“Tell me what happened that night at Blacklights. What really happened,” Gunna began.
“I don’t know it all. There was this bloke Sindri had some problem with. Sindri has a temper, just like his old man, and when he saw this bloke there, he blew. They had an argument and some people calmed them down, and that was that. Sindri was fucking furious; he’d been snorting and drinking all day and was really on a roll.”
“So it wasn’t you?”
“No. Didn’t even see it.”
“What do you think happened, then?”
“I reckon Sindri hauled this Steindór bloke out into the car park, gave him a good kicking and didn’t know when to stop.”
“So where were you when all this was going on?”
“With Svana and the rest of the band. They’d just come off stage.”
“And Óskar?”
“I reckon he was out the back with Sindri. Why? What did Skari say?”
“So what happened next?” Gunna asked, ignoring the question.
“Shit, all hell let loose. Bjartmar wound the sound up to the max and turned down the lights so the place was jumping. People everywhere, loads of noise. Bjartmar and Sindri came and found me, told Svana to get herself on stage and crank it up. Then, fuck me, but old Jónas turns up, Sindri’s dad, face like doom, and the three of them put the screws on.”
“Made you an offer you couldn’t refuse?”
“Sort of. Jónas said he had a very important assignment for me and it was urgent, had to be done right away.”
“Which was?”
“That was it, he didn’t say. But he put me in the back of his Merc and off we went.”
“Into the night?”
“Yeah. It was starting to get light by then and we went right out of town. I don’t like going past Mosfellsbær, me. But we ended up at this summer house and he left me there with Selma to look after me, said he’d be back in the morning and that there was a good wedge of cash in it for me.”
“This was Eygló Grímsdóttir’s place in Skorradalur, right?”
“Yeah. Nice place. I think old Jónas had a thing going with Eygló at the time.”
“You already knew Eygló by then?”
“Well, sort of. Selma and me, we’d been sort of, y’know, off and on, so I knew Eygló.”
They turned at the corner of the field and came back at a leisurely pace, this time into the wind, which stung Gunna’s cheeks. Ommi huddled deeper into his fleece.
“So, what happened?”
“Well, I was left there with little Selma to keep me company, and the next afternoon Jónas turned up again with Sindri in tow, and Eygló coming up behind in her BMW with Baddó.”
“Bjartmar?”
“Yeah. Well Selma was kicked upstairs and the three of them put their cards on the table.”
“Three of them?”
“Yeah. Eygló went off with Selma, I suppose.”
“All right. Go on.”
Ommi frowned.
“Jónas said they had a problem. A crime had been committed that they couldn’t sweep under the carpet. He said they needed someone to take the rap for it and there would be a wage in it, plus a bonus at the ind of the stretch. Would I be interested? Well I thought they probably wanted someone to do a year or a few months or something. So I said yeah, I could do some time for the right price.”
“But it was more than a few months?”
“Hell, yeah,” Ommi said. “I could see it was Sindri. He was as nervous as hell, fiddling with his keys, biting his nails, all sorts. Your lot would’ve chewed him up for breakfast,” he said with a slim smile. “Anyway, it took me by surprise when they said it would be a murder charge, and I said hey, that’s a bit heavier than what I’d had in mind.”
Ommi kicked a stone and sent it skittering towards the fence. “But that Jónas, he’s a sly bastard. He said I’d already said yes, so now we just needed to agree a price.”
“And I take it you did?”
“Yup. Shit, yeah. Those three … Life wouldn’t have been worth living if I’d turned them down.”
“How much?”
“A couple of mill a year, plus a five mill bonus when I got out, and he swore blind it wouldn’t be more than ten years, out in six or seven, tops.”
“And you agreed to that?”
“Pushed him up to two and a half a year, plus eight, and we shook on it.”
“A done deal? What then?”
“They went back to the city; said I should stay put and wait there quietly. They left a case of vodka and a couple of beers, told me to enjoy the TV until I got a visit. So me and Selma, we made ourselves comfy. A week later you lot came calling and I just put my hands up and that was that.”
Gunna nodded to herself. Very little that Ommi had said had taken her by surprise, except that he had been so open after such a long silence. They turned again at the top of the yard and she saw that he was starting to feel the chill.
“Want to go back inside?”
“Not yet.”
“So you got a decent nest egg put away somewhere for you as long as you kept quiet and did the time. What went wrong?”