Daybreak

by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson

  “Did you aim at the guy?” Gunnar asked.

  “Yes, well, no—only really up in the air. The range was so far. Should I not have done that?”

  Gunnar took time before answering. “It’s not an unnatural reaction,” he finally said.

  “I didn’t know what else to do,” the man said weakly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gunnar said. He tried to smile reassuringly, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

  “Do you mind if I keep the shells from your gun? They will help us in the forensic investigation.”

  Ragnar nodded. Gunnar got out of the car and walked toward the body. A circle of yellow plastic tape had been placed on the ground around it at a radius of twenty meters. Birkir was standing nearby, talking on his cell phone. The deceased was clad in hunting gear that looked, it occurred to Gunnar, almost identical to Ragnar’s description of the murderer’s attire. Not that it meant anything. Camouflage was the current fashion as far as hunting clothes were concerned, and most hunters dressed the same. Gunnar looked down at himself, dressed in similar gear. He looked more like the victim on the ground than a detective at a crime scene.

  “Goddamn bad luck,” he said, walking over to Birkir. “We were so close to him this morning.”

  “It’s not over yet,” Birkir replied, still holding the cell phone to his ear. “We could still catch him. I’m sure that he’s around here somewhere.”

  Gunnar surveyed the surroundings. The dry, tussocky ground was uneven and impassable by car except for the track they had taken to get here. The killer must have trekked some distance on foot to get here and back. Perhaps Birkir was right; perhaps he was still on the move somewhere nearby.

  Birkir finished his call and said to Gunnar, “They’re sending a helicopter and more men with dogs. The SWAT team will come with the helicopter. I think we may catch him this time.”

  “We can’t let him get away again,” Gunnar said.

  “I don’t think it’s possible for him to hide, especially if he’s driving. The cops at the roadblocks will be stopping all traffic going south or north, searching vehicles, and recording names. And getting everyone to explain where they are going.”

  They surveyed the scene in silence. Finally Birkir said, “The Super asked where we’d been this morning.”

  Gunnar looked at him. “What did you say?”

  “I did some beating around the bush.”

  “Was Magnús happy with that?”

  “I think so. We got here reasonably early, after all. We’d have been later if we’d come all the way from Reykjavik after the call out.”

  “Good. If he asks again we’ll say it was a field trip—we were timing the drive to the Dales and checking when it gets light here. You with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.”

  “When?” Birkir asked.

  “Eh?”

  “When did it get light this morning?”

  Gunnar looked at his watch. “About six, wasn’t it?”

  “Possibly.”

  “That’s it, then. We’ll time the drive on the way home,” Gunnar said.

  Birkir was looking at the body. “One thing is bothering me,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “This time the Gander hasn’t cut out his trophy patch from the jacket.”

  Gunnar thought about this. “Maybe he got scared and beat it when he realized there were two hunters. The witness says he fired a shot at the killer before he took off.”

  “I’d say it’s very unlikely the Gander got scared,” Birkir said. “But maybe he tried to give chase.”

  “In that case the victim’s son-in-law had a lucky escape,” Gunnar said.

  “Perhaps.”

  12:30

  Any mail that arrives at Reykjavik police headquarters is opened immediately by a filing officer, who catalogs the content and assigns an appropriate case number for reference purposes. The filing officer also scans every document electronically so it can be processed in the local network; sends the original to the archive for filing; and then e-mails the relevant people to notify them that they can access the information on their computers. Over the years, this well-established protocol had proven to be a robust and secure system for managing all police department business. Every weekday delivery by the Iceland Postal Service was received by the filing officer on duty in the same brisk, efficient manner. Personal deliveries included. The mail never arrived on weekends. Or almost never.

  On this particular Sunday, some mail did come: a brown envelope was slipped through the mail slot next to the entrance. The slot was rarely used, as the door was never locked and there was always a policeman on duty just inside. The envelope went unnoticed until an officer passing through the main entrance saw it and picked it up. It was addressed to “Detective Division, Violent Crime Unit.”

  The cop shrugged. He was on his way out to the kiosk to buy cigarettes after his lunch, and as he was somewhat late, he put the envelope on the desk of the duty officer who usually received personal deliveries. The envelope sat there for two hours because the duty officer was swamped helping organize things out west; he’d been charged with calling the owners of all of the summerhouses in the district to get permission to carry out interior searches.

  By three o’clock things were easing off, and the duty officer finally noticed the envelope. He pondered it briefly, and then wrote “document archive” under the address and placed it in the tray for internal mail pickup.

  17:00

  The whole team was gathering in the incident room, which had been set aside for the investigation. The photographs from crime scenes one and two posted on the wall had been moved closer together to make space for the pictures from the third scene. Magnús had organized the images with painstaking care.

  “There will be no more bodies,” he said. “The justice minister has banned goose hunting for an indeterminate period. This situation cannot be allowed to continue.”

  He drummed the table with his fingers. His nerves were beginning to fray. “Things are getting crazy,” he added.

  “In that case we’ll have to hope that the Gander doesn’t develop a taste for other types of animals,” Gunnar said, and he tried to stifle a yawn. He hadn’t slept for about thirty-six hours, and it was beginning to show.

  Birkir was last to enter the room. He carried a large map.

  “Anything new?” Magnús asked. Birkir had been reviewing the search in the Mýrar area north of Borgarnes, where the old man had been killed in the early-morning hours.

  “No.” Birkir shook his head as he pinned the map on the wall opposite the photographs. There was ample space there, next to a large map of Iceland.

  “We’re still watching the roads up there and will continue to do so until we decide otherwise. The Borgarnes sheriff is in charge of the Mýrar area,” Birkir said. “Our helicopter flew over the region today, and traffic was under constant surveillance. The police are now visiting all the farms in the area to ascertain the movements of people in the area over the last twenty-four hours. They are also searching the summerhouses.”

  Birkir hesitated briefly and then added, “I’m afraid, however, that he’s gotten away, unlikely though it may seem.”

  The room fell briefly silent; disappointment was etched on all of their faces. Everyone’s hopes for this search had been high.

  Magnús broke the silence. “What were his possible escape routes?”

  Birkir pointed to the map, which covered Borgarfjördur and Mýrar; it was large scale and showed the area in detail. He said, “If the guy is driving, there’s only one possible getaway route—a track that runs along Langá River and joins Route 1 at Galtarholt.” Birkir traced the track with a finger. “There wasn’t any watch on this intersection until an hour after the call out. But the track is very slow, with many fences and gates that need to be opened. The helicopter was deployed over there as soon as it arrived in the area. They didn’t see any cars on the track, and all the gates were
closed.”

  “Could the Gander have escaped on a motorcycle?” Gunnar asked.

  Birkir shrugged. “He would have been spotted from the helicopter if he’d been anywhere around. There was no sign of a motorcycle.”

  “On foot, then?”

  “If he’s on foot, he could easily still be hiding somewhere—the witness said he was wearing camouflage. But then we’d need to explain how he got there. There is, actually, one line of inquiry we could follow here. I checked today and found out that the control system in the Hvalfjördur tunnel photographs all the traffic that passes through. When the sensors detect movement, the cameras are activated. The pictures from last Thursday and from this morning are being copied for us. They’ll let us know when they’re ready, and then I’ll send a car to pick up the discs.”

  “Are license plates visible in these pictures?” Magnús asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the whole point.”

  “So we can see if anybody was tailing Ólafur last Thursday? Or the pair from Reykjavik this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent. This might crack the case.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay, so what do we know today that we didn’t know the day before yesterday?” Magnús asked. Not waiting for a reply, he answered his own question. “The Gander is very dangerous and reckless. He seems to have detailed knowledge of the goose hunting areas in the south and west, and is capable of making quick getaways after the killings. Anna, what can you tell us?”

  Anna stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “The ammunition used in all the murders is ordinary number two bird shot. That in itself is strange, since the killer is so focused on carrying out attacks specifically designed to kill people. It would make much more sense for him to use larger shot, or simply a powerful rifle. The conclusion must be that he doesn’t have access to another weapon or to heavier shot. Maybe he doesn’t have a gun license and isn’t able to buy larger-caliber shells. In that case, he must have acquired a shotgun with ammunition illegally, perhaps in a burglary. He uses what he has on hand.” Anna sat down again.

  “He’s certainly a marksman, though,” said Gunnar.

  “What about footprints?” Magnús directed his question to Anna.

  “We have no pictures of prints yet. In Dalasýsla he seems to have tidied up after himself. As for the second killing, we’re still waiting for the soil to dry out a bit more so we can examine that area better. In Mýrar the surface was too hard for any footprints to show.”

  Magnús drummed his fingers on the table while he pondered the matter. “We also have those lists of names to think about,” he said. “If there’s a link between the Gander and the victims he should feature there. We’ll have three lists after today. Maybe four, if we include the guy from Akureyri. Hopefully there’ll be an overlap somewhere.”

  “And we need to investigate Tómas, the lawyer, some more,” Gunnar said.

  Anna coughed. “I’ve checked his guns. They don’t match the shells we found at Litla-Fell.”

  Birkir said, “Besides, I bet he’s got an alibi for this morning. His wife is back home now.”

  “Are you sure?” Gunnar asked.

  “Yeah, she was at home last night.”

  “How do we know that?” Gunnar said. “He just yelled something into the apartment. We never saw the woman.”

  “In that case, what weapon did he use?” Birkir asked. “We removed his guns yesterday.”

  Gunnar said, “Guys like him have no problem getting their hands on firearms. Don’t forget that the Gander took Ólafur’s gun. Could be that Tómas has a cache somewhere else, but only let us see those ones. Decoys.”

  19:00

  Detectives Dóra and Símon were given the task of visiting Tómas to ask about his movements that morning. If he had been in bed with his wife, he was probably out of the picture. It was as simple as that. But they would need the wife to confirm his story.

  On arrival at the high-rise, Símon did the talking over the intercom, and again when Tómas admitted them to the apartment and showed them into the study.

  “Where were you between five and eight o’clock this morning?”

  Tómas looked at Dóra as he answered, “Here at home, in my bed.”

  “Can your wife confirm that?” Símon asked.

  Tómas was silent.

  “Was your wife not at home?”

  “She decided to stay with her sister.”

  “So you were alone, then?”

  Tómas said nothing.

  “Did you go out at all?”

  “I was not alone.”

  “Was someone with you who can testify that you were at home?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Who?”

  “Helga.”

  “Your mistress?” Dóra asked.

  “That’s too strong a word. More a bit of fun when there isn’t anything else around.”

  “Did she come here on her own initiative?” Dóra asked.

  “No, I called her when my wife left.”

  “Why?”

  Tómas shrugged. “She was available. I have a very strong libido. Period.”

  “Where is Helga now?”

  “She left at noon.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “Probably home. I didn’t ask.”

  Suddenly this conversation made Dóra feel sick.

  “What a douchebag,” she said quietly, as if to herself—although Tómas clearly heard her, and his face went white.

  “Who do you think you are?” he hissed. “You’re just a police bitch who knows nothing about me. I don’t forget language like that.”

  “Great. Then you’ll remember you’re a douchebag,” Dóra snapped back.

  Tómas took a step closer to her and said, “I think you’re just envious of Helga because of what she gets from me. I’m free tonight, if you take a bath first.”

  Dóra looked Tómas up and down before replying. “I saw the video footage from Helga’s bedroom. I couldn’t see that you were particularly talented. It was all rather predictable and boring. Certainly nothing that would inspire envy.”

  Símon glared at his colleague and then turned apologetically to Tómas.

  “Thanks for your assistance.”

  19:30

  Birkir stopped by the headquarters of the security company, where he introduced himself to the supervisor on duty and showed his police credentials.

  “I need some information about one of your staff members,” he said. “Jóhann Markússon.”

  The supervisor tapped the name into his computer.

  “He is not on duty at the moment,” he said.

  “When did he work last?”

  “He was on the night shift yesterday.”

  “When did that finish?”

  “Eight o’clock this morning.”

  “Where was he working?”

  “He was driving. They go all over.”

  “The gas station at Ártúnshöfdi. Is it on his route?”

  The supervisor tapped on the keyboard some more. “Yes. He goes there once a night to check the security system. They’re open twenty-four hours, and it needs careful monitoring.”

  “Does he always go to the same places?”

  “No. We move the staff around regularly.”

  “Could Jóhann have left his shift a bit early this morning?”

  “Before eight o’clock?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. We’re always in contact with the vehicles, and he finishes here. Returns the car and files his report.”

  “That’s completely certain?”

  “Yes. There would have been an entry in the daily log if he had left earlier. That only happens in emergencies. Illness, that kind of thing.”

  After this interview, Birkir went home.

  He was exhausted after a long day that had delivered nothing apart from a third body and still more questions. He had also shot his first goose, of course, but tha
t was not in his thoughts at all.

  He didn’t want to go to bed just yet but didn’t know what he wanted to do. There wasn’t even any reason to press his pants, because he had never changed out of the clothes he’d had on for their early-morning hunting excursion. His suit was hanging neatly in its place, ready for the following day, pressed and clean. He considered jogging a few kilometers but decided not to; it wasn’t worth the trouble when he felt this tired. He hardly ever watched the television in the living room, and he certainly didn’t feel like it just now. He decided to listen to some good music.

  He put a CD in the player—Evening Adagios—and gazed through the window at the now dimly lit yard. It was a still evening, and a satisfying tranquility reigned outside; the trees were vibrant with fall color. As the music of Debussy, Barber, and Rodrigo resonated through the apartment, he began to feel somewhat better.

  He thought about the murders. Three in four days, and the team was getting nowhere. He doubted that the lists of names would bring any further results. It could be the killer knew some of his victims personally—but certainly not all of them. Somebody was trying to confuse them. He sensed it. The killings were not logical and yet they were, somehow, carefully planned. He worried that there was some terrible madness behind this. Clever madness, if such a thing existed. They would not catch this murderer unless he wanted to be caught. Extremely sharp detective work was probably the only hope. Or a lucky coincidence.

  Birkir tried to form an image of their opponent, a complete picture of the killer that might help him to focus. A picture he wouldn’t have to rationalize or explain to everyone else. He went over the components one by one.

  Age? The killer was definitely not very old. Unlikely to be over forty. Probably about thirty.

  Physical abilities? At the very least, he was reasonably athletic. And he was tall, according to the description the Mýrar witness had given.

  Psychological characteristics? Restless, excitable, not necessarily quick tempered.

  Interests? Either an experienced hunter or a fanatical conservationist. Or neither.

  Previous crimes? No criminal record, surely. Perhaps he had a case history with a psychiatrist.