Cold Comfort

Haddi’s pipe gurgled. “Well, the story goes that his dad, old Skari, isn’t actually his dad at all. You know Bubbi, the feller who runs the pumps at Hafnarkaffi? Rumour has it that old Fanney had a bit of a fling one summer while the old man was away on the prawn fishing and next spring along came little Skari. Not that old Skari ever put two and two together. He’s a decent chap, but not the sharpest chisel in the box.”

“Fair enough, that’s the man’s ancestry sorted out. What else?”

“Skari left Hvalvík around the time you came here, I suppose. He went to Reykjavík for a bit and was in all kinds of trouble for a couple of years. Then I reckon he met this woman he’s been living with and she must have straightened him out. Anyway, they’ve got some kids and about a year ago they turned up here. He’s been working over in Keflavík in some warehouse and she waddles round the village with a pushchair full of children. You must have seen her; a tubby lass with lots of frizzy hair.”

“They live in that little house near Jón Kidda’s place?”

“That’s the one. It was his granny’s house. She must have left it to him when she popped off, and I suppose that’s why they came to live here.”

“All right. Now, what about Skari when he was a youngster, before his girlfriend straightened him out?”

Haddi sucked his teeth. “He was a right bloody tearaway. He and that damned Ommi caused all kinds of mayhem.”

“Long Ommi?”

“Yup. Gulla the Post’s eldest lad.”

“Ah. The one who’s escaped from Kvíabryggja nick?”

“And hasn’t been seen since,” Haddi said. “He was put away for murder ten years ago, beat up a chap outside a nightclub. Or so they say.”

Gunna raised an eyebrow. “And what else do they say?”

Haddi coughed and cleared his throat noisily. “Well, according to the gossip, it wasn’t Ommi at all, but he took the rap for it.”

“We got the wrong man?”

“In a manner of speaking. Ommi confessed and everything, and from what I’m told, strictly on the quiet, you understand, he was made a generous offer to do the time in return for a decent payday and a good drink at the end of it all. It’s not as if he wasn’t used to being in and out of the nick as it was. Litla-Hraun must have been pretty much a second home for him, and being shifted up to Kvíabryggja’s more like being at a holiday camp.”

“Did Ommi and Skari fall out at some time?”

“Couldn’t tell you, they both left here all those years ago, and when Skari came back he settled down like a good lad, or at least as good as he could manage.”

“How far back do these two idiots go?”

“Right back to playschool. They grew up in the same street and knocked about together since they were learning to walk. A right pair of troublemakers; spent my first couple of years on the force knocking their heads together, not that it did much good.”

“It sounds like I need to ask Skari a few more questions.”

Haddi shrugged. “Rather you than me. I’ve seen enough of those bastards to last me a lifetime.”

Gunna nodded absently as she thought. The atmosphere was different and it felt decidedly uncomfortable to be back in what had been her office for so long. The place felt unfamiliar, even though she had only transferred to Reykjavík a few weeks before and still went past the Hvalvík police station every day. “You know I’m not gone yet, don’t you, Haddi?”

“What’s that?”

“You ought to know I’m only seconded to this new unit on what Ívar Laxdal calls a permanent temporary basis, whatever that means.”

Haddi wheezed with what Gunna recognized as laughter. “I suppose it means that as long as you’re a good girl you keep the job, and if you screw up they can send you back to us with a boot up your arse?”

“Probably, and it means that Keflavík is still paying my huge salary. Thought maybe they’d bump you up to sergeant. I did recommend it, you know,” she added.

This time Haddi looked surprised. “That’s good of you, but I’m too old and past it, you know. Maybe young Snorri’ll get it instead.” He grinned slyly.

“I’m afraid not, Haddi. We’re just going to live with the recruitment freeze for a good while to come and there won’t be a lot of promotion if it means going up a grade in salary. It seems my inspector’s grade has yet to be approved, so I’m still on a sergeant’s salary.”

Saturday 13th

Gunna stood outside the Co-op. Eventually the elderly woman she was waiting for appeared, the shop’s first customer of the day, buttoned up in a thick herringbone coat of a kind that had become unfashionable forty years before but which was hard-wearing enough to have lasted. Fanney’s hair was covered with a scarf that whipped up around her shoulders in the stiff breeze as she stepped outside.

“Need a lift?” Gunna asked, nodding at the bags the woman held in each hand.

“I don’t need a lift, but if you’re offering I’ll accept one,” Fanney answered, looking about to see who was watching.

She sat silent and stiffly upright, as if a ride in a car was a rare treat to be savoured.