Frozen Assets (17 page)

‘Sorry, my love. Been waiting long, have you?' cooed a woman who appeared suddenly behind the counter.

‘Er, no.'

‘Not a local, are you?'

‘No.'

‘Oh. And I was sure I recognized you from somewhere. Can't for the life of me say where, though. From Reykjavík, are you?'

‘Yeah,' Matti grunted, willing her to move faster as she tapped buttons on the computerized till.

‘I'll never get the hang of this thing,' she warbled. ‘The old till's so much easier, but progress is progress and I suppose I'll have to get used to it sooner or later. That'll be six thousand two hundred, my dear.'

Matti dropped notes on the counter and made for the door. As he stepped out, a police car cruised up the street towards them and Matti swore to himself, looking down at the ground as he opened the car door.

Hardy looked out from his seat at the police car as it passed by. Matti lifted his head to follow his gaze and was relieved to see that rather than the cousin he definitely had no wish to run into, the driver was an older man with a kindly face who looked over at them curiously, but didn't bother to stop.

‘Right. Let's go then, shall we?'

Hardy pointed. ‘There's a café there. Do you want to eat?'

‘No,' Matti said brusquely. ‘Let's get out to the compound, shall we? It's a real dump, that place,' he added lamely.

Dagga coaxed the television next to her desk into life as a sober newsreader was halfway through his item on the 19.19 news.

‘. . . morning and we are taking you straight over live to the press briefing that is already taking place.'

‘Smári Geir doing well for himself on TV, I see,' Dagga observed as the young man's face vanished and was replaced with a trio of senior police officers sitting behind a row of microphones.

‘We consider that, in the light of this serious allegation from a highly unusual source, a further investigation is justified,' one of them read out from a prepared statement. Skúli stared at the group, his eyes going from the man speaking to one of the others next to him, and back.

‘These allegations are of an extremely grave nature, claiming that a very serious crime has been committed against an innocent young man, culminating in his death. We are issuing a general appeal for witnesses to come forward and to place at the disposal of the police any information that may identify the alleged perpetrator,' Vilhjálmur Traustason read out in a tone as morbid as the grave.

Flashes flickered and he blinked repeatedly.

‘We have already identified persons who may or may not be involved in this incident. At present we are eliminating persons who are known to have been at or near the scene on the day in question. That is all. Questions?'

There was an immediate chorus that was cut short as the broadcast returned to the studio.

‘No statement on their website yet,' Dagga said, looking up from her laptop. ‘I've emailed and asked for the text and I suppose it'll be here soon. What are we doing on this, Jonni?' she asked.

‘We can cobble most of it together from the statement when it comes and the TV reports, but I suppose we'd better find a few comments. Any ideas, Skúli, as you're our crime man?'

‘What's Reynir Óli's take on this?'

‘Oh, the usual.' Jonni yawned. ‘Play along with the others, make it a front page if we can get an angle no one else will have.'

‘Like what?' Dagga asked.

‘Well.' Jonni smiled cruelly. ‘I was thinking Sigurjóna Huldudóttir. She's been on the receiving end of Skandalblogger more than most people, so I'm sure she'd love the chance to sound off. It's just a question of which one of you two darlings wants to go and listen to her ranting. Make it early, though. She's normally a bit pissed by mid-afternoon.'

At the Keflavík station Gunna had already banged the doors aside when she realized that she didn't know where her own incident room was, but catching sight of Bára at the end of a corridor she set off to follow her.

‘How goes it?'

‘Fine. I have two guys chasing up Clean Iceland and I'm off in a minute to talk to the guy who calls himself the strategic director.'

‘Good. Play it cool, will you? We don't want to alarm anyone. Now, is everyone here? I need to speak to you all together.'

The incident room was just a large office with a few desks, phones and PCs. A planner pinned to the wall showed the dates when Einar Eyjólfur had been last seen and when his body had been discovered.

Gunna stood before it with the sheaf of notes she had picked up from the station in Hvalvík, along with Snorri, who had been given the whole story in a staccato barrage on the way after they had left a bewildered Haddi in sole charge at Hvalvík.

‘Right, ladies and gentlemen.' She looked around at Bára and Bjössi. ‘Where's Snorri?'

‘Here, chief,' he said apologetically, slipping in around the door.

‘I'll keep this quick,' Gunna announced, pinning the passport picture of Ström staring blankly out of it to the wall board. ‘This man is someone we need to eliminate. We don't have anyone else at all. Einar Eyjólfur appears to have had no enemies at all, everyone liked him, so there doesn't seem to be anyone anywhere who would have wanted to harm him.'

She tapped the noticeboard with one finger.

‘Name of Ström, presumed Swedish national, has probably been to Iceland more than once. I have established that he rented a car of the kind seen on the dock that night, a BMW X-three jeep with JA in the number. Don't worry,' she warned, seeing the expression on Bára's face. ‘I've spent a day already eliminating every vehicle that doesn't fit. We need to know what his business is, who he is, why he's been here and what his movements have been.'

‘Is this man a suspect or a witness?' Bára asked.

‘Initially a witness. We've placed him provisionally, time and place, where Einar Eyjólfur was found. Also, we have a possible link to him and the stolen blue jeep that was lifted from Sandeyri harbour. Now, Bjössi, will you investigate, assuming the jeep hasn't been disposed of? If we link this to Egill Grímsson's death as well, as I firmly believe we can, then we have something uncomfortably big on our hands.'

Bjössi looked pensive for a moment. ‘Fuck. You mean this guy's killed two people?'

‘It looks that way to me,' Gunna agreed.

He whistled. ‘Vilhjálmur and Ívar Laxdal are going to love you. Iceland hasn't had a double murder since . . . ?'

‘I suppose since Gréttir did his stuff. So, I want this investigated as a priority. Bjössi, I want you to start by contacting Stockholm. Then Interpol. Snorri will email you the picture of our boy to send out.'

She put the sheaf of documents from Swiftcars on to the desk in front of him.

‘His passport, driving licence and credit card details are all in there, so hopefully our herring-munching friends in Sweden can tell us something straight away. Get on to Visa. The credit card trail might help us as well.' Gunna took a long breath. ‘We don't know if he's still in the country. We have no idea if he thinks we might be on to him. We can only assume he's dangerous and not to be approached. OK? That's all for now.'

The group scattered, leaving Gunna and Snorri behind as they all hunched behind phones and computers or disappeared from the room.

‘What now, chief?' Snorri asked.

Gunna thought. ‘I want to know where Matti Kristjáns is in all this. He was nowhere to be found yesterday, so you'd better be off to Reykjavík for the afternoon and see if you can track the old bastard down. Have a quick look at the taxi ranks and if he's not there, get straight down to Nonni the Taxi's place. Be as heavy as you like if they don't cooperate.'

‘OK. I can do that.'

‘It's getting on for one now, and there's the briefing with Vilhjálmur Traustason at five, so hopefully I'll have something for him by then. You'd better be off and see if you can find anything out before then.'

With everyone else busy, Gunna tapped a computer until it awoke from its sleep, typed ‘Clean Iceland' into a search engine and waited impatiently for the machine to do her bidding.

A list of choices appeared, Gunna clicked on the most obvious one and instantly the website of the Clean Iceland Campaign emerged in front of her. She saw that it was largely in English and began to pick her way through the panels of information, starting with news. Here she scrolled down to the beginning of the year, quickly found a bulletin on Egill Grímsson's death and read through a short biography of the man, detailing his commitment to the cause of opposing heavy industry in Iceland and his devotion to his family, alongside his dedication to his job as a schoolteacher in the grey Reykjavík suburb where he had lived for most of his forty-four years.

Gunna made a few notes, including that he had been one of the founders of the movement and had lobbied the Ministry of Environmental Affairs tirelessly, while being involved in an international campaign of protests outside Icelandic embassies across the developed world in cooperation with environmental groups abroad that formed a loose network across much of Europe, North America and some Asian countries.

She closed the window on the screen and sat back.

So, he was a bit of a firebrand on the quiet, was our Egill, she mused.

23

Sunday, 21 September

This time Matti Kristjáns wasn't just worried — he was frightened. He ran the conversation with Hardy over in his mind as he packed those of his meagre possessions that he didn't dare leave behind.

‘Meet me in an hour and we'll talk it over,' Hardy had said nonchalantly, too nonchalantly, Matti thought. Had it been a mistake to tell Hardy a little bird had whispered in his ear that the police were looking for him? Although no stranger to a little persuasion himself, Matti couldn't forget Hardy's coolness after having so effortlessly broken the wrist of the man in the farmhouse outside Borgarnes.

Rooting under his bed, he hauled out a seaman's canvas kitbag and stuffed clothes unceremoniously into it, dirty clothes and clean going in together, and a sleeping bag on top of the lot. From the drawer in the bedside table he took a few papers, driving licence, health insurance card, passport and a couple of bank cards, all of which he stowed in the inside pocket of his jacket.

Sadly he surveyed the stack of glossy pornography peeking from under his bed. Antiques, some of these, he thought with a pang, recalling that the airbrushed nudes had been with him through plenty of tough times without a word of complaint.

Matti shoved the stack back under his bed and clicked the door shut on his way out. At the bottom of the stairs he paused and listened for the TV in the living room. A daytime soap meant that the old woman was in. In fact, she wasn't older than Matti, but years of hard living had taken a grim toll.

‘Tóta! Going out for a bit,' Matti called, hoping she wouldn't hear him, but the door swung open and the heavy-set woman stood in the doorway leaning on the frame.

‘Going to be long?' she demanded without taking the cigarette from her lips.

‘Day or two,' Matti lied.

‘Paid up, are you?'

‘Yeah, I think so,' he lied again as Tóta's eyes narrowed, and he knew that she could smell something wrong. Set a thief to catch a thief, he thought bitterly.

‘Well, if you're not sure how long you're going to be, then I'd better have another month's rent so's I can be sure,' she said in a sandpaper growl.

Matti knew when not to argue. He pulled a handful of notes from his trouser pocket and handed them over.

‘That's all I've got right now. Nonni's supposed to be paying out at the end of the month for the booking work and we'll square up then if that's OK.'

Tóta thumbed through the notes, counting under her breath.

‘All right. That'll do for now,' she said as her face broke into a gap-toothed smile. ‘I won't rent your room out straight away, though I reckon I could put four Poles in there tomorrow if I wanted to. Tonight, even,' she cackled, and promptly dissolved into a fit of coughing. Matti made his escape as Tóta's face was beginning to go a colour he wasn't comfortable with.

The big car's engine whispered into life and within seconds he had made up his mind and was out on the main road, heading through the late morning traffic of Reykjanesbraut to Kópavogur. He drove through the centre of the town in a hurry, but not enough of a hurry to attract attention. He kept his eyes peeled for the police, half expecting to see his cousin Gunnhildur creeping up on him with that sinister lopsided grin of hers.

Matti shuddered at the thought that Hardy was now probably aware that he wasn't going to meet him, and he waited for his phone to ring as he swung off the main road and swerved to take the speed bumps of the suburban streets as painlessly as possible. He stamped on the brake and stopped in front of a terraced house at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. He leaped out of the car, bounded up the half-dozen steps and was inside the door as he hammered on it.

‘Marika!'

‘She sleeping,' a tall woman in a coarse towelling dressing gown said sourly, appearing from the kitchen with a plate of toast in one hand.

‘But she's here?' Matti demanded. ‘Alone?'

‘She alone,' the woman replied sharply. ‘We not work here,' she added, by which time Matti was at the top of the stairs and knocking at a door. Before a sleepy questioning reply was heard, he was already inside the room.

‘Marika, get up. We have to go.'

‘What? Matti?' The girl in the bed looked out from under her duvet in bewilderment, black hair twisted around her face.

‘Marika, listen,' Matti panted. ‘We have to get away from here. Just for a few days. There's trouble.'

Marika sat up in bed, one hand scratching under her outsized Fatalagerinn T-shirt.

‘Trouble? What you mean, trouble? Police trouble?'

‘Yes, yes, police trouble. You come with me, OK?'

‘OK, Matti. Tell me what trouble? All of us in trouble?'

‘No, just you, me trouble. Just a couple of days. Then we come back here.'

Marika yawned and snapped into wakefulness. ‘Matti, you tell me what problem is. Then we go. Sit here.' She patted the bed.

‘No. Get dressed. I'll tell you while you put clothes on.'

‘OK. You tell. But turn round.'

Marika slipped from the bed and waited for him to turn his back before hauling the voluminous T-shirt over her head.

‘Matti. Tell. Not look in mirror,' she admonished.

‘Look. I have a problem, a bad man is looking for me, wants to maybe kill me. He has seen me with you in the car. He knows Kaisa and some of the girls, maybe he knows this place, and he knows Mundi, says Mundi is going to have trouble.'

‘You turn round now,' Marika instructed, buttoning a plain blouse. She raised her arms and tied her hair back in a bun before starting to drop things haphazardly into an open suitcase. Matti wanted to yell at her that the car was parked outside where Hardy would be able to see it, that the street was a dead end with no hope of escape except on foot through someone's garden, but he held his breath and sat on his hands.

‘Ready. We go,' Marika announced brightly, at last, and Matti grabbed the case and was downstairs before she had closed her mouth.

At the doorway Marika and Kaisa held a loud conversation, not a word of which could Matti understand. Kaisa banged the door behind them as the car pulled away and Matti sighed with relief.

‘Matti, where we going?'

‘Out of town. West.'

Marika seemed satisfied and filed her nails on the way through Reykjavík, on to the main road. Only when they had cleared the city and were bowling past the well-kept gardens and stables of Mosfell did she look up and take notice, as if seeing the scree-sloped hillsides for the first time.

‘Matti?'

‘Yeah, sweetheart.'

‘This man. Policeman?'

‘No.'

‘Criminal man?'

‘Yes.'

‘Pity.' She shrugged.

‘Why's that?'

‘Police no problem.'

‘How so?'

Marika sat back and folded away her nail file. ‘Sometimes policeman come to us and say he make trouble. OK, Kaisa take him upstairs, be nice to him for half an hour. No more trouble.'

Matti rocked with laughter. ‘Always Kaisa?'

‘Always Kaisa look after policeman.'

‘But why her?'

‘Don't know. Maybe policeman like very tall. Maybe Kaisa just like police.'

‘This policeman, he comes to the house, or to the club?'

‘Club. Always club.'

‘In uniform?'

‘No, of course not uniform. Don't be stupid.'

‘So how do you know he's a policeman.'

‘Because he smell like a policeman,' Marika said with decision. ‘He walk like policeman, he have clothes like policeman.'

‘You don't know his name, do you?' Matti hazarded.

‘No, of course not. Not real name. Anyway, who would want to make trouble for Matti?'

‘You've seen him once or twice at the club. The tall guy with blond hair. Always wears that leather jacket.'

Marika nodded. ‘Swedish man.'

‘Swedish? No, I thought he was American?'

‘Swedish,' Marika said firmly.

‘How do you know?'

‘Maret tell me. He speak when he sleep. He speak Swedish when he sleep.'

While Matti was grimly hugging the big car's wheel as it growled up the long slope of the heath on the road north and Marika filed her nails, Gunna sat back and simply enjoyed the feeling of being out of uniform for a few hours.

It hadn't stopped her from calling in at the station to see what progress Bára and Bjössi were making. Bára looked surprised to see her, while Bjössi made it clear that her presence wasn't wanted and that she should make the most of an afternoon off duty now that she finally had one.

After a visit to the supermarket in Keflavík, she drove Gísli's rusting Range Rover through the achingly slow Sunday afternoon traffic in the town to the museum that overlooked the small boat harbour and parked in the sunshine.

She pulled down the shade, peered carefully at herself in the mirror and didn't entirely like what she could see. She looked tired, and older than she ought to. Fine lines were starting to appear at the corners of her eyes and fatigue was entrenched in her face. She had long ago given up make-up, having been told many times by Raggi that her fresh complexion didn't need it.

Gunna frowned and her mighty eyebrows fused into a dark bar across her forehead. For a moment, she thought about crying off and going home, but brushed aside the idea of a grown woman being nervous about what was not even really a date.

She fussed for a moment with her hair, decided that this week she really would have to get it cut before it became so thick that it would be beyond control, and swung herself down from the Range Rover.

He was sitting alone at a table by the window in the corner of the room, gazing down at one of the small boats leaving the little pontoon dock. Outside a group of children on the café's balcony waved frantically at the boat as it chugged past and whooped with delight when the man at the tiller waved back at them.

‘Waiting for someone?' Gunna asked.

Steini's head jerked up and he grinned with what Gunna saw was obvious relief. He quickly stood up and took her by surprise by leaning forward to peck her cheek.

‘Don't you know I could arrest you for that?'

Steini held out both hands, wrists together. ‘Go on, then.'

‘Sorry. I'm off duty,' she apologized, sitting down opposite him. ‘Anyway, how are you?'

‘Fine.'

They sat in awkward silence for a moment.

‘The Salt House was good,' he ventured finally.

‘It was. Shall we do that again some time?'

‘I think we ought to,' Steini replied seriously and waved for the waitress to bring a menu.

Gunna made her choice in seconds flat and laid her menu down again while Steini pored over his a little longer. She felt guilty, enjoying the colours outside, cobalt sky and the bright green of the autumn grass clinging to the basalt outcrops surrounding the little harbour, while Bára and Bjössi were on duty.

‘Aren't you hungry?' Steini asked.

‘Do I look like the sort of girl who doesn't enjoy her food? Of course I'm hungry.'

Steini grinned and waved to the waitress, who stood there with her open note pad and waited expectantly.

‘Ready to order?' the girl asked finally, as Gunna and Steini each waited for the other to go first.

‘Fish of the day,' they both suddenly said simultaneously.

‘Two fish,' the waitress said. ‘And to drink?'

‘I have to drive, so water for me,' Gunna said, looking at Steini.

‘Same here,' he added, handing back the menus. Gunna sat back and stretched her legs out beneath the table, basking in the warmth of the afternoon sunshine on her face. Steini let a smile run around his face while his fingers tugged at the end of his moustache.

‘How goes it? Work and everything?'

‘Ah, really busy right now. I shouldn't be here at all.'

‘Well, there's no point overdoing it. You don't get paid any more for it and I don't suppose you'll get thanked either.'

‘Y'know, you're probably right,' Gunna agreed, trying to imagine Vilhjálmur Traustason with anything other than the usual disapproving look on his long face. ‘It'll blow over soon, I hope.'

‘Is that all the work around that aluminium smelter they're building?'

Gunna sighed. She had hoped to get away from work for an hour or two. ‘Partly. We have an unusual murder investigation in progress that's taking all my time right now.'

‘Murder? In Iceland?' Steini's eyebrows lifted in surprise.

‘Yup. It's a serious one and I'm afraid that's about all I'm able to say. Case in progress and all that, has to be kept confidential.'

‘Understood. Ah, food,' Steini said with his interest on the waitress, striding towards them with a plate in each hand.

Gunna hadn't realized quite how hungry she was until the aroma of the generous portion hit her senses.

‘
Bon appétit
,' Steini said seriously, setting to with gusto.

They ate in silence. Gunna felt that Steini was not completely at ease and wondered why, while she found herself to be more relaxed than she had expected. Steini seemed to be the kind of person it was easy to spend time with, without a need for chatter. The case was still preying on her mind and it irritated her that she could not clear thoughts of work even for a few short hours.

‘Good fish,' she said finally when her plate was almost clear.

‘Can't beat it,' Steini agreed, his plate already shining. ‘Coffee?'

‘Let me finish, at least.'

‘Sorry. It's force of habit, not being able to eat slowly. It's all those years of having half an hour to wake up, eat your dinner, drink a cup of coffee and be out on deck on time.'

Gunna smiled wryly. ‘Don't think I don't know. My dad and my brothers are just the same and Raggi always finished before me as well.'