Cold Comfort

Ommi used the hand draped across Diddi’s shoulders to haul him round in a half-circle, slamming him face-first against a raw grey concrete wall, a fist planted squarely over his kidneys. Diddi wanted to yell for help, but knowing that nothing would be forthcoming in a neighbourhood where people avoided involving themselves in other folk’s problems, he steeled himself to stay quiet.

“What’s the matter, Ommi?” he warbled.

Ommi leaned close. “Diddi, you let us down. You owe.”

“Wha-what’s that, Ommi?”

“You know.”

With one hand Ommi gripped a handful of greasy hair, swinging with the other to land a smack to the side of Diddi’s head that raised a whimper and left his victim in a daze. Ommi loved the satisfying smack of fist on flesh, the rush of adrenalin, the flush of power. He’d missed this in prison.

“You know,” he repeated. “You owe. Soon you’ll have to pay up. All debts will be honoured in full. Understood?”

Diddi nodded. Blood was starting to seep from his right ear on to the shoulder of his denim jacket, and his head was buzzing. “Yeah, I get it, whatever.”

“Hope so. You haven’t seen me. Don’t know where I am.”

“I didn’t do it, Ommi.”

“That’s what you say,” Ommi hissed, delivering a punch to the kidneys that left Diddi unable to stand on his own feet.

The whole thing had taken no longer than a minute, and already Ommi was nowhere to be seen. Cross-eyed with pain, Diddi wondered if Long Ómar Magnússon had really appeared and beaten him up in the broad light of morning. The ringing in his ears and the taste of bile convinced him that it had been all too real, as he threw up messily across the pavement. Across the street, an overcoated gentleman in a peaked cap kept his eyes to the front and his chin high, making sure that he saw nothing.

The address was only a few hundred metres from the police station at Hverfisgata and Gunna decided to go on foot. She strode through the encroaching darkness of the windy afternoon with Helgi loping at her side. There was already a patrol car and an ambulance outside with lights flashing as they arrived at the stairwell of the block of modern flats and found a young officer fending off interested people claiming to live there.

“Crime scene. No admittance,” he announced as they pushed through.

“Serious Crime Unit,” Gunna growled, watching the young man take a step back.

“Straight up. Fourth floor. The lift’s not working,” he said.

Helgi eyed the stairs. “Four flights?”

The young man nodded.

“Oh well.”

Helgi set off up the steps with Gunna taking them two at a time behind him. As they reached the open door of the flat, he was breathing hard.

“This must be it?” he gasped, battling to keep the fight for air under control.

“You want to pack in smoking, Helgi,” Gunna admonished, stepping past him.

Another young officer stood at the door, this time one who recognized Gunna and stood aside to let them in.

“It’s not a pleasant sight,” he said dourly as Gunna snapped on surgical gloves and handed a pair to Helgi. She bent to pull covers over her shoes and again handed a second pair to Helgi as he fiddled with the gloves.

In the corridor, a young woman in police uniform, her face pale as the apartment’s ivory walls, stepped back from the kitchen door to let Gunna and Helgi through to where a paramedic hunched low with his back to them. Gunna went carefully around him and Helgi stayed in the doorway.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” he muttered to the young policewoman, who merely nodded back, eyes fixed on the paramedic.

“Dead, I suppose?” Gunna asked, crouching next to the man in his green overalls as she surveyed the scene.

“Well there’s not much reason for us to be here, if that’s what you mean,” he replied shortly.

The body of a woman lay on the chequered tiles, arms splayed in front and legs crossed awkwardly. A mass of fair hair spread around her and a pool of dark blood had seeped over the floor.

“Touched anything?” Gunna asked the paramedic.

“Checked for pulse, that’s it. Nothing’s been moved.”

“Good man. Not a chance that she fell and banged her head, I suppose?”

“Not a hope,” the paramedic volunteered cheerfully. “Blunt instrument, this one.”

Gunna looked up at the faces in the doorway. “Helgi, would you get everyone out and bring the technical boys in here right away? This one definitely needs to be sealed up and gone over before we do any snooping ourselves. Do we have any identification?”

Helgi and the paramedic both stared back at her.

“You mean you don’t recognize her?” the paramedic asked.

Gunna took in the woman’s long, ample figure, dressed only in tracksuit bottoms and a white singlet. The taut skin emerging from the sleeveless top was tanned to the point she would have described as being crispy.

“Something about her rings a bell, but I couldn’t say,” she admitted finally.

“That’s Svana Geirs, that is. Was,” the paramedic said with a mournful shake of his head.

“Ah, in that case you’d better make sure we don’t get any intrusion from the gentlemen of the press. And not a word, all right?”

“Of course.”