‘Why do you say that?’
‘Skúli . . .’ Tommi said, unable to hide his glee. ‘You ought to know that you don’t upset the establishment without having to answer for your misdeeds. Anyway, call me when you need me. Looking forward to hearing from you,’ he said, ending the call suddenly.
Skúli shook his head and took another forkful of cake, then his phone pinged a couple of times in quick succession before buzzing with another call.
‘You bastard,’ Elinborg burst out before he had a chance to say anything. ‘You said this wouldn’t go live right away.’
‘Come on, Ella. You know the score. I gave you fair warning.’
‘You told me . . .’
‘Yeah, I told you yesterday evening. I asked for a comment and you said there wouldn’t be one. And . . .’
‘Yeah, Skúli, and what?’
‘We had to get it out there before the ministry could get an injunction.’
‘Well, you’re right enough on that,’ Elinborg told him, and he wondered who else was listening to the call. ‘You’ll be hearing from legal today.’
Skúli didn’t get a chance to say goodbye as Elinborg ended the call abruptly.
His phone immediately began to buzz again, so he declined the incoming call, found Tommi’s number and pressed the green button.
‘Skúli, my boy,’ the lawyer said breezily. ‘Need our services already?’
‘Not right now, but I reckon we will. The ministry’s losing its shit.’
‘Excellent,’ Tommi said and Skúli imagined him rubbing his hands in delight. ‘Get a statement written and email it to me before twelve, something about the story being directly in the public interest, essential that this kind of information is publicly available, all that crap. Got me? I’ll tweak it and send it to all the other media outlets. Best to get your take on this out there right away, and if I were you I’d be ready to be on tonight’s news.’
The door banged shut. Eiríkur stood in the hallway facing Ketill Ómarsson as he visibly struggled to contain his hostility.
‘What’s this all about?’ Ketill demanded at last. ‘I’m no friend of the police, and I imagine you’ve found out why.’
‘I’ve heard half the story,’ Eiríkur said. ‘I haven’t read the case files as it was so long ago they’re stored away somewhere. But I’d like to hear the rest of it from you.’
‘Why? After all these years?’
‘Pure coincidence. I had no idea who you were until I knocked on your door. A serious crime was committed in the street outside . . .’
‘Come on, everyone knows it was that thug Thór Hersteinsson who was given a hiding.’
Eiríkur hesitated, and was not surprised that gossip had travelled so fast. ‘It hasn’t been confirmed officially, but that’s right, and it happened almost outside your door. He was murdered. Knocking on doors and looking for witnesses is standard practice.’
‘Just like it was in nineteen eighty-four, you mean? That’s not what your arsehole of a colleague did. He just threw me in a cell and it was a done deal.’
Eiríkur held out his hands, palms wide.
‘I can’t answer for Páll Oddur Bjarnason; he was long gone from the force before I joined. In any case, he’s been dead a few years now.’
‘And I hope the bastard rots for what he did.’
Ketill folded his arms and glared, challenging Eiríkur to defend him.
‘All right. Tell me your side of the story.’
‘I’ve told it before, often enough. It’s all there in the case files, and the newspapers. Snorri did well enough for himself after he waved me off to prison.’
‘How so?’
‘He saw what happened to me, I suppose, and decided he’d be better off as an honest man. If you can call a salesman honest.’
‘I know you got an eight-year sentence for assault and robbery,’ Eiríkur began, watching Ketill carefully. ‘I know you served four. I asked a few questions and heard right away that there was doubt about the case, but that nothing was ever done, and the gist of it is that Páll Oddur Bjarnason was too high up the pecking order to be touched.’
‘I could have told you all that,’ Ketill said, his shoulders sagging. His face had gone from furious to haggard and he leaned against the wall.
‘All right. Tell me about it,’ Eiríkur suggested. ‘There’s nothing new about a miscarriage of justice.’
‘Miscarriage?’ Ketill snapped, fury returning. ‘It was so much more than a miscarriage. It was a fucking travesty, pure and simple.’
‘Try me. Tell me what happened.’
‘You know the names already, although I don’t know where you got them from. Snorri’s my cousin and Pálina was the girl he was living with back then. They were a pair of layabouts, petty criminals, small-time dope and thieving. One evening Snorri broke into an electrical goods shop that used to be on Ármúli years ago and the owner surprised him. I know exactly what happened, because I heard the whole story as the poor bastard slurred his way through his evidence at the trial. Snorri smacked him with a baseball bat, knocked half his teeth out, broke his nose and jaw, and ransacked the storeroom at the back of the guy’s shop. I know exactly what happened,’ Ketill repeated through gritted teeth, ‘because I was the one in the dock listening to the victim give his evidence, instead of the real bastard who actually did it.’
‘I know that,’ Eiríkur said. ‘That’s pretty much what I’ve heard. But why? How come you were charged for this?’
‘Because my dear cousin Snorri turned up in the middle of the night at the flat I was renting, woke me up and came in with a dozen boxes that he stacked by the TV, before disappearing back into the night, saying he’d return the next day to collect them.’
‘I take it he didn’t?’
‘No, he didn’t. Páll Oddur Bjarnason and three goons in uniform shoved their way through the door the next morning, picked up all those boxes and hauled me off to a cell. The rest is history.’
‘But why?’ Eiríkur asked. ‘I still don’t get it.’
‘Because when Páll Oddur went to check on the usual suspects, including my cousin Snorri, who was pretty close to the top of the list, he found him curled up with his sweet little niece, Pálína Jónsdóttir. Anywhere other than Iceland Páll Oddur would have had to declare a personal connection and hand the investigation over to someone else, but not here. Páll Oddur found all the evidence he needed, plus his pregnant niece tucked up with his suspect. I imagine Snorri told him where he’d left the gear, and Páll Oddur came and got it, and me in the process. Rather than wreck his niece’s domestic arrangements by arresting her boyfriend, he conveniently hung the whole lot on Snorri’s country bumpkin of a relative, who’d only been in Reykjavík a couple of months.’
‘So you had nothing to do with it?’
‘Apart from letting my cousin Snorri leave a dozen stolen video cameras in my living room, nothing at all. Snorri had worn gloves when he broke into the guy’s store, so there were no fingerprints, and he’d dumped the bat somewhere and it was never found. The victim said it was dark and he didn’t see his assailant’s face clearly; he just knew it was someone of around my build. That was enough for Páll Oddur to get a conviction, send me to prison, fuck up my studies and ensure that I’d never get a decent job for the rest of my working life,’ Ketill said.
‘Are you all right?’ Eiríkur asked, concerned that the man’s face had turned red and his breath was coming in alarming gulps.
‘No . . .’ he gasped, leaning against the wall to steady himself; Eiríkur stepped forward to take his arm.
‘You need to sit down.’
Ketill nodded, his head lolling onto his chest.
‘And you wonder why I’m no friend of the police,’ he said between hollow breaths as Eiríkur helped him along the passage to the kitchen at the back of the house.
Skúli wondered if the buzz of breaking a controversial story would ever be separated from the anti-climax that invariably followed it, the sneering
voice inside his head that reminded him it wasn’t quite good enough, he still needed to do better.
He checked the social media platforms to see what people were saying, then checked the website carrying Sophie’s explosive article to read slowly through her text, which seemed oddly flowery as he translated it in his head.
He checked again to see if Lars had logged onto Skype, frowning when he saw he hadn’t. Skúli checked the time. He knew Lars was virtually never unreachable, so he punched in Lars’s mobile number and listened to it ring as he sipped his coffee. He was about to give up and go to join Arndís and Agnar in the café round the corner when the phone was answered.
‘Yes? Who is this?’
‘Hi. Is Lars there?’
It was a strange voice, suspicious. ‘Who’s speaking, please?’
‘It’s Skúli. Is Lars about?’
‘You mean Lars Bundgaard?’
The voice dealt cautiously with the syllables of Lars’s name.
‘That’s right. This is Lars’s phone, isn’t it? Is he there?’
‘Yeah, he’s here. But he can’t talk to you. Where are you calling from, please?’
Suddenly Skúli was uncertain. There was something in the voice’s authority that rang alarm bells.
‘I’m calling from Iceland. Who are you?’
There was silence and he could hear muttering in the background.
‘I’m a police officer. My name is Kerkhoeve,’ the voice said, and out of force of habit, Skúli wrote down the name on the pad at his side, struggling with the syllables of the man’s name and hoping he’d got it right. ‘What is your name, please?’
Skúli felt a chill.
‘Is Lars not there?’
‘Yes. Lars is here, but he can’t speak to you,’ the sharp voice said again. ‘Who are you, please?’
‘My name’s Skúli Snædal and I’m a friend of his. Why can’t he speak? Is he busy? What’s going on?’
‘Give me your number, please. I’ll call you back.’
Skúli reeled off his mobile number.
‘Has something happened to Lars? What’s going on?’
‘Five minutes,’ the voice said curtly and the line went dead.
Ketill sank onto a stool, his face red, breathing hard.
‘Are you all right?’ Eiríkur asked, taking another stool. ‘Do you want me to call anyone?’
‘Like who?’
‘You live here alone?’
‘No. But I don’t want you calling anyone. Give me five minutes. I’ll be fine.’
‘Do you get these turns often?’
‘No,’ Ketill said, fighting for breath. ‘It’s only thinking back to what you’ve just reminded me about and that world-class arsehole Páll Oddur Bjarnason that brings it on. The bastard’s six feet under, but it’s as if he’s still persecuting me from beyond the grave.’
Eiríkur took a glass from the draining board by the sink, filled it with water and placed it on the table within reach.
Ketill glared and wiped away a tear that had strayed from one watery eye.
‘If you want to do something useful, boy, you can make some coffee.’
He waved a hand in the direction of the cupboard over the sink and an old percolator that stood on the worktop. Eiríkur fussed over this unfamiliar task, sitting back down once the machine had started to hiss and bubble to itself.
Ketill’s colour had started to return and he supported himself with both forearms on the table, his lips pursed in a thin, angry line.
Eiríkur poured coffee into a mug.
‘Is there any milk?’
‘Fridge.’
A small carton of G-Milk joined the mug and Ketill squeezed it until a dribble of milk turned his coffee khaki brown. He took a lump of hard sugar from a packet and tucked it into his mouth, sipping coffee through it.
‘Aren’t you having any?’
‘I don’t drink coffee,’ Eiríkur said and Ketill snorted. ‘I’m sorry I gave you a turn. It wasn’t the intention.’
‘Remind me, what brings you here? You said something this morning about a fight.’
‘A man was murdered last night in the street, a few metres from your door.’
‘Thór the Boxer?’
Eiríkur hesitated. ‘It hasn’t been announced yet, but, yes. Thór Hersteinsson.’
‘I guess he had it coming. He was an evil bastard and probably deserved it.’
Eiríkur shrugged. ‘That’s not for me to say. Do any of us deserve to have our life taken away?’
‘Half of mine was snatched away,’ Ketill snarled.
‘I have to say I’m shocked. Páll Oddur had retired from the force long before I joined and I assure you things have changed a lot. That could never happen today,’ Eiríkur said. ‘That’s one of the reasons I’m here.’
‘Go on, officer,’ Ketill said, taking another lump of sugar. ‘Give me a good reason why I should help the police.’
‘This is all stuff I shouldn’t tell you. But we have a man in the cells who’s been charged with Thór Hersteinsson’s murder. He’s not the most pleasant of people – a drug dealer with a whole string of misdeeds behind him – and I don’t doubt that there are a good many things he’s done that we’ll never know about.’
‘You’ve got the killer. So why are you here?’
‘Because the officer who is heading this investigation has charged this man. My colleague and I, who are also working on this investigation, are sure the man’s innocent. At least,’ Eiríkur said, ‘we don’t believe he’s responsible for this particular crime, whatever else he has on his conscience. That’s assuming he has one, and I’m not sure he has.’
‘This is hurting your conscience, is it?’
Eiríkur nodded slowly, taken aback by Ketill’s question.
‘It is. I have no love whatsoever for this person, but there’s some evidence that he didn’t do it, which the officer in charge of the case is ignoring. He’s trying to browbeat a confession out of this man, and he’s a hardboiled sort of character, so it’s an uphill battle.’
‘Not some shrinking violet who gives way easily?’
Eiríkur thought of Rikki’s scars and tattoos, and the fury on his face as he calculated the odds of taking on four police officers.
‘No,’ he said, ‘far from it.’
‘You’re telling me there’s an ethical dilemma of some kind here? Someone who deserves to be put away even though he didn’t do it?’
‘No,’ Eiríkur replied. ‘That’s not it at all. My belief is that he didn’t murder Thór, so he shouldn’t take the blame for it, regardless of whatever else he’s done.’
‘A copper with a conscience,’ Ketill said, his tone mocking. ‘Who’d have thought it?’
‘Like I said, we’re not all like Páll Oddur Bjarnason.’
‘But your colleague is?’ Ketill said and coughed once, putting a hand to his mouth before his face turned brick red and he exploded in another coughing fit that left him trembling, his forehead in his hands. He took a long wheezing breath as he recovered. Eventually he straightened his back and leaned over to open a cupboard. He took out a flat bottle, spun the cap off and poured a slug into his coffee.
Eiríkur shook his head as Ketill offered him the bottle.
‘I imagine you’d be happy to arrest me for having half a litre of moonshine in my kitchen cupboard,’ he said, sipping his heavily laced coffee.
Eiríkur shrugged.
‘I could, but I have better things to do. The paperwork would take up the rest of the day and you might get a tiny fine in a year’s time once the whole thing has gone through the system.’
‘If I’m still here in a year’s time,’ Ketill said, his voice dark. ‘I could do with a refill if you can reach the coffee machine.’ He pushed his mug towards Eiríkur, who stretched for the jug. Ketill added another slug, and the smell as the spirit hit the hot coffee filled the room a second time. ‘Come on then. What are you after?’
‘I want to kno
w what happened last night. Did you see anything? And if so what?’
‘And help put some poor bastard away?’
‘Or keep some other poor bastard from being put away,’ Eiríkur retorted.
Skúli waited for his phone to ring but nothing happened. He fretted as he took the bus home, sat in the kitchen and drank too many cups of coffee as the street outside slipped into darkness, all the while resisting the temptation to call Lars’s phone again. Dagga took Markús for a long walk to the shops, and when they returned, cheeks red from the fresh wind, they found Skúli still sitting at the kitchen table, gnawing his fingernails.
When the call came, it wasn’t the phone ringing, but the door, where a stern young woman stood with a barrel-chested man at her side.
‘This is Skúli Snædal’s residence?’
Dagga showed them into the kitchen, her eyes urgently questioning Skúli as the woman took a seat without waiting to be asked to sit. The man stood by the kitchen door and said nothing.
‘Skúli?’ she asked, as if Dagga weren’t even in the room. ‘My name’s Birna Hreinsdóttir and we’re from the police.’
‘I thought so,’ Skúli said, nervously extending a hand and glancing at the man. ‘I know who you are.’
‘That’s interesting, because we’ve found out quite a lot about you,’ Birna said. ‘It’ll be enlightening if we can work out how much of what we each think we know is true or not.’
She consulted a notebook as Dagga stood anxiously in the corner with Markús in her arms. ‘University in Århus, a spell on a local rag there, Dagurinn, Reykjavík Voice, DV, now working for something called Pulse. Your father’s Eggert Snædal, right?’
‘That’s right,’ Skúli answered in a daze.
‘It was around midnight. I don’t know exactly,’ Ketill said, as if overcoming an unwillingness to speak.
Eiríkur sat and watched and waited for the man’s inner turmoil to resolve itself.
‘I heard the noise outside. It’s nothing unusual around here, though not so much on a week night, and they didn’t sound like drunks on their way home. I was sitting in front of the TV and didn’t think anything of it – just another argument, I thought.’
He sipped his coffee and grimaced.
Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 7) Page 12