Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 7)

by Quentin Bates

  ‘Anyone touched anything?’

  ‘Only the medics and the guy who found them.’

  Eiríkur nodded. ‘That’s good. I gather forensics are on the way, so if you could keep people clear, that would be ideal. Helgi should be here soon.’

  ‘No problem,’ the motorcycle officer replied. ‘It would be useful if we could open up Snorrabraut again before morning, otherwise the traffic’s going to be murderous. On the other hand, my shift’ll be over by then, so it’ll be someone else’s problem.’

  Chapter Four

  A woman tugging on the belt of an old-fashioned raincoat that flapped around her knees swept out of the door just as Helgi was about to push it open.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Helgi muttered under his breath, stepping back as the woman barged past him through the hospital’s doors and into the darkness outside.

  Helgi looked through the window in the hospital room door. The forlorn patient he could see looked vaguely like the petty criminal Helgi had arrested a dozen times over the years, generally for the same offences again and again. He had no fondness for Sigfús Björnsson, known to everyone as Fúsi Bjössa, who he was sure had never once been troubled by a pang of conscience for any of his misdeeds, but he was still shocked by the sight of him.

  Fúsi lay in bed, a monitor humming at his side and a drip in his arm. His face appeared to be one vast bruise, as if whoever had attacked him had set out to leave nothing untouched; it was hard to see where one injury began and another ended.

  ‘Is he able to talk?’

  The duty doctor shrugged.

  ‘He can mumble. There are no major injuries, just a lot of painful ones. His jaw isn’t broken, but he doesn’t have many teeth left. He’s pumped full of painkillers.’

  ‘Has anyone been to see him yet? You’ve spoken to his next of kin?’

  ‘Yes, there was someone. Just gone.’

  ‘Tall woman in a raincoat?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask the nursing team.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Helgi said. ‘But first I ought to have a word with this gentleman.’

  The doctor’s grim smile contained no trace of humour.

  ‘I’m not sure that this guy could be classed as a gentleman,’ he said quietly. ‘But good luck.’

  ‘Hæ, Fúsi,’ Helgi said as he sat down uninvited by the bed. ‘You’ve been upsetting people again, have you?’

  Fúsi opened the one eye that wasn’t entirely swollen shut.

  ‘I was attacked,’ he mumbled through broken teeth. ‘I mean, we were attacked.’

  ‘Your mate Thór hasn’t come out of this well, Fúsi. Thór is here as well, but he’s flat on his back in the morgue. Sorry, but I thought you ought to know.’

  A single tear welled from Fúsi’s good eye.

  ‘Bastard.’

  Helgi leaned closer.

  ‘Listen, this isn’t a formal interrogation. You’re full of painkillers, so no statement yet. All I’m after right now is for you to tell me who did this. Answers first, statement later. This is going to be a murder charge, no two ways about it. So it’s serious. You know who did this?’

  Fúsi nodded, wincing at the pain in his neck as he did so.

  ‘Rikki,’ he mumbled, looking away. ‘Rich Rikki. Rikki the Sponge.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yeah. It was just Rikki. He came after us, smacked Thór a couple of times and he went down like a sack of spuds. I tried to stop him and then he turned on me. I don’t remember much after that.’

  ‘Why? Why was Rikki coming after you two? And single-handed?’

  ‘There was some other guy there as well, didn’t see who it was. But it was Rikki who did the business.’

  ‘You don’t know the other person?’

  Fúsi tried to shrug his shoulders and whimpered as he shifted in bed.

  ‘Didn’t see him,’ he muttered. ‘Big guy, like all the lads who hang around with Rikki. Dark hair. Grey tracksuit. Look, I had other stuff on my mind.’

  Helgi sat back, puzzled. Everyone knew Rich Rikki, but it wasn’t normal for him to carry out a beating somewhere so public where there could be witnesses.

  ‘You’re telling me that you witnessed Ríkharður Rúnarsson beating Thór Hersteinsson to death last night on the corner of Snorrabraut and Njálsgata?’

  Fúsi nodded.

  ‘That’s it. That’s what happened,’ he said with as much emphasis as his puffed lips and broken teeth would allow. ‘It was Rikki.’

  ‘G’day, Rikki,’ Helgi said, pulling the duvet back to reveal a face that was both bewildered and furious.

  Rikki’s current girlfriend stood in the doorway, arms crossed and a hopeless look on her face, trying to convey that she’d had no choice but to let the police into the apartment.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’ he demanded, sitting up quickly, eyes flickering from Helgi to the two uniformed officers behind him. In the dim light of the stuffy bedroom intricate tattoos chased each other around the bulging muscles of Rikki’s torso.

  ‘What? Aren’t you pleased to see us?’ Helgi asked, wishing he could move out of range of those fists, should Rikki decide to swing a punch, but unable to with the officers and Chief Inspector Sævaldur Bogason crowded behind him into the little room.

  ‘What does the filth want with me?’ Rikki grunted.

  ‘Rikki, where were you last night?’ Helgi replied. ‘It’s serious, so don’t mess us about.’

  ‘Out with the guys. Why?’

  ‘Where were you between eleven and half-past midnight?’ Sævaldur demanded, his voice harsh in the thick air.

  ‘Out,’ Rikki said slowly, casting a glance at the tight-lipped woman now peering past the crowd of police officers. ‘I was out. Why?’

  ‘Where were you and who were you with?’

  ‘I reckon you’d better get my lawyer before I say anything,’ Rikki said, rasping a hand over the millimetre of stubble on his head. ‘Is this an arrest, or what? I know my rights. I’m not saying anything unless you arseholes want to make it real.’

  Helgi could almost feel Sævaldur’s grin of delight behind him.

  ‘Then let’s make it real, shall we?’ Sævaldur said with satisfaction he made no effort to conceal. ‘You’re coming down to Hverfisgata with us, right now. Tell him, Helgi.’

  Helgi took a deep breath.

  ‘Ríkharður Rúnarsson, you’re under arrest for the murder of Thór Hersteinsson. You have the right to legal representation at every stage of proceedings. You do not have to say anything that might incriminate you. You have an obligation to tell the truth.’

  Rikki’s mouth hung open.

  ‘Thór?’ he said, dazed. ‘I haven’t seen that fuckwit for months. What’s all this about?’

  ‘You heard, Rikki,’ Helgi said. ‘This just got serious.’

  ‘But you . . . I know where you bastards live, y’know.’

  ‘Shut your mouth before you make it worse, Rikki,’ Helgi snapped. ‘Don’t give yourself another six months for threatening behaviour. Come on, get your trousers on and we’re going.’

  Sævaldur gloated from the doorway and jerked his head at Rikki.

  ‘Bring him out, will you?’ he said to the two uniformed officers. ‘And cuff the bastard.’

  Eiríkur liked Miss Cruz, the city police force’s forensic pathologist, who’d arrived five years ago from Spain on a six-month placement and never left. As much as he liked Miss Cruz, he hated the place where she worked, and a visit to the sterile room with its corpses on trays was always a trial. Eiríkur made a habit of encountering death by closing his eyes in a moment’s silent prayer before opening the door.

  Miss Cruz was washing her hands when he arrived. She gave him a smile as he pushed open the heavy door with trepidation, aware of how much the place put him on edge.

  ‘Good morning,’ she greeted him in her habitual precise English, drying her hands and shaking out inky curls as the surgical cap came off.

  �
��Hello. Finished?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘I’ve done a preliminary assessment. Do you want to take a look at the victim?’

  ‘Sure,’ Eiríkur said and instantly regretted it.

  Naked, pale and laid out on a steel tray, Thór Hersteinsson looked smaller and sadder than he ever had during his short, angry life. For the first time that Eiríkur could remember from the many hours Thór had spent in interview rooms and numerous nights in the cells, he looked almost at peace, the familiar buzzing aggression sucked out of him.

  ‘What do I need to know?’ Eiríkur asked, relieved that Miss Cruz’s work with the scalpel had not yet begun.

  ‘Impact trauma to the throat and left temple,’ Miss Cruz said, switching to lecture mode. ‘Two powerful blows, as far as I’m able to see without taking him to pieces, which we’ll be doing this afternoon. And his nose has been practically ripped off.’

  ‘His nose? Eiríkur asked, feeling stupid.

  ‘Exactly. I would say an upward strike to the face that caught his nose; either a fist, or more likely the heel of the attacker’s hand,’ she said, jabbing a hand upward into the space over Thór Hersteinsson’s face to demonstrate.

  ‘A short attacker?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Miss Cruz mused. ‘But close, very close. The attacker would have been standing right in front of him. An extremely powerful blow, so someone either very strong or skilled at what they were doing. Or they could have got lucky while this guy got very unlucky. But all that stuff’s your department.’

  Eiríkur surveyed the dead man in front of him and wondered if he ought to feel some kind of pity for Thór Hersteinsson, who had spent most of his adult life making the lives of those around him difficult and unhappy. He knew his father would have said something wise about being charitable to the unfortunate, but quickly brushed those thoughts aside.

  ‘This would have been extremely painful, surely?’

  ‘Of course,’ Miss Cruz said. ‘The nose is a highly sensitive part of the body, so the pain would have been massive, though not life threatening, but . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘If it’s pain we’re talking about, then my guess is that he would have been more preoccupied with his left arm. That would have been both extraordinarily painful and entirely debilitating.’

  ‘Why? What happened to his arm?’ Eiríkur asked, leaning over the body and noticing for the first time that the arm looked awkward, as if it hardly belonged to the body it was attached to.

  ‘His arm has been dislocated at the shoulder, wrenched right out of the socket.’

  Eiríkur stood up and looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Pulled his arm out, smashed his nose and then a couple more blows to the head? In that order, do you think?’

  Miss Cruz shrugged.

  ‘That’s what it looks like. I imagine the trauma to the head meant it was lights out.’

  ‘Somebody really didn’t like this guy and wanted to hurt him.’

  ‘Someone very skilled in a close-quarters martial art – aikido, ju-jitsu, something like that.’

  ‘Someone with dangerous skills,’ Eiríkur said, ‘and who’s prepared to use them.’

  ‘Sit down,’ Helgi told the woman. It felt odd that he was telling her to take a seat in her own home, but he could see her twisting her hands as she shot sideways glances at him.

  She took a seat behind the kitchen table, sitting awkwardly, perched on the edge of a stool.

  ‘How long has Rikki been living here?’ Helgi asked.

  ‘Not long,’ she said slowly. ‘A couple of months, on and off.’

  ‘He lives out of a carrier bag, right? A few nights here and a few nights there?’

  The woman nodded, her face grey. Helgi guessed that she would never step outside without her face made up and her long hair, so pale it was almost white, in perfect order. He’d encountered Rikki in the past and knew that he liked his girlfriends to conform to type.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asked, clicking a lighter without waiting for a reply.

  Helgi coughed and glared.

  ‘When did Rikki show up? Don’t tell me he was here with you all evening and you watched Star Trek for an hour before having an early night.’

  ‘He lets himself in. I was out and he was already here when I got home.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Around one.’

  ‘Where had you been?’

  ‘What’s that to you?’ she asked, sending a plume of grey smoke high over Helgi’s head.

  ‘I might need to verify it, so who will confirm that for you?’

  ‘I work at the 10–11 on Grjótháls. It’s open round the clock. I finished at twelve, picked up a pizza and came home. So I was back before one and Rikki was already asleep in the armchair. The supervisor’s name is Gróa Gunnlaugsdóttir. She’ll confirm I was at work.’

  ‘I’ll check,’ Helgi assured her.

  She turned away to stub out her cigarette and he studied her profile, checking for the marks that Rikki had made a habit of leaving on his girlfriends over the years. He wasn’t shy of administering a slap, or worse, when they didn’t meet his standards.

  Reassured that there were no remnants of a black eye to be seen, he stood and zipped up his jacket.

  ‘Thanks for the information. I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘Rikki’ll be back soon, won’t he?’ she asked, and Helgi wondered whether the plaintive tone indicated that she was missing him already, or that she was hoping he would be in a cell for years to come.

  ‘It’s not for me to say,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t bank on it.’ He folded his arms as the woman hunched on the stool in the corner of the kitchen. ‘Unless you’ve anything to add?’

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Rikki was here when I got home before one. That’s the truth of it.’

  ‘Fair enough. But you can give me a call any time you like if there’s anything you feel we ought to know.’

  Rikki looked smarter wearing a clean shirt. The stubble on his head glittered silver in the harsh light of the interview room. He scowled, deep-set eyes narrowing as Sævaldur took a seat, ignoring Rikki and his lawyer while he tapped at the computer to set up the recording.

  ‘Chief Inspector Sævaldur Bogason. Interview with Ríkharður Rúnarsson and legal adviser Hans Hannesson,’ he intoned. ‘The time is ten forty, starting second interview.’

  He looked up.

  ‘We’re seeking two weeks’ custody,’ Sævaldur said in a flat voice.

  ‘We’ll oppose that, naturally,’ the lawyer said smoothly, with the air of a man relishing the prospect of a duel.

  ‘So, Rikki,’ Sævaldur said, ignoring the lawyer’s comment. ‘Tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living these days?’

  ‘This and that. Freelance security and a few other things.’

  ‘That’s code for collecting debts and breaking arms, is it?’

  ‘Ensuring that my clients’ assets stay secure.’

  ‘And of course you never overstep the mark, do you, Rikki?’

  Sævaldur waited for a reply, but got nothing but a baleful glare from Rikki’s deep-set eyes.

  ‘So who were you collecting for last night? Did Thór owe someone money?’

  Rikki shook his head.

  ‘Nothing to do with me. I don’t deal with low-grade street scum like Thór,’ he said, his voice oozing disdain.

  ‘But Thór is dead and I’m wondering if this was a debt you were supposed to collect or a little persuasion that got out of hand?’

  ‘Chief Inspector . . .’ Hans broke in. ‘Facts, please.’

  Sævaldur gave the lawyer a sideways glance before continuing.

  ‘Rikki, you have a track record of beatings and assaults that goes back to when you were thirteen. You’ve been in and out of a cell for years and you’ve probably broken more arms and fingers than anyone else in Reykjavík,’ he said. ‘Although I’ll grant you that you’ve got better at it in t
he last few years, at least in terms of getting caught and intimidating witnesses so none of them will say anything.’

  ‘Chief Inspector, please,’ Hans broke in again. ‘Could you confine yourself to the facts of the case instead of the lack of facts?’

  ‘Rikki here has a hell of a police record. That’s a fact.’

  ‘Maybe. But he’s a reformed character,’ Hans assured him for the benefit of the recording. ‘He has no convictions whatsoever in the last eight years, as I’m sure you’re aware. That makes his presence here ridiculous and I expect you to release him the moment this interview ends.’

  ‘Yeah, and I’m sure he runs marathons for charity when he’s not snapping thumbs,’ Sævaldur rumbled, slapping the table. ‘This is rock solid. We have a witness who places you at the scene. He’s certain it’s you; there’s no doubt in his mind that you’re the man. So let’s get back to the start and you can tell me in detail exactly where you were and what you did last night.’

  Rikki’s face lost some of its colour and he leaned over to whisper in his lawyer’s ear.

  ‘A private conference?’ Sævaldur asked before Hans could say anything.

  ‘Rikki didn’t do it,’ Eiríkur said the moment he was able to speak without being overheard.

  ‘I reckon you’re probably right,’ Helgi agreed. ‘I wouldn’t trust Fúsi Bjössa an inch, and he’s the only witness. Is there anything from the uniform guys knocking on doors?’

  Eiríkur shook his head.

  ‘Sævaldur called them off, reckons he has enough to go on. I’ll go through the statements, but I don’t expect there’s much there. It was midnight on a cold week night. Downtown there would have been a few people about, but Njálsgata is pretty quiet. There are houses one side of the street and that children’s playground the other, and there are always drunks hanging out there after dark, so nobody’s going to notice a few shouts.’

  Helgi scratched his head.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve only been on this investigation with Sævaldur for a few hours and I’m missing Gunna already.’