“Why did you do it, Högni?” she asked softly, and watched as he crumpled in the seat. Tears started to roll down his red cheeks and he wiped his nose with the Pizza-K baseball cap.
Gunna handed him a tissue. The overbearing bluster that had been the main feature of any conversation so far with Högni had disappeared. He sniffed and his face relaxed with what she guessed was a release of tension now that he was no longer guarding a secret.
“I’d like you to tell me exactly what happened, Högni, OK? No pressure, and this is between us. We’ll have to do it formally later, but tell me the story first. Did you find Svana?”
Högni hiccoughed and nodded. “She said I could come round and see her around half one, two. We were going to go to the gym and work on some fitness regimes for me.”
“So you were training together?”
“Yeah. She said I needed to lose ten kilos at least. She was going to try and get me fixed up as a personal trainer. But she said I couldn’t be an unfit personal trainer.”
Gunna appraised the young man’s baggy form and compared it to his late sister’s toned figure. She could only agree with Svana’s diagnosis that losing the double chin and some of the belly would probably make him a happier individual.
“So you went to her flat? You have a key?”
“Yeah,” he said, sniffing hard and pulling a ring of keys from his pocket. He picked one out and held the bunch by it. “And I knew the alarm code.”
“So you let yourself in. What then?”
“I never hurt her,” he said plaintively. “I would never have done that.”
“I can see that, Högni. But you have to tell me everything you can. Even a tiny detail could take us to the person who really did it.”
“I knocked, opened the door and went in. The alarm wasn’t on.” He gulped. “So I called out and went into the kitchen and saw her there on the floor.”
“Did you move her at all?”
Högni shook his head.
“So when we arrived at the scene she was lying just as she fell? Is that right?”
Högni nodded vigorously and his chin quivered. “I touched her cheek. And her hand.”
“But you knew she was dead?”
“Her eyes were open but she couldn’t see anything.”
“And you answered the phone, didn’t you?” Gunna asked.
“How do you know? Yeah. The phone was there on the side. It started to ring and so I picked it up.”
“Do you know who was calling?”
“Dunno. Didn’t look at the screen. It was some guy and he wanted to know where Svana was so I just said she was busy right now and couldn’t talk to him,” Högni blurted out before drawing a breath. “He got a bit angry. Asked who the hell I was and why I was answering Svana’s phone, so I told him I was her brother and he just laughed. Then he said he needed to talk to her and I should give her the phone. I said no, I couldn’t and he wanted to know why.”
“You told him?”
“It’s all fuzzy now. I think so. I think I said she won’t wake up, or something like that.”
Högni was starting to collect himself. The gasps for breath had calmed and the hiccoughs had disappeared.
“What was his reaction to that?”
“I don’t know. He must have hung up.”
“All right. So what did you do then?”
“I don’t really know.”
“You mean you panicked?”
“Ummm.”
Högni nodded a second time and Gunna sat in thought. She had suspected that Högni could have been responsible for his sister’s death in a furious outburst, but the man’s obvious distress now was going a long way towards convincing her otherwise. But knowing that Svana was already dead by the time the last conversation on her phone took place was enough to open up other possibilities.
Högni saw the look of determination on Gunna’s face and immediately quailed.
“What’s going to happen now?” he asked.
Gunna looked up and shook herself back to the here and now. She started the engine.
“You have a lot of questions to answer. Put your seat belt on, please. We’ve going to Hverfisgata to finish this. It’s going to take a while, I’m afraid.”
“But I’m supposed to be at work. I’ll lose my job,” Högni protested. “And what about my car?”
“Sorry, work’s going to have to wait,” she said sternly, and clicked her communicator. “Zero-five-sixty-one, ninety-fivefifty. Busy?”
“Not right now. What can we do for you?”
“Can you meet me by the Arnarbakki shops, outside Pizza-K?”
“Will do.”
“Give me your car keys, please, Högni,” Gunna instructed, and he meekly handed them over. “We’re going to Hverfisgata and I’ll have to ask you to make a statement and account for every single thing you remember from the second you walked in the door of Svana’s flat. Understand?”
Högni nodded as a squad car appeared at the far side of the car park and nosed through the traffic towards them to pull up next to the Audi. Gunna wound down the window to greet the two officers sitting in it.
“All right?” the one nearest to her said with a dazzling smile.
Gunna leaned out of her window and passed Högni’s keys across.