. But you’re not stupid. What were you doing in Reykjavík on Sunday? Delivering a few gallons of moonshine? And you stopped off at Borgar’s unit on the way to beat the crap out of him? Is that how it happened?’

  ‘You’re still talking shit. I don’t do moonshine, and I haven’t seen Borgar Jónsson,’ he spat. ‘If I had finished the bastard it’s not something I’d be ashamed of.’

  ‘You’re talking to Helgi Svavarsson from Hraunbær, not some wet-behind-the-ears lad from Reykjavík who’s never been north of Borgarnes. You and Össur and your dad before you are famous from Laugarbakki to Hofsós for your moonshine, so don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. How much are you producing these days?’

  Reynir looked away and folded his arms. ‘Just a few bottles for Christmas. That’s all.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. Where did the cash come from for that Land Cruiser? And all the other bits and pieces at Tunga, and two new tractors? Don’t try and tell me you won the lottery.’

  ‘We saved up over the years.’

  ‘And I’m sure you have financial records to prove just that?’

  ‘I believe in cash, not bankbooks.’

  ‘You’re trying to tell me that you’ve been saving your benefits money for the last twenty years in a biscuit tin under your bed, and all of a sudden you decided to buy yourself a Land Cruiser and your mum a 72-inch TV?’

  Reynir sat back, arms folded, his heavy shoulders threatening to burst his shirt. ‘Yeah. That’s just what I’m telling you. It’s up to you to prove me wrong.’

  ‘Sorry. But that’s not the way it works,’ Helgi said with a sad smile. ‘I think you’ll be finding out before long that it’s exactly the other way around when the taxman gets his teeth into you.’

  Reynir sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘I have nothing to say. I want a lawyer.’

  ‘You have a lawyer,’ Helgi said, pointing to the elderly man in his ill-fitting suit sitting beside him.

  Reynir glanced at the old man. ‘No. A real lawyer,’ he said as the old man’s chest swelled in anger and his mouth opened to protest. ‘Not an old boy who sells houses and writes wills. A proper lawyer.’

  Anna Björg stretched and pushed her coffee aside. She looked at her watch and shook her head. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Not great,’ Helgi admitted.

  ‘No progress?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s rattled, I can see that. But I’m not sure I have enough to hold him. He swears blind he was with Mæja all afternoon on Sunday, and she’s confirmed that.’

  ‘But Mæja’s husband wasn’t at work on Sunday,’ Anna Björg said. ‘You think she’s lying to protect Reynir?’

  ‘Could be.’ Helgi yawned. ‘So if Reynir didn’t drive south
, beat Borgar Jónsson to death and drive back that evening, who did? Or has this been a complete wild-goose chase and we need to be looking for the murderer somewhere else completely, like one of the clients Jónsson ripped off over the years?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. I don’t know anything about the background to all this, except that Reynir has a fearsome reputation.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ Helgi agreed. ‘He killed a man once, or so they say.’

  Anna Björg frowned. ‘Really? I’ve heard rumours about him. Is it true?’

  ‘Kjartan and Reynir went to Grindavík to work in the cod season down south and they went on a binge afterwards with all the money they’d earned. There was an old scrounger in Reykjavík called Bassi who tagged along with them for a while and they ended up being dropped off at Tunga in a taxi.’

  ‘This was a while ago, then?’ Anna Björg said doubtfully.

  ‘It was a long time ago, back in the eighties some time, and I was just a kid. I remember Ingi came over to us at Hraunbær while the three of them carried on drinking with old man Aron.’

  ‘Their father?’

  ‘Yup. He died a good few years ago now. Anyhow, they had a good old session and the next morning the old man had sobered up and expected his boys to do the same. Bassi didn’t take kindly to sobering up and being put on a bus south, and the tale goes that Reynir caught this guy with his fingers in the old woman’s purse trying to lift himself some money so he could carry on with his own personal drinking spree. So somewhere on the Tunga lands there’s a set of old bones that only Kjartan and Reynir know where to find. There was an investigation at the time that concluded old Bassi had got himself lost somewhere, fallen asleep by the side of the road and died of exposure.’

  ‘And nobody linked this with Kjartan and Reynir?’

  ‘No. The only person who could have done that was the taxi driver who took the three of them up there. But he firmly denied having seen Bassi. He’s dead as well now, so that’s where the trail ended, not that it was followed up all that energetically, as it was months after his disappearance that someone finally reported Bassi missing. The man had no family to speak of and nobody made a fuss when the investigation came to the easy conclusion.’

  ‘But you know all this stuff,’ Anna Björg said. ‘Surely . . . ?’

  ‘Just countryside gossip. There’s no body. There are no witnesses, and it was all a very long time ago.’

  Anna Björg nodded slowly. ‘I suppose so. What can you do? But you think Reynir killed Borgar?’

  ‘He has the temper, and as far as I’m concerned, he’s done it before,’ Helgi said. ‘Not that I can put that in writing anywhere.’

  ‘But he has an alibi.’

  ‘He has an alibi that doesn’t ring true and I don’t imagine Mæja would be prepared to stand up in court and give evidence on his behalf.’

  Helgi yawned and rolled his aching shoulders. ‘Enough for tonight. We’ll pick this up in the morning, shall we?’

  ‘I’ll speak to Mæja again in the morning. It might be worth bringing her in for a formal interview. What do you think?’

  Helgi stood up and pulled on his coat, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. ‘You’re quite right,’ he decided. ‘This has to be clarified so there’s no doubt there. How long has this been going on between Mæja and Reynir?’

  ‘For the last five years, to my knowledge – every time Hjörtur goes off on shift for four days, Reynir comes in the back door.’

  ‘Five years? And it still hasn’t dawned on him?’

  Anna Björg kneaded her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘You know, Helgi, some men are the weirdest creatures. Sometimes they see dragons where there are none, but fail to see what’s right under their noses.’

  ‘Present company excepted, I take it?’

  ‘Hmm. Possibly. But don’t bank on it. Anyway, while you’ve been talking, I’ve sent Arnar out to Tunga where he’ll meet three of the guys from the station at the Hook. They should be closing down the brothers’ amateur distillery so that will all be done by the time we have to release Reynir tomorrow. I’ve sent his fingerprints to Gunna as well and she can get them checked against those from the murder scene.’

  Helgi sat back, his mind numb as he fought back a yawn. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m shattered.’

  Thursday

  Gunna studied the CCTV footage carefully. With hours of screen time to go through, she had begged, wheedled and promised favours to get more pairs of eyes and fortunately the bad weather meant that Reykjavík had seen a fairly quiet night. Two officers on the night shift had pored over the digital recordings and flagged up where the black Land Cruiser from Tunga had crawled around the centre of Reykjavík on a quiet Sunday morning. Four stops had been recorded only a few hundred metres apart, all of them outside bars and nightclubs.

  She slowed the replay down and magnified the images as best she could, but even the high-gain cameras that could normally pick up a number on a credit card struggled to produce clear images in the heavy rain. At each stop the Land Cruiser’s broad-shouldered driver carried a couple of boxes inside, stayed for a few minutes and emerged to put boxes back in the car and drive away, but at no point did he pull back the hood of his sweatshirt or lift the brim of the baseball cap pulled low over his face.

  Gunna wondered if the man was aware of the cameras, considering how skilfully he avoided looking directly at any of them.

  Leaving Sunday’s recordings, Gunna selected the previous week’s footage and quickly scrolled through the view from the same camera a week before. That Sunday had also been wet but marginally less dark, so the quality of the pictures was sharper. She was almost ready to give up when what she was looking for appeared. Instead of the Land Cruiser, Elmar’s blue van came to a halt at precisely the same spot and Gunna could clearly make out the young man slamming the door behind him before he carried a box inside, while Bjarni Björgvinsson’s unkempt blond head could be seen on the passenger side, his head nodding in time to the beat of whatever the two iPod wires were delivering to his ears.

  Satisfied, she collected the relevant screengrabs of the Land Cruiser and attached them to an email to Helgi with a feeling of satisfaction at some progress being made.

  The bar was in the centre of the city behind an inconspicuous set of doors. A girl in a pale blue tunic answered when Gunna hammered on them, and looked through the narrow opening with suspicion.

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ she said as Gunna flashed her identification and stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. ‘Honest.’

  ‘Where’s the manager?’

  The girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘He won’t be here for hours yet. He only left at six this morning.’

  ‘You’re here every morning, are you?’

  ‘There’s a team of us. We rotate. I do four mornings a week.’

  Gunna looked around curiously. The bar had a dead feel to it with normal lights on, which illuminated the shabby paint and scratched furnishings that night-time punters would never see under the dim lights of business hours.

  ‘So where are the rest of you?’

  ‘They’ll be here any minute. I though that was them banging on the door.’

  ‘You’re employed by the club, or is this a cash-in-hand arrangement?’

  ‘It’s an agency, Reindeer Cleaning. I think the guy who runs this place owns Reindeer as well. Listen, I’m not going to get into trouble telling you all this, am I?’ she asked and frowned suspiciously. ‘I mean, I need this job,’ she added.

  ‘Not if you don’t tell him, I suppose,’ Gunna said, taking a series of printed-out screengrabs from her folder. ‘Look at this. Tell me if you recognize this guy.’

  The girl glanced at the picture. ‘That’s the water cooler guy.’

  ‘Water cooler?’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t know his name. He turns up once or twice a week, always mornings when it’s quiet. He says it’s easier to park if he does his round early. He delivers the refil
ls for the water coolers. You know, those plastic drum things,’ she said. ‘With water in,’ she added, as if speaking to a child.

  Gunna looked around. ‘So where’s the water cooler?’

  Clearly impatient to be working, the girl disappeared behind the bar and began sweeping. ‘I don’t know. In the office, I expect.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  The girl stopped sweeping for a second and pointed. ‘That way,’ she said, indicating some double doors. ‘And I haven’t seen anything,’ she called as Gunna pushed them open.

  Gunna saw stairs and climbed them in the dark, feeling for a switch that she didn’t find until the top step. As the light flickered on, she saw another door on the far side of an open area with a large table in the middle, its surface scarred and stained underneath a scattered covering of playing cards, empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays. The water cooler stood by what was certainly the office door that refused to budge as Gunna tried the handle. The cooler itself was switched off and empty, its plastic bottle upended in position, and looked to have been that way for a long time, with old newspapers and an empty pizza box balanced on top of it.

  Wondering whether or not to give the office door a kick, Gunna saw that next to a leather sofa long past its sell-by date against the other wall was another door, and with a little effort this one swung open to reveal a much-used and long uncleaned toilet, as well as a shower cubicle. Sweeping aside the curtain, Gunna saw that the shower had also clearly not been used for a long time, as it was stacked high with boxes of the kind that Elmar and the Land Cruiser driver had delivered.

  She opened the flaps of the box at the top and found herself looking at an empty plastic drum. Prising off the cap, she sniffed, closed the bottle and its box and made her way back downstairs, waving to the girl wiping tables who nodded in curt acknowledgement.

  A message was stuck to Gunna’s computer monitor when she arrived back at her desk at the Hverfisgata station.

  Check your email, it read.

  Gunna scrunched it into a ball, threw it into the bin and prodded her computer into life. She read the message, rattled her fingernails in a tattoo on the desk as she did so and reached for the phone.