This was a newer weapon, less of a work of art and more of a tool with a workmanlike feel to it. Rummaging further beneath the bench, he came up with an old sports bag. Carefully wrapping his shotgun in sheets of clean cloth, he gently stowed it in the bag with a box of cartridges nestling against it, and then swung the closed bag on to one shoulder as he snapped off the light to plunge the cellar back into darkness.
“Chilly outside,” Bjössi announced, slamming the door and settling into the passenger seat. “Going to see Skari Bubba, are we?”
The hired Polo rattled and Bjössi winced.
“What’s the matter with you?” Gunna asked.
“You might want to get this thing serviced, you know. It sounds a bit rocky,” Bjössi advised.
“Not my car, though, is it?”
Pulling up outside the hospital, Gunna felt her phone vibrate and fished it from her pocket to peer at the screen.
staying @sigruns tonite. OK?
Resolutely sticking to spelling and grammar, Gunna texted back to Laufey.
All right with me. I’ll pop in on the way home. See you then. x, she wrote, before texting a shorter message to Steini:?xG
As they walked into the building, with Bjössi leading the way, her phone chirped again.
9-ish?xS
She chuckled and thumbed back, OK xG “Steini still sending you erotic texts?” Bjössi asked.
“Yup.”
“Thought you were more cheerful than usual.”
“Well that’s what happens when you get it regularly,” Gunna assured him.
“Couldn’t tell you, that was so long ago,” Bjössi said morosely.
“Get away with you, you randy old goat. You’ve always been like a rat up a drainpipe,” Gunna shot back, stopping to look for the room where Óskar Óskarsson was not expecting them.
She pushed open the door and saw that there were visitors ahead of her. Óskar’s mother sat there with pursed lips, and a florid woman with a mass of ginger hair spilled across the other chair.
“Morning,” Gunna greeted them. “I could do with ten minutes of your time, if you don’t mind,” she added firmly to Skari, making it plain that she expected none of them to object.
“Of course. We’ll leave you to talk to my Óskar,” old Fanney said in her clear voice.
The other woman opened her mouth to protest, but Fanney stood up, buttoning her coat as she did so.
“We’ll go and look round the shops for half an hour, Óskar,” she said with decision. “Just while this lady wants to speak to you. Come on, Erla. We can start in Krónan.”
Gunna recognized the younger woman as Skari’s wife. She had seen her many times around Hvalvík, but never otherwise than surrounded by a brood of similarly red-haired children and behind a pushchair.
The two of them left the room, leaving Gunna and Bjössi to take their chairs.
“I’ve nothing to tell you,” Óskar rasped.
“Your voice has improved, Skari,” Gunna said, trying to be friendly.
“Yeah. Full of drugs, so it doesn’t hurt so much.”
“Skari, I’d like you to cast your mind back, if you’d be so good.”
The patient glowered and looked uncomfortable. “What?”
“Ten years ago,” Bjössi said. “What were you doing then?”
“I was in Reykjavík. Why?”
“That much we know. I’d like you to tell me about Blacklights. You remember the place?”
“Yeah,” Óskar admitted warily. “Why?”
“Steindór Hjálmarsson. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Should it?”
Gunna extracted a sheaf of documents from her briefcase, paperclipped together.
“This is a witness statement made by Óskar Óskarsson to the effect that you saw Ómar Magnússon and Steindór Hjálmarsson arguing heatedly in Blacklights at around two thirty in the morning. You and two of the other bouncers, whose statements I also have here, separated them.”
“Might be,” Óskar repeated with a shrug. “It was a rowdy place. There was rucks going on all the time.”
“Ah, but this was a bit special,” Gunna said. “Further along in your statement, you said that you escorted Steindór Hjálmarsson from the building and that Ómar Magnússon followed him out. So don’t try and tell me you don’t remember this, Skari. This is part of the testimony that put your mate Ommi away for fifteen years, isn’t it?”
Óskar gulped and his eyes swivelled.
“So all this lot, all these black eyes, broken ribs and the rest of it, was this Long Ommi settling a score, or what?”
“Nah. Like I said, Polish bloke. A right big bastard he was.”
“No, Skari,” Bjössi broke in gently. “Long Ommi did this. You screwed him over, and when he got out, he decided to pay you back for the favour.”
“No, no, no,” Óskar said emphatically. “Leave me alone, will you? I’m straight now, clean record these days. So lay off.”
“Let’s look at it another way, shall we, Skari?” Gunna suggested quietly as the panic in Óskar’s face began to magnify and his eyes started to bulge. “I get the feeling that you’ve been spinning us a good few tales. Let’s suppose a little bird whispered to me that your statement is a pack of lies? What then?”
Gunna held up the statement again, one finger on the scrawled signature at the bottom. Surprise registered on Bjössi’s face and he sat back to listen.
“Yours, I believe?”
“Whadda you mean?” Óskar blustered.