The Killing Bay

by Chris Ould

  “No, go ahead,” Mikkjal told him. “I’ll be a while yet.”

  * * *

  Dánjal Michelsen knew very well that sometimes, once they’ve passed the point of acknowledging a truth, people will talk as if a tap has been turned on. Finn Sólsker wasn’t like that, however. What he said came as slow droplets, one at a time, forced through tightly sealed valves. Whether it was shame or the scrutiny that bothered him, Dánjal couldn’t tell. At a guess it was somewhere in between: perhaps the embarrassment of a strong man having to confess to a weakness, to the fact that he had no control over certain things, and that one of them was his feelings for Erla Sivertsen. Dánjal had had no such feelings for the woman he’d been unfaithful with, but he understood just the same.

  After more than an hour and a half Dánjal called a halt. Until then he’d been reluctant to pause in case the slow trickle of information dried up altogether and couldn’t be restarted, but by the end of that time he knew as much as he needed. He had taken each drop of Finn’s explanation, examined it, questioned it and finally he had enough. If Finn Sólsker had killed Erla Sivertsen then Dánjal was going to quit CID and go back to traffic.

  Once Finn had been taken to the holding cell with a coffee and a sandwich, Dánjal quickly collated what had been said and went to find Remi Syderbø. He didn’t look to see if Ári Niclasen was back yet, nor did he care. He hoped Ári had been given sick leave for a week – or better, two.

  In the office next to the incident room Remi took a seat as Dánjal stood by the whiteboards.

  “Finn admits the affair,” he told Syderbø. “It had been going on for the last four or five weeks.”

  “No surprise there,” Remi said. “So what about Saturday night?”

  “He says Erla called him at just after seven on Saturday night to say she’d be on the next ferry: that’s the 19:15 from Gamlarætt. She had her car and they arranged to meet at a layby beside route 30 next to Norðara Hálsavatn lake. Finn says he was there first and when Erla arrived she left her car and he drove them up the track towards the sheds at Hamarspjalli. He parked in a sort of old quarry pit.”

  “So they couldn’t be seen from the road?” Remi asked.

  “I guess so. I don’t know the place, but on the map it looks secluded and it would have been dark by then.”

  Remi squinted at the timeline on the board. “So that would be what – about eight o’clock? Maybe a bit before. How long does he say they were together?”

  “About an hour. They had sex – outside, he says – and afterwards they talked in the car. He says Erla wanted to get the nine thirty ferry back from Skopun because she had some photographs she needed to edit and put up on the AWCA website. He also says they had a bit of a row about that. Maybe ‘row’ is too strong a word for it: ‘disagreement’ was the word he used. He said that she was helping the Alliance tell lies about the grind on the website rather than showing the truth. She disagreed.”

  Remi considered that for a moment. “It’s not the strongest of motives to kill someone.”

  “No, well, he says that when he took her back to her car in the lay-by and she went off for the ferry he thought they’d parted on bad terms. He sat around thinking about it, then after a few minutes he went after her. He caught up with her in the car park before the ferry arrived and they walked to the harbour and made up. Then the ferry arrived and Erla got in her car and drove on board. He says that was the last time he saw her. After that he drove out to Sandur and spent a few minutes on his boat before going home just before ten.”

  “Hold on.” Remi shifted. “Why did he go to the boat? If he was at the ferry quay his house was just up the road.”

  “I asked him the same thing,” Dánjal said. “Eventually he admitted it was so that when he got home he’d have engine oil on his hands as if he’d been working on the boat.”

  “Right. The alibi for the wife.” Remi frowned and looked at the timeline again.

  “What does he say about her coat being in his shed? How does he account for that?”

  Dánjal shook his head. “He can’t. Like before, he says he has no idea how it got there. He claims Erla didn’t go near Sandur that night and he’s positive she had the coat with her when she left him because it was raining and she’d put it on to walk round the harbour.”

  Remi rubbed the side of his chin. “You know what Ári would say if he was here, don’t you? The Prosecutor will say the same thing.”

  “Yeh,” Dánjal said flatly. “That he could still have killed her between eight o’clock and ten and taken her body to Húsavík.”

  Remi nodded. “We’ve got nothing to prove that she was on the nine thirty ferry back to Gamlarætt, and the fact that her car was found in the car park at Skopun suggests she never left the island. And Sólsker’s also admitting they had an argument.”

  “Yeh, I know,” Dánjal said. He could sense the balance of Remi’s opinion shifting. His decision now was whether to go with the flow or to say what he thought. He said, “The thing is, though, why would Finn mention an argument if it wasn’t true? He must know it wouldn’t help his case, so why raise it? He’d say everything between them was fine, wouldn’t he?” He shook his head. “No, to me it rings true. And there is an alternative.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  Dánjal rifled through a folder and came up with a sheet of paper: a print-out of the Strandsfaraskip ferry timetable. Four sailings were highlighted in orange. “If Erla did get the nine thirty ferry as Finn says, then she’d have been back in Tórshavn about ten fifteen. So, if she was killed at some point in the next hour – between, say, ten and eleven thirty – it’s possible that someone could have taken her body back to Sandoy on the last boat at eleven forty-five.”

  Remi assessed the times for a moment. “Okay, just say you’re right. That would mean the killer would have been stranded on Sandoy until the first ferry on Sunday morning. And on top of that, who would he be? We either have Finn Sólsker, who was having an affair with Erla and could have had any number of motives for killing her, or we have nothing: no other viable suspect; no one who even looks suspicious.”

  “Maybe not yet. But how far have we looked? Since Ári—” Dánjal broke off, corrected himself. “I mean, once Finn looked like a suspect we didn’t really consider anyone else, did we?”

  He fell silent. For several seconds Remi didn’t meet his eye, but instead seemed to run over the points on the whiteboards again, as if matching something to them in his head. Finally, though, he drew a dissatisfied breath and looked at Dánjal.

  “So you don’t think Finn did it.” A statement, not a question.

  Dánjal shook his head. “No.”

  Remi’s lips tightened. Then he stood up. “All right. I need to talk to the Commander. In the meantime we can hold Finn on the assault charge: that’s good till tomorrow.” He turned towards the door. “Don’t wander off, I might want you. And don’t discuss this with anyone else, okay? And I mean no one, understood?”

  44

  BY THE TIME MIKKJAL GODTFRED HAD FINISHED COLLECTING samples and examining the undercroft it was well past midday. And because he wanted to get back to Tórshavn to start on his report as soon as possible, Mikkjal said he’d go with the private ambulance that had arrived to transport Justesen’s body to the mortuary. It left Hentze free to do as he pleased, and given his need for coffee and something to eat he drove straight to Fuglafjørður and Muntra, the restaurant overlooking the harbour.

  As he’d hoped, there were several occupied tables – mostly men from the boats or the harbourside businesses. One or two were familiar to him and he exchanged a few nods and greetings as he passed, but didn’t engage in conversation.

  With a plate of beef stew and a stick of bread, he settled himself at a table by a window and ate hungrily for several minutes, interspersing that with sips of coffee. Then, with his immediate requirements satisfied, he finally allowed his gaze to wander around the restaurant. As he’d hoped, this didn’t go unn
oticed and one of the men he’d acknowledged earlier took the opportunity of passing his table to stop and make conversation. Shortly afterwards a second man joined them and before long there were three, with others listening in from nearby.

  News of the fire at Múli was already common knowledge, as – inexplicably, but unsurprisingly, too – was the fact that the body found there was believed to be that of Boas Justesen. So it didn’t need more than an indication of interest from Hentze for his fellow diners to offer their thoughts on the matter, and on Boas Justesen’s life. This wasn’t speaking ill of the dead, as all the contributors to the conversation were keen to point out, but in view of such an unusual circumstance, there was clearly a justification for candour, especially to an officer of the law.

  Hentze sipped coffee and listened. Not much else was required. The consensus was that Boas Justesen had been an unfriendly and disagreeable man who, over the last forty years, had somehow managed to fund both his drinking and smoking without any regular or serious appetite for work.

  Of course, at nearly sixty-five he’d been too old for work now, but even so there was some speculation about how he’d managed to go for so long without any visible means of support. Perhaps his money came from renting out the land around Múli to Eyðun Thomsen; but maybe that hadn’t been enough, given that Boas had recently moved into the undercroft of his house so he could let out the upstairs to a young couple who couldn’t afford better. And over the summer there had also been a rumour that he was planning to sell the land out at Múli, which had made Eyðun Thomsen worry about his hay crop.

  When all the gossip and stories were taken together, the general opinion was that if a fire hadn’t killed Boas then a drunken fall into the harbour or a crash in his car would have been just as likely to do it. And furthermore it wasn’t expected that his only known relative – a niece from Eiði – would be too upset by his passing. Why would she be? As far as anyone knew she’d had no contact with the old man for twenty-odd years, and wouldn’t she inherit? Even at Múli, land was land, and no one could turn up their nose at that, especially if it came to them free.

  There was nothing like a touch of envy to keep gossip alive, Hentze decided as he finally left the restaurant and walked back to his car. Though by the sound of it, there had been little to envy about Boas Justesen.

  * * *

  He found Justesen’s house easily enough, identifying it as much from its rundown appearance as from the number. It was raining quite heavily now and Hentze pulled up the hood of his jacket as he walked up the path to the door of the undercroft, then knocked. He waited for a moment, hoping no one would answer, because if Boas Justesen himself opened the door it would present him with a new set of problems. But no one answered, and when he tried the door handle it opened. Does a man who is thinking of suicide bother to lock his door when he leaves? Perhaps not.

  Inside there was gloom and the stale smell of cigarettes and beer. Out of habit Hentze pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and searched for a light switch. When he found it he looked round at the untidy and uncared for apartment and then started to search.

  The best he could hope for was a suicide note. That would simplify things greatly, but amidst the discarded newspapers, utility bills and other detritus there was nothing that was a final farvæl. Too much to expect, perhaps, from a man who lived amongst chaos and had no one to whom he’d address such a note.

  In the back corner of the room an unmade single bed was piled with unwashed laundry and next to it the door to a small bathroom stood half open. The smell was enough to indicate the state of the facilities, but Hentze had seen worse and he wanted to be thorough so he went in and looked round to find it much as he’d imagined. The only difference was an unusually large number of pill bottles and blister packs – some empty, some not – arrayed on a sheet of chipboard over the stained bath.

  For the most part the names of the drugs were unfamiliar to Hentze. A few, like codeine and diclofenac, were obviously for pain relief, but the rest could have been anything. He debated for a moment, then took out an evidence bag and collected half a dozen. He would ask Elisabet Hovgaard what they were.

  Back in the main living room he took one last look around. It was a depressing sight; a dismal legacy to leave the world. When he went he wanted to leave things clean and tidy at least. But perhaps that wasn’t something you were ever given a choice about. No doubt Boas Justesen would have preferred to leave the world with people thinking well of him, rather than simply envying the person who might inherit his land. But there again, maybe Boas Justesen hadn’t cared. The evidence of his house would seem to suggest not.

  There were no keys to the door that Hentze could find, so he simply closed it behind him as he left.

  * * *

  “I’d like your opinion on whether we should still go ahead with the murder charge against Finn Sólsker,” Remi Syderbø said. He’d had to wait for over two hours to get this meeting with Andrias Berg and so he’d had time enough to decide to get straight to the point.

  Berg was chewing an antacid tablet. “Of course,” he said with a nod. “I thought that was already decided.”

  “It was,” Remi acknowledged. “But I’m having second thoughts. Sólsker’s finally given an account of his movements and confirmed he was having an affair with Erla Sivertsen, but despite that he still maintains that he didn’t kill her.”

  Berg made to speak but Remi pretended not to notice. “It’s also been pointed out that if we take Sólsker’s account at face value – i.e. that he saw Erla leave Sandoy on the nine thirty ferry – then it’s clear that she must have been killed on Streymoy.”

  “Possibly,” Berg said, “but why should we take what he’s said at face value? Is there anything to corroborate his account? More to the point, why’s he gone until now without telling this story when – if it’s true – he could easily have told us two or three days ago? Is it just because he knew we’d finally got DNA evidence to prove he had a relationship with the victim?”

  “I’m sure he wanted to keep the affair quiet,” Remi said. “But that alone doesn’t give us a motive for murder. In fact, as far as I can see, the main reason he was so conflicted about the whole situation was because he was in love with her instead of his wife.”

  Berg’s expression was one of distaste. “Yes, well, we’ve all heard of cases where someone is supposedly in love with their victim but has still killed them. A row, a moment of anger… And by the sound of what happened to Ári Niclasen, Sólsker does have a temper.”

  Remi Syderbø wasn’t sure whether Berg’s pursuit of this tangent was deliberate or not, but he knew the Commander well enough to recognise the signs of impatience.

  “Well that may be true,” Remi acknowledged. “But all the same I think we should allow him at least the benefit of the doubt. After all, the case against him is still circumstantial. I’d feel more comfortable about charging him if we were sure there weren’t any other viable scenarios – especially as we may not have been given all the facts by some people.”

  Berg shifted. “If this has come from Hjalti Hentze…”

  “It hasn’t,” Remi said. “He’s out on a fire investigation at Múli at the moment. He hasn’t even seen the forensics report. He refused to look at it, in fact. Whatever you said to him yesterday obviously had an effect.”

  Berg wasn’t convinced. “So you’ve taken up his cause instead?” Again the look of distaste as he reached for another indigestion tablet.

  “Is there a cause?” Remi Syderbø asked, although he knew it sounded disingenuous. “Isn’t it just a matter of making sure that we know all there is to know, rather than just pursuing the easiest course?”

  “So what are you asking for?”

  “I’d like to talk to whoever Erla Sivertsen was working with or for in the national security service and to find out if they know anything about her movements on Saturday night. Do they know if she went back to Streymoy as Finn says? Did she meet with them? When was th
e last time they saw her? At the moment it feels as if we’ve simply ignored someone who may have important information.”

  Berg shook his head and leaned forward. “They haven’t been ignored. I’ve spoken to the people concerned and I’ve been assured that they can’t give us any relevant information.”

  “Can’t because there isn’t any, or because they have their own reasons for saying nothing?” Remi Syderbø made an open gesture. “You can see my problem here, in terms of a full and proper investigation. I understand the need for discretion – well, actually, I’m not sure I do – but it seems to me that we can’t tell whether we’ve been told all the facts, or whether information is being withheld because it suits some other purpose.”

  “What other purpose?” Berg fixed him with a suspicious look.

  “I don’t know,” Remi shrugged. “I don’t know why there are security service people here at all, but they must have some reason. They must be doing something.”

  But Andrias Berg had clearly had enough. “That’s not your concern,” he said bluntly. “And regarding Finn Sólsker, if the Prosecutor’s office hasn’t raised any new concerns then I’m happy to go along with their original recommendation to charge him. Unless there’s direct evidence to say we shouldn’t. Is there?”

  “No,” Remi admitted. “Only what I’ve said.”

  “All right then. So let’s stop chasing phantoms. It’s as if the whole of CID has started seeing trolls in broad daylight. Let’s just get on with the job, all right?”

  “Of course,” Remi said with a nod.

  But as he headed back to the stairs he wondered just how he could get on with the job when – even in broad daylight – it was hard to believe, let alone trust, the assurances of people who might not even officially exist.

  45

  THE TRIP HENTZE MADE TO EIÐI IN SEARCH OF BOAS JUSTESEN’S niece was fruitless. It turned out that the niece was in Copenhagen with her husband. Her neighbour provided this information, along with the niece’s cellphone number, and Hentze managed to speak to her while she was walking along a street in Strøget.