Chilled to the Bone (17 page)

Leaving the flat, Gunna felt its windows glaring at her back, certain that Hermann would be dropping her card into the bin and trying to forget that he had ever seen her.

B
ADDÓ FOUND THE
internet confusing. Since the two mustachioed gorillas had delivered him to Kåstrup and a flight
to Iceland, he had seen many differences. The world had changed. Reykjavík had gone from a wayward child with too much cash in its pockets to a surly, suspicious teenager wary of receiving another hiding like the last one, but slowly becoming bold again.

He had noticed how construction had stopped, although that shiny square box of an opera house where the fish market had once been took him by surprise. Unlike the boisterous city of the boom years when the place was awash with money and the nightlife continued past dawn and into the next day, Reykjavík had a brooding presence now, as if it was waiting patiently for the good times to roll again. Not that Baddó had much time for the suited yuppies who’d taken the cash and run; what amazed him was that so many of them were able to go about their lives without being assaulted.

Nothing had surprised him for long, although it was still a shock to see how little his money would buy these days and it hurt to see his sister struggling to put food on the table for the two of them, refusing to take his money while he wasn’t earning anything. The internet had changed the most. After the years that he hadn’t had access to it, it now seemed that half the world could be found online and much of the world seemed to have disappeared inside a computer screen.

He typed in the letters Haraldur had given him—a stupid-sounding name, he thought, but what the hell? personal.is opened gradually on María’s old computer, although as far as Baddó was concerned, it was impressively fast.

It was a simple enough format, like a dating website, he thought, while wondering how it paid for itself. Users were either pink or blue, for men and women, Baddó guessed, and he clicked on one at random. As the profile appeared, and with it a picture, he instinctively looked over his shoulder to check María wasn’t watching, even though he knew she was at work. He read that Kitten70 had a passion for horses and the
outdoors, and while she was looking for the “right one” to fill her tummy with butterflies, she wasn’t there for the taking. The profile picture showed a three-quarter view of a well-built woman from chin to midriff in a flowery, low-cut dress that left little of her physique to the imagination. CityGirl’s and RannaH’s profiles told him that men old enough to be their granddads weren’t tempting, while Baddó nodded appreciatively at HotXHot’s profile, which told him she appreciated the charms of a financially secure older man or even a professional couple.

Getting somewhere now, Baddó decided.

Noticing a search box in one corner, he typed in “Sonja” and waited until four profiles appeared. Looking at the pictures accompanying the SonjaSoy and 92Sonja, he discounted them immediately as teenagers. TinySonja gave her age as 30 and, as there was no picture, he read through the profile that described a quiet lady who combined a love of literature and music with an adventurous side; he wondered just what she meant by adventurous. Sonja2 made him shiver as there was an out-of-focus picture showing a foot tied with a scarf and the bold statement that Sonja2 preferred to be in charge. He read through the additional information, which told him she would message on MSN and his picture would get hers. Then there was a string of lettering that Baddó finally figured out was a cleverly coded email address.

At the top of her profile, he also noticed that Sonja2 hadn’t been online for several days. He wrote a quick message in the box that personal.is provided as he clicked on the “contact” button and filled in the brand-new email address that María had set up for him, creating a user profile of his own at the same time. Baddó sat back once the message had gone and scrolled down to the rest of Sonja2’s profile, where at the bottom of the page he found a row of thumbnail pictures under a “similar to” banner.

Ten minutes of browsing showed him that Bella specialized in discipline, Portia also liked to be in charge, while Lolla made no bones about her preference for submissive men who “enjoy a little pain.” Baddó winced at the idea. He thought of himself as an old-fashioned sort of character, and while he wasn’t of the opinion that a woman’s place was confined to the home, he drew the line at women having too much control and the thought of a woman delivering pain went against the grain. On the other hand, the porn that some of the better-connected prisoners at Kaunas had access to showed the strangest aberrations, and the fact that some of his fellow prisoners clearly relished aspects of the discipline was something that was alien to him. Like Portia, Bella, Sonja and Lolla, Baddó preferred to be in charge.

He closed personal.is without any curiosity about what else might be found there and checked his new email address, was not surprised to see no messages waiting for him, and he shut the computer down as he heard María’s key scrape in the lock.

“
Hæ
,” she greeted him, kicking off her shoes and sinking into the flat’s only armchair. “Had a good day?”

“Not bad. You’ve been busy, though.”

María groaned and released the bun that held her grey-shot hair in place at the back of her neck, allowing it to escape over her shoulders.

“That’s so much better,” she sighed. Lifting one foot and then the other into her lap to massage her toes. “So what have you been up to? No joy on the job front, I don’t suppose?”

“Well. A little job has come up.”

“Legal?”

“Let’s say it’s not illegal, depending on how I go about it,” Baddó said, casually pushing what had happened to Magnús Sigmarsson to the back of his mind.

“And you’re doing it legally?” María asked, wide awake now, her tone sharp. “I don’t want to be visiting you in prison again.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve just been asked to follow someone and keep an eye on their movements. It’s okay, and it’s cash, so I can contribute to the bills.”

“That would be very welcome.” She yawned as her defenses dropped. “I’m starving and I can’t be bothered to cook anything.”

“That’s all right. I had some cash up front, so I can treat you for once. Thai or Chinese?”

“I
T
’
S THE SECOND
shower she’s had today,” Laufey said quietly.

Something sizzled in the frying pan as Steini prepared dinner and a sudden aroma of spice filled the house as an extra ingredient was added to the pan.

“Really?” Gunna said, disappointed that the shower was already in use when that was just what she felt in need of. “How is she, do you think?”

Laufey changed the channel on the TV for the 19:19 news bulletin that Steini would want to see and turned the sound down.

“I can’t tell. She seems happy enough, and then five minutes later she’s in tears again. What’s that all about?”

“Ach, I expect you’ll find out one day, young lady. It’s not easy with your body doing weird things and your hormones running wild.”

“It can’t be that hard, can it?” Laufey said, brows knitted.

“Like I said, you’ll find out one day and I expect you’ll come to me and tell me how tough it all is.”

“Yeah. But not for a while,” she said as the bathroom door opened and Drífa emerged, swathed in towels. “I mean, she’s like, only twenty.”

“So? I was sixteen when Gísli was born.”

“Well, I knew that. But you’re …”

Gunna laughed. “Well, I’m what?”

“You’re tough. One of those people who just fights their way through, aren’t you?”

Gunna thought back to the hard years following Laufey’s father’s fatal accident, when she’d found herself a single parent for the second time.

“Ladies!” Steini called from the stove. “Is she out of the shower yet?”

“Only just,” Laufey called back.

“Five minutes. Lay the table, someone, please.”

“Do I have time for a shower?” Gunna called.

“Only if you get in it right now and you’re out in double quick time.”

“In that case I’ll eat first,” she called to Steini and dropped her voice to continue the conversation with Laufey. “Try not to be harsh on her. It’s not easy and she’s got herself into a real mess.”

“You mean Gísli’s got her into a mess, don’t you?”

“Careful, sweetheart. It takes two to tango,” she said, levering herself off the sofa. “If you call Drífa, I’ll lay the table.”

A
FTER A HALF-HOUR
delay, during which she tried to pretend a cheese roll and rough coffee were a worthy substitute for breakfast, the first flight of the day to Iceland’s northern town of Akureyri swooped low over the long fjord leading to the town. Gunna wondered how it could be gloomy and wet in Reykjavík while the sky was clear and studded with stars north of the mountains.

A giant of a man in uniform met her at the airport’s arrival gate with a grin on his face.

“
Hæ
. Remember me?”

“Andrés? I wondered if it was you when we spoke on the phone yesterday,” Gunna said, looking up into the open face of a man who would never be able to keep a secret. For once, she had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him as he loped out of the terminal to the squad car outside.

“How have you been keeping, then? Been here in Akureyri since you graduated?”

“Yup,” he said as the car juddered over the rutted track between piles of cleared snow a meter deep on each side. “Graduated the year after you, wasn’t it? Came up here and been here ever since.”

“It snows up here a bit, then?”

“Just a bit. But you’re used to that, aren’t you?”

“Was. It’s been a while since I last saw any proper snow. We don’t get much of it in Reykjavík.”

“But the place still grinds to a halt when there’s an inch of snow on the ground.” Andrés laughed.

“This guy I’m meeting, do you know anything about him? Anything you can tell me in advance?”

Gunna admired what she could see of the scenery with an hour or two before there would be any real daylight. Akureyri wasn’t a place she was familiar with, other than for a few camping holidays with the scouts, which had involved much car sickness on long-distance buses before flying became affordable, although she had always thought of the town as a peaceful place.

“There’s not much I can tell you,” Andrés said, slowing down to drive through the town and down to the dock area where Haraldur Samúelsson had his office. “He doesn’t have a police record, not even a speeding ticket. From what I hear he’s a decent character, runs a business importing forklift trucks and hydraulic equipment. There’s a small workshop there as well and I suppose he employs half a dozen people. He does Lions Club, football club, all that kind of stuff. Never had to have any dealings with him at all. His wife’s a teacher and my missus knows her slightly. Nice enough lady, she says. That’s it. Nothing to tell, really.”

“Very odd,” Gunna said. “Most people have something or other, even if it’s only a parking fine.”

“Not this guy. Apparently the tax office put him through the wringer a year or two ago, and he came up out of that smelling of roses. That’s unusual, not even a bit of black money.”

“Shame. Gives me not a lot to go on.”

“There is one thing, though,” Andrés said, his face darkening.

“His son’s a piece of trouble, not that he lives here any more, I’m pleased to say. Sammi’s a long-term addict, been in and out of rehab half a dozen times, but never lasts more than
a few weeks before he’s back on something. He has convictions for theft, breaking and entering, all that sort of stuff. Nothing violent, just quick money stuff. I don’t know what you’re after, but maybe it could have some bearing on it?”

Gunna yawned. The 5
A.M.
start after spending too long talking through things with Drífa was taking its toll already.

“I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure that Haraldur Samúelsson hasn’t done anything himself, at least, nothing serious enough for me to pry into his comings and goings. But he was robbed not long ago by someone who seems to have stiffed him pretty badly and that’s who I’m trying to track down.”

“He didn’t report it?” Andrés asked in surprise, drawing up outside an industrial unit.

“Quite the opposite. He’s anxious
not
to have it looked into, but as the person who robbed him may also be a witness to something more serious, he’d better tell me what he knows. By the way, do you think Haraldur Samúelsson would have known Jóhannes Karlsson? He’s from here, isn’t he?”

“The dead trawler owner? Green Jói? He was from Húsavík. But I’d assume they’d have known each other.”

“Why Green Jói?”

Years ago he had two trawlers that went to Poland for refits. While they were there, the shipyard workers stole so much of the green engine-room paint that the story goes you could tell which houses in Gdansk the shipyard guys lived in because the roofs were painted engine-room green. He still had enough left over to paint the roof of his office and store, as well the engine rooms of both trawlers.”

“So, Green Jói,” Gunna chuckled as she opened the car door, eyeing the anonymous industrial unit with a modest
HS EHF
in rust-red letters on its signboard.

“Give me a call when you’re done here and I’ll pick you up,” Andrés said as she shut the door.