The Killing Bay

by Chris Ould

  There were nods and Remi Syderbø looked satisfied. He checked his watch. “Right, then let’s get as far as we reasonably can tonight and start again first thing in the morning. By then maybe we’ll have something more from Technical to help us out.”

  As the meeting broke up Hentze didn’t linger and instead went to his own office where he called Sóleyg to say he’d probably be home in an hour or so, but not to wait up, just in case. His wife, who had long since got used to a policeman’s hours, told him not to worry about it.

  “Who is it – the dead woman? Do you know yet?” she asked then.

  “Her name’s Erla,” Hentze said, but no more than that. He protected Sóleyg as a matter of habit; it was as natural as taking off his shoes when he came into the house. As far as he knew Sóleyg had never met Erla Sivertsen, but he was still cautious in case there was some connection he wasn’t aware of.

  “Poor woman,” Sóleyg said. “Just don’t stay any later than you need to. Promise?”

  “I promise,” Hentze said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  14

  Monday/mánadagur

  HENTZE WAS BACK IN THE OFFICE JUST BEFORE SEVEN AS THE SKY pinked up over Nólsoy and mixed with the orange of the streetlights. It was pretty enough, but he always found this pre-dawn time depressing, as if it spoke of lost hours and lost opportunities.

  He went to make coffee in the CID canteen and found Sophie Krogh stirring from sleep on an uncomfortable two-seater couch. She accepted his offer of coffee with a grunt and put on her boots while he made it.

  Erla Sivertsen’s body had been removed shortly before midnight, Sophie told him; then driven to Skopun where the search and rescue boat had brought it to Tórshavn. Sophie had accompanied it, then overseen the removal of clothes and the taking of samples before the body was put into cold storage awaiting the arrival of the forensic pathologist. After that she’d grabbed a few hours’ sleep.

  Hentze stirred the requested two sugars into Sophie’s coffee, then went with her out on to the grey steel fire escape so she could smoke.

  “Anything you can tell me?” he asked. “Any indication of cause of death?”

  Sophie thought, then said, “You didn’t hear this from me because it’s for the FP to say, but I noticed some blood and what I think is a fracture at the back of her skull. The thin part, here.” She indicated the area she meant. “That’s a very vulnerable area. A blow there can easily cause death.”

  “Right. I didn’t see that,” Hentze admitted.

  Sophie waved it away. “No reason you would, unless you’d moved her.”

  “And did it happen there, do you think?”

  “No, I don’t think so. From most indications we found I’d say she was killed somewhere else and moved to the site after death.”

  “What about the stab wound?”

  “I think it was made after she died,” Sophie said. “If she’d been alive I’d have expected to see more blood on her clothing if not on the ground.”

  “Could there have been internal bleeding instead?”

  Sophie made a so-so gesture. “It didn’t look that way to me, but the FP will tell you for sure.”

  Hentze thought about that. “So if the stab wound was made after death, does that mean she was killed by the injury to the back of her head?”

  “Well, there were no other obvious wounds…” She shrugged to let him draw his own conclusion.

  “Okay,” Hentze said. “And was there a sexual element, do you think? A rape?”

  Sophie pulled on her cigarette and exhaled in a long plume. “That’s harder to say. I didn’t see any of the usual signs – scratches or dirt and abrasions, either to the buttocks and thighs or to the palms and the knees, but of course, that doesn’t rule it out until we get the PM.”

  “But the way she was found, with her jeans down…” Hentze said.

  “Yeh, well, who knows what goes on in some people’s minds,” Sophie said with a throwaway gesture. “But if I were you, Hjalti, I wouldn’t be in too much of a rush to take this thing at face value.”

  “Oh?” Hentze frowned. “Why not?”

  She made a moue. “Fuck the whales? It’s a bit obvious, isn’t it? – I dunno, I need to look again, but the whole thing seemed just a little bit… staged. It could be a case of someone wanting you to believe one thing to cover up another. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeh, I think so.”

  “Okay.” Seeing he’d got the point, Sophie looked at her watch. “What time’s the next ferry back to the island?”

  “Seven thirty. It’s the first.”

  “If I use the shower in your gym could I still make it?”

  “If you’re quick. I’ll get someone to take you.”

  “Takk.” Sophie took a last, short drag on her cigarette, then stubbed it out and followed him back inside.

  Still carrying his coffee Hentze went back along the corridor to Remi Syderbø’s office. Remi was taking off his coat. He looked as if he might have had a slightly better night’s sleep than Hentze, which wasn’t saying a lot.

  “Morgun,” Remi said. “Anything overnight?”

  Briefly Hentze told him that it looked as if Erla Sivertsen had been moved to the huts at Húsavík rather than killed there, but he said nothing of Sophie Krogh’s unofficial assessment of the scene. This wasn’t out of secrecy, but because he knew it would be jumping the gun to start tossing possibilities around without proper foundation. Besides, there was a protocol to be followed in terms of official reports and Remi was a big believer in protocol.

  “Unless you need me immediately I thought I’d take Sophie back to Sandoy,” Hentze said then. “I want to have a word with someone I couldn’t speak to properly last night and it’ll be easier to find him if I go now.”

  Remi frowned. “About the case? Who?”

  “His name’s Høgni Joensen. He was at the grind when Erla argued with Arne Haraldsen.”

  Remi adjusted his spectacles. “I thought you’d ruled Haraldsen out.”

  “Yeh, I think so, but Høgni also knew Erla so…”

  A movement outside the office window took Remi’s attention. Hentze looked and saw Ári Niclasen walking along the corridor. Ári didn’t stop.

  Remi had noted this, too. “Okay, if you think it’s necessary to speak to this Joensen you’d better go,” he said. “Just to be tidy.”

  “Sure, of course,” Hentze acknowledged, wondering at the same time whether Remi had also just seen a way to avoid having him and Ári both working together in the incident room – for the moment, at least.

  * * *

  They made the ferry with a couple of minutes to spare and Sophie Krogh ate breakfast from the snack bar while Hentze stuck to coffee. At Skopun a car was waiting to pick Sophie up and Hentze said he’d look in at Húsavík later, then drove the short distance to Í Trøðum where Høgni Joensen lived in a small rented house.

  There was no answer at the door when Hentze knocked, so he backtracked and went to Sandur instead. He left the car on the quayside near the access ramp and walked round to the wooden shed where Finn Sólsker kept his spare fishing gear and Høgni repaired the long lines.

  One door of the shed was open and the strip light inside showed Høgni Joensen ambling around. There was no sign of Finn, which Hentze counted as good. He wanted to speak to Høgni without his son-in-law around as a prompt.

  Perhaps hearing Hentze’s approach, Høgni looked up. When he saw the policeman he started, then quickly came to the doorway. He was dressed as he usually was, in several layers of ill-kempt work clothes, topped off by a woollen hat.

  “Hey, Høgni,” Hentze said cheerily. “How are you?”

  “Oh. Oh, okay, yeh,” Høgni said.

  Hentze had always suspected that Høgni was a little simple: not in any severe way, but just that he couldn’t deal with complicated situations. Yes or no, in or out, suited Høgni far better, but now, caught on the hop, even that choice seemed beyond him. On the threshold of the s
hed he was apparently unable to decide whether to stay put or come out, but in the end he opted for stepping outside, then turned quickly to close the door behind him, as if something inside might escape.

  “Finn isn’t here,” he said, turning back to Hentze.

  “That’s all right, it was you I wanted to see,” Hentze said amiably. “You went off before I could talk to you last night.”

  “I, I thought you wanted to talk to Finn.”

  “And to you, too.”

  “What a-about?”

  “About Erla Sivertsen.”

  Høgni shook his head. “I don’t know anything,” he said flatly.

  “That’s okay, it’s just background questions,” Hentze said. “It’s all right, you’re not in any trouble.”

  “Trouble?” The word seemed to make Høgni uneasy.

  “How well did you know her?” Hentze asked. “Was it for long?”

  Høgni frowned as if it was hard to weigh up. “Years. I don’t know.”

  “So she was a friend?”

  “Not— She knew Finn,” Høgni said, as if that explained everything.

  “Yeh.” Hentze nodded, to indicate that Høgni had confirmed what he already knew. “He told me she’d been down to see him at the boat. Did she come down here often, do you know?”

  “A bit. Sometimes.” Høgni shifted uncomfortably. “I dunno.”

  “Weren’t you here, too?”

  “Yeh, sometimes.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “The last time what?”

  “That you saw Erla down here with Finn.”

  “I, I dunno. Friday I suppose. Yeh, Friday.”

  “At the grind?”

  “Yeh.” Høgni nodded vigorously. “Yeh, at the grind.”

  “You didn’t see her after that – on Saturday, maybe?”

  Høgni shook his head. “No.”

  “Are you sure? Were you busy on Saturday? Were you working?”

  “No. No, the boat— The fuel pump was broken. Finn was fixing it. He had to get a new one. It took him all day.” There was some relief in Høgni’s voice now, as if they’d moved on to a safer topic.

  “Did you help with that?”

  “No, I went— I was in town.”

  “Tórshavn?”

  “Yeh. I, I had some shopping to do.”

  “So Finn was here on his own? Only he told me that you came down to see him on Saturday night. Wasn’t that correct?”

  It was an easy trick to pull but Hentze didn’t take any great satisfaction in seeing the way it threw Høgni Joensen into a foot-shifting shuffle of uncertainty.

  “No, I— I mean, yeh. Yeh, I forgot. Saturday night? I did come down here for a bit, to see Finn.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I, I dunno. I can’t remember.”

  “Was it dark?”

  “Yeh. Yeh, I think so.”

  “Okay,” Hentze said, as if that verified what he’d thought. Then he cast a glance at the rain-leaden sky and shrugged up his collar. It was only spitting for now.

  “Listen, is it all right if we go in out of the rain?” he said, gesturing at the shed. “No point standing in the wet, is there?”

  “I-I, I’m going to the shop,” Høgni said, shuffling awkwardly again. “I was just going.”

  “Can I have a look inside anyway?”

  “W-what for?”

  “No reason.” Then, without giving Høgni time to work his way round that, Hentze moved to the shed and tugged the door open. He stepped over the rail on the threshold and went inside, waiting to see how long it would be before – or if – Høgni would follow.

  Inside the shed two fluorescent strip lights illuminated the stainless steel filleting table and a collection of plastic-handled knives stuck to a magnetic strip on the wall behind it. Towards the back of the shed there was a collection of plastic bins, nylon lines, hooks and associated fishing tackle stacked up on the concrete floor or shelved on steel units along the walls. The place smelled dankly of fish, salt water and bleach but it was pretty clean and well kept.

  “I, I need to go to the shop,” Høgni said again. He was just inside the doorway now, looking uncomfortable.

  Hentze said nothing but continued to look around the shed, finally casting a glance at several waterproof dungarees and yellow sou’westers hanging just inside the door.

  “You’ll have to go now,” Høgni said, his voice more determined, as if he’d finally reached a decision.

  Hentze took no notice, but stepped forward and moved the topmost waterproofs aside until he exposed the red Gore-tex jacket whose collar had just been visible behind the bulk of the other coats. It wasn’t a fisherman’s jacket. For a start it was clean, but it was also designed for hill walking rather than boat work.

  “Who does this red coat belong to?” Hentze asked.

  “I, I dunno.”

  “It looks too small for you or for Finn,” Hentze said, appraising it again.

  “May-may-maybe it’s Martha’s,” Høgni said.

  Hentze shook his head. “I think you’d better start telling me the truth, Høgni,” he said. “And properly now, okay? No more lies about where you were and who you were with.”

  * * *

  The truth wasn’t easy for Høgni Joensen – which, Hentze suspected, was because Høgni wasn’t sure exactly what the truth was. In addition there was also the matter of Høgni’s loyalty to Finn Sólsker, which made him reluctant to say anything that might be taken the wrong way. Finn was Høgni’s best friend, not just his employer, and Finn was a good guy – something Høgni said several times, as if repetition would finally convince Hentze that it really was so.

  So, the truth – at least as far as Høgni Joensen knew it – was that he had found the red waterproof coat this morning, when he’d come in to start sorting lines. He showed Hentze the place where it had been, lifting a crate of coiled hooks and line to reveal another beneath. It was in there, folded up, he told Hentze. He didn’t know how it had got there, but he didn’t want to leave it in with the hooks and the line, so he’d taken it out and hung it up with the other weather gear and when Finn arrived he was going to ask him about it.

  For the most part Hentze believed this account, in as much as it described a sequence of events. What it didn’t touch on, though, was what Høgni had thought about finding a strange coat amongst the fishing gear.

  “Did you find anything else?” Hentze asked, stepping forward to look inside the box where the coat had been, then looking at Høgni.

  “No. No, nothing.”

  Hentze believed that. He went back to the coats hanging by the door and removed the sou’westers, leaving the red waterproof where it was as he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves.

  There was no name tag or identification mark on the coat’s label; perhaps just a faint – very faint – suggestion of perfume from the fleece lining near the collar. Hard to tell for sure against the general odour of fish. Hentze checked the pockets and found them all empty, save for one on the inside from which he pulled out a grey knitted hat.

  Høgni hadn’t moved while Hentze carried out this examination, but when Hentze looked at him now he shifted his bulk in discomfort.

  “This is Erla’s coat, isn’t it?” Hentze said.

  Høgni gave a stage shrug. “I, I dunno. There are… there are lots like it.”

  “But Erla had one just the same as this, didn’t she? And also this hat. We have a description of it and you’d seen her wearing it, hadn’t you?”

  A dumb nod.

  “So, because you knew she was dead, you thought you’d better keep the coat hidden after you found it. Is that right? Høgni? Is that right?”

  Finally pushed beyond yes or no, Høgni seized a breath, then spoke in a rush. “I was going to ask Finn what to do,” he said. “I thought it was Erla’s, but I didn’t know. I didn’t know why— what I should do with it, so I was going to ask Finn.” He met Hentze’s eye, more determined now. “She c
ould’ve just forgotten it, couldn’t she?” he said. “I mean, left it. That could be why it was here. She just forgot it.”

  “Forgot it when she came to see Finn?”

  “Yeh. Yeh. Any time.”

  Hentze considered that for a moment, then moved to the doorway and took a look at the padlock and hasp on the door. “How many people have access to this shed?” he asked.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “How many people have keys to the padlock?”

  “Just me and Finn.”

  “And when was the last time you were in here before today?”

  “On Friday, after the grind.”

  “Not over the weekend?”

  Høgni shook his head. “I put the lines back on Friday. We hadn’t used them because of the grind and we couldn’t go out after that because of the fuel pump.”

  “Right,” Hentze said. “And where were you really on Saturday night? I know you weren’t at the boat with Finn because he told me he was there on his own.”

  Høgni shifted to avoid eye contact. “I was in Tórshavn,” he said. “Till the last ferry.”

  “So, not with Finn.”

  Høgni Joensen looked at the floor and shook his head. “No,” he said dully.

  15

  I WOKE LATE AND STIFF. MY SHOULDER HURT MORE THAN IT had for a while and I took a couple of ibuprofen with my coffee. A glance from the window on the upstairs landing had shown me that Fríða’s car was gone.

  I waited till nine thirty, which seemed like a decent time, then dialled the number for Rói Eysturberg listed on the Føroya Tele website. After our last, somewhat stiff conversation I wasn’t sure that Eysturberg would be up for another. He was retired now, but still had an innate copper’s caution about giving away more than you have to.