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see your home, parents, friends, all that stuff.’
    ‘Finished, ladies?’ Valmira asked, appearing in the doorway.
    ‘Almost,’ Natalia replied. ‘I’m just finishing polishing the mirror and Emilija’s busy with some old bastard’s shitstained toilet. Apart from that, we’re almost done.’
    Emilija used her shoulder to push from her eyes a strand of hair that had come adrift.
    ‘Hey, Vala. When did you last get to go home?’
    Valmira looked at her sideways with disquiet.
    ‘What do you mean? Home?’
    ‘You know,’ Natalia said, jumping neatly down from the granite slab and wiping off the marks her trainers had left. ‘Home. Yugoslavia. The place you lived in before.’
    ‘This is home,’ Valmira said shortly. ‘I’ve never been back and I don’t intend to,’ she added sharply before leaving the room.
    ‘Not a good question,’ Emilija said quietly.
    Natalia scowled. ‘What did I say?’
    ‘It’s sensitive. Valmira had a bad time, what with the war there and everything. She was in hospital a long time when she was a kid. Didn’t you know?’
    Natalia flushed the toilet and gave it a final squirt of bleach. ‘Hell, no. I didn’t know that. I don’t know her as well as you do.’
    ‘I don’t know much either. I don’t ask and I don’t think she wants to tell. But she lost some of her family in the war; I don’t know what happened to Valmira, but she was hurt, anyway. So now you know.’
    ‘She won’t be upset, will she?’
    Emilija shrugged. ‘A few minutes, then she’ll be OK again. Don’t worry.’
    ‘Is that why she’s alone? No boyfriend, no husband?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Emilija said with a shake of her head. ‘There’s an uncle and some cousins. That’s it. I’m not even sure she’s ever . . . You know.’
    ‘Played hide the sausage?’
    ‘Yeah. That’s it. Not that she wouldn’t want to, I reckon. But Valmira has a few big problems in that department. Best not to ask too many questions. Come on. Let’s get this finished and we can pack it in for the day.’
     
    ‘Would anyone have wanted to do Vilhelm harm? Anyone you can think of?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Saga had hardly moved and her voice was toneless. ‘There must be plenty of people who would have happily broken his nose, but I don’t imagine they would have gone as far as killing him. But someone did, I suppose, and I don’t really know what sort of thing he was getting up to in Russia and Lithuania.’
    ‘Any business partners?’
    ‘Not really. Not any more. Villi was solo more or less, as far as I know. Not that he told me too much.’
    ‘All right, is there anyone in his business circles who might know more?’
    ‘Try the assistant. She might know who he was in bed with.’ Saga leaned forward and extracted a cigarette case and a lighter from a handbag at her side, camouflaged in the same leather as everything else around her. ‘Apart from her, that is. Although maybe not. The assistants tend to be decorative rather than useful.’ A lighter clicked like a pistol and she sent a plume of smoke up into the sterile air. ‘But if anyone knows, it’ll be his friends. The few he had left, that is.’
    ‘Names?’
    ‘Elvar Pálsson, Sunna María Voss. Those are the ones he seemed to take care not to piss off too much. I suppose a man needs to hold on to a few friends.’
    A pale face appeared in the doorway and a girl in her early teens appeared. Gunna saw the same sharp cheekbones and thin lips as Saga’s, but framed in a younger face.
    ‘Mum?’
    ‘Not now, darling. I have to talk to this lady.’
    ‘About Dad?’
    ‘Yes, dear. About your father.’ The last word dropped from Saga’s lips like a curse.
    ‘Are you going to find the person?’ The girl asked, looking at Gunna.
    ‘I hope so. We’re doing our best.’
    The girl nodded and withdrew, apparently satisfied with Gunna’s answer.
    Gunna wrote down the two names. ‘Elvar Pálsson?’
    Saga nodded slowly.
    ‘And Sunna María