“Grey Opel over there, guys. I need one of you to bring it down to the station for me. But first, will one of you go into Pizza-K and tell the snotty bastard behind the counter that this young man’s not been arrested, but he’ll be helping us with an enquiry for the rest of the day and it’s not his fault?”
Högni slumped in the chair. The release of tension in the young man had already exhausted him. Although Gunna would have preferred to treat him gently, a gut feeling told her that this also needed some quick and determined handling.
Eiríkur handed her a photocopy of Högni’s newspaper interview and sat back to listen, while Gunna pushed it across the table towards him.
“This is what made me think,” she told him, tapping it with one finger. “It was the worst feeling of my life seeing my big sister, who we all loved and admired so much, lying dead in front of me,” she read out, and waited for a reaction.
“You know, Högni, Svana is still in the mortuary at the National Hospital. I know your father identified her, because I was with him. He’d already told me that you and your mother couldn’t face it, which was one of the reasons I made sure I was there as well. It’s not an easy thing to do, and it’s a lot harder on your own,” she said, quickly stifling the expected but unwelcome pangs of loss that fought their way to the surface of her mind.
Högni’s eyes were blank pools, staring at his hands in front of him. “Are you aware, Högni, how she earned a living and could afford to live in a place like that?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, looking down, his voice barely audible. “Mum and Dad don’t know.”
“I think we’ll try and keep it that way,” Gunna said. “Did you know any of the men, or ever see any of them?”
“Svana knew tons of people and she was always hanging about with someone different. I never knew who most of them were.”
“You left the flat. You didn’t think to call the police or an ambulance?”
“No. I was just really confused. I knew she was dead and an ambulance wouldn’t be able to help her. I was scared it looked like I might have done it…” His voice tailed off into silence.
“Why’s that?” Gunna asked softly.
“Because we’d had an argument a few days before. It was when she told me how she really made her money with those guys. She said she’d tried being married and didn’t like it, so this was like being married to four rich men at the same time but without having to cook or wash smelly underwear.” He sighed. “We had a real screaming argument in the street outside Fit Club. I yelled at her that she was a slag and she screamed back that I was an idiot who should go back to the fish factory where I belonged.”
“When was this?”
“I’m not sure exactly. A few days before.”
“So you made up?”
“Sort of,” Högni said. “She called me and asked if I’d come round in the afternoon. She said she had some good news and wanted to tell me, said she was going to be back on TV and she could pack in the rich men. She said she’d see if she could find herself some toyboy who would cook and wash her underwear for her.”
“So what did you do with her phone?”
“Dropped it, maybe. I don’t remember.”
“You closed the door of the flat?”
“Don’t know. Don’t think so.”
“Did you see anyone on your way out of the building?”
“Nah. Don’t think so. Or there could have been the cleaner on the bottom floor. I’m not sure.”
“Did you go anywhere else in the flat, or notice anything out of place? Anything unusual?”
“I don’t think so,” Högni said. “But the rose wasn’t there, neither was the bat,” he added darkly.
“Bat?”
“Yeah. She kept an old baseball bat behind the front door, just in case, she said.”
“What was that about a rose?”
“She had a little porcelain rose on a plate, about so big,” he explained, making a ring of his thumb and finger. “When she didn’t want to be disturbed, the rose was hung on the door.”
“You mean when one of the syndicate was there?”
Högni nodded. “Yeah. I suppose the only ones who knew about that were me and the … men,” he said with hesitation. “But I didn’t know why until the day before we had our argument. I went to see her and rang the bell, but didn’t get an answer. I didn’t have much to do, so I thought I’d wait, and sat outside. Then she came out, hanging on this guy’s arm, an old bastard, way too old for Svana.”
“What do you call old?”
“Shit. As old as my dad, I guess, and he’s past sixty. This guy was a stocky feller, bald and old.”
Jónas Valur, Gunna thought, recognizing instantly the description of the man’s domed forehead.
“Did you know any of Svana’s rich men? Did you ever see any of them?”
“Nah, only that old bastard,” Högni said, and for the first time Gunna heard a note of uncertainty in his voice. “I just knew there were four of them, because she said so, and she said she was going to stop seeing them soon.”
“Do you know if the men themselves were aware that she was planning to bring this arrangement to an end?”
“Dunno. Don’t think so.”