Chilled to the Bone (22 page)

Æ
GIR
L
ÁRUSSON WAS
fuming. There was no mistaking it, and Jóel Ingi could feel his heart pounding at the same time as he told himself not to be frightened of this ugly man with the bad hair and short legs.

“Explain, will you? How the fuck did this happen?”

“Well, it was back in two thousand and nine.”

“Before my time, you mean?”

“Exactly.”

“Before the minister’s time?”

“Of course.”

“So nobody thought to mention this, considering I’ve been sitting here for two long and miserable years surrounded by fuck-witted daddy’s boys in poncy suits?”

“Er …” Jóel Ingi mumbled, remembering Már’s adage as Ægir’s face went even redder. Don’t be scared of Ægir too much as long as he’s shouting. It’s when he goes quiet you should start to worry.

“You mean to tell me that that inquisitive journalist I just laughed at and told to go and screw himself was right on the money after all?” Ægir roared.

Jóel Ingi was thankful that the door was closed behind him for a change, although he was sure that every word could be heard in the corridor outside.

“Er, there may be some truth in what he said,” he mumbled. “But there’s nothing he can substantiate, I’m sure.”

“Something about a stolen laptop?” Ægir asked in a silky voice. Jóel Ingi’s blood ran cold suddenly and his fingers went numb.

“I … er, it was misplaced. I have someone working on locating it.”

“The police, or someone else?”

“Someone else. It’s a private investigation.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know,” Jóel Ingi ventured. “I don’t know who he is and he doesn’t know me or where I work.”

“Ah. That’s the first sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say. Sometimes it’s best not to know things. Such as I haven’t the faintest idea that you lost a ministry laptop containing sensitive information that would crucify the government if it were to come out.”

“It’s secure; password protected.”

“If it’s so secure, how did this kind of crap get out? And when I tell the minister it’s only hearsay when I speak to him in half an hour, can I be sure it’s only a foul rumor put about by the opposition to discredit the government?”

“Yes, I’m sure it could be that.”

“Well, I’m not,” Ægir said, his voice dropping so low that Jóel Ingi strained to hear. “To start with, the former minister, your old boss, is a young guy who needs a job and he expects to be in this politics business for a good few years yet. God knows, that brain-dead piece of garbage needs to stay in politics because he sure as hell can’t do anything else.”

Ægir’s face cracked into a smile and Jóel Ingi felt for a second that the man understood his predicament.

“But, that said, he’s a cunning bastard who knows better than to shit in his own nest. You get my drift? Look, Jóel Ingi, you’re a smart guy. Did well enough at the bank before you were clever enough to get out while the going was good. The government needs young men with good legal minds like yours,” Ægir said and Jóel Ingi’s brief warm feeling began to evaporate. “You’re a civil servant and you people don’t understand politics, do you? You just sit tight and wait
for a new man in the job, don’t you? Because that’s the way the game is.”

Jóel Ingi cleared his throat awkwardly, desperately wondering where this was leading.

“No, don’t answer that, because I know you couldn’t,” Ægir said without pausing. “But what happens is this. If something goes wrong, what we do is blame someone else. First we blame the previous government, of course, for landing us in this mess. And if that doesn’t work, we blame our officials,” he said, smiling, and slowly pointed a finger at the center of Jóel Ingi’s fluttering chest.

“You’ve been to Ikea often enough, haven’t you?” he asked, leaving Jóel Ingi mystified.

“Yes, why?”

“You’ve seen the guy in the paper hat behind the food counter, haven’t you?”

“Yes, of course.”

Ægir smiled his smooth smile again, transforming his ugly face into a visage of sincerity that any man would trust. “Because if you don’t get this fixed quickly and quietly, before I get any more questions from nosy bastard journalists, then that’s the only job that you’ll be able to apply for once you’ve been made redundant. If your personal fuck-up brings down the government and the minister, and results in an international outcry, then I’ll personally make sure that your future lies nowhere more glamorous than deep-frying fucking Swedish meatballs in the Ikea canteen. Clear?” he snarled, his voice rising once again to a menacing growl. He sat back and Jóel Ingi could see Ægir’s thin lips were white, pressed together in fury as a single blow from one clenched fist landed like a hammer on the desk in front of him, sending a picture in an ornate frame flying so that it landed on its back. The pretty, dark-haired woman in the photograph smiled at the ceiling.

“Now get the fuck out, and I don’t expect to see your stupid,
smug face anywhere near me again until you come and tell me that information is safe.”

S
ARA
’
S MOTHER SAT
tight-lipped, perched on a corner of the sofa while her daughter sobbed in an armchair, her face bloated. Her father stood behind her with his arms folded and a dour look on his face, as if he blamed Magnús for being stupid enough to get himself murdered.

“I have to say I didn’t think much of the lad,” he said, prompting a further outburst of sobbing from his daughter.

“Sara, I really need you to think back and tell me everything you can,” Gunna said, certain that there was little the distraught girl would be able to say with her parents in the room.

“Not that I’d have wished anything like this on him,” Sara’s father continued. “A pleasant enough lad, but no energy, I thought.”

“When did you last see Magnús Sigmarsson, Óskar?” Gunna asked. “You clearly didn’t have much time for the man, did you? What were your movements the night before last? Were you here?”

“No. I, er … I went out for a couple of hours. I had a class,” he floundered.

“And someone will confirm that, I hope?”

“Well, of course.”

“In that case, I’d appreciate it if you two would leave me and Sara to talk in private.”

Sara’s mother stood up stiffly to leave the room and her father grudgingly followed. Gunna could hear them go into the kitchen and stood up herself to shut the door firmly behind them. Sara sobbed and immediately collected herself.

“I’m sorry. Really sorry. It’s been such a shock,” she gulped.

“I get the impression your parents didn’t approve of Magnús?”

“They thought he wasn’t good enough.”

“So what was the state of your relationship?”

Sara dabbed her eyes and Gunna could hear a silence from the next room that told her the girl’s parents probably had their ears to the door.

“We had finished,” Sara said. “We had a flat in Grafarvogur, but then I lost my job a few months ago and we couldn’t really afford it any more.”

“So you moved back here? And Magnús?”

“Well. We were going to get a cheaper apartment.”

“The place that Magnús was living in, I suppose. Why didn’t you move in there with him?”

Sara twisted her fingers and looked down at them. “I was going to,” she said in a small voice, “but my parents were really against it, and I didn’t have any money, and they talked me into moving back home. So I did.”

“So you split up with Magnús and moved in with Mum and Dad? How did Magnús take it? Did you continue a relationship with him, or did you break it off?”

“Well, we stayed together, sort of …” Sara said and her words tailed off as she looked at the closed kitchen door. “I’d go and stay with him a couple of nights sometimes, but it’s a shitty place in a block full of immigrants, so I didn’t really want to go over there too often. People stare at you.”

“So Magnús came here?”

“Sometimes. My room’s downstairs in the basement and it’s self-contained. So sometimes I used to let him in through the back window and he’d stay until the olds had gone to work. But my parents really didn’t like him. Dad thought he was an idiot with no future.”

Gunna made notes; she was starting to wonder if Magnús Sigmarsson’s death could be related to events at his workplace, or if Sara’s father could be responsible. It was easy enough to pick up on the man’s clearly intense dislike for his daughter’s boyfriend, and she wondered if that dislike could have been enough to result in violence. Instinct whispered to her that
Óskar was a normal enough citizen, but common sense also told her that there was an aspect of the case that needed to be checked.

“Sara, when was the last time you saw Magnús?”

“A couple of days ago. He came here in the evening while the old folks were out and we were watching TV when they came in. Dad went nuts and was about to throw him out, but Magnús left right away and we talked on the steps outside.”

“What did you talk about?”

Sara sniffed and a new set of tears rolled down her plump red cheeks. “He wanted me to move in with him again. Or at least come and stay more often.”

“And what was your answer?”

“I told him I’d come and stay if he cleared his flat up and unpacked all the boxes in the hall. He’d been there more than a month and still hadn’t got around to unpacking.”

“How was he? Was he worried about anything? Nervous?”

Sara shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. He was upset because I didn’t move in with him after we left the old flat.”

“But not so angry that he didn’t come around and sneak in the window sometimes?”

“Well, yeah.”

“He didn’t talk to you about his work, did he? Nothing he was concerned about there?”

“No, I don’t think so. He was worried about money because he couldn’t afford the flat on his own and his friend Kolbeinn was thinking of moving in with him.”

“Kolbeinn? Who works at the Gullfoss Hotel?”

“Yeah. That’s him.”

“They worked together?”

“I guess so. That company moves people around all the time.”

“And have you worked there as well?”

Sara nodded, still looking down at her fingers, which were
twisted together in her lap. “That’s where we met. I was in the kitchen at the Harbourside for a few months right after it opened.”

“But you didn’t stay long?”

“No, I didn’t like it there.”

“And are you working now?”

“I’m a rep at AquaIce.”

“Which does what?”

“We supply water-cooler refills to offices, mostly. But it’s pretty quiet at the moment, so I’m only working four days a week.”

Gunna scanned her notes and listened to the silence from the kitchen, wondering if Sara realized that their conversation was probably being listened to.

“The last time you saw Magnús, what happened exactly?”

Sara took a deep breath and Gunna could see her collecting her thoughts. “Well,” she began, “he called me and asked if he could come around and I said yes, because Mum and Dad were out. We were in here when they came home and Dad hit the roof, said he didn’t want to see Magnús here again, and then Dad went out.”

“And how long did Magnús stay?”

“Not long. We talked on the steps outside for a while and I said I’d go and stay with him over the weekend. Then he got in his car and drove away.”

“You saw him drive away, did you? Which direction did he go in?”

Sara hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t think I saw him get in the car.”

“You didn’t look out of the window?”

“The last thing I said to him was that he ought to leave before Dad came back,” she said, dropping her head and howling.

E
IRÍKUR SMOOTHED OUT
the credit card statement on the counter in the exclusive goldsmith’s shop. There were five transactions on Jóhannes Karlsson’s credit card, one a cash
withdrawal for the maximum amount the ATM would dispense, followed by one at a clothes shop, one at a decidedly upmarket shoe shop and two at jewelry shops.

The elderly woman behind the counter eyed Eiríkur suspiciously and her disapproval could be seen behind a thick mask of makeup. She lifted a pair of glasses that hung on a chain around her neck and held them up in front of her eyes to examine the entry on the credit card statement.

“Well, that’s here,” she said dubiously. “But I don’t see what this has to do with the police.”

“We’re investigating a stolen credit card, and this may be one of the transactions on that card.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the woman snapped. “We would never serve anyone using a stolen card.”

“Even if you didn’t know the card had been stolen?” Eiríkur asked gently. “This transaction was only a few days ago. Do you know who served this person?”

“Of course not. This is a busy shop, you know.”

Eiríkur looked out of the window past the display of rings and necklaces, the gold gleaming against black velvet, at the practically deserted street outside as a truck with a snow plough on the front went past, scraping a layer off the road and piling it into a neat strip at one side.

“It doesn’t seem busy at the moment.”

The woman sniffed. “It’s early.”

“Look, were you serving on that day?” he asked, his patience starting to wear thin. “If not, who was?”

“This kind of thing never happened before these damned credit cards were invented. It was cash or check, and we only dealt with respectable people.”

“This may be awkward for you, but these things happen. Is there anyone else here? Can I speak to the manager?”

“I am the proprietor,” the woman said in a voice as icy as the wind blowing along the street outside.

“In that case, you must have issued a receipt with this transaction, and it seems unlikely that you don’t remember it, considering there’s no small amount of money involved—several hundred thousand krónur.”

The door at the back of the shop creaked open and a younger face peered around the door.

“Is everything all right?”

“Actually, no.” Eiríkur said, thankful to see a cheerful face that might be more cooperative, as his patience with the woman behind the counter finally evaporated. The younger face belonged to a middle-aged man in a pullover that looked as if it had been inherited. “This transaction,” Eiríkur explained as the man lifted a pair of glasses to his eyes. “Anything you can tell me about it?”