Winterlude (13 page)

‘Quite. But the bankbook is very real and the figures in it are euros, so there’s a respectable amount of money there, the deposits all made over six years or so, and the last one just a few months before Borgar was convicted. There were no withdrawals,’ he added.

Gunna sat back and looked at the ceiling for a moment. ‘I’m sure he was going to vanish,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s not as if he had all that much to keep him here. So,’ she said, ‘I owe the gentlemen of National Security a favour, do I?’

‘Let’s say that I do. But if they decide you owe them a favour as well, then I’m sure they’ll let you know soon enough.’

It was a journey he wasn’t looking forward to and he spent half an hour longer than he had meant to sitting moodily in Rúna’s kitchen. His big sister talked about grandchildren without apparently being concerned as to whether or not he was listening. Helgi left Rúna’s house with a promise to drop by later, by which time his brother-in-law would be home, and drove slowly through Blönduós past the petrol station where he had spoken to Mæja. He wondered how she would cope with Reynir being so suddenly removed from her life, probably for five or six years assuming he were to behave himself in Litla-Hraun. Maybe Mæja and Hjörtur would rekindle their relationship with Reynir off the scene, but Helgi thought it more likely that she would find a replacement soon enough.

Turning off the main road and out towards the long coastline where farms were dotted between the highlands and the sea, he thought to himself what a peaceful childhood it had been where a car passed no more than half a dozen times a day and he had been on horseback or driving the tractor at an age when city boys were riding bicycles. Where he had grown up at Hraunbær and where his father had tended sheep and a few cows was a less prosperous farm. On higher ground on the valley slopes, the winters were colder than on a good farm like Tunga close to the shore where there had once been driftwood and seals to be had in the spring, as well as the wild salmon that could be discreetly caught in nets and which visiting city dwellers these days would pay a fortune just for the sight of.

He could see the turning for Tunga in the distance and slowed down long before he reached it. A knot of ponies in a field watched him as he stopped by the sign to the farm and got out to walk over to the fence where a piebald mare stood with her head over the wire. He scratched her ears while behind her the rest of them stood warily watching this strange man who got out of his car to talk to horses by the side of the road.

The Daihatsu bumped down the track to Tunga and the same dog barked at him as he rolled into the yard. The old lady’s face appeared at the window and a moment later the door opened.

‘
Hæ
,’ Helgi greeted her as he got slowly out of the Daihatsu and walked towards her.

‘The boys aren’t here,’ she said shortly, her face strained. ‘Össur and Ingi are down at the long barn, though I don’t know how pleased they’ll be to see you.’

‘I have to speak to them,’ he said simply.

‘Be it on your own head, Helgi,’ she said, looking past him as Ingi’s van drove into the yard and stopped by the farmhouse door. The old lady watched with her arms folded just as Reynir had done in the interview room.

‘You’ve a nerve, showing up here,’ Össur said shortly and walked straight past him, kicking his boots off at the door and disappearing inside. Ingi got slowly out of the van and stretched his legs.

‘Helgi. What’s the news?’

‘Not great.’

‘Come inside.’

‘Your mother and Össur aren’t exactly going to welcome me with open arms, are they?’

Ingi spat into a puddle. ‘Ach. Össur’s Össur. We all know what he’s like. The old lady doesn’t like it but she knows you don’t have a choice. When are you taking Reynir south?’

In the kitchen Ingi folded his arms over his broad chest and leaned against the stove while the old lady sat at the table and lit a cigarette, waiting for Helgi to say something.

‘We’ll be going south this evening,’ he said finally and the old lady nodded in reply.

‘That bastard deserved everything he got,’ she said finally. ‘It’s a scandal that he took away Kjartan’s boy like that and they just let him out after a couple of years. He should have been in prison for life. An eye for an eye,’ she said in a bleak, harsh voice. ‘That’s what the book says.’

‘I’m truly sorry,’ Helgi said as the clock ticked accusingly on its high shelf over the door. ‘But I don’t make up the rules.’

‘You should never have gone to live down there, Helgi. You used to be one of us when you lived here. You’re not any more.’

‘You know as well as I do that I couldn’t stay here, and what was there to stay for?’

The old lady coughed and ground out her cigarette in a saucer. ‘I don’t know, Helgi. But you’re not the man your father expected you to be,’ she said, getting to her feet with some effort. ‘I’ll pack a bag for Reynir and Ingi can take it with him into Blönduós.’

Helgi drove faster this time and Ingi followed him in his van. It was getting dark already and he was not looking forward to the long drive south with Reynir and probably Arnar in the back of the Daihatsu. The street lights were already on as they drove into Blönduós, shining on a film of black water. Clouds had collected over the distant mountains and Helgi could almost smell snow in the air as he wondered whether to postpone travelling south until the morning. The previous night’s escapade and Anna Björg’s good-humoured dismissal of his concern had made him increasingly anxious to get home, but at the same time he wanted to be cautious.

‘It’s a while since I’ve been in here,’ Ingi said, Reynir’s bag on his shoulder as he slammed the van’s door in the car park.

‘You didn’t learn to run away as fast as I did,’ Helgi said.

‘Nope. I was always the idiot who stood his ground and didn’t know when to stop. Listen, before we go inside . . .’

Helgi turned and saw that Ingi’s face was lined with concern.

‘What is it? Look, Reynir will be fine. He’s as tough as they come.’

‘I don’t blame you in the least. You had a job to do, and, well, you’ve done it.’

‘Thanks. I don’t expect that Kjartan or Össur or your mum will see it like that.’

‘Mum and Össur, of course they won’t. They’ve hardly ever been further than Blönduós or the Hook. You can’t expect them to.’ He took a deep breath and shifted the bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘The thing is . . .’

‘Helgi!’

He turned round to see Anna Björg coming down the steps and striding towards him.

‘Excuse me, Ingi. I’ll be right with you.’

‘We have a problem here,’ she muttered, her eyes flicking to Ingi as he went up the steps into the police station, the bag on his shoulder weighing heavy. ‘I know Reynir has admitted to the murder, but Mæja has confirmed his alibi and it’s convincing.’

‘But Hjörtur wasn’t doing a shift that night. Wasn’t that the problem?’

‘It was. He wasn’t at work. He went to Akureyri and stayed there overnight to have a minor operation on Monday morning. The offending toenail’s been dealt with and he came back on Monday. The man wasn’t at home on Sunday and there’s no reason to doubt Reynir’s alibi. He couldn’t have murdered Borgar within the time frame we have and still have been tucked up in Hjörtur’s bed with Mæja. Give me an hour or two and I can probably find some nosey neighbour who saw Reynir sneaking in through Mæja’s back door.’

‘You’re certain?’ Helgi scowled and swore furiously. ‘But all the evidence points to him. Not just the cracked alibi. There’s the footage, the fingerprints,’ he said in exasperation as a new idea dawned on him. ‘Oh, no. Please, no,’ he said as his heart sank, his eyes on the door leading into the County Sheriff’s offices and the police station inside.

‘The thing is, what?’

‘You’ve got the wrong man.’

Helgi took a step towards him. ‘What?’

‘Reynir’s not your man. He was screwing Hjörtur’s missus all weekend as usual. I went to Reykjavík in that before he came back from Blönduós on Sunday morning,’ he said in a flat voice, pointing at Reynir’s Land Cruiser where it had been parked behind the police station ready to be examined.

‘Ingi, you’re not talking sense here.’

‘That’s the way it was. I had a talk with Árni Geir this afternoon . . .’

‘The lawyer?’

‘Yep. He came out to the farm and told us that Reynir had been charged. Look, Helgi, normally Reynir would meet Elmar somewhere between here and the tarmac on a Friday or a Saturday. On Saturday the boy wanted to go to some party, so I said I’d go south in Reynir’s truck and do his deliveries as Reynir doesn’t much like going south of the tunnel. I did the deliveries to the clubs and then I went out to Hafnarfjördur. Elmar had told me Borgar was at his old unit and there he was. I hit him once in the face with my hand and once with a length of pipe that Reynir had in the back of the Land Cruiser. Like a fool, I threw it in a corner instead of taking it with me.’

Helgi stared. ‘Ingi . . .’

‘You’ll find my prints all over the Land Cruiser. You won’t find them on the pipe or in Borgar’s unit. I wore gloves while I was there and you’ll find the gloves in the back of the car with the rest of Reynir’s junk.’

‘Ingi, why? Come on, you’re not serious.’

Ingi shrugged. ‘It was always going to be one of us. You know we’ve always helped each other out. Nobody messes with the Tunga people.’

‘But Reynir confessed. He admitted he’d murdered Borgar. Why are you telling me this?’

‘Ach. It just seems like the right thing, y’know?’ he said as Helgi fought back an urge to grab the front of Ingi’s coat and shake him. ‘I guess Reynir must have twigged that it was me and he’d rather do the time than see me inside.’

‘But why?’

‘This isn’t on the record or anything, is it, Helgi? This is between us, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Reynir feels he owes me. You remember that time I came out to stay with you at Hraunbær when Kjartan and Reynir turned up on a bender with that old drunk who disappeared?’

‘Go on . . .’ Helgi said, his blood beginning to run cold.

‘It was Reynir who found the man. He’d set fire to the barn, splashed Dad’s moonshine everywhere and lit it. Luckily Reynir caught it just in time to be able to get a hose on it and put the fire out before it reached the hay. But that old guy . . .’

‘Bassi. That was his name.’

‘That’s right. Bassi. He was already dead. He hadn’t sobered up and I guess the smoke killed him. Reynir was a wreck and he’s been a bag of nerves ever since. That’s how Reynir got to be the way he is.’

‘All right. So what does Reynir owe you that he’d do a prison term for you?’

Ingi shook his head and spread his palms wide. ‘He doesn’t, but he doesn’t see it like that. Dad and I put Bassi over the back of a horse and buried him down at the bottom of the north pasture. That’s where he is.’

Helgi wanted to hold his head in his hands. ‘Ingi, it’s not too late. Reynir has made a confession and it’ll stick. You don’t have to go down this road,’ he said desperately.

‘Ach, hell. A good lawyer will screw up your case against Reynir and you know it,’ he said with a wintry smile. ‘Come on, do your stuff and I’ll come quietly.’

‘But why, Ingi? If you’re certain, we’ll go inside and I’ll arrest you.’ Helgi shook his head in despair. ‘But it goes against the grain. Just tell me why you did it?’

Because if I hadn’t, then Kjartan would have killed the man.’

‘You did this to keep Kjartan out of trouble?’

Ingi nodded. ‘That’s about it. Kjartan’s had enough anguish already and he doesn’t need to have his life screwed up any more. So I did it. Mind you,’ he said with a short, humourless laugh, ‘that bastard Borgar deserved it.’