Cold Comfort

“You’re going to get in trouble again,” he half sang, stepping back and exhibiting an innocent smile by the time she had turned round to frown at him. She burst into a grin just as an animated but muffled conversation could be heard through the panelling of the wall.

“I’ll say it was you,” she decided.

“And I’ll say you told me to,” Helgi responded, smothering his crooked smile as the secretary slipped in through the door, as if she had wheels instead of feet.

“Jónas Valur will see you shortly, if you’d like to wait.”

Gunna could almost imagine icicles cracking and falling from her voice. The woman indicated an uncomfortablelooking sofa against the far wall, the cracked leather of its ancient covering not designed to encourage waiting.

“We’ll stand, thanks. I’m sure he won’t be long.”

In contrast to Jónas Valur Hjaltason’s smooth confidence, Bjarki Steinsson blinked like a small animal caught in the beam of a headlight. He hardly looked like a high-flying accountant, dressed in faded jeans and a polo shirt embroidered with a discreet logo that quietly proclaimed the name of the company he worked for and ostensibly owned a substantial share of.

“You’re here about Svana?” he asked before Helgi even had the opportunity to open his mouth, and Gunna guessed that Jónas Valur had passed on a warning, probably before they had even left Kleifar for the five-minute drive to where Bjarki Steinsson’s company occupied a floor of one of the Shadow District’s newer office blocks.

Gunna clicked the door shut behind them. While this stopped any sound escaping from the man’s office, she noticed that a pair of eyes at every desk was keeping tabs on the two strangers talking to the boss. This time Helgi would ask the questions while Gunna watched and listened.

“We are investigating the murder of Svanhildur Mjöll Sigurgeirsdóttir,” Helgi confirmed portentously.

“So it was definitely murder?” Bjarki asked, eyes wide, brimming with a sadness he could not conceal.

“Without a doubt.”

“She didn’t just, er, fall or something?”

“Absolutely not. Can you tell me where you were on Thursday afternoon last week?”

Bjarki Steinsson sat down heavily while Helgi kept him fixed in the headlight beam. “I couldn’t tell you offhand. Here, probably. I can ask my secretary to check the diary if you like.”

“I’ll ask myself. Of course I’ll need to have confirmation of where you were at that time. Now,” Helgi said, sitting down without being invited to do so, “your relationship with Svana Geirs. Tell me about it.”

Gunna stood by the door and listened, hands behind her back, concentrating on watching Bjarki Steinsson’s face as he responded to Helgi’s questions. As far as she could make out, the man was genuinely distressed, with beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“What do you need to know?” he asked quickly.

Helgi sat back as if he had the whole day and the evening stretching ahead of him. “Let’s just say I need to know everything?”

Bjarki Steinsson slumped as if deflated. “All right. Svana and I had a relationship that went back two, three years. Something like that. I don’t recall precisely. We used to meet occasionally.”

“How often?”

“Sometimes we wouldn’t meet for a month. Sometimes we might see each other several times in a week.”

“And what did you do?”

“What did we do?” he asked blankly. “How do you mean?”

Helgi sighed. “Surely I don’t have to spell it out for you? Did you go out? Hold hands? Screw?”

The sudden coarseness jolted Bjarki Steinsson and his eyes bulged.

“Our relationship was a physical one,” he said finally, as if overcoming a painful barrier. “Look, how far is this going to go? I have a wife …”

“This is just an informal talk, nothing more,” Helgi assured him, and paused. “For the moment, that is.”

“Which means what?”

“It means that if I have reason to believe you’re concealing something that has a bearing on Svanhildur Mjöll’s death, then we’d need to make this more formal.”

“I see,” he replied and was silent.

Gunna rocked imperceptibly on her heels, watching the man in distress behind his vast granite desk, and at the same time watching his staff in the open-plan office outside at their chipboard workstations, trying not to stare too obtrusively.

“I, er,” he began, and coughed. “I take it you’ve spoken to the others already and you know about the, er, arrangement?”

“Let’s pretend I don’t, shall we?” Helgi said softly.

Bjarki Steinsson looked down at the floor under his desk and Gunna imagined him as a small boy caught with a pocketful of purloined sweets.

“A group of us. We, er, shared Svana’s time. She acted as an escort to us all in turn, by prior arrangement. In return for a financial consideration,” he said bleakly.

“Ah. There is a word for this, and I presume you’re aware the law is also quite clear on this kind of activity?”