Cold Comfort

“You’re welcome. D’you think he might have had any involvement in this fire? He wasn’t always a criminal with a briefcase, and there are stories about extracting cash with menaces from years ago. But of course, nobody’s ever been prepared to point the finger.”

“At the moment I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Björgvin nodded. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me informed. Bjartmar is pretty ruthless. He’s cut out business partners in the past and left them high and dry. It’s amazing when you think about it that he’s not a financial genius, just a dope-dealer who got lucky,” he said with a thin smile. “Unlike the real financial whizzes, who are mostly bankrupt now.”

Helgi had the radio tuned to a classical station. As a young man he’d preferred prog rock, but as his hair gradually fell out, he felt the call of the old-fashioned music that his father liked to listen to in the cowshed, claiming that it helped the milk yield. Helgi had even toyed with the idea of getting his old accordion out, but the look on Halla’s face on the rare occasions he had mentioned it had been enough to make him think again. Although they got on well, the difference in their ages was a source of occasional discomfort for him.

When Halla’s forty, I’ll be past fifty, he mused, sitting in the dark and watching the house where Eygló Grímsdóttir, mother of Long Omar Magnússon’s girlfriend Selma, lived with her cherished BMW on display in the drive. The area was one of the better parts of the city’s suburbs, a quiet few rows of newish houses flanked on both sides by empty developments that were likely to stay empty now that the property market had come to a crashing halt. Halla had even taken Helgi to view one of these brand-new terraced houses and they liked both the area and the price. But with as much chance of selling their flat in a faded 1970s block as of a winning lottery ticket, there was little choice but to stay put.

Helgi reflected that if Eygló were to decide to go for a drive, his Skoda would struggle to keep up. The clock in the dashboard had stopped months ago, so he tapped the keypad of his mobile phone to light the screen and saw that the time was later than he’d thought.

Ten minutes more, then I’m going home, he decided, peering through the dark at the lights of the long living-room window. He had always been a patient man, something he had learned in his teens waiting on the moors with a shotgun cradled in his arms for migrating geese to pass within range.

He could see people moving in the living room and guessed that there were at least three present: Eygló, Selma and a third person, a man, he guessed, judging by the silhouettes. He turned down the radio and eased the window open, listening to the night and the music coming from the house. The germ of an idea came to him and he picked up his communicator from the passenger seat.

“Control, zero-two-sixty. Is there a patrol car at a loose end anywhere near Vesturmóar?”

“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Just coming up to Hamraborg. Need us for something exciting, do you?”

“Just a quick look at something. Meet me in the bus stop at the top of Vesturmóar. I’m in a green Skoda.”

“We all know what your old rattletrap looks like, Helgi. See you in a minute.”

The squad car pulled up behind him and Helgi got out to talk to the officers sitting in it, a burly youngish man and a young woman new to the force. He quickly explained what he wanted them to do and set off on foot down the slope towards the row of houses that backed on to Vesturmóar, cursing the mud at the side of the road where the new streets still had no proper pavements. When he felt he had a good view of the back of Eygló Grímsdóttir’s house, he clicked his communicator.

“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty. In position.”

“OK,” came the laconic reply.

Helgi peered through the clear night air and watched. He could see the lights of Eygló’s kitchen window and guessed where the back door was.

“Zero-two-sixty, zero-one-fifty-one. Silla’s knocking on the front door now.”

“Got you.”

“Door’s opening.”

As the words crackled into his earpiece, the back door swung open and a figure stepped out of the house and into the night.

“Zero-one-fifty-one, zero-two-sixty, that’s great. Stick around for ten minutes just in case, then you can wrap up.”