Quentin Bates - Winterlude

Elmar looked briefly at his mother and then back at Gunna. ‘Er, why?’

‘Because I’m investigating a man’s murder and I need to know the whereabouts of anyone who might have had a grudge against him. What were you doing on Sunday?’

‘I was here, I think.’

‘You think?’ Gunna asked. ‘You’re not sure?’

‘Why? What’s it to you?’ Elmar folded his arms and stuck out his chest. ‘I haven’t been near what’s-his-name. All right?’

‘You mean Borgar?’

‘Yeah. That’s him.’

‘Were you in Reykjavík on Sunday?’

‘I don’t remember.’

The answer was too swift to have any thought behind it and Gunna found herself instantly suspicious. ‘What time did you get up on Sunday?’

‘Why d’you want to know?’

‘Elmar, for crying out loud,’ Katla broke in. ‘Answer the damned questions, will you?’

Gunna looked from son to mother and back, taking in Katla’s look of sudden panic, while also wishing that Helgi had not been dispatched out of town.

‘I’m not sure you realize how serious this is, Elmar,’ Gunna said softly. ‘A man has been murdered. He had a connection with your family and I have to suspect anyone who can’t tell me where they were when it happened.’

‘When did it happen?’

‘For God’s sake, Elmar!’ Katla screeched. ‘Just tell her where you were on Sunday, will you?’

‘I was out and about.’

‘Where were you out and about?’

‘Here and there. Selfoss.’

‘All day?’

‘Yeah. Sort of.’

Gunna stared at Elmar for a long moment until his truculent gaze dropped to the floor. ‘And just what does "sort of" mean? Does that mean you were in Reykjavík on Sunday?’

‘Might do. I went to see a mate. That’s all.’

‘And this friend’s name?’

The arms unfolded and Elmar stuck one hand deep into the pocket of his hoodie while the fingers of the other hand strayed to one ear and nervously fingered the thick tunnel ring.

‘Bjarni,’ he said eventually.

‘Full name?’

‘Bjarni Björgvinsson.’

‘Address? Phone number?’ Gunna asked smartly, making quick notes on her pad.

Elmar pulled an iPhone from his pocket and tapped at the screen. He reeled off a number.

‘Address?’

‘Brekkusel 88,’ he replied with sulky unwillingness, and Gunna made a mental note that the address was not far from the workshop where Borgar Jónsson had been clubbed to death.

‘How long did you spend there and where were you before and after?’

‘Went straight there. Got to Bjarni’s place about four and stayed a few hours. Came back home.’

‘Who’ll corroborate that?’

‘Bjarni will. His mum was there as well.’

‘Good. Because I’ll be asking them both.’

‘Herbert?’ Gunna asked.

‘That’s me,’ the man said with a smile that ran round his face and did nothing to conceal his curiosity. ‘Hebbi the cop. Coffee?’

Gunna settled in the police station’s canteen and sipped the coffee that was very welcome after her angry interview with Elmar. It had ended with Gunna making it plain that if he did not cooperate, she would have him brought to the central police station in Reykjavík to explain himself, while his mother stood tight-lipped and silent next to him.

‘You know Katla, don’t you? Katla Einarsdóttir?’

‘Oh, yes. And those dratted boys of hers,’ Herbert confirmed. ‘Know them well. I guess you’re here about the guy who ran over Katla’s youngest?’

‘That’s about it. Anything you can tell me?’

Herbert sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. His back cracked as he stretched, and Gunna winced at the sound. ‘Nothing special. Katla’s a tough old bird even though she comes across as a bag of nerves.’

‘You knew her husband, Kjartan?’

Herbert shook his head and folded his hands across the expanse of uniform that covered his belly. ‘No. I knew her first husband well enough, Einar’s father, because we spent quite a few nights together.’

‘In here?’

‘Exactly. Now there’s a man who had a good few nights in the cells. As good as gold sober, but a bastard with a drink inside him, and he was a man who liked a drink. Probably still does. He was on the street in Reykjavík last I heard. It’s a good few years since he left the district and he’s not been back this way.’

‘But Elmar is Kjartan’s boy, though, isn’t he?’

‘He is, unless the bull jumped the gate somewhere,’ he said with a lopsided smile. ‘But I doubt that somehow.’

Gunna wondered how close an eye the corpulent Herbert the cop kept on his area. She reminded herself that only a year or two before, she had been in a similar position at a police station in a small town covering a large rural area of dispersed farms linked by dirt roads where anything other than the pettiest crime was a rarity. A series of coincidences and a brutal killing had hauled her out of sleepy Hvalvík and given her new opportunities at a time when she had even been contemplating leaving the force. It was just as well she had stayed, she thought. The financial crash had all but wiped out any real hope of other employment and although her police salary was modest, at least it was secure.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gunna said, noticing Herbert looking at her quizzically and realizing that her thoughts had been miles away. ‘You were saying?’

‘Those boys. Einar’s all right. He’s not bright and he knows it, so he keeps out of trouble most of the time and he’ll turn out fine if he can keep his nose clean and doesn’t become a professional drunk like his father.’

‘And Elmar?’

‘More of a handful,’ Herbert decided after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s smarter than his brother, but there’s a reckless streak there. He’s totalled three or four cars already. He’s an idiot behind the wheel, especially considering what happened to his little brother. A real tragedy, that was.’ He shook his head sorrowfully and his heavy jowls trembled.

Gunna drank the remaining coffee in her mug and pushed it across the table.

‘More?’ Herbert asked, half filling his own mug.

‘No thanks. I’d better be getting back to Reykjavík.’

‘Things to do and bad guys to catch?’

Gunna returned Herbert’s smile. ‘Something like that.’

‘You were in Hvalvík, weren’t you?’

‘That’s right. Ten years.’

Herbert shivered. ‘Rather you than me,’ he said with feeling.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Working in Reykjavík. I couldn’t handle that. All that traffic all day long. It’d drive me nuts.’

‘You get used to it. But I still live in Hvalvík, so I can escape at the end of the day. I’ll probably be back, I think. So could you let me know if Elmar or Einar get up to anything?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll be keeping a beady eye on those two.’

A vicious shower of icy rain lashed the windscreen, blotting out the road ahead in an instant. Gunna swore and held her breath as the wipers hissed and her view ahead was restored. She toyed with the idea of taking the coast road home instead of going back to Reykjavík and spending the rest of the day with her feet on the sofa and a book in one hand, maybe taking Steini and Laufey by surprise by being home before them for a change. But she immediately dismissed the idea with a heavy heart, knowing that with Helgi on his way north and Eiríkur on paternity leave, there would be pressure to resolve Borgar Jónsson’s murder quickly. Friday, she reckoned, would be the day for a quiet word when it would be hinted that upstairs wanted a quick and efficient arrest, with the killer neatly delivered, preferably in time for the Friday evening TV news.