Season of the Witch by Árni Thórarinsson Page B

forehead.
    “Thirdly, I shall, at least for now, give you the benefit of the doubt, because my friend Ásbjörn has vouched for you.”
    I find I am breathing more easily. “Aha. So you’re Ásbjörn’s friend on the force here?”
    “I know the two of you haven’t got on well over the years. So it just goes to show what a fine, honorable man he is, that he has asked me to show you as much consideration and understanding as possible.”
    I don’t know what to say.
    He glares at me again. “So what do you say to that?”
    “Excellent,” I reply with a smile. “I humbly thank you, and Ásbjörn, for your tolerance.”
    “Don’t thank me. Thank Ásbjörn. I’m turning a blind eye, primarily out of my regard for him.”
    “Were you childhood friends?”
    “We were classmates at the high school, and we soon became inseparable friends. I owe him a lot.”
    “Really? Like what?”
    Ólafur Gísli removes his spectacles and polishes them on the tail of his blue uniform shirt. “I wasn’t an outstanding student. Believe it or not.” Smirk. “I was more interested in girls and parties. I might well have flunked out, ended up in the gutter. I couldhave finished up on your side of this desk. But I could rely on my best friend, of course. It was Ásbjörn, really, who got me through my high school diploma. After that we went our separate ways.”
    “Shall we start over?” I ask, offering him my hand across the desk.
    He shakes it firmly. “Let’s,” he says, still smirking. “Ásbjörn warned me. He said you might push the envelope. But he also told me that you were to be trusted, if you gave a promise. That you aren’t as bad as you look.”
    “I must remember to thank him.”
    “I still can’t tell you any more at this stage than I have already about the search for Skarphédinn. But off the record, I have a bad feeling about this. Everybody seems to agree that he’s a responsible young man.”
    “Where are you searching?”
    “All over Akureyri and in the vicinity.”
    “And Skarphédinn doesn’t appear to have been home the night before last?”
    “We don’t know. But it’s definite that he isn’t in the apartment.”
    He stands up again, calm and composed his time. “Duty calls.”
    Before I leave, I ask: “The death of the woman who fell into the Jökulsá River. Is that being investigated at all?”
    He glares at me again. “Why do you ask?”
    I consider telling him about my phone conversation with Gunnhildur Bjargmundsdóttir. But I conclude that I must maintain confidentiality. I owe no loyalty to Ólafur Gisli. Not at this point in time—as he would say. “Just asking.”
    “We’re waiting for the autopsy results. It’s Easter, and people are on vacation and so on. We should hear after the weekend.But there’s no indication that it was anything other than an accident.”
    His parting words are: “Remember you’re not in Reykjavík anymore. Learn about your new surroundings. Even a bull in a china shop can learn to tread carefully.”
    In the deathly quiet of the
Afternoon News
offices, I’m starting to feel envious of the broadcast media, with their frequent news bulletins, not to mention the
Free Times
and the
Morning News
, which publish an Easter Sunday edition. But there’s nothing I can do about that. Sometimes the last are, in the end, last. I pick up the phone and call Reydargerdi Police Station. I ask for Höskuldur Pétursson, Ólafur Gísli’s fellow chief.
    “Speaking.”
    “Hello. This is Einar from the
Afternoon News
.”
    “Oh, yes. Hello,” he says, politely enough. But he sounds a little stressed.
    “So. Did I succeed in displaying responsibility without falsifying reality?”
    “It was all right. But the leader of the town council wasn’t particularly pleased about the picture of his son.”
    “So I suppose he would have liked me to soften the truth a little?”
    “I don’t know. Jóhann’s fond of the little beggar, naturally enough. Agnar isn’t