“I see. It may be a stupid question, but do you have any idea who it might have been, or who was sending you a message?” Gulli Ólafs shrugged. “I’m as sure as it’s possible to be that it was something to do with Kleifaberg or the people who owned it, and still do.”
“And that is …?”
“He doesn’t do quite so much these days, but I guess Jónas Valur has made his pile and prefers to spend most of his time on a golf course in Portugal, especially now that he’s a highly respectable figure and a well-known party stalwart.”
Jónas Valur Hajaltason glowered. The urbane businessman with the convincingly sincere smile Gunna had spoken to before was gone, replaced by a snarling man who radiated suspicion.
“Where’s your son?” she asked without any kind of preamble, after she had brought him unwillingly to his front door. “He’s overseas.
He doesn’t live in Iceland these days.”
“Where?”
“You’ll have to ask him that yourself.”
“You’re aware that obstructing an investigation is an offence?” Gunna snapped.
“I’m not obstructing anything. I don’t know his whereabouts.” Jónas Valur stood defensively in the doorway of the expensive flat that Gunna could see glimpses of behind him.
“Come on. Don’t try and spin me a line. The man’s a co-director of several of your companies. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you don’t know where to find him?”
“I have email addresses. But I don’t have a physical address.” Gunna’s look told Jónas Valur that she knew he was lying blatantly. “What do you want to talk to him about? Maybe I could send him a message and ask him to contact you?” he suggested with the ghost of a smile.
“He was in Iceland last week. He flew to London on Friday. Why did he leave so suddenly?”
“Sindri was here to see his mother, who is seriously ill. I only saw him for an hour before he flew back to Europe. I had no foreknowledge that he was going to be here.”
“So where is he now?”
Jónas Valur spread his palms in answer.
“When do you expect to see him again?”
“I have no idea. Sindri has his own business interests overseas and has steadily had less and less involvement with this company, to the point that he takes practically no active part in the running of Kleifar any more.”
“What about Kleifaberg?”
“What?”
“You heard.”
“Kleifaberg is a company we wound up years ago.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what you know about these things, officer, but Kleifaberg had served its purpose. That particular line of business came to an end, so the company was wound up. It’s as simple as that.”
“What kind of business?”
“Haven’t you done your homework?” Jónas Valur asked. “I’d have thought you’d know already.”
“I’ve asked a few questions and not had many favourable reports of it. So I’d like to hear it from you.”
The return of the urbane persona alarmed Gunna. It told her that Jónas Valur was no longer on the defensive.
“Kleifaberg was a property development operation on a fairly small scale. We bought land and either developed it ourselves or found suitable partners who were capable of taking on projects like that.”
“And this was principally Sindri’s business?”
“It was. He’s a smart boy, my son,” Jónas Valur said, unable to conceal his pride. “He saw the writing on the wall and listened to the analysts. He sold up his interests and shifted overseas to a more stable business environment. He was, I believe, the only one who was pragmatic enough to get out in good time. As it happens, he could have held on for another year or more. But …”
The spread palms finished the sentence.
“What I’d like to know, officer, is why you are taking an interest in a smallish company like Kleifaberg, which no longer exists, which always operated entirely legally, and the activities of which were mostly so long ago that they fall under various statutes of limitations.”
“I think you know I can’t tell you that. But I think you also know as well as I do that your son has some questions to answer.”
“Mum, are you going to be long?” Laufey asked as Gunna tried to make out what she was saying over the rumble of wheels on tarmac. In spite of the crackle of the poor connection, she instinctively realized that something was not right.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she asked, eyes on the road, one finger to her ear to push the earpiece a little more firmly into place.
“I don’t know. Sigrún’s really unhappy about something. She’s been crying and all sorts.”
“Fifteen minutes. I’m on the way.”
“Thanks, Mum.”
Gunna put her foot down a little harder. At the turnoff, she coasted the Range Rover down the brand-new slip road to the roundabout underneath it that she was sure would become an impassable snow trap if the south-west were ever to see snow on the scale that she had grown up with in the west of Iceland, and accelerated as the road south opened up before her.