Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5) (28 page)

‘One of . . .?’

‘No, not one of them. But don’t ask.’

The burgers arrived, fragrant and reassuringly solid, with a vast bowl of chips.

‘I thought we could share these,’ Gísli said.

‘I think you’d better eat all of those chips, otherwise I’ll have to be shopping for new trousers on the way home. How’s your . . .’ She hesitated as she sliced into the burger. ‘How’s Thorvaldur?’

‘He’s not great, Mum. He doesn’t have long to go.’ Gísli’s face twisted in discomfort. ‘You really didn’t want me to contact him, did you?’

‘No. Not really. He had a zero track record of wanting to be your dad, so I couldn’t figure out why you wanted to meet him.’

‘Curiosity, Mum. Remember that?’

‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ Gunna reminded him, taking a chip, dipping it in mayonnaise and pointing it at him before eating it.

‘That’s good, coming from a detective.’ Gísli grinned. ‘Your whole work revolves around digging into other people’s business.’

‘True. I get to poke my nose into all sorts and get paid for it. All right. I wasn’t happy that you wanted to see your dad,’ she said, skewering a forkful of salad as misplaced penance for the chips. ‘I can understand it, but I didn’t feel the time was right. I thought you were spreading yourself too thin. Two small children, the two girls, and then there was Naomi,’ she added and her voice tailed off. ‘So what’s troubling Thorvaldur? Has a life of excess caught up with him?’

‘You could say that. The woman he’d been living with for a long time died last year and it hit him hard. It was after that that he seemed ready to talk to me, as if she had been the one who didn’t want his children sniffing around.’

‘Thorvaldur and his many women . . .’ Gunna said, trying to keep the chagrin out of her voice.

‘Anyway,’ Gísli said, ‘he has bowel cancer. It was already far advanced before he got round to going to the doctor to find out what was wrong with him and he doesn’t have long.’

‘How long?’ Gunna asked, feeling a sudden chill and not wanting to hear the answer.

‘Days, probably. He could still get about until a few days ago, but he was admitted to hospital on Sunday night and the only way he’s coming out is feet first. So now I feel I did the right thing in making contact with him before it was too late.’

‘You’re right,’ Gunna said. ‘You were right and I was wrong.’

Eiríkur sat with a bewildered Bogi Sveinsson in the overstuffed living room while Erna rigidly sat opposite Helgi in the television lounge of the sprawling house, tears threatening to flow at any moment. Helgi was tired and making an effort not to be irritable, while Erna’s hands were starting to tremble.

‘You understand that we are doing everything we can to locate these two men and your daughter, so anything you can tell me would be a help. Even a minor detail could lead us to the person we’re looking for,’ he said, taking a deep breath and preparing to go over the same ground a second time. ‘Your daughter, Tinna Lind, I’m trying to get a handle on how she interacted with the two criminals. There was no hostility there?’

‘There was with Össur, not with the other man.’

‘You’re saying they didn’t get on badly?’

Erna shrugged. ‘I think so.’

‘They got on well enough? There were no arguments with the younger man? You’ve given us a description, but it doesn’t tie in with anyone in particular in our files. Had you ever seen this man before?’

Erna shook her head.

‘You were together in that hotel for almost a week, so there must have been some conversation, surely? You didn’t hear the man’s name mentioned even once?’

‘Össur?’

‘The other man, the younger one.’

‘Well, I suppose I did hear him called Markús or Magnús or something like that a few times.’

‘Did you get the feeling that Tinna Lind and this man might have known each other?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Erna said. ‘They did seem quite friendly after a while.’

‘Friendly? How friendly?’

‘They did the cooking and things like that and they spent quite a lot of time together.’

‘In the downstairs part of the hotel, or together alone somewhere?’

Erna looked down at the table and Helgi could see an internal battle going on.

‘She’s always been damned headstrong,’ Erna suddenly burst out. ‘Ever since she could walk she’s done everything her own way and never listened to a single word I’ve said to her. She could have had a decent job if she’d managed to stick at something, instead of going from here to there and running off abroad every five minutes.’

Erna took a deep breath and expelled it through her nose as she sat back in her chair.

‘Is that what you wanted to hear? Am I supposed to be happy that my daughter crawled into bed with the gangster who kidnapped us? Of course not. But I can’t stop her doing anything. When she was fourteen she was out all night with all kinds of weird and dangerous men. I tried to keep her in, I tried to stop her. I took her to hospital for Aids tests and . . .’ she gulped. ‘Once for an abortion. But it’s like water off a duck’s back. She takes no notice of me or anyone else.’

‘But she takes notice of this Markús or Magnús?’ Helgi asked.

‘Yes. A criminal.’ Erna took a gulp of air that was released as a sob. ‘She seems to take notice of him.’

Rafn appeared from the afternoon gloom, glanced both ways and crossed the road as if he expected the traffic to stop for him, raising a hand in acknowledgement without looking at the car that slowed for the figure in the long leather coat with a blond ponytail hanging down his back.

‘That’s him,’ Össur said. ‘Quick. You two go and sit at another table so he doesn’t think we’re together.’

Magni and Tinna Lind moved to sit two tables down, heads together in murmured conversation as Rafn opened the door and nodded to Össur before going to the counter.

‘So, Össi. What’s new?’ Rafn asked.

Magni heard with disquiet the Baikal’s safety catch click off-on-off-on deep in Össur’s pocket.

‘I hear you’re famous,’ Rafn said, taking a seat opposite him. ‘On the TV and everything.’

‘Yeah. I’m keeping out of sight for the moment.’

Össur hunched deeper into his seat in the corner of the café, discreet but still with a view of the door and the street outside.

‘Coming here in daylight isn’t exactly keeping out of sight, surely?’

‘Needs must, Rafn.’

‘What are you after?’

‘Three passports.’

‘Going on holiday?’

‘Yeah. Probably a long holiday somewhere far away. Three of us. Two guys, one my age and one around thirty, and one chick, mid-twenties. Preferably legal, but as long as they work, I don’t care.’

Rafn sat back and surveyed Össur coolly, taking in the fatigue lines around his eyes, which had a hopeless look about them.

‘Not asking for a lot, are you?’

‘Can you do it?’

‘Sure. But we don’t give away favours.’

‘How much?’

‘A million.’ Rafn delicately sipped his coffee. ‘Each.’

Sitting two tables away with their heads together, Tinna Lind looked over Magni’s shoulder and saw Össur shudder at Rafn’s words.

‘That’s your best price?’

Rafn laughed. ‘We’re not running a junk stall at Kolaport. We don’t have a best price, Össi. There’s just the price.’

‘Fuck. A million each.’ Össur shook his head. ‘That’s steep. Too steep.’

‘Take it or leave it. Passports aren’t the kind of thing we normally play around with, and they don’t grow on trees.’

‘Come on, Rafn. Old time’s sake and all that.’

‘That’s as cheap as I can do them. Practically cost price, my friend.’

‘What if . . .?’

If there was a look of satisfaction on Rafn’s face, then it didn’t show. ‘Ah. What if, what?’

‘If there was some way of doing each other a favour on this?’

‘That could be a possibility. But I take it you’re not coming back?’

‘Well . . . when the heat dies down, maybe.’

‘Össi, you’re facing a murder charge. Didn’t you know that? There was a man shot dead at Hotel Hraun and the word is that you did the business. The heat’s never going to die down as far as you’re concerned. That’s fourteen to sixteen years, and you’d serve eight or ten. You’d be pushing sixty by the time you get out of Litla Hraun. If you know what’s good for you, you need to disappear, my friend.’ Rafn emptied his coffee cup and placed it precisely on its saucer, the handle at an exact right angle to the line of the table’s edge. ‘That’s assuming Alli doesn’t catch up with you first,’ he added and Össur blanched.

Alli sat quietly on a hard kitchen chair by the door. He seemed calm, but Gunna could see the twitching of a tic below his left eye as two uniformed officers and a detective from the narcotics squad systematically went through every cupboard and drawer, opening, examining and replacing everything.

‘You’re not going to go through the rubbish as well, are you?’ Alli asked in disbelief as Dísa, the narcotics officer, emptied the contents of the bin onto a plastic sheet and picked through the contents with gloved hands.

‘Especially the bin, Alli,’ Gunna told him, watching his expression carefully. ‘You never know what goodies have been thrown away.’

Dísa picked up and bagged the remnants of some joints. ‘The rest of this room’s clear, is it?’

‘Looks like it,’ one of the uniformed officers confirmed. ‘Living room next?’

The front room with its window onto the street outside and its blank-screened television in one corner served as Alli’s living space, dining room, office and the place where he received visitors. Gunna saw with distaste that the carpet was thick with grime and that there were cobwebs in the corners. She brought the kitchen chair and placed it by the door.

‘Sit there,’ she instructed and put down a stool for herself to perch on.

‘I know what you’re after,’ Alli hissed at her.

‘Really? Tell me, then. That way we won’t have to turn your place upside-down.’

‘You’re looking for anything you can that’s going to get me banged up, and if you don’t find it, you’ll plant it. I know how you bastards work.’

The uniformed officers opened and emptied the drawers of a bookcase that took up most of one wall, not that there were many books on the shelves other than an old phone book and a couple of catalogues.

‘And I know just how you work as well, Alli. Threats, blackmail, broken fingers, all the rest of it,’ Gunna said in an undertone.

‘You won’t find anything here.’

There was barely controlled fury in Alli’s voice.

‘You mean you stash your gear somewhere else, do you? Of course you do. You may be an evil bastard, but you’re not stupid.’

Alli subsided into angry silence, his eyes following the three officers as they searched everything, pulling out the stained blue sofa and checking both the floor and the back of the sofa for hiding places. The two thin armchairs got the same treatment, but there was nothing to be found but empty bottles dropped behind them.

‘No joy, Dísa?’

She shook her head. ‘I’d guess there are residues everywhere,’ she said, looking around at the nicotine-stained walls.

‘Bedroom next? Or bathroom?’

Dísa sighed. ‘The bathroom’s going to be fun.’

One of the uniformed officers coughed and grimaced. ‘This is weird,’ he said, holding out one of the empty bottles with a minute amount of fluid at the bottom of it.

Gunna’s gaze shifted quickly to Alli and she saw him swallow hard.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s not booze. Smells more like petrol.’

‘Interesting,’ Gunna said, watching the alarm on Alli’s face. ‘You’d best bag it and we’ll dust it for prints.’

‘You heard all that?’

‘Yep. Do you reckon we’re being watched or followed?’

Össur shook his head. ‘I haven’t a fucking clue. There might be an Undertaker behind us right now.’ He sat with his shoulders hunched protectively around his neck and his chin sunk below the collar of his fleece jacket. ‘Take the scenic route and see if there’s anyone keeping up with us, will you?’

Magni drove at a steady pace through the city centre, his eyes on the mirrors. Twice he changed lanes abruptly, and once indicated for a turn and then carried straight on. When a roundabout appeared ahead of them, he checked the mirrors and signalled left. He made a slow circuit of the roundabout, watching for anyone who had been drawn to follow, and then took a second circuit, oblivious to the furious glares of drivers wanting to get on the roundabout, before making an abrupt exit and taking the car at a smart pace through a residential area.

At the far end he congratulated himself on having lost any tail they might have had, but failed to notice a step-through scooter approaching along the road he had waited to turn onto. The scooter’s driver glanced briefly at the Skoda with satisfaction as he passed. He had waited at the roundabout in the shadow of a van while Magni took his double circuit, and he had managed to second-guess him as the Skoda turned through the residential district, knowing that there was only one exit and he could beat them to it.

Magni gunned the Skoda along the main road and each time they slowed or stopped for lights, the scooter approached, pop-popping doggedly up the slopes until Magni turned off and the scooter’s driver hesitated and followed, reasoning that it was dark enough for him to be less noticeable. He followed at a distance and watched as the car turned into a cul-de-sac between two blocks of modern flats. He killed the lights and watched the three occupants get out, leave the car and go up a stairwell, and a minute later lights flickering on told him which flat they had gone to.

The scooter hummed into life again and the driver went back up the long curving slope and on to the main road again. Two sets of lights later he turned off and drove past a couple of half-built houses, a row of steel-framed workshops and finally straight into the open garage door at the side of a black-painted building.

‘Well? How did it go?’ Rafn asked as the driver pulled off his helmet.

‘Couldn’t be easier,’ Jón Egill said. ‘Three of them, two men and a woman. They’re in one of the flats down by the shore, about a mile back towards town.’