‘Excellent, Dagga. Now you’re thinking like a real journalist, cynical and suspicious,’ he said, angling forward the elbow of his right arm for her to put a hand through it. ‘You shouldn’t imagine that your old uncle Jonni doesn’t have something up his sleeve. When you’ve given Reynir Óli a shock that’ll give him palpitations, I’m going to give him a shock that might well put him in intensive care.’ He smiled slyly. ‘Intrigued?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘Don’t worry. It’ll come out soon enough. Come on, let’s get out of the bloody rain.’
It had already been a long night and Matti began to doze until he heard knuckles rap on the roof of the car above his head. He opened his eyes, opened them even wider when he realized what he was looking up at, and wondered if they would go away if he were to let his eyelids slide down again.
Knowing they wouldn’t, he wound the window down an inch.
‘Jæja, Matti. Haven’t seen you for a while. How’ve you been keeping?’
‘Gunna. What’ve you got to say for yourself?’
He looked in the mirror to see a young policeman step back and get into the squad car parked right behind his taxi, while Gunna walked around and opened the passenger door to drop herself carefully into the seat beside him.
‘Well, cousin Matti. How’s tricks?’
‘Cousin Gunna,’ Matti said stiffly in mock formality. ‘What have I done to deserve this honour?’
‘Not sure yet. Maybe I was just wondering why I’m not on your Christmas card list any more.’
‘So this is just a family visit? Who’s dead?’
‘Matti, this isn’t a family matter, unfortunately. What have you been up to this time?’
‘Look, I’ve been keeping out of trouble and I’d prefer it if the police could leave me in peace, like the Reykjavík crowd do at the moment. What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were out to pasture in Hvalvík now?’
It was a bright day and sunshine sparkled between banks of cumulo-nimbus that idly threatened to rain on the opera house construction site opposite and the squat black mass of the Central Bank building. Matti had turned into the half-empty parking lot to take a quick nap before going back to the taxi rank across the road. He liked to be close to the harbour, even though it accommodated more cruise ships than trawlers these days.
‘Just checking up on you. Had an inkling that you might be involved in something slightly shady on my patch, so we decided to have a look round and see if you had time for a quiet chat.’
Matti scowled. ‘I’m busy. I’m working.’
‘You were snoring.’
‘Just resting my eyes. But now I have to get back to the rank. This is a working taxi and I have bills to pay. Nonni isn’t running a charity, y’know.’
‘Come on, Matti. Let’s keep this friendly, shall we? If needs be, we can go to the station.’
Gunna could almost sense the cogs ticking over in Matti’s mind as he stared through the windscreen at the queue of lunchtime traffic idling impatiently at the lights.
‘All right, then. I’ve got ten minutes, then I need to be back on the rank.’
‘Tell me about March, will you? Were you working?’
‘That was bloody months ago!’ Matti exploded.
‘The ninth of March. Where were you then?’
‘How the hell should I remember that far back? Of course I was working, busy time of the year, that was, before everything started to go quiet.’
Matti’s fingers fidgeted in his lap, thumbs circling each other nervously. He fumbled in the pocket of the car door and shook a cigarette from its packet.
‘Open the windows if you’re going to light up, will you?’ Gunna asked sharply.
‘Yeah. Nothing like an ex-smoker, is there?’ Matti retorted even more sharply, lighting up and blowing smoke out of the now wide open window.
‘March, Matti. What were you up to?’
‘Hell, I don’t know. Ferrying drunks around in this thing, probably.’
‘All right,’ Gunna said in her calmest voice. ‘I’ll jog your memory. What was this taxi doing in Sandeyri on the ninth of March?’
If Gunna hadn’t been looking directly at him, she would have missed seeing Matti’s eyes bulge slightly for a moment.
‘Er. Might have had a fare. I can’t remember. I go all over, I’m often out there round the airport.’
‘All right,’ Gunna said calmly. ‘Let’s jog your memory a bit further, shall we?’ From her jacket pocket she extracted fresh printouts of the webcam pictures that Snorri had obtained, unfolded them carefully and passed them across to Matti, who held them up, shaking his head as he did so.
‘Nope, sorry. Can’t see the number. Not my taxi.’
‘It’s your taxi. It’s the only Mercedes taxi of this model in the entire country. And if you look carefully at that second picture, you’ll see the dent in the wing that you got from a scrape with a yuppie’s caravan on Snorrabraut last summer, which you still haven’t bothered to get fixed.’
‘Yeah, well. It’s Nonni’s car, so it’s his problem. He can get it fixed.’
Matti’s phone squawked. He picked it up and squinted to read the incoming number before stabbing at the phone to reject the call.
‘So. That night in March. Tell me about it.’