Daybreak

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  “You’re a pervert,” Birkir said.

  They detected movement inside, and Gunnar got ready. An elderly woman leading a dog unlocked the door and was about to open it, but Gunnar jumped in.

  “Please, let me help you,” he said, holding the door open for her.

  The woman smiled gratefully and went on her way.

  They took the elevator up to the eighth floor.

  If Tómas was surprised to see the policemen on his doorstep, he concealed it well. As he invited them in, he called into the apartment: “Darling, there are some gentlemen from the police who want to talk to me about Ólafur.” He didn’t wait for a reply before showing them into a spacious study and closing the door behind them.

  There were three chairs, and they all sat down. There were also a desk with a computer, and crammed bookshelves lining the room.

  Gunnar began, “When I interviewed you yesterday, you implied that you and Ólafur had been friends.”

  “Yes, we were friends.”

  “Right to the end?”

  Tómas studied Gunnar pensively, then his demeanor changed suddenly and he smiled coldly. “No,” he said, sharply. “We fell out. You’ve probably heard about it. That’s the reason for this visit, isn’t it?”

  “Why did you fall out?” Gunnar asked.

  “You’ve probably heard about that, too. I understand it’s all over town. Ólafur found out that I’d been seeing his wife.”

  “And he didn’t like it?”

  “No, but he should’ve been grateful to me for showing him what a slut she was.”

  “So your purpose was to demonstrate that to him. You felt this was your duty?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “How did Ólafur react to this information?”

  “He threatened me.”

  “With what?”

  “He wanted me to leave the firm and never show my face there again.”

  “Was he in a position to fire you?”

  “No.”

  “What was he going to do if you refused?”

  “He had a video of me and Helga. He threatened to put it on the Internet.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “Obviously I couldn’t let that happen. And I couldn’t let him be the only one to make secret recordings, either. So I managed to record our conversation on my cell, and I told him that I’d report him to the police for extortion if that footage showed up on the Internet. There are laws that deal with conduct like that.”

  “Nevertheless, this confrontation had you on the defensive. It would not have been very good for you if this affair had been made public, would it?”

  “No. That’s certainly becoming clear now.”

  “Do you know who supplied Ólafur with the video?”

  “Our firm has access to a company that provides security services. Installing surveillance equipment like this is their everyday work.”

  Birkir leaned forward in his seat. “The picture quality is much better than what an ordinary security camera can provide,” he said.

  Tómas transferred his gaze slowly from Gunnar to Birkir. “Have you seen this material?”

  “Yes.”

  Tómas looked intently at Birkir, whose face remained expressionless.

  Finally he said, “The company we use delivers the highest quality. It can be an advantage in some cases. Do the police have a copy of this recording in their possession?”

  “No.” Birkir shook his head.

  “Just as well. That might have been bad for you. The law punishes that kind of invasion of privacy.”

  “We can get hold of a copy if needed,” Birkir said.

  Tómas was silent, but his cheek muscles betrayed that he was grinding his teeth.

  Gunnar spoke again, “You told me yesterday that Ólafur had invited you to go hunting with him on Thursday. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was a lie.”

  “But you did know he was going hunting?”

  “Yes. I have access to his calendar on the office network.”

  “Did you follow him?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you tell me that he had invited you?”

  “It just popped into my head. I wasn’t under oath or anything when I was talking to you. My mistake, nevertheless. I apologize.”

  “Where were you that morning?”

  “Last Thursday?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was here at home, asleep. I told you that yesterday.”

  “So you’re saying some of what you said was true.”

  “Yes. Everything else was true.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes. My wife was in London.”

  “And where were you yesterday morning?”

  “I was also here at home.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this morning?”

  “Also here at home, but this time with my wife.”

  “Does she know about the affair?”

  “Yes. I told her today. I gather everybody knows about it now—our families and friends. We’re going to start seeing a marriage counselor next week to try and fix things.”

  “Do you have a shotgun?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you prepared to hand it over for inspection?”

  “My guns are not here.”

  “Guns? How many do you have?”

  “Two shotguns and one rifle for hunting reindeer.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They are in safe keeping at my parents’ house in Seltjarnarnes.”

  “Do you mind if we fetch the shotguns from there this evening? We’d like to check them out.”

  “Go ahead, if it makes you feel better.”

  Tómas picked up the phone and dialed. While he was talking, Gunnar called headquarters and arranged for a uniformed officer to go collect the guns.

  23:00

  After the visit with Tómas, Gunnar was finally free to go out for a beer. He was looking forward to drinking with a fairly clear conscience, having completely abstained from alcohol for the previous two evenings. Birkir, on the other hand, went straight home.

  Gunnar’s favorite bar was on the lower end of Smidjustígur; it was his habitual haunt partly because its regulars were, he felt, suitably mature, especially those who frequented the place during the week. You could even have an intelligent conversation with some of them.

  But the main reason he returned to the place again and again was the canvas-walled patio out back, which was always thick with cigarette smoke. Smoking had been banned inside bars and eateries for ages, but the proprietor had rigged up a cover for the outdoor space so people had somewhere to go when they needed to light up. This was where Gunnar preferred to hang out. He’d smoked for fifteen years, but had been forced to give it up after a persistent cough began to torment him. Since he couldn’t smoke his own cigarettes, he became an enthusiastic passive smoker. In particular, he craved the mixture of beer and tobacco smoke; when he found it difficult to do without, nursing a beer on the smoke-filled patio gave him a boost. Even though his old mother lit a cigarette now and again, she never managed to produce enough smoke to satisfy this addiction.

  The bar was filled with a boisterous weekend crowd when he walked in. Most of the regulars who appreciated the quiet weekday evenings avoided Friday and Saturday nights, when the crowd’s loud chatter, laughter, and pushing and shoving disturbed the peace. A game of chess would have been impossible in the midst of the uproar. Gunnar recognized only a very few faces among all the young people, but he was determined to have his beer. He hoped they would leave him alone.

  He elbowed his way through the press of people and rapped twice on the counter to attract the attention of the bartender, who nodded in acknowledgment and, as soon as he had finished serving another customer, disappeared into the back room, returning with a half-liter bottle of Holsten beer and a small square bottle of Jägermeister bitters. Neither of
these was officially on sale here, but the landlord always kept some especially for Gunnar.

  Gunnar handed over a credit card and poured the beer into a glass while the machine printed out the bill. Then he poured the bitters into a shot glass and placed the empty bottle on its side on the counter. Finally he signed the bill and nodded to the bartender. In all this noise, it was handy being able to do business without too much talking.

  Taking a glass in each hand, he turned toward the room. There was an empty chair at a table for two, under the slope of a staircase; the other chair was occupied by Emil Edilon, who sat with a half-empty glass of whisky in front of him. Or was it half full? Gunnar needed to find out. Whether or not Emil could be bothered to chat would determine that. If he was in good form, sitting with him would be entertaining; if he wasn’t, his sullen silence would be anything but fun.

  Emil was a renowned writer in his sixties. Gunnar suspected he was gay, but the man didn’t flaunt it. His generation was still mostly in the closet. In the early seventies, he had written a postmodern novel based on Dramatic Situation Number Twenty-Three of Georges Polti’s famous book The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations; it focused on the necessity of sacrificing loved ones. The novel had attracted attention in several countries. It had been translated into four languages. Not that sales had been impressive—from what Gunnar knew, it had sold all of twelve hundred copies.

  Pushing his way through the crowd, Gunnar sat down opposite Emil, who did not look up. A slim man with long, wavy, silvery hair parted in the middle, Emil also had a neatly trimmed goatee and a pointed nose that made him somewhat striking. Thick glasses shielded his sad eyes.

  “Half empty,” thought Gunnar and he remained silent. He briefly lifted the bitters to his nose, and then emptied the glass in a single gulp. He closed his eyes and grimaced at the bracing sensation of the bitters going down. Finally he took a generous sip of the beer.

  “You’ve got twenty minutes,” Emil said without looking at him.

  Gunnar looked up. He didn’t quite understand what his companion was driving at. Over the previous six years, Emil had been writing a major crime novel, and, from time to time, they had debated the nature and conventions of this genre; apart from that, they did not discuss police matters.

  “What do you mean?” Gunnar asked.

  “The idiot Ginger Journalist made a deal that the Blue Baron would call him the minute you appeared.” Emil nodded toward a bald man with a bushy gray mustache and a purple strawberry mark on one cheek, propping up the bar and staring with great interest at the sign over the emergency exit.

  “The Blue Baron made the call as soon as you came in. The Ginger Journalist lives in Lower Breidholt, and it’ll take him a half hour to get here. That was ten minutes ago. I assume you’re not keen to give an interview tonight?”

  “No,” Gunnar said. “Preferably not. The superintendent deals with all media relations. I’m not allowed to say anything.”

  Emil looked at the clock. “Nineteen minutes,” he said. “You’ll never get rid of the Ginger Journalist if he nabs you.”

  “No, probably not,” Gunnar said and sipped his beer. “How’s the novel coming?”

  Finally Emil looked at him, “There’s a crisis, my friend. A goddamn crisis. I’m tearing up two pages for every one that I write. I need an interesting cop to write about.”

  He took out a long pipe and stuffed it with tobacco.

  “You can write about me,” Gunnar said.

  “You?”

  “Yeah, me and Birkir. You know him. We’re good together.”

  “You and the slit-eyed show-off?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s impossible to make you two interesting.”

  Emil lit up, and the most disgusting tobacco smoke Gunnar had ever smelled filled the air. Emil was actually famous for the stench created by his favorite tobacco. There were many theories as to what additives were responsible for this stink; surely, none of them classified as health products.

  A bouncer came over to the table. “Please smoke outside,” he said.

  “I’m going,” replied Emil, and blew out a plume of smoke.

  Gunnar coughed. “Do the cops need to be anything special?” he asked.

  “Yes. Interesting policemen drive the story forward. You two, on the other hand, have the personalities of goldfish. You’re still living with your mother, and the slit-eyed show-off gets off on pressing his pants. There’s no pain in either of you.”

  He looked at the clock. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ve had toothaches,” Gunnar said.

  “Toothaches! Jesus Christ. You think that gives you a dimension?”

  Gunnar did not reply, instead asking, “But why do the policemen in a crime novel have to be so interesting? Why can’t they be more like dentists, for example?”

  Emil looked up from his pipe. “Have you ever read an exciting story about root canal work?”

  Gunnar refused to give up. “Another character in the story can provide the driving force—for instance, the victim or the murderer. Use one of them to add depth to the story. Use the police to simply convey information.”

  Emil shook his head and said, “The policemen in my story must show initiative and some intellectual process. They must outmaneuver the criminal and lay a trap for him. They must have something between their ears.”

  Gunnar reflected in silence. “That’s a thought,” he finally said. Then he drained his beer glass, got up, and went home.

  23:30

  “Hakuna Matata.” A catchy melody sang out from the television, which was turned down low. Onscreen, lively cartoon figures danced to the beat of the music.

  Detective Anna Thórdardóttir had finally arrived home after a difficult day at work. Her weekend had been ruined shortly after lunch, when she was called out to deal with a case. All her colleagues in forensics were occupied with the goose hunter killings, so when an unrelated matter came up, it was inevitable that she was called in. That was how things sometimes panned out; weeks might pass without anything important for the team to deal with, and then a load of cases came along all at once, usually right before the weekend.

  This case involved the suicide of a forty-year-old stockbroker who had lost all of his money, together with that of many of his clients, thanks to unsuccessful dealings in foreign currency forwards. He had driven his SUV to an old gravel pit out of town. The vehicle was worth seven million krónur, but the stockbroker didn’t own it—he’d been leasing it, or trying to, anyway. But he missed payments and the company had sent him a letter requesting its immediate return, which he left on the passenger seat to avoid any confusion over the car’s ownership. He also brought along a thirty-meter-long rope. He’d tied one end of it to the front axle of a rusting industrial-size digger with flat tires that had been abandoned in the pit. He’d fashioned the other end into a wide noose, which he passed through the opened tailgate and looped over the driver’s headrest. Having drunk a quarter of a bottle of brandy and smoked three cigarettes—leaving the stubs on the ground next to the car—he got behind the wheel and put the noose around his neck.

  It’s impossible to say how long he sat in this position, but he gave himself enough time to call the national emergency number and report a suicide, while carefully describing the location. He then put the phone aside without breaking off the call, so that on the emergency service’s recording you could hear him start the car, step violently on the gas, and then brake hard a moment later. Between the rev of the engine and the sound of the brakes you could hear—if you played back the recording very slowly—a kind of cracking noise.

  The patrolmen who arrived first at the scene turned the ambulance back and called the detective division. Símon, least busy of the violent crime team at the time, was sent to the scene. When he had finished vomiting behind the digger, he called for assistance from forensics, and as everyone else was busy, Anna had to report for duty. Her task was to establish that the man had acted entirely al
one.

  The body sat bolt upright, seatbelt fastened, and the head lay neatly in its lap. The fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly that they had to use tools to loosen them. The right foot had pushed the brake right down to the floor.

  What surprised the cops most was that the braking marks began five meters farther away from the old digger than the length of the rope allowed. It looked as if the man’s last reflex had been to brake when he felt the rope tighten around his neck, but the car had continued moving for five meters before his foot reached the pedal. By that time, the head had been severed from the body and fallen into the man’s lap. The ABS brakes then stopped the car at eight meters—a good thing, actually, as otherwise it would have careered off into the rough moorland and probably been trashed. The only thing the rental office needed to do so they could lease the car out again was to clean up the blood. Then again, it was a lot of blood.

  There was not much Anna could do except take fingerprints from the car’s door handles and gearshift. She took a number of photographs and measured the area, and lastly picked up the man’s head with both hands and placed it carefully on one end of the stretcher the morticians had brought. Men stronger than she lifted the body and set it down next to the head.

  Having completed the crime scene investigation, Anna went to the detective division’s headquarters to write up the suicide and upload the pictures onto her computer. Then she checked the progress reports on the goose hunter killings. She dreaded going home. Keeping busy at work kept the memory of what she had just witnessed at bay; but she knew that as soon as she relaxed, it would be difficult to banish the gruesome crime scene from her thoughts.

  When she finally forced herself to go home, sometime after eleven o’clock, her husband had already gone to bed. That was okay; she never discussed her work with him, anyway. She took the vow of confidentiality that came with her job seriously. Besides, he had always been a lousy listener when she needed an outlet for her emotions. He was a straightforward man who drove a large concrete mixer and loved watching soccer on television. He watched crime thrillers, too. Preferably not the news.

  Anna had her own method for forgetting her day. She had collected a stack of Disney videos to watch when she spent time with her grandchild; she watched them on her own sometimes to unwind. She put on The Lion King while her supper cooked in the microwave. It was a TV dinner that had reached its sell-by date, and to make it more palatable she opened a two-liter bottle of Coke. When the food was done cooking, she settled onto the sofa with her dinner, glancing around to make sure she had a sleeping pill nearby, just in case she didn’t fall asleep easily. A pack of cigarettes rested next to the ashtray by her side.