Summerchill by Quentin Bates Page A

did Signý, straightening her back and sweeping the fair hair away from her face as she looked at the ceiling. Helgi could see her eyes were heavy with tears and he hoped she wasn’t going to cry.
    ‘I don’t suppose you got any counselling, either, did you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Of course not. You don’t get counselling for falling down the stairs. Whereas if you’d been the victim of a violent attack, then you would have got all the help you could ask for.’ He leaned forward. ‘Come on, Signý. Tell me what really happened.’
    She shuddered briefly, closed her eyes and twined her fingers together, palms outwards and stretched her arms until the fingers cracked.
    ‘I was in trouble and borrowed some money about two years ago. My relationship had broken up, my boyfriend had moved out and I was struggling financially. My job went to 60 per cent time after the financial crash and there just wasn’t enough to keep us properly afloat. So I borrowed some money instead of going bankrupt, which was the stupidest thing I ever did.’
    ‘I take it this wasn’t a loan from a bank? How much did you borrow?’
    ‘A million, and no, it wasn’t from a bank,’ she said bitterly. ‘The banks didn’t have any money to lend, or at least they said they didn’t.’
    ‘So you got a short-term loan from a shark?’
    ‘Yes. Someone my then-boyfriend knew. I paid the bills, bought food and got the car fixed. Perfect.’
    ‘But then the repayments started?’
    Signý nodded. ‘He wanted two million.’
    ‘Fuck. Two million? That’s insane.’
    ‘I know. By then I was back working full time again and I managed to pay back the original million, although it was a struggle. But then he said the interest had continued to grow and I still owed him two million. I couldn’t pay. I’d scraped together every penny I could lay my hands on and it still wasn’t enough. I even managed a bank loan, but by then he said the interest had gone up another million.’
    ‘So by this time you’d paid the extra two million and still owed another million on top?’
    ‘That’s it.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘I had a few of visits from . . .’
    ‘Stefán?’
    ‘The first time he was polite. The second time he broke every glass, cup and plate in the flat and said I had two days to get myself sorted out.’
    ‘The third time? Was that when he broke your arm?’
    Signý’s eyes flashed and Helgi was taken by their deep blue colour.
    ‘No. That time there was a suggestion that I could work off the debt,’ she said, and her voice trembled with anger.
    ‘On your back, I’d guess?’ Helgi said and Signý nodded with her lips pursed tight.
    ‘Exactly. He said I had forty-eight hours to think it over. He came back two days later and I told him to fuck off or I’d go to the police.’
    ‘And the response? I can guess.’
    This time Signý blanched at the recollection. ‘A couple of smacks and then I was on the floor with my arm twisted up behind my back until I heard it crack,’ she whispered. ‘Then he showed me a picture of my son and said he knew which school he goes to.’
    Helgi nodded. ‘I reckon I know the rest of the story. You went to A&E, and the police were called as you clearly hadn’t fallen down the stairs. Stefán was arrested and charged, then you withdrew your statement.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t dare do it any other way. I had a visit from another man. He said that if I withdrew my statement, then the debt would go away. If I went ahead, they still knew which school my son goes to.’
    Helgi opened his notebook and placed a print of Axel Rútur’s driving licence photo on the table. ‘This man?’ he asked, and Signý nodded.
    ‘Interesting. Our missing man,’ he said quietly.
    Gunna frowned at Helgi’s scrawled note on her monitor and screwed it into a ball, which bounced on the rim of the bin before falling into it. When Helgi appeared with a twinkle in his eye, she was deep in administration work and glanced up as he