“Well, yes. Er, no. I don’t want to pressure you, but we do need to achieve a settlement that’s agreeable to everyone so that we can normalize your banking status and hopefully reinstate your privileges-”
“This afternoon?” Jón broke in. “I can be there in an hour or so.”
“Er, yeah,” Hrannar said, taken aback. “Could we make it tomorrow, maybe?”
“It’s today or next week,” Jón said, anger rising inside him as he imagined the young man sitting behind his desk at the bank. The woman stared at him with a vacant expression as she listened to the conversation.
“My diary’s already full for today and I just don’t have a slot for any more appointments,” the personal financial adviser protested.
“Look, mate. I’m at work and I don’t have time to mess about. Today, or next week.”
“In that case it’ll have to be Tuesday. How’s about three twenty-five? OK for you?”
“No, it’s not. What time do you open?”
“We’re here at nine thirty.”
“Nine thirty, then. I’m not going to pack up a day’s work somewhere to come into town just to hear more bad news.”
“If that’s the way you feel, I can make you an appointment at nine fifty,” Hrannar shot back, irritation plain in his voice.
“I have to say, I feel you could be more co-operative-”
“I’ll be there when you open,” Jón told him, and ended the call without waiting to hear more, tossing his phone into his open toolbox. “Bastards …”
“Finished?” the woman asked.
“Pretty much. I’ll just give it all a wipe-down,” Jón replied, turning on the new tap and watching the water gush into the sink. He snapped the water off and put the rest of his tools and unused parts back in the toolbox.
“Your coffee’s on the table,” she reminded him softly and with the first smile he had seen from her.
“Thanks,” Jón said, sitting down and taking a mouthful. “Good coffee. Lived here long?”
“Almost a year. It’s too small for us, but it was all I could afford.”
“How many kids?” Jón asked.
“Three. All under five.” She sighed. “How much do I owe you?”
“Call it fifteen thousand for cash. That’s an hour’s work and I’ll only charge you five thousand for the taps as they were off another job. How does that sound?”
“That’s great. But, er …” She looked down at the table and leaned forward, providing a clear view down her blouse. “The thing is, I don’t have fifteen thousand right now. My maintenance hasn’t come through and the kids needed shoes and I’m a bit short.”
Bloody hell, another one. Poor cow, Jón thought, staring at her timid smile and deliberately looking into her face and not at the nipples on display. Hardly even a handful, not like Linda’s.
She glanced down at his hands clasped around the mug.
“Maybe there’s some other way we can settle this?” she said in a silky voice, looking him in the eyes and giving her shoulders a discreet shake that set off tiny tremors across her bosom.
Jón sighed. “Sorry, love. I’d rather have the cash. I’m a bit short as well right now.”
“But I don’t have fifteen thousand.”
“I really don’t want to take those taps off again.”
“God! No! Don’t do that! Five, and I’ll blow you off?” she suggested with a weak smile.
“What’s your name again?”
“Elín Harpa.”
“Are you on your own?”
“Yeah. Guys don’t hang around me for long,” she said with resignation.
“Bloody hell. You shouldn’t have to offer plumbers blow jobs, darling. Tell you what,” Jón said firmly. “Make it five and I’ll pop back next week for the other ten.”
Drops of water glittered on the man’s beard and spiky iron-grey crewcut hair. He concentrated as he tied a spoon to the end of his line, gave it a quick tug to check the knot and looked at Helgi with one eye closed in a quizzical half-wink.
“What brings you out here, then, Helgi? How’s business at the old firm?” The retired chief inspector cast his line and listened to it spin off the reel with a satisfying hum. It hit the surface of the lake with scarcely a sound, but sent out a widening ring of ripples that died before they came close to the strip of black rock and sand that separated water and deep turf.
“Biting, are they?”
“There’s a big feller in there. I’ve seen him before, but he’s too smart to take a hook. You know I don’t come up here to fish. I’m here to get out from under the old woman’s feet for an hour or two. If she wants fish for dinner, I’ll buy a couple of haddock fillets on the way home.”
“You might get lucky one day.” Helgi shivered. He wasn’t prepared for the damp that the mist deposited on him, and wasn’t dressed for outdoors.
“You remember Ómar Magnússon? Long Ommi?”
“How could anyone forget an evil bastard like that one? Why? Is he bothering you?”
“Don’t watch the news, do you, Thorfinnur? He escaped from Kvíabryggja. We’ve got him back now, but there’s something shady to all this that we haven’t figured out.”
Thorfinnur nodded sagely, his eyes on the line as he gently reeled it in.
“There’s plenty going on,” Helgi continued. “He’s implicated with another murder, a couple of beatings and a bank job. Now the chief has the idea that Ommi was sitting out his stretch for someone else.”