Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5) (35 page)

‘For fuck’s sake, Össi? Are you out of your tiny mind?’

‘Don’t argue. I know what I’m doing.’

Össur took the Baikal from his pocket and clicked the safety catch. Tinna Lind expected him to jam it into her ribs between the seats again, but instead he lifted the pistol and held it to Magni’s neck.

‘Not another word. Understand?’ he hissed. ‘Drive slowly long the street and stop outside Alli’s cornershop.’

With the muzzle of the pistol pressed against the back of his head, Magni felt his fingertips going numb. He brought the car to a gentle halt outside Alli’s place.

‘Look,’ he croaked, nodding at a black van squatting on the other side of the street. ‘That’s Rafn’s truck, isn’t it?’

‘So much the better. Leave the engine running because we’re going to have to be out of here sharpish. Now get out of the car, both of you, and walk towards Alli’s place.’

‘Össi, come on. We can be out of here right now and no harm done.’

The impact of the Baikal’s barrel on the back of his head was sharp enough to make his eyes water instantly and he held his breath, waiting for the crack of the shot that would be the last thing he would hear.

‘Do as I say or one of you gets it,’ Össur said in a low voice, heavy with a determination that was more chilling than his usual angry tone.

They got slowly out of the car, Össur first with the pistol in his hand, which was now dropped down to his waist. He leaned into the car and retrieved the carrier bag.

‘In front of me,’ he said, and handed the bag to Tinna Lind. ‘You can take that.’

In the middle of the deserted street, with rain dripping down his face, Magni wondered what was happening as Össur dug into his other pocket and pulled out his lighter.

‘Open the bag, darling,’ he ordered. ‘Carefully,’ he added as Tinna Lind put it down and untied the handles.

‘What . . .?’

The reek of petrol from the two bottles was unmistakeable, not least as the rags stuffed into the top of each one had also been soaked in it. He handed her the lighter, then transferred the pistol to his left hand.

‘Keep back, Magni. Don’t try to do anything stupid. I can shoot with either hand easily enough,’ Össur warned.

‘Give me a light, girl,’ Össur ordered and Tinna Lind watched in fascination as the petrol-soaked rag in the top of the bottle caught and burned fiercely. Össur threw the bottle in a long arc towards the black van and it hit the ground by the driver’s door. The sudden rush of heat as the glass broke and the fuel caught fire was more than Tinna Lind had expected and she instinctively cowered down while Magni watched in dismay as the flames licked at the van’s sides.

‘Again,’ Össur yelled, pointing the pistol at her. ‘Come on you stupid bitch, pick that one up and light it!’

Tinna Lind felt the scorching heat of the fire as the van was practically engulfed and stared at the second bottle of petrol.

‘There,’ Össur shouted at her over the roar of the burning van, the pistol back in his good hand, aiming it at the pink house. Tinna Lind sensed the double crack of the pistol as a window at the front of the house disintegrated. ‘Throw it. That window there. Now!’

She picked up the bottle with shaking hands and glanced at Magni, catching his eye.

‘Hey, Össi,’ she called to him, tossing the bottle of petrol high in the air towards him. ‘Catch.’

Össur stared at her in a moment’s furious astonishment, which turned to a roar of fury as he fumbled to catch the bottle as it fell towards him, his attention diverted and the pistol forgotten in his hand. Just as the bottle slipped through his fingers and shattered on the ground, Magni lunged at Össur. Magni’s shoulder drove into Össur’s back and sent him flying, leaving him lying with his legs in the spreading pool of petrol. The Baikal dropped from his hand and Magni kicked it hard, watching it skitter across the road, bounce off the kerb and come to rest in a puddle of grey water.

Magni watched in shock as Tinna Lind dropped the still flaming lighter into the petrol on the road and it ignited with a rush, the flames snatching at Össur’s legs. He screeched with fear and rolled away, beating at his trousers. Magni vaguely registered people in the distance as if they were in slow motion. As Össur slapped at the flames, Tinna Lind snatched at the jacket that Össur had left unzipped, ripping one arm free.

‘Quick, pull it off him,’ Tinna Lind gasped, tugging at Össur’s jacket as he screeched and rolled over again on the wet road, trying to extinguish the flames. The black jacket came away in Magni’s hands and he was surprised at how heavy it felt. ‘Go,’ Tinna Lind gasped, snatching at his arm, and looking over her shoulder to see Rafn and an older man appear with fury and disbelief on their faces.

‘But Össi?’

‘Fuck him,’ Tinna Lind swore as a distant siren wailed. She glared at Össur lying on the ground in front of her and aimed a deliberate sharp kick that connected with his groin. Össur rolled over with a howl, his hands reaching for his testicles, and Magni took Tinna Lind’s arm. ‘That’s for Erna,’ she snarled at him as Magni pulled her away before she could deliver a second kick.

‘Tinna, come on.’

‘Fuck him, he was going to rip us off anyway. Let’s get out of here.’

The search for the mysterious grey car had been stood down. Gunna and Eiríkur held a quick debrief over coffee and doughnuts, which she knew she should really avoid, at the Hafnarfjördur police station, a few hundred yards from where one of the motorcycle officers had spent an hour in the rain hoping to identify three people in a stolen Skoda. Gunna was on her second much-needed cup of coffee when the F1 call buzzed over her communicator, but it was the address that had her sprinting for the door, with Eiríkur at her heels and the two motorcycle officers pulling on their helmets.

Outside the rain had faded away to a slow drizzle, as if the air was so saturated with water that it had started to ooze from the atmosphere. Eiríkur’s long legs quickly outstripped her and he already had the Golf started by the time she jumped into the passenger seat, and it was moving before she’d pulled the door shut.

The wail of a siren could already be heard and the smell of burning was borne on the wind.

‘Control, ninety-five-fifty,’ Gunna said in a curt voice into her communicator. ‘What’s the story?’

‘Ninety-five-fifty, control. Reports of a vehicle on fire and at least two gunshots.’

‘Any casualties?’

‘One reported. There’s a car ahead of you and the Special Unit has been alerted.’

‘Any fatalities?’

‘None confirmed.’

‘Thanks, control.’

The scene that greeted her was one of barely contained chaos, and she immediately thought a war zone had unfolded in suburban Hafnarfjördur as she scanned the scene and recognized Alli standing by the door of his house, his face showing shocked disbelief. Eiríkur firmly but insistently pushed the gathering crowd of bystanders back, and the first motorcycle officer parked his bike with its lights flashing to block the road.

An ambulance rolled to a halt and three green-overalled medics jumped out, one taking in the scene as a whole and two going directly to where a figure sat in the middle of the road with its head slumped down over its chest. Gunna crouched by the figure with the two medics and recognized Össur’s face as he lifted it to look at them, a dazed expression on his face. She could see that much of his hair had been singed down to the scalp.

‘Who are you?’ he slurred, his eyes blank and jaw slack.

‘Don’t worry, pal, we’re here to look after you,’ one of the medics said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Össi.’

‘OK, Össi. I’m Lóa. Now just sit still there and you’ll be fine,’ she said, putting a blanket around him.

‘Lóa,’ Össur repeated. ‘That’s a lovely name,’ he said and closed his eyes as he took shuddering breaths.

‘Badly hurt?’ Gunna asked.

‘Not good, but he’ll live,’ the medic replied, looking up. ‘Some burns but mostly shock. Any other casualties?’

‘It doesn’t look like it,’ Gunna said, getting to her feet and looking around to see that in a matter of minutes the street had been cleared and sealed off.

The Skoda bounced down the street that Magni realized he and Össur had run down only a few days before with Alli the Cornershop’s money. At the intersection at the bottom he stopped and waited patiently as a police car turned up the road and shot towards the scene. His fingers were still numb with excitement and he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

‘Go that way,’ Tinna Lind ordered, going through the pockets of Össur’s jacket as she ripped the lining inside out. The wad of notes was surprisingly modest when she found it wrapped in a fat envelope. She patted the jacket, exploring it for tell-tale bulges, and clawed at the lining on the other side. She whooped as she extracted a second bundle of smaller notes.

‘Got it, Magni. The whole lot. A quarter of a million euros!’

‘All of it?’

‘Didn’t you see Össur was constantly patting his pockets? Why do you think he never took his jacket off?’

Two more police cars sped along the road towards them and swept past in a blaze of flashing lights and sirens, an ambulance following behind them.

‘You reckon Össur will be all right?’ Magni said.

‘Why are you asking? He was going to do the same to us.’ She opened the window and bundled the ragged remains of Össur’s jacket through it, watching it twist briefly in the car’s slipstream before it hit the road. ‘I’d bet you anything you like he was going to rob us before he got to the airport.’

‘Won’t there be an alarm when he doesn’t turn up for his flight?’

‘Don’t worry about it. People miss flights all the time. In any case, I didn’t book his flight.’

‘What?’ Magni looked sideways at her in amazement. ‘You had this planned?’

‘Of course not. How could I have planned anything like this? But I knew something was going to happen,’ she said. ‘Listen, we need to drop out of sight and lose this car. We daren’t turn up at the airport in it.’

‘OK. What’s your plan?’

Tinna Lind smiled and tapped her nose. ‘We’re going to be tourists,’ she said, holding up the passport that Össur had bought. ‘We ought to get rid of this as well, but it’s probably not a great idea to drop it out of the window.’

Alli was back in his own armchair, his face the colour of chalk. His lips trembled slightly as he took a sip from a mug cradled in his hands. Eiríkur stood up from the stool he had been perched on in front of the old man.

‘What’s the score here, Eiríkur?’ Gunna murmured.

‘One window shot out. There’ll be a bullet stuck in a wall somewhere, I expect. The van outside is burnt right out.’

‘Any connection?’

‘It’s registered to Rafn Sigmarsson.’

‘Interesting. And where’s Rafn now?’

‘No idea. No sign of him anywhere. It’s the same guy you’re thinking of?’

Gunna nodded and sat herself in front of Alli on the stool Eiríkur had vacated. ‘Alli, you all right?’

Alli looked up and glared at her with watery blue eyes. ‘I’ve had a bit of a shock, but since when have the law been worried about my health?’

‘What happened? No bullshit. Just tell me.’

Alli sipped again from the mug and put it down on the wooden arm of the chair. ‘Össi Óskars. I guess you’ve got the little bastard outside, have you?’

‘I want to hear it from you.’

‘There was a big old bang outside and when I had a look that van in the street was going up like a firecracker. Then that mad bastard Össi was there with a gun in his hand and a couple of other people with him.’

‘Who were they?’

‘A man and a woman. Never seen them before. As soon as I saw what Össi had in his hand I shut the door quick.’ He gulped air and snarled. ‘Then that window came crashing in, there was a lot of shouting outside and then you lot showed up. That’s it, officer. That’s all I saw.’

‘And where’s Rafn?’

Alli’s eyes had resumed their usual flinty look.

‘Who’s this Rafn?’

Magni noticed as he drove into the quiet one-way street that the sign said Fjölnisvegur. He parked the Skoda neatly between two other cars and got out. He patted the roof as he said goodbye to it. The car had served them well, he decided, and it deserved better than to be abandoned in a side street. He shut the door, locked the car and posted the key through the letterbox of the nearest house.

Tinna Lind stood up and sent him a smile.

‘Ready?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’

They walked down the street hand in hand, Tinna Lind trailing behind her the little suitcase she had bought that morning, its wheels bumping over the rutted pavement. The bare branches of the stunted trees arched over their heads as they took it easy, only breaking into a run once they had left the sleepy residential area behind them and had to cross the main road at a smart pace.

Tinna Lind bought two tickets for the airport shuttle bus, asking for them in English and paying with euros, before they took a seat in the restaurant.

‘We could have just driven to the airport, you know,’ Magni said.

‘We could have,’ Tinna Lind agreed, ‘but don’t you think we’ve taken enough chances already?’

‘You’re right, I suppose.’

‘We had better be careful now. That old man that Össur hates so much. That was the guy you two robbed?’

‘Alli. Yeah, that’s him.’

‘With that fire and the gunshots and everything, you can bet anything you like the police will be crawling all over the place. What do you think Alli or Össur will tell them?’

‘I don’t reckon Alli would say a word, but it’s hard to tell with Össur. He might spill the beans if he reckons he’s facing a stretch,’ Magni said. ‘Whatever happens, they’ll be searching for a couple, so maybe we should look as if we’re both travelling on our own.’

‘Then meet up at the far end?’

‘That’s it.’

‘It’s not a long flight. I chose Edinburgh because it’s about the shortest flight you can get, so if there’s anyone looking for us then hopefully we’ll be long gone,’ Tinna Lind said. ‘And I told Össur we were flying to Zürich. Do you think he’d remember that?’