Chilled to the Bone (31 page)

“Ah,” Hinrik said with a slow smile. “So what’s this computer you’re talking about now?”

Jóel Ingi’s stomach lurched as he realized he’d said too much in the heat of the moment. “You fool. You fucking idiot. Forget that stupid laptop. I’ve been tailed and watched for the last month, and do you imagine for a second that you haven’t been as well? This is poisonous, you stupid thug. Anyone who’s had anything to do with me is going to get hauled in and you can take it from me that none of us will get a slap on the wrist and few months in an open prison.”

“Get away, will you? Don’t try and sell me this kind of crap. This is Iceland, not some stupid fucking mafia country.”

Jóel Ingi’s hand, still on the table where it had landed, began to tremble. “You think so? I’m telling you. This goes way beyond anything you might think, and there are people with reputations and influence to protect who aren’t going to let anything stand in their way, least of all a deadbeat pusher who thinks he’s some kind of big shot.” He sneered. “When you wind up dead in a ditch, d’you really think anyone’s going to shed a tear, or even look too hard for whoever did it?”

“Wha—? What’s going on?”

A heavy-faced woman appeared at the kitchen door, her eyes puffy and her hair tousled. Jóel Ingi eyed her with alarm as she shuffled into the kitchen and let water gush from the tap into a grubby glass. As she drank he saw with alarm a lurid home-made tattoo across her shoulder, emerging from the gaping arm hole of the vast sleeveless shirt that was obviously the only thing she was wearing.

“Why don’t you go back to bed, Ragga?” Hinrik suggested.

She belched and sat down on a stool as she rummaged through a drawer. “Pills,” she said. “My head feels like it’s been under a truck.”

Hinrik put his hand up to a shelf and picked up a packet of painkillers, which he tossed to her, his mind ticking over at the possibilities that Jóel Ingi had unwittingly revealed. He had assumed the man had wanted to find someone so he could
administer a beating, but it seemed there was more to it, maybe something that could turn out to be profitable. Ragga caught the packet and snapped four pills from it, throwing them down her throat and gulping the glass of water to wash them down.

“Shit,” she moaned, holding her head in her hands. “Must have been a good time last night. I don’t remember a thing.”

“You had a good time, I assure you,” Hinrik said. “Ragga, we’re talking business here.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Leave us to it for a while, will you?”

“I know, I know. I’m going to take myself back to bed like a good girl.”

She hauled herself to her feet and padded out of the room. Jóel Ingi felt a flickering of excitement in spite of himself at the sight of heavy legs and muscular shoulders as Ragga scratched and yawned on her way out. She stopped in the doorway, blew a kiss and belched before vanishing. Jóel Ingi could hear the sofa in the next room creak and a mutter of sound as the TV clicked on.

Ragga’s arrival had broken Jóel Ingi’s concentration. He could feel anger dissipating and being replaced by a wave of fatigue. He dug his fingernails into the palm of his hands and thought of everything he had worked towards; it was all about to be lost because of a stupid indiscretion.

“I want that woman’s address,” he snarled, feeling the anger return. “Otherwise I’ll have some really unpleasant people coming after me, and I’ll make damn sure they come after you as well.”

T
HE BAKERY WAS
full. Baddó stood in the queue with his parka hood down but with a scarf swathed around as much of his lower face as he could manage. The bakery wasn’t big, but the quality of its Danish pastries and the easy parking outside meant the place did a roaring trade in the mornings.

Not in any hurry, he watched from one of the tall tables at one side, sipping coffee and idly flipping through yesterday’s
DV
newspaper. He watched people lining up to get to the counter, tracking them as they left their cars outside and made their way in through the doors to buy their lunchtime sandwiches or a mid-morning snack.

It’s just as well Iceland’s such a safe place, Baddó thought. In mainland Europe, or practically anywhere else, people would be careful about the wallets and phones hanging out of their pockets.

He moved into the queue at the counter, one eye on the array of pastries on display but another on a young man in a knitted jacket with gaping pockets. He stood there deciding what to buy, a bunch of keys clearly visible in his cavernous pocket.

An orange-faced girl standing next to him looked blankly at the same display, a handbag slung over her shoulder, popping gum as she waited in the queue. He could sense her impatience growing behind the incongruous midwinter tan as her gum popped rapidly three times.

“In a hurry, are you?” Baddó asked and was rewarded with a blank stare and a nod. The rattle of something cheerful breezed out of the iPod earpieces in sharp contrast to the bored look on her round face as she shuffled past him. Baddó took a short half step to one side, letting her brush against his coat as he smartly dipped into the handbag and came out with a set of keys that vanished into his parka’s sleeve.

He slipped out of the bakery and clicked the fob. Looking around for flashes, he saw the hazard lights of an anonymous mud-brown Hyundai wink as he pressed the button a second time to make sure. As he drove away, Baddó caught a glimpse of the girl emerging from the bakery with a bag of Danish pastries in one hand, rummaging in her capacious handbag for keys that were no longer there.

T
HE OLD LADY
had sat stiffly on one of the plastic chairs in reception for half an hour before a uniformed officer showed her into the interview room.

“Have I done something wrong?” she asked as Gunna sat down opposite her. “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time?”

“Not at all. Quite the opposite,” Gunna assured her and turned in her chair to call back the uniformed young man who was just about to close the door behind him.

“Hey, before you go,” she called after him, “since we kept this lady waiting for so long, how about you bring her a cup of coffee?”

“We don’t normally …” he began before Gunna cut him off firmly.

“It’s not every day that someone takes the trouble to come down here and give us information. So two coffees, please,” she instructed. “Milk?” she asked the elderly lady who sat with her handbag clutched in her grasp.

“Yes, please,” she said and finally let slip a glimmer of a nervous smile.

The door shut, although the young officer’s disgruntlement could be felt through it.

“My name’s Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and I’m a CID officer. My colleague has given me the gist of what you came in here to tell us, so now I need you to tell me the story again,” Gunna said. “But first, could you tell me your name?”

“I’m Sigurlín Egilsdóttir but everyone calls me Lína. I live at Háaleitisbraut eighty. It’s a block of flats and I’m on the ground floor on the right.”

“Thank you, Lína. My colleague who should be bringing us a cup of coffee told me you saw an incident last night. Could you tell me what happened?”

“Well. I came in and there were some men fighting in the entrance. Three of them. Two of them were hurt, I think.”

“And when was this?”

“It was just before seven yesterday evening. I’d been shopping and took a taxi home as it’s too far too walk in this weather.”

“And what happened?” Gunna coaxed.

“I opened the door to go in the entrance, as usual, and I was surprised that it wasn’t locked. But as soon as I opened the inside door I could see what was happening. There was one man on the floor and two others trying to beat him up. He had a cut on his face and there was blood.”

“Did you recognize these men?” Gunna asked, opening a folder and putting a picture of a rather fresher-faced Ásmundur Ásuson in front of her. She stared at it.

“He looks like the young man who ran away,” she said slowly.

“And this one?”

A fatter Hólmgeir Sigurjónsson than the one waiting in a cell glared out of his mugshot.

Lína nodded. “Yes, I saw that man as well. Those are the two who ran out of the door past me.”

The door opened and the uniformed officer appeared with two mugs of coffee and a small carton of milk.

“Thanks,” Gunna said, giving him an approving smile as he sidled out. “Now, Lína. These two, they were attacking a third man?”

“I think so but I’m not really sure,” the old lady said, and Gunna could see her marshalling her thoughts. “The man who was on the floor, the one who’s face had been hurt, was María’s brother. But this young man was injured as well,” she said, pointing at Ásmundur’s deadpan portrait. “There was a puddle of blood all along the floor. I could see him bleeding as they ran past me. He was limping and making a lot of noise.”

“Who is María?”

“She’s the girl on the top floor. When I say girl, she must be
your age, but she looks young to me. She said her brother had been overseas for a long time and had come back to Iceland after many years; he’s staying with her while he looks for work.”

“Top floor on the right? Do you know the brother’s name?”

The old lady shook her head. “No. He did tell me, but I’ve forgotten. He was hurt, too. He had his hand over his face. He said he was all right, but I could see it was bleeding.”

The door creaked open again and Gunna looked around to see Eiríkur’s face peering around.

“Chief. Can I have a word?”

“Excuse me a moment.” Gunna pushed her chair back and went outside. “What is it?”

“The number you wanted tracked,” Eiríkur said quietly. “Siggi said it popped up ten minutes ago, made one call that wasn’t answered and another that was, then switched off.”

“To unregistered numbers, I expect?”

“Got it in one.”

“Any location? Háaleitisbraut, maybe?”

Eiríkur looked at Gunna with a new admiration. “How did you know?”

“Looked in my crystal ball before I came to work this morning. I want you to get in a squad car and take three beefy uniformed people with you. Háaleitisbraut Eighty, top floor on the right. But first find out who lives there. It should be a lady called María, but we’re after whoever’s there with her,” Gunna rattled off.

“Okay, chief,” Eiríkur said, keen to get out of the building.

“Eiríkur.”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful. By rights we should get the special unit out for this, but I want it done quietly and without any more fuss than is necessary. Don’t go being a hero. This guy might be nasty. Understood?”

“Gotcha.”

“Good. Let me know.”

Back in the interview room Lína sipped her coffee. She looked at the picture on the desk and then at Gunna. “Have you found him?”

“Who?”

“The young man,” she said, pointing to Ásmundur Ásuson gazing blankly from the ten-year-old police mugshot. “And is he all right?”

“We’ll find him and I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Gunna assured her, not wanting to tell Lína that Ásmundur Ásuson’s remains were cooling in the National Hospital’s mortuary.

S
HE SUCKED THE
loose tooth and gingerly placed a finger against it. It shifted slightly under pressure. Although it felt awkward, like a foreign body, the tooth felt firmer than when the dentist had pushed it back into position, tutting his disapproval.

The van was cold and there was something living in the back amongst all the boxes of junk with a familiar smell that she had no intention of looking into, but it seemed a better place to sit than in the Renault. She had cleared a tiny patch of snow from the windscreen to get a better view of the house, an old red one clad with sheets of steel that had faded from a cheerful blue to match the color of the winter sky that was starting to appear.

Opening the passenger window, she listened for noise and watched for movement. She pulled off her woollen ski hat and ran fingers through her thick fair hair, stopping gingerly to finger the bruise on the side of her head. The black eye hadn’t turned out to be as bad as she’d expected, just a shadow under one eye instead of the discolored patch she had expected to see and which would have taken weeks to fade.

She admitted to herself that yesterday had been a mistake.
Following Jóel Ingi into that bar had been the right thing to do, but asking after him had been a wrong move. As for asking for the toilet and using that as a pretext to scout around the Emperor’s dark inner recesses, well, that had been a real lapse of judgement.

A smile appeared on her face as she watched a light click on in one window of the flat where she knew Hinrik lived. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake after all? It had been a painful and unpleasant experience, but at least it had prompted the man into making a mistake. It had showed her without a doubt that Hinrik Sørensen and Jóel Ingi Bragason had something in common, and she wondered which of them owed a debt to the other.

It was a while before Jóel Ingi left the apartment, pacing across the car park to the smart Audi that stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the parked wrecks. She shrank back in the van’s passenger seat, hoping he wouldn’t see into the shadows beyond the windscreen’s coat of grime and snow. As he walked along the side of the van and hammered at it with one fist, setting off a dull echo inside, she managed to get a clear look at him in the van’s wing mirror, which had been angled carefully for just that reason. She wasn’t surprised to see a look of furious tension across his otherwise handsome face.