Cold Steal (32 page)

Ívar Laxdal allowed himself a wintry smile. ‘I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect too much, Gunnhildur. Don’t expect too much.’

‘I’m hoping that this isn’t the start of a feud between the local underworld and the Baltic villains. That really could be a nightmare.’

Ívar Laxdal nodded sagely. ‘A shame we can’t just sit back and leave them to it, isn’t it?’

Orri’s car was nowhere to be seen, but Eiríkur was pleased to see that Lísa’s car was parked outside the brooding block of flats.

‘You’re from the police?’ she asked in surprise. ‘Why? What do you want with me?’

‘You live here now?’ Eiríkur asked, ignoring her question. ‘I have your address as Stafholt nineteen?’

‘Yeah, well. I still live there, but I’m here a lot of the time.’

‘You recognize this?’ Eiríkur asked, showing her a picture of the green fleece and its distinctive yellow logo.

‘Yeah. I used to have one like that.’

‘Where did it come from?’

‘A riding club I used to belong to before I moved to Reykjavík. Kjölur. It’s near Selfoss.’

‘And where’s the jacket now?’

‘My boyfriend wears it mostly,’ she said with a twitch of her lips. ‘I, er . . . I lost a lot of weight after I moved to Reykjavík and it was just too big for me. You know?’

‘So now Orri Björnsson wears it instead?’ Eiríkur asked.

‘If you already know, then why are you asking me?’

‘How long has he been wearing this fleece, would you say? A couple of weeks? Months?’

Lísa stared at him in confusion. ‘Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’

Eiríkur looked at her closely. He could make out the tiny scar on her lip where she had once worn a ring through it.

‘It’s been identified in connection with a crime. So how long has Orri had this fleece to wear?’

‘I don’t know. A few months. When the weather started getting cold after the summer.’

‘September?’

‘Something like that.’

‘How long have you known him?’

‘A couple of years. A little longer, maybe. Why are you asking me all this stuff? Is Orri in trouble?’

‘What are his movements like? Does he have regular habits? Do you know where he is all the time?’

Lísa’s lip curled in anger, while inside there was the nagging reminder that no, she frequently had no idea what Orri was doing or where he was, and then there were the mysterious texts and phone calls that Orri carefully kept to himself.

‘We lead our own lives. I don’t own him,’ she snapped.

‘So he keeps regular hours, does he? Tucked up in bed by midnight every night?’

‘If he’s working the next day, yes. He starts at seven, so he has to be gone by six thirty.’

‘He drinks? Smokes? Takes drugs?’

‘A glass of wine or a beer sometimes. He doesn’t smoke and he certainly doesn’t do any drugs.’

‘You’re very sure.’

‘I’ve been practically living with him for long enough,’ Lísa said coolly. ‘There’s an old boyfriend of mine who had trouble in that respect, so I think I’d recognize the symptoms.’

Eiríkur closed his notebook. ‘I’d like to take a look round the basement.’

Lísa shrugged. ‘The key’s on the hook by the door. Help yourself.’

‘You’d better come with me.’

Jóhann woke with the dawn light creeping through the half-open door. He felt chilled to the marrow and faint with hunger, regretting not having made the effort to carry more of the dried fish with him from the abandoned farmhouse. It took him a while to drag himself to his feet and his legs felt weak.

Outside the hut the fresh breeze made him shiver. He wondered what the time was, and then wondered what day it might be. The last day he remembered before waking up on a bed of straw had been Friday, but he had no idea how long he had been out cold there. One day, or two? No more than two, he decided, and then tried to work out how many days he had been at the farm before walking away from it.

He knew he could hardly be far from the sea, as a producer somewhere had taken the trouble to fill those racks with fish for drying, so somewhere not that far away had to be a harbour with fishing boats, but how far? Not far for a truck or a car could be an impossible distance for a starving man with leaking shoes. He had no idea how far he had walked the day before, but it felt like a million miles. His legs ached, both from the unaccustomed exercise as well as from malnourishment, and he forced himself to face the fact that if he did not find help today, then his chances of survival were probably as good as zero.

Jóhann wondered briefly what he looked like and ran a finger over the stubble on his face. He tried to remember the last time he had started a day without shaving and smiled as he realized that Sunna María would hardly recognize her husband after only a few days without access to all the usual luxuries they took for granted.

He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He switched it on and watched with excitement as it started up. The screen appeared for a couple of seconds, the phone buzzed, flashed a warning signal and switched itself off, but in that moment he had seen that the time was just after seven and that he was within signal range. He couldn’t be that far from civilization, surely? But which way?

The day was greyer even than the day before with spitting drops of rain from spent clouds that had emptied themselves overnight, leaving the road outside the hut running with red water thick with dust. He turned round slowly, trying to gauge through his cracked glasses where the sun might be behind the grey, and decided that uphill would again be the most likely direction as he set off, his shoes immediately filling with water.

Lísa pulled on a shapeless sweater with baggy sleeves longer than her arms and went down the stairs, her wooden clogs clicking on the concrete. The ground floor flat’s door opened a whisker and an eye peered out as they passed.

‘Nosy old bitch,’ Lísa muttered to Eiríkur, just loud enough for her voice to carry.

In the basement she opened the storeroom and stood in the doorway with her arms folded while Eiríkur went through the drawers of the dresser, examining the old trinkets, worn-out tools, an obsolete computer and even a pile of ancient schoolbooks.

Lísa shuffled her feet after a while. Eiríkur opened all of the cardboard boxes in a stack and found nothing but old clothes and shoes.

‘It’s his mother’s stuff,’ Lísa said. ‘I’ve never understood why he doesn’t throw it all away.’

‘She’s dead, right?’

‘Yeah. A long time ago. He was quite young.’

‘He doesn’t talk about his upbringing?’

‘What are you, a psychologist?’

He stepped out of the storeroom and let Lísa lock it and pocket the key. ‘No, but I’m trying to get a picture of a person who is much more complex than he might appear on the surface. That’s all.’

She went up the stairs, arms still folded and Eiríkur followed behind.

‘Is there anything else?’ Lísa asked as they stood in the lobby by the mailboxes, making it plain that she had no desire to answer any more questions.

‘No, that’s everything for now.’

‘So Orri’s in the clear now, is he?’

The ground floor flat’s door had been left ajar and Eiríkur jerked his head towards it. ‘I’ll be in touch if there are any questions,’ he said and pulled open the heavy outside door just as someone else pushed it from the other side. An elderly man with a stick and a carrier bag came in, rain dripping from the brim of his hat, which he tipped to them both as he passed.

‘G’day.’

‘Morning.’

The man stopped on the third step and turned stiffly. ‘Lísa, my dear, would you ask Orri to come and have a word with me when he’s in from work?’

‘Yeah. No problem. He should be back around four today.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ the old man said, already on the next step up. ‘It’s just that we need to settle up for the store that he rents from me downstairs.’

‘Excuse me, what did you say?’ Eiríkur asked as Lísa’s jaw dropped.

Eiríkur and a uniformed officer stood under a single dim bulb by the storeroom with the elderly gentleman who was still wearing his hat. Lísa stood by the stairs, her arms folded tightly around her and a bewildered frown on her face.

‘You’re telling me you knew nothing about this?’ Eiríkur demanded.

‘Of course not. That’s Orri’s storeroom there,’ she said, pointing with an arm that did not extend beyond the end of her sleeve at the storeroom they had already examined twice.

‘And this one?’

‘Hell, I don’t know. That’s between Orri and . . . ?’

‘Steinar,’ the old man said politely. ‘Steinar Atlason at your service,’ he added with exaggerated old-fashioned courtesy, looking at Lísa with a twinkle in his eye. ‘And you are?’

‘You know who I am,’ she retorted.

‘What’s the story, Eiríkur?’ Gunna asked, appearing in the doorway and not delighted at being called to Orri’s basement storeroom again.

‘It seems that Orri has more than one storeroom down here. This gentleman says that now he’s a little unsteady on his legs, he doesn’t use his storeroom any more and he actually rents it to Orri, which Orri conveniently forgot to tell us about.’

‘Your young man is quite right,’ Steinar chipped in. ‘I can’t get about like I used to, so my son cleared my storeroom out and this young lady’s husband asked if he could use it. For a consideration, of course,’ he added. ‘Now you’re not going to tell the minister of finance about this arrangement are you? To my mind he wastes enough taxpayers’ money as it is and I’ve no intention of giving that young fool any more.’

‘Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with us,’ Gunna assured him. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d open the door.’

‘I can’t. Orri put his own lock on there.’

‘Lísa, do you have the key?’

‘There isn’t one.’

‘No key?’ Eiríkur said.

‘If you look carefully, you’ll see that’s a combination lock,’ she said with a sour expression. ‘And no, I don’t have a clue what the combination is. You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves,’ she said over her shoulder as she made for the stairs, her arms still wrapped around her.

‘This is definitely your storeroom?’ Gunna asked old man.

‘It is.’

‘You have any objection if we look inside?’

‘Well . . .’ Steinar Atlason looked uncertain. ‘It’s young Orri’s belongings that are in there, so it would be wrong to open it without his permission as well.’

Gunna scratched her head and wanted to bark at Eiríkur.

‘It’s up to you,’ she said. ‘If this gentleman agrees, then you can get an angle grinder and have that lock off right now.’ She saw the uniformed officer brighten at the chance of doing some damage. ‘Or you can seal the store now, fetch Orri and get him to open it in your presence, which might be a better way of going about things,’ Gunna said, turning to leave them to it.

‘But now I’m going up there for a word with Lísa, and to make it clear to her that calling Orri right now to tell him the law’s on his doorstep isn’t a helpful move. Let me know what you find in there.’

‘I let Bára go,’ Sunna María said. ‘I don’t feel I’m in any danger.’

‘It didn’t occur to you to let us know that you’d dispensed with your protection?’

‘No,’ she replied crisply. ‘I don’t feel there’s any hazard to me. I don’t need protection in my own house, thank you. But what I’d really like to know is what you’re doing to find my husband.’

‘Without knowing where to look, it’s not easy to mount a search,’ Gunna said. ‘And I recall that a few days ago you weren’t worried about your husband and didn’t seem keen on the idea of the police looking for him. Do you maybe know something now that you didn’t yesterday?’

Sunna María stared back at Gunna blankly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said finally. ‘The last few days have been . . .’ she paused as if looking for the right word. ‘Stressful in the extreme. If I gave the wrong impression, then I certainly didn’t mean to.’

Her phone rang and she stalked to the desk below the window of the long living room to snatch it up.

‘Yes,’ Gunna heard her snap. ‘Just get on with it. All right, another four per cent is acceptable, but that’s my last word. You know how far behind schedule all this is already?’

Gunna looked out of the window and watched as a mixer truck pulled up. The driver got out and lit a cigarette. A cloud of cement dust seemed to envelop him as he stood and waited. A man in blue overalls appeared and they both looked through a handful of documents, gesturing and pointing animatedly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sunna María said without any apology in her voice. ‘Things are getting busy and there’s a lot to be doing.’

‘The construction work?’

‘Yes. The house that’s weatherproof is for someone else but I’m acting as the owner’s agent. The other one’s ours. Work stopped last year when it started to get cold, but it’s warmer now so they can get to work on the foundations.’

‘Another one to let?’

‘Or sell. It depends on the market once the roof’s on and the windows are in.’

Beyond the construction site along the street, white horses danced on the sound between Kópavogur and Gardabær.

‘I’m wondering why work is starting just now, with your husband missing.’

Sunna María drew herself up and opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself and thought. ‘It has taken a while,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ve been negotiating with the contractor for weeks. The original construction company went bankrupt at the end of last year, so I had to find a new one, and they finally started on Friday.’

‘And the finance?’

‘I have enough to keep business afloat, thank you.’

‘Who’s this guy?’ Gunna demanded, unfolding a sheet of paper she had taken from her pocket while Sunna María was on the phone and pointing to an indistinct passport photo of a hawk-faced man with swept-back hair looking at the camera with amusement from behind a bristling old-fashioned moustache.

‘I . . .’

Gunna watched Sunna María’s confusion, determined not to miss anything she might let slip in her surprise.

‘I’ve really no idea.’ The moment’s hesitation told Gunna more than Sunna María had wanted to let slip. ‘Why? Who is he?’