“I’m not here to pass any judgement on you. That’s for the jury.”
“Jury?”
“Undoubtedly. This will go to court.”
“Jesus … Look, it was Helena Rós who wanted to put pressure on her husband, not me.”
“Right, let’s backtrack. You say she wanted to apply pressure to her husband. When was this?”
“About three weeks before Svana Geirs died. Hallur was a bag of nerves after he got the first demand. Helena Rós is vicious. She wanted to pressure him and screw as much money out of him as she could. It wasn’t because she needed it; just to make him squirm. She knew he had money hidden away that she didn’t have access to, but didn’t know how much.”
“So she wrote the letters?”
“I did that, some of them anyway. Then Helena wrote more.”
“You sent them to his office or his home?”
“Both.”
Gunna felt her head throbbing but forced herself to concentrate. “You also sent letters to Bjarki Steinsson, Bjartmar Arnarson and Jónas Valur Hjaltason?”
“A few text messages as well,” he sighed. “They all responded, except Bjartmar. Maybe he just didn’t care. I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to make them suffer too. I’m damn sure that bloke who threatened to strangle me was sent by Bjartmar or Jónas Valur, or that bastard of a son of his.”
“And you needed the cash, I suppose?”
“Shit, yes, all right. I bought a flat two years ago, not long before the crash. The payments on it have gone through the roof and I thought I’d be out on the street otherwise. The place has been for sale for the best part of a year and it’s only even been viewed twice.”
“So your flat is safe now?”
“For the moment.”
“Good. Interview suspended, fourteen twenty-five,” Gunna intoned, stopping the recording. “Maybe you’ll be able to rent it out while you’re in prison. We’ll take a break now.”
At the mention of prison, Gulli Ólafs’ eyes glazed over.
“I hear Högni’s been picked up,” Eiríkur said, sitting down at his desk and running his hands through his hair to dislodge some more of the gravel collected during his tussle with Gulli Ólafs.
“Do we have room for him?” Gunna asked, shaking painkillers from a jar and washing them down with lukewarm coffee.
“Yup. There’s a cell upstairs reserved for him. Helgi’s back,” he added. “Has Helena Rós been arrested?”
“Not yet. But she has plenty of questions to answer.”
The door swung silently open and Ívar Laxdal stepped inside. “Progress, Gunnhildur?” The trace of a smile on his normally deadpan face told them both that he was already aware of what had happened.
“Oh yes. Högni Sigurgeirsson is on his way and Helena Rós is sitting in an interview room waiting for us.”
“Hallur Hallbjörnsson’s wife?”
“That’s her.”
“Her father’s a well-known figure, you know.”
“And he’s a lawyer.”
“What progress with the hack?”
“Singing like a bird. Can we get some extra bodies to search his flat and his car? I could do with someone to go to his office as well and bring his computer back here for Albert to have a look through.”
“I can get that done,” Ívar Laxdal said.
“What we have at the moment is Helena Rós and Gulli Ólafs helping us with enquiries. It’s crystal clear that between them they were blackmailing three of the four members of Svana’s Syndicate, but I have no idea yet how they’re linked to the deaths of Svana or Jónas Valur, or the attacks on me or Hallur,” Gunna said, pausing for breath as Ívar Laxdal’s eyes widened. “On the other hand, we have Högni Sigurgeirsson, who is a seriously fucked-up young man and has plenty of questions to answer about Hallur’s injuries. It seems that Gulli and Helena Rós had already started their little campaign some time before Svana’s murder, and it was aimed mainly at wrecking Hallur’s marriage, as well as digging Gulli Ólafs out of his financial difficulties, after which he was going to play house with the man’s wife. It’s something I should have twigged earlier and followed up.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Gunnhildur. You’ve been busy.”
“Albert’s work has been outstanding,” she continued. “There was a dog hair in one envelope at Hallur’s parliamentary office that matches Helena Rós’ poodle. Now Gulli Ólafs and Helena Rós Pálsdóttir are in separate interview rooms desperately blaming each other. But Gulli Ólafs wasn’t the one who smacked Hallur and tried to poison him, or the one who bashed Jónas Valur’s head in, although he was probably the person Jónas Valur was expecting to see. Both Gulli Ólafs and Helena Rós were elsewhere at the time, and that’s already been confirmed. The house-to-house enquiries and CCTV have turned up sightings of a grey Opel that fits, so I have our pizza delivery boy pegged for that one. But we’ll see.”
“If you think Högni may be responsible for the attack on you and Jónas Valur, then that interrogation ought to be handled by someone else,” Ívar Laxdal decided.
“Not Sævaldur, surely? Not after all the work we’ve done.”
“Sævaldur’s busy elsewhere. Helgi can do it.”
Gunna sat quietly next to Eiríkur in the interview room.