Cold Comfort by Quentin Bates Read Free Book Online Page B

that phone is?”
    Agnar looked blank and Gunna knew immediately that he had been taken by surprise.
    “She always had it. Used it all the time,” he said slowly. “Wasn’t it with her?”
    “No sign of it.”
    “Can’t understand that. She was lost without it. She’d put it on silent when she had a class, but apart from then, it was pretty much stuck to her ear all the time.”
    “Did she have another phone?”
    “Not any more. She changed numbers a few months ago after some deadbeat started making crank calls to her. Svana swore she was being stalked.”
    “Did she go to the police?”
    “God, no,” he said, rummaging in a drawer. “Here’s her old one. It’s a Fit Club phone as well.”
    “I’ll take that if I may,” Gunna said firmly as Agnar unwillingly placed the phone in her palm. “Did she report these crank calls? Any idea what sort of calls they were? Silence? Heavy breathing? That’s the normal sort of thing.”
    “She didn’t say, just that some creep was pestering her.”
    “All right. I could do with a list of friends and acquaintances. I take it she had a busy social life?”
    “Just a bit.”
    “Any particular close friends?”
    “Loads of them. Jenna Hrannars, Ásd’s Ósk Gunnars, Hulda Gróa Waage. You must have read about them?” Agnar looked satisfied, as if there could be no greater accomplishment than having talked-about friends.
    “Can’t say I have,” Gunna replied drily. “Any new acquaintances? Anything unusual?”
    “Last week she had a screaming argument right outside here. That was a surprise,” Agnar said, rubbing his square chin. “She told me afterwards that the bloke she was yelling at was her brother and that they’d sorted it all out afterwards. Svana wanted him to become a personal trainer.”
    “And what did you think of that idea?”
    “Not a lot,” he said flatly. “I spoke to him and I thought he was an idiot. Well overweight, so he’d need to lose a lot.”
    “How about Svana’s lovers?” Gunna asked.
    The look of satisfaction vanished from Agnar’s handsome features and was replaced with a scowl. “A few. They came and went.”
    “Frequently? Occasionally? Who’s in the picture? You?”
    “That’s ancient history,” Agnar said with a sour look that appeared incongruous on his open features. “We were good friends and business partners. We worked well together, but we didn’t share every personal detail.”
    “That’s as far as it went?” Gunna asked, inwardly pleased to have found a chink in the man’s self-satisfied armour.
    “We were an item for a while about five years ago, after she divorced Bjarni Örn. That’s all in the past. Nothing since.”
    “Fair enough. Do you know who was she seeing recently?”
    “No. She didn’t say and I didn’t ask. But there was one she kept quiet, like she wanted to stay discreet about him. Maybe he’s married, I don’t know.”
    “Did she make a habit of that?”
    “What? Screwing married men? It happens,” he replied with a shrug. “Is it important?”
    “Murders are generally about either money or jealousy. If anything comes to mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. How’s business?” she asked abruptly.
    Agnar scowled again. “It’s OK. Could be worse. At least we’re still in business, which is more than can be said for a lot of places. But I don’t know how we’re going to manage now. Svana was this place’s main attraction, you know.”
    G UNNA SAW THE moment the door opened that Hallur Hallbjörnsson was sweating. His face was flushed, in sharp contrast to the urbane persona she had seen him present so skilfully on television.
    His office was in the eaves of one of the old corrugated-iron houses a stone’s throw from Parliament and the incongruously modern city hall bordering Reykjavík’s shallow, duck-filled lake. Gunna knew that the city hall behind its modern columns was where Hallur had been a rising star in municipal politics before standing