Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 7)

by Quentin Bates

  ‘She wouldn’t go for the easy option, would she?’

  ‘She doesn’t do anything the easy way.’

  ‘But Gunna would have taken anything Fúsi Bjössa might say with a massive pinch of salt and then had a good look around . . .’

  ‘For whoever really did this?’ Helgi said, finishing Eiríkur’s sentence for him.

  Eiríkur glanced around before nodding in agreement. ‘Yeah. So what do we do? Sævaldur’s determined to nail Rikki to the wall on this. Do we challenge him, or what?’

  ‘I’m reluctant to challenge Sævaldur,’ Helgi admitted. ‘Gunna would if she was here, but her balls are bigger than most people’s.’

  ‘Let’s say we’re reluctant to challenge Sævaldur without more to go on?’

  ‘That’s about it, I reckon,’ Helgi decided. ‘So, what do we have? I was there when we picked Rikki up this morning and he had no idea what was going on. He wasn’t faking anything, but he won’t give us an alibi. So my guess is he was up to no good last night and doesn’t want to implicate himself in whatever that was.’

  ‘But he will when the murder charge looks like sticking?’

  Helgi grinned. ‘Wouldn’t that be poetic justice? Rikki having to admit to breaking some poor bastard’s kneecaps to get himself out of something worse.’

  ‘He’ll get a couple of years inside either way? That would be sweet.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Helgi said with a broad smile. ‘And that way everyone’s happy; except Sævaldur.’

  ‘Well, according to Miss Cruz, Thór’s arm had been dislocated at the shoulder. That’s not Rikki’s style. He’s a brute force and ignorance kind of guy.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Helgi mused. ‘That’ll come out in the autopsy report and we’ll see what Sævaldur makes of it. I reckon he’ll just shrug it off.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’

  ‘You start with the witness statements as soon as you have them, but first, I’d really like you to go down to Njálsgata and knock on a few doors until you find someone who saw what really happened. I’ll have a quiet word with Fúsi again and see how easily I can knock holes in his story, and . . .’ He paused.

  ‘And?’ Eiríkur asked.

  ‘Just before I got to the hospital this morning I saw Hallveig Hermannsdóttir coming out.’

  ‘The lawyer?’

  ‘That’s the one. The dealers’ friend, with her fingers in all sorts of sticky business. So I’m wondering what kind of business she had at the National Hospital at seven in the morning?’’

  Arndís and Agnar were already at their desks, engrossed in the screens in front of them.

  ‘Morning,’ Skúli said, dropping his bag onto a chair and extracting his laptop. ‘What’s new?’

  ‘Stats are through the roof,’ Agnar said, a grin spread across his face. ‘Arndís’s story on the Children of Freedom meeting is going viral. The comments are just nuts, completely wild. Every fruitcake out there has an opinion.’

  ‘And my Osman story?’

  Agnar put out a hand and shook it from side to side.

  ‘Not bad. I’m afraid you’re in Arndís’s shadow on this one, but still way above average. Loads of social media have picked it up, and I should imagine Steinunn Strand isn’t a happy lady today,’ Agnar said. ‘I reckon we ought to have a follow-up on this; do you have any more rabbits to pull out of hats?’

  ‘Working on it,’ Skúli said, his attention elsewhere. ‘Anything else new since yesterday?’

  ‘North Korea grandstanding once again,’ Agnar said with a yawn. ‘Oh, and this year’s murder happened last night.’

  ‘This year’s murder? What do you mean?’ Skúli asked as his laptop came to life.

  ‘Where have you been, Skúli? Iceland has an average of one murder a year, and this year’s was last night,’ Arndís said. ‘Thór Hersteinsson,’ she added.

  ‘That blob of misery? I’m guessing Thór was the murderer?’

  ‘You guess wrong,’ Arndís said, spinning her chair around and propelling it and herself across the office to the coffee machine. ‘Thór’s the victim. That’s all we know, except that it happened around eleven last night on Njálsgata, just along from the corner with Snorrabraut.’

  Skúli nodded as Arndís propelled the chair across the floor again, this time to hand him a mug of coffee.

  ‘So the famous Thór the Boxer is no more? Someone’s put him in a box, have they?’

  ‘Yep,’ Agnar said. ‘Iceland’s number-one mugger, street thug, dope dealer, jailbird and all-round, headline-grabbing, fly-onthe-wall-TV-star bad guy is no more. We’ve knocked together an obit and it’s ready to run as soon as he’s confirmed as the victim, although it’s pretty much public knowledge already.’

  ‘So it’s all under control? You don’t need me for anything?’

  Agnar grinned. ‘You could have stayed in bed and left the hard graft to us hardboiled newshounds.’

  ‘Yeah, the hard graft of rehashing a couple of press releases.’

  ‘Come on, I had to do it the hard way and Google for all this stuff.’

  Skúli sipped his coffee. He felt no less tired than he had been when he went to sleep the night before.

  ‘So is there anything on who bumped off Thór the Boxer? And are we proposing a vote of thanks to the person in question?’

  ‘No, and no,’ Arndís said, looking up from her screen. ‘His identity has just been confirmed, so I’ll go live with his obit.’

  ‘You can’t ask me anything right now. I know my rights,’ Fúsi mumbled as Helgi let himself into the room.

  ‘Careful, Fúsi. Hallveig won’t like it if you get to be a smarter lawyer than she is.’

  Fúsi’s mouth shut like a trap and Helgi silently congratulated himself.

  ‘The doc will let me know when your statement can be taken, and the second I have a green light I’ll be here to write down every word you say, Fúsi,’ Helgi said. ‘So let’s just say this is another friendly chat as I’m concerned about your health.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Fúsi spluttered through puffed lips that refused to obey him.

  Helgi sat down at his side and gave Fúsi’s arm an avuncular pat.

  ‘It means that between now and the doc giving me the all-clear to take your formal statement on the events of last night, you have a few hours to reflect very carefully about what you want to tell us.’

  ‘I already told you it was Rikki,’ Fúsi spluttered, his face turning pale. ‘It was Rikki who beat Thór up and then he turned on me.’

  ‘That’s what puzzles me,’ Helgi said. ‘All right, Rikki’s a big lad. But Thór was a big guy as well, and he was always the first one to start swinging his fists. He could look after himself, and if I had to lay odds on those two going head to head, I’d have said it was pretty much even. And you, Fúsi, you’ve never shied away from a ruck like that. I’d have thought even Rikki the Sponge would have thought twice about taking on the two of you, especially as everyone knows you carry a blade.’

  Fúsi’s visible eye flickered in confusion.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘That’s fine, Fúsi. Don’t worry about it,’ Helgi assured him in the same amiable tone as before. ‘I just thought I’d mention to you that it might be worth thinking carefully over whatever Veiga had to say when she came to see you this morning.’

  ‘Veiga?’

  ‘Hallveig Hermannsdóttir. The lawyer. You know, the one who so skilfully got you off handling stolen goods last year. She was here this morning, and I’ve already checked that her mother isn’t in hospital, so she must have been here to see an old friend,’ Helgi suggested as he stood up. ‘Such as you.’

  Fúsi closed his good eye and lay back against the pillow.

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘What I said just now: you’ve got a few hours until I can take a formal statement, and that doesn’t have to be faithful to all the information you gave us earlier.’


  ‘Let me think . . .’

  Helgi opened the door to leave.

  ‘Oh, by the way.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Rikki’s in a cell right now and he’s not a happy man. He doesn’t know who put Sævaldur on to him. But once you’ve made a statement, then it’s official and his lawyer will get to see it. Know what I mean? I’ll see you later.’

  Arndís answered the phone. ‘Pulse.’ She listened, took off her glasses and looked over at Skúli, winking at him as she did so. ‘No, he’s on another line right now. Can I take a message?’

  She nodded, scrawled on a pad and put the phone down.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Your aunt.’

  ‘Hansína?’

  ‘That’s the one. The permanent secretary herself.’

  ‘It didn’t take long for the shit to hit the fan,’ Skúli said, a warm feeling of satisfaction spreading through him, until his mobile vibrated on the desk in front of him. He looked at the number and groaned.

  Before answering, he counted to five, took a deep breath and touched his temples with his forefingers as the stress counsellor had advised him to do.

  ‘Hæ, Dad.’

  ‘What have you been doing now?’ The voice was strident, his irritation bordering on anger. ‘Your Aunt Hansína has called twice. She’s been trying to find you all morning, and I can’t imagine what’s so important that she needs to get hold of you urgently.’

  ‘Lovely to hear from you as well, Dad,’ Skúli replied. ‘How’s Mum?’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Skúli Thór. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at work, as usual. Where else would I be on a weekday morning?’

  His father snorted.

  ‘Then why hasn’t Hansína been able to reach you?’

  ‘Search me. Maybe she called when I was on the other line or in the toilet.’

  ‘There’s no need to be crude.’

  ‘Sorry. That wasn’t the intention. Hansína can call me whenever she feels like it. There’s the office number, there’s the mobile number you’ve just called me on, there’s email and all kinds of social media, plus her office is about five minutes’ walk from mine, so if it’s really urgent, she can always knock on the door.’

  ‘Well, you know now that she wants to get hold of you, so you had better call her and find out what’s up.’

  ‘Sure. I haven’t spoken to Hansína since Grandad’s funeral, so I can’t imagine what she wants.’

  ‘Oh, something official, she said. Just give her your attention, would you? She was quite agitated earlier and I’m not here to pass messages between you and the rest of the family, you know.’

  ‘Sure, Dad. I’ll have a word. How’s Mum?’ he asked, but the phone had already been slammed down at the other end.

  Only a few yards from busy Snorrabraut, with traffic buzzing past well above the speed limit, Njálsgata was a quiet street. Children wrapped in thick coats and woolly hats played on the swings under the watchful eye of a young woman seated on a bench, counting heads under her breath to be sure that none of them had slipped out of the playground.

  A coal-black pair of ravens perched on the roof of the nearby Austurbær cinema, waiting for the children to be shepherded back to play group before picking over the litter in the grass.

  Eiríkur knocked on doors and rang bells, becoming increasingly frustrated as virtually nobody appeared to be at home, and the few people he did manage to speak to had seen nothing until blue lights had started flashing in the street outside the previous night.

  He glanced around, hoping that someone would have a CCTV camera installed somewhere, but there were none to be seen. A camera dome in a corner or high on a wall had become almost standard practice for businesses, but not yet for the flats of this drowsy street.

  ‘Yes?’

  The door swung open in front of him.

  ‘My name’s Eiríkur Thór Jónsson and I’m a detective with the city police force,’ he said before taking in the truculent face in front of him.

  ‘And what do you want with me?’

  ‘There was an incident in the street here last night, a serious one in which a man lost his life,’ Eiríkur said, jerking a thumb along the street. ‘It took place just over there, towards Snorrabraut.’

  ‘I know where Snorrabraut is, thank you,’ the man facing him through the crack of the door replied, a narrow nose and a high forehead visible in the gap. ‘And how does that concern me?’

  ‘We’re looking for witnesses, anyone who might have seen anything last night.’

  ‘And I know exactly what a witness is, thank you, young man,’ he said as the door inched a little further open until it stopped on a length of chain.

  ‘And are you a witness? Did you see anything last night?’

  ‘It’s possible. Look, I’m no admirer of the police and I really don’t want to be involved in anything.’

  The door made to shut, but Eiríkur quickly pushed it back until the chain caught again.

  ‘If you saw something, anything, then it could be a huge help.’

  ‘I have problems of my own. I don’t want to be involved in anyone else’s.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. But this is important. A man lost his life and we’re doing our best to find the person responsible. Did you see anything? Even something that appears quite trivial could turn out to be important.’

  The man’s voice rose an octave in angry frustration.

  ‘Leave me alone. I don’t want anything to do with this, whatever it is.’

  Eiríkur shrugged, his foot still holding the door against the chain.

  ‘I can’t force you,’ he said and delved into a pocket to find a card. ‘This is my name and number. If you have anything to tell us, please get in touch.’

  He offered the card through the opening, but the man didn’t take it. The moment Eiríkur’s foot was removed, the door slammed and he was left still holding the card in his hand. He shook his head and, after a moment’s thought, posted it through the letterbox.

  He walked away, turning to look over his shoulder as he heard a metallic click. The letterbox had snapped shut and the card lay in the street by the door.

  Carsten sighed. It was many years since he had felt so wretched, torn between what he knew was right and the consequences of doing the right thing.

  Thirty years earlier, he had taken a stand against senior staff at the rural school where he was a brand-new teacher, choosing to believe the tearful girl with the bloodshot eyes who bawled and howled in an empty classroom. The girl seemed a child, but looking back she hadn’t been more than a few years younger than he had been when the story came pouring out of her of what her uncle’s weekend visits to the family home meant.

  He could have stayed silent and sent her on her way, or simply referred her to a child psychologist. Instead, he had taken her to the police station where a report was filed, the bruises and razor cuts on Emilie Lund’s skinny arms photographed, and once it had become part of the official system, it was going to stay there for ever.

  It had cost people their careers; two people had lost their jobs and marriages, and he had long been convinced that it had cost him his own career. He still boiled with rage at the recollection of realizing that every one of the staff at that school, and half of the pupils, had been aware of what the girl had been going through, but not one of them had been prepared to say a word.

  Carsten reflected that a whisper had followed him from school to school, a reputation as a troublemaker and a homewrecker, while Hanne’s career had blossomed. The rumour attached to her husband hadn’t carried across to her work in local government – and she had been fiercely proud of what he had done. She loved him for it, he was convinced of that.

  At the time he had not thought for more than a couple of seconds before making a decision, bundling Emilie Lund into his car and not stopping until they were outside the police station.

  Now he felt the situation wa
s repeating itself, except that this time Hanne was blocking him from doing the right thing. He knew she was right, but he was right as well, and they both knew it.

  ‘If we do nothing,’ he said slowly, ‘then this will stay with us for the rest of our lives, on our consciences.’

  Hanne sat in silence in the passenger seat, staring at the grey waves hammering the porcelain-smooth boulders of the shore in front of them.

  ‘It’s not a question of right and wrong,’ she said eventually. ‘Whatever we do, it’s going to be the wrong thing. Either way this will stay with us for the rest of our lives.’

  She turned and looked at him, eyes red behind frameless glasses.

  ‘I want to do the wrong thing that feels slightly less wrong, if that makes any sense.’

  Skúli shivered and shut his eyes as the conversation with his father, their first in almost a year, replayed in his mind. The call had left him shaken and he cursed himself for having taken it. For years his relationship with his parents and brothers had been rocky, and he avoided contact as much as he could, mainly because he knew how restless and upset he would be left by the inevitable argument with at least one of them at any family gathering.

  When the office phone rang again and Arndís politely answered it, he knew from the tone of her voice what was coming and he gestured for her to put the call through to him.

  ‘Aunt Hansína,’ he said, trying to sound breezy. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Do you need to ask? I need to speak to you. Can you come here?’

  ‘Right now? If Steinunn has a statement to make, then certainly I can.’

  ‘Skúli.’ The steel in Hansína’s voice turned a shade harder. ‘The minister does not have any comment to make at this moment. Steinunn isn’t here right now. Elinborg is with her at the PM’s office and there may be a statement later in the day.’

  ‘Fine. In that case would you ask Elinborg to send me the statement when it’s ready?’

  ‘I don’t for a second believe you understand how delicate a matter this is. You’re causing untold trouble.’

  ‘Trouble for whom? The minister who should have done her homework before inviting such a dubious person to sleep on her sofa? Or the government that I guess is expecting to be embarrassed because Steinunn did her own thing without clearing it with the PM’s office first?’