Frozen Assets (9 page)

She rose to her feet as the door banged behind him and, seething with suppressed anger, rinsed out her own mug and placed it carefully by the sink, ignoring Sævaldur's.

8

Wednesday, 3 September

03-09-2008, 2315

I'll be your back door man . . .

Maybe the government's hippest young gunslinger should be paying more attention to his über-fashionable old lady, as rumour has it that she's already signed up for a week's conference in Miami next month at the International Federation of Arse-Lickers and Bullshitmongers (known otherwise as the PR Practitioners' Guild). But is she going alone? Of course not . . . And why should she when there's a whole stableful of eager young hunks manning her office for her to pick from for a little companionship, just in case she needs a little manning herself?

So, in case you've popped by to read the latest — and we know that you have, guys — this is just to let the lucky stud know that he needs to stock up on some lube at the airport, as we hear the lady has some unusual preferences. Hmmm, tasteful . . .

Check back soon . . .

Bæjó!

9

Thursday, 4 September

A burst of sunshine broke through the bank of tattered clouds rolling in from the west and glinted first on the wavelets lapping at the harbour walls, and then on the blackened concrete of the crumbling quayside at the tiny village of Sandeyri.

Gunna leaned on the breakwater and puffed a Camel as two young officers watched a crane taking up position on the dockside. To her satisfaction, Sævaldur had still failed to extract a confession from Gústi but had charged him with an array of offences relating to Einar Eyjólfur's credit cards. Added to a morning's drive out to Sandeyri, this made the day a good one and she basked in the warmth of the autumn sunshine.

She was grateful for a brief respite in the routine at Hvalvík, where managing heavy traffic and relations with InterAlu were increasingly occupying her working hours even with the addition of Snorri to the station. Construction work continued at the new smelter at the far side of Hvalvík harbour and the long trucks taking earth movers and heavy gear had begun the trek up the Sléttudalur road to the new site that would become the Hvalvík Lagoon power station.

She looked down at the shimmering water, and what at first appeared to be the slick head of a seal among the miniature waves lifted itself from the water and hauled a mask up its face. The diver hung on to a rusting ladder and called up to one of the officers on the quay.

‘Going to be long?'

‘Two minutes.'

The diver nodded and waited patiently while the crane was jacked up on to its lifting plates and the jib lowered out over the water. As heavy canvas slings dropped to the surface, the diver pulled his mask back down and slipped below the surface with hardly a ripple. A minute later he reappeared, dropping his mouthpiece to shout.

‘Away you go!'

Gunna stood up straight, stamped on the cigarette butt and walked smartly to the quayside. The diver sculled gently away from where the crane's wire disappeared into the water.

The engine roared. Black smoke belched from the crane's exhaust and drifted lazily down the quay in the still air. Wire spun on to the drum and scattered shining droplets where it left the water until the slings appeared and finally the roof of a car broke the surface. Clear water sparkled and streamed from its open windows as it was raised high into the air, turning in slow circles.

The car swung over the dock, was gently lowered on to its wheels and crouched there, a small jeep with paintwork covered in a thin layer of green growth. One of the officers detached the slings that the diver had passed through the car's windows so it could be lifted by its roof. The diver clambered up the ladder and sat on a bollard to remove some of his equipment. Gunna helped him unhitch the tank from his back and put it down carefully.

‘See anything else down there?'

The diver pulled his hood off to reveal a shock of grey hair and an older face than Gunna had expected to see, adorned with the kind of walrus moustache that had gone out of fashion with bowler hats.

‘Not much to be seen down there. The bottom's all sand — if there was anything big, it would probably show up well enough. The tide's pretty strong around here, so anything small tends to get swept out anyway. You're Raggi Sæm's wife, aren't you?'

‘Was. And you are?' Gunna responded in surprise.

‘Unnsteinn Gestsson. Your Raggi and I sat for our tickets together, bloody years ago it seems now.'

‘Unnsteinn? I don't recall him mentioning you.'

‘Steini the diver?'

‘Of course. You were on
Ægir
as well for a while, weren't you?'

‘A good few years, actually. I think Raggi must have been second mate about the time I joined the ship, and then he transferred to
Tyr
and . . . Bloody shame.'

Gunna looked down at the cracked concrete at her feet. Raggi was in her thoughts every day, often at the most uncomfortable moments. For the first time in many months she felt the familiar stab of grief behind her breastbone and ruthlessly blocked back tears that threatened to bully their way down her cheeks. ‘So. You left the service, then?'

‘Yup. Retired a couple of years ago with twenty-five years' undetected rule-breaking and skiving behind me. Now I just do a bit of work for the harbour authorities. That's how we found this old heap. After the earthquake in the spring the town surveyor asked me to have a look at the pilings under all the quays to see if it's all solid. I've only just got round to Sandeyri. Down I went and there it was, sitting on the bottom minding its own business. On its wheels, windows wide open, just as if it had been shoved off the edge and into the water. Very neat.'

‘Thank you. That all helps.'

‘You're welcome,' he replied, hauling himself to his feet. ‘If there's anything else, give me a call,' he added in a tone that indicated a call would be welcome.

Gunna left him to pull himself out of the old-fashioned wetsuit, sitting in the back of a van that had seen better days. She turned to the forlorn jeep squatting on its wheels on the quayside.

‘Good man. That would have been me otherwise,' she called to the young officer who opened the car's passenger door to release a flood of water that engulfed his feet. She ran a finger along the bonnet to expose a streak of blue paint under the green algae. As the policeman who had opened the door stood to one side in embarrassment, she peered at the sodden interior, looking carefully at the ignition with the key still in it.

‘Right, then. Plain clothes will be here any minute to have a look over this and I've already asked for forensics to see what they can find,' she told the uniformed man.

Gunna ran practised eyes over the sodden interior of the car. There was nothing to be seen apart from drifts of fine sand in every corner.

‘We'll get the tyres checked and see if there's anything there that might link it to something useful,' Gunna muttered to herself. ‘Right then, young man. What can you tell me?'

‘I've already checked the number through the computer. It belongs to Rögnvaldur Jónsson, address in Akranes.'

‘How did you do that so quickly?

‘The diver already gave me the registration number, so I checked it.'

‘Good lad.'

‘And I've spoken to the owner. He says he left it at the airport while he went to Tenerife for three weeks in March.'

‘March?'

‘Yeah. When he came back, it wasn't there any more.'

‘Which is when he reported it stolen?'

‘Yup. The guy's a plumber and he was more upset about losing the tools in the back than the car itself, so he was quite cheerful when he found out he might get his spanners and stuff back.'

‘If it's still there. I don't want to mess about too much until CID have had a look. I don't suppose I'll need to trouble our plumber again if you've already got a statement from him,' Gunna said with her eyes narrowed. She crouched on to her haunches, reached inside the open driver's door and ran a hand under the seat.

‘A plumber who spends three weeks off his face on sangria doesn't strike me as the bird-watching type,' she said, lifting out a compact pair of binoculars, light glinting from the lenses. ‘So, what do you suppose these were used for?'

‘I'm not buying it. Sorry,' Gunna said forcefully.

‘What else do you have then?' Sævaldur demanded. ‘Come on, who else could have bumped Einar Eyjólfur off?'

‘That's just what we're not going to find out if you refuse to investigate anything other than the first thing that pops up in front of your eyes.'

‘Rubbish,' Sævaldur sneered. ‘Gústi is as guilty as hell. No doubt.'

‘No doubt in your mind, that is. Look, I've a witness who saw a car on the dock late that night, quite likely around the time that Einar Eyjólfur landed in the water.'

‘So what? Some bloke driving around who might or might not have seen something?'

‘It needs to be followed up.'

Sævaldur looked unconvinced and Vilhjálmur Traustason sighed.

‘If you are certain, Sævaldur, that this man is the perpetrator, then I think we should proceed and charge him formally. You don't agree, Gunnhildur?' he asked as if calling on deep reserves of patience.

‘You know I don't,' Gunna snapped. ‘Gústi's a scumbag but he's not a killer. He's a minor villain who'll grab an opportunity if it presents itself. He doesn't kill and he certainly doesn't plan anything to the extent of driving a hundred kilometres to dispose of a body.'

‘Gústi's done plenty of nasty stuff. It's common knowledge. A murder like that's just a step up to the next level for his sort,' Sævaldur said. ‘He did five years of an eight-year stretch for GBH. Come on, Gunna. You've seen the bastard's file.'

Gunna's eyes narrowed and Vilhjálmur's widened as he listened to the two of them sparring.

‘For your information Gústi confessed and did those five years for one of Mundi Grétarsson's hoodlums. Gústi didn't commit the crime, but he did get a very generous payoff for doing the time. I thought you'd know that. It's common knowledge,' she snapped.

Vilhjálmur looked horrified. ‘Is this true?' he demanded, looking hard at Sævaldur.

‘Who the hell knows? The man confessed and he didn't have an alibi anyway.'

‘Not that anyone looked too hard for one,' Gunna added. ‘And from what I hear, he's not the only one to sit out someone else's time.'

Vilhjálmur frowned. ‘Gunnhildur, are you sure that this man is not connected with the death of Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson?'

‘He may be, but only indirectly as one of the last people to see him alive. I'm completely confident he's not the killer.'

‘Sævaldur, you have this man in custody?'

‘Of course. We've charged him with theft and fraud already for the credit cards.'

‘In that case, keep hold of him as long as you're able. Gunnhildur, you have until Monday to give me a convincing reason why Sævaldur's suspect shouldn't be charged with the murder.'

10

Friday, 5 September

Gunna immersed herself in the national vehicle records and quickly came up with dozens of cars with JA in the number. She was able to eliminate the majority immediately, taking out all of the smaller cars that could not possibly be mistaken for a jeep, even on a dark night.

She worked through the remainder of the list. When Haddi appeared at her door with an expectant look on his face, he found her among a pile of paperwork with a pencil behind one ear and the phone firmly at the other.

He waited expectantly for her to finish speaking.

‘OK. No, not a problem. Thanks for your help,' she said before putting a finger out to end the call, keeping the receiver in her hand.

‘Any joy?'

‘Not much,' Gunna admitted. ‘A few possibles. Plenty eliminated.'

She replaced the receiver, leaned back and held up the long list in front of her.

‘There are more than two hundred cars with JA in the number. Around ninety of them are jeeps of some kind and I've eliminated all but a dozen or so. There's a Toyota in Stokkseyri, haven't reached the owner yet, four of Swiftcar's rentals which are all BMWs, a few Toyotas and Fords in Reykjavík, even a couple of Hummers. That's it so far.'

‘Still, it keeps you occupied.'

‘Just a bit. It's not as if we don't have enough to keep us out of trouble,' she grumbled. ‘Anyway, what time is it?'

‘Gone five.'

‘Hell. I'd better be on my way. Laufey'll be back from school in a minute and I ought to clean the place up and buy some food before she gets home.'

Haddi nodded sagely. ‘Y'know,' he observed, ‘that's the kind of thing I'd have expected Laufey to say if you'd been away, not the other way around.'

‘Come on, Haddi. I'm never going to win any perfect housewife prizes, am I?'

Haddi spluttered with what Gunna's long experience told her was laughter. ‘God, no. Which reminds me, there was a bloke here this morning looking for you while you were over at Keflavík hobnobbing with the chiefs.'

Gunna straightened her stack of papers and placed them in the middle of her desk.

‘Who was that?' she asked.

‘Haven't a clue. Old bloke. Moustache. Said it was just a personal call and he'd drop in again later.'

‘Can't have been important, then,' Gunna said, squaring her cap. ‘Are you on duty tomorrow, or is it Snorri?'

‘Me tomorrow. Snorri's off until Monday.'

Haddi waved and retreated as the phone began to ring, while Gunna debated whether or not to answer it, well knowing that she would.

‘Gunnhildur.'

‘Hi, sweetheart.'

At the sound of the familiar voice, she pushed the chair back and lifted her feet on to the upturned waste paper bin that had taken on a new role as a footrest. ‘Get stuffed, Bjössi.'

‘Come on, what kind of language is that?'

‘Bjössi, my dear friend, it's the only language that you understand. Don't forget that I'm a tough country girl from the westfjords and I've sorted out bigger and nastier men than you.'

Bjössi sighed.

‘You say the nicest things, Gunna.'

‘All part of the Hvalvík force's service. Being rude to outsiders is what we do best. Now. What do you want?'

‘That blue jeep from the harbour at Sandeyri. Just as you thought, it's the one that was reported missing.'

‘I knew that already, so what do you have that's new?'

Bjössi continued, oblivious of Gunna's interruption. ‘Owner, Rögnvaldur Jónsson, aged thirty-four, Eggertsgata eighty-seven, Akranes. Left it parked at the airport while he went to get pissed in Tenerife. Got off the plane with his straw donkey, and there it was, gone.'

‘Are you going to stop telling me stuff I already know?'

‘Probably not. Forensics have given it a going-over. There are a few dents that the owner couldn't be sure about, says they might have been there before. Apart from that, no fingerprints. Nothing out of the ordinary apart from those binoculars you found. Good quality ones, the sort that serious bird-watchers use.'

‘Do you really think some twitcher stole a jeep to go bird-watching and then rolled it off the quay at Sandeyri?'

‘Haven't a clue. We're up to our ears in it here and I'm going to have to leave it with you. I'll email you the report. All right?'

‘All right. What are you so busy with over there, if you've got better things to do than give us a hand?'

Bjössi groaned. ‘Don't ask.'

‘Go on. What is it?'

‘The usual, trying to interrogate dodgy Eastern Europeans who don't speak Icelandic and pretend they don't speak English either.'

‘Fair enough. Rather you than me.'

‘You said it. See you tomorrow morning if you're here for the briefing.'

‘Briefing? On a Saturday? Nobody's told me.'

‘Vilhjálmur Traustason's new efficiency review procedures. You're better off out of it, believe me,' Bjössi told her. ‘Bye, sweetheart.'

Gunna sat back again with her hands behind her head as she thought. She looked at the clock, saw that she had time in hand and prodded the computer into life. Ten minutes later she locked up behind her, nodded to the woman in the post office next door and walked up the hill towards home with a thick printout under one arm.

05-09-2008, 0216

Skandalblogger writes:

Don't say we didn't tell you.

It seems it's all starting to unravel at last, and don't forget we warned you all a long time ago that these guys weren't to be trusted.

We know that the Ministry of Environmental Affairs set up a small think-tank a few years ago, under the innocuous name of Energy Supply Consultation, otherwise known as ES Consult, or just plain old ESC. But has anyone noticed that ESC is now a limited company listed on the stock exchange?

Have a look, click here* for the stock exchange website and dig a little further to find out who the main shareholders are. It's enlightening reading.

But the really interesting reading would be the internal report commissioned a month or two ago by the major lender set to bankroll ESC, which it now seems is too explosive for anyone but a couple of the top dogs to see. Come on, guys, what did the economists from London have to say about you? And why don't you want your shareholders to know about it?

Well, enough of the corruption in high places, as we can hear you baying for us to get back to the usual filth. So here it is, in an easily digested format.

Which owner of a fashionable downtown tanning parlour has been laying off some of her staff, replacing them with fit young things from further east? It seems that some of the local staff weren't too happy about the ‘executive happy finish' service that the place likes to offer its exclusive (for ‘exclusive', read ‘rich') customers, and walked out. Luckily, Eastern Europe is awash with leggy beauties who can't afford scruples. So business as usual, even with the krona taking a dive!

And which presenter of a primetime popular slot on national TV was this week observed making his way along Laugarvegur in odd socks and bumping into walls, people, parked cars, etc? There's nothing unusual about this extremely thirsty motormouth, well known for a flamboyant lifestyle, becoming . . . what shall we say, overwrought after extensive hospitality, but at 10.30 on a Tuesday morning? Incidentally, it seems that the odd socks were particularly visible, as our presenter friend was clearly wearing someone else's trousers and the someone else must be a good bit shorter than our flamboyant friend.

It'll all come out in the wash . . .

Bæjó!

‘Can I go out, Mum?'

‘No, my love. It's late.'

‘But the others are out.'

‘I know, but it's gone ten.'

‘Aw.'

Laufey Ragnarsdóttir frequently found it difficult to be a police officer's daughter. Other parents could let their children stay outside until after dark. But Gunna knew that there would be whisperings and complaints if she were to do the same and she wondered how long her authority would remain unchallenged.

‘Half an hour, Mum? There's no school tomorrow.'

‘Laufey, I said no. All right? Come on, you'd better be off to bed soon. Aren't you going riding with Sigrún tomorrow? Get your stuff ready now and you can have the TV on for a while,' Gunna added as gently as she could.

Laufey shrugged and began slowly picking up schoolbooks scattered across the living room.

‘Make sure you've got clean clothes for the morning,' Gunna instructed.

‘I'm not thick, Mum.'

Gunna bit back a sharp reply. She left Laufey to get on with it and went to the kitchen to read the report on Egill Grímsson which she had printed out from the police records and which had been waiting for her all evening on the table.

She scanned the first page of the printout, frowning as she saw that the investigating officer was Helgi Skaftason. They had been recruits together at training college where Helgi had been a latecomer to the force and the oldest man in that year's intake. He was now a painstaking but unimaginative officer.

Egill Grímsson had been run down and killed, crossing the road outside his own house, by an unknown vehicle, possibly blue according to some neighbours who had racked their brains to remember seeing any unfamiliar cars in an otherwise quiet neighbourhood of Grafarvogur.

There had been no witnesses and death was judged to have been instantaneous, although Egill Grímsson could have been lying in the road for as long as an hour before he had been found by the neighbour who called for an ambulance.

Routine questioning of people living in the street revealed nothing beyond the fact that the man had been a clean-living, rather private person, a middle-aged schoolteacher at a comprehensive college. An odd person for a character in his twenties such as Einar Eyjólfur to be associating with, Gunna thought, until a burst of sound from Laufey's room had her jumping to her feet.

‘Turn it down, will you?' she demanded, banging on the door before opening it. Inside, the music stopped abruptly as Laufey turned the stereo down to a whisper.

‘Sorry, Mum.'

Back in the kitchen, Gunna returned to Egill Grímsson. The man had been out all day on Sunday, 9 March and it appeared he had just parked his own car on the other side of the road when the accident had occurred at between seven thirty and eight that evening. There had been no other traffic along the dead-end street and the man's glasses, some notebooks, maps and a camera had been found scattered near his body. All of these had been identified by the distraught widow as being the dead man's property.

According to Helgi Skaftason's report, there had been no progress in finding out who had been responsible for what was regarded as a tragic accident. Nobody had seen anything and the assumption was that this was a hit-and-run accident in which the perpetrator had panicked and fled. The only unusual aspect of the case was that the driver of the car had not been found. The description of a possibly blue car, according to a bored petrol station clerk on the main road a kilometre away, was far too broad for any kind of search. Although the case was still open, it was clear from the text that little was being done to take it any further as there was no indication of any kind of foul play.

Gunna sighed out loud. She decided against calling Helgi Skaftason, knowing that he would resent what she was sure he would see as interference. She stood up, leaving the report on the kitchen table, and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth, noticing as she did so that Laufey had gradually increased the volume of the music in her room so that it could again be heard throughout the house.

Toothbrush in hand, she tapped on Laufey's door.

‘Come on, sweetheart. Turn it off. Time to go to sleep.'