Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 7)

by Quentin Bates

  ‘So he left this place to your son?’

  ‘He left him everything he had, which was this place, which he hadn’t lived in for seven or eight years,’ Gunna said slowly and looked up.

  ‘I see,’ Osman said, still huddled in his coat. ‘But you have other children?’

  ‘I have a daughter, and her father was the man I was married to. And that’s about all I have to say.’

  ‘I think you don’t trust me very much, Gunnhildur.’

  ‘Trust?’ Gunna said, standing up to fill two mugs. ‘We’ve been living under the same roof for a week now and I still don’t know what to make of you. I don’t know if you’re the philanthropist you claim to be, or the criminal the newspapers claim you are, or if you’re some kind of terrorist.’

  She sat down and pushed one of the mugs across the table to him.

  ‘I see. You don’t believe me.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you, Osman. My job is to weigh up evidence. It’s what I do every day, trying to get to the truth, whether it’s a murder or someone caught shoplifting. But with you I simply don’t have the evidence, so I’m not in a position to decide whether you’re for real or not.’

  She sipped her coffee and yawned.

  ‘But you are not afraid?’

  ‘Afraid of what? You?’

  ‘If you think I might be a terrorist, then you should be afraid for your life.’

  Gunna shrugged.

  ‘I may have saved your life. So should I be afraid?’

  His smile was dazzling in the half-darkness, but there was a flash of frustration in his humourless bark of laughter.

  ‘I don’t think you need to be afraid. But tell me, I’ve been out of touch. What are the newspapers saying?’

  ‘That you’re involved in trafficking arms and people, and that your foundation is a smart way to launder money. That’s what it adds up to.’

  ‘In that case I can guess who they’ve been speaking to. There’s an organization that has pursued me relentlessly from the moment the foundation was set up. The accounts are there for anyone to see. There is nothing to hide.’

  ‘That’s precisely what they’re saying; that you’re hiding in plain sight. Making yourself too important and prominent to be questioned.’

  ‘And what do you think, Gunnhildur?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t have the information I need to form an opinion one way or the other. But I would make a guess that your hands aren’t as clean as you’d like us to think, considering there are people who seem to be very keen to shut you up,’ Gunna said. ‘Now, Mr Osman. The question is, what are we going to do with you?’

  ‘Where is Osman?’

  Steinunn’s voice was shrill and far from her usual measured tones, which indicated argument would not be tolerated.

  ‘He’s safe,’ Ívar Laxdal replied. ‘I hope.’

  ‘Safe. Where?’

  ‘Not in Reykjavík.’

  ‘Don’t play games,’ Steinunn snapped, one finger drumming a slow beat on the desk in front of her.

  ‘With respect,’ Ívar Laxdal replied in a tone that carried very little respect, ‘we have a shitstorm to deal with at the moment after James Kearney’s murder, in addition to the fact that it may be directly linked to Osman’s presence in Iceland. The US media is going to latch onto this soon enough and they’re not going to be fobbed off easily.’

  ‘You’re defying me, and that’s not a wise thing to do.’

  ‘Again, with respect,’ Ívar Laxdal said, speaking slowly and clearly, ‘we have a leak somewhere along the line. Somehow these people knew exactly where your friend was. I can only assume that when they couldn’t get to him, they went for McCombie’s associate, who was much easier to reach in that hotel. As far as I know there’s no motive for James Kearney’s killing, other than that he was a member of this strange group, and that he was involved in some business with Osman’s organization. We have no idea if he became a target because McCombie was out of reach, or if he was the target. My intuition is that in this instance the underling was murdered as an example to the others, a warning to stay out of whatever they had been cooking up between them, in the same way that a young man who had exposed the activities of Osman’s foundation was murdered in Antwerp. This is something way beyond anything we have seen in Iceland before, and we’re not equipped to deal with this.’

  Steinunn stared back at Ívar Laxdal.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t know if the leak was here, or with Osman’s people, or the Children of Freedom, but I’ve taken measures to plug it. Now only Gunnhildur and I know where he is, nobody else. When I’m confident it’s safe, I’ll bring him back.’

  ‘I want him back here tonight.’

  Ívar Laxdal shrugged.

  ‘Until he has a ticket out of the country or somewhere genuinely secure, then he stays where he is,’ he said, and watched Steinunn’s eyes flash with fury.

  ‘How’s Carsten?’ Helgi asked.

  Hanne looked as if she hadn’t slept properly for a long time and Helgi decided that was probably the case.

  ‘He’s all right. He was brought to Reykjavík yesterday and he seems to be stable. I hope they’ll let us fly home soon.’

  Helgi wanted to smile, but found he couldn’t. The mortuary always did that to him.

  ‘You’re ready for this?’

  Hanne nodded once.

  Miss Cruz lifted the sheet from the man’s face. The beard was shorter, the dark hair lying in black tangles, but the heavy brows and flat nose were the same.

  Helgi saw Hanne’s face tighten and knew before she spoke that this was the man.

  ‘It’s him. One of them.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. No doubt about it. It’s a face I’ll never forget.’

  ‘Good,’ Helgi said quietly and Miss Cruz let the sheet fall back over the corpse’s face.

  Hanne wanted to shed tears, for Carsten and for her own guilt at finding herself rejoicing in the man’s death. But she stood immobile, staring at the shape under the sheet.

  ‘How did he die?’ she croaked at last, her throat dry.

  Helgi glanced at Miss Cruz.

  ‘Drowning,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Good. Thank you. I think I’ve seen enough,’ Hanne said.

  ‘Thank you for coming in. I’ll have to take a statement from you, and then I can drive you back to the hostel if you like.’

  In Miss Cruz’s office Helgi took notes, enough for the short statement needed to confirm that Hanne had identified the man as one of the two who had threatened her and her husband, presumably hiding contraband in their vehicle.

  Hanne surveyed Miss Cruz’s office.

  ‘One of my uncles was an undertaker,’ she said at last. ‘So I sort of grew up with death in the family. I thought I was more immune to this than most people.’

  ‘I’m not sure you ever build up complete immunity,’ Helgi said, still writing, while Hanne looked over his shoulder at the row of data sheets clipped to the wall, her eyes drawn to a photograph stapled to one of them.

  ‘God . . .’ she muttered.

  ‘What? I’m sorry?’ Helgi said, looking up and seeing the look of confusion on Hanne’s face. He twisted around in the chair to see what had caught her eye.

  ‘There. That picture. I swear,’ Hanne muttered. ‘I swear that’s the other man, the second one.’

  ‘You’re sure? The other guy?’

  Helgi went to the door and opened it.

  ‘Miss Cruz?’ he called. ‘Could you come here for a moment?’

  Hanne stood up and went over to the whiteboard festooned with notes held in place with little coloured magnets.

  ‘I’m sure . . . I think it’s him. He’s in here as well?’ she asked, a feeling of fierce joy surging through her.

  *

  ‘How did this happen?’ Ívar Laxdal rasped into his phone.

  ‘Helgi brought in a woman to identify a body, a man who was pu
lled out of the water. He’d been found on a beach. There’s no sign of any trauma, and it looks like drowning. I’m expecting the blood results to come back telling me he was either drunk or high on something,’ she said and gulped.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Helgi brought the lady here to identify him. They used my office so he could take her statement, and she saw the ID pic of the gunshot victim on my pinboard. It completely slipped my mind that it was there. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, said she recognized him.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘In the coffee room. Helgi can’t understand why he couldn’t see the other body, and I said you’d have to be here.’

  ‘All right,’ Ívar Laxdal decided. ‘I’ll talk to Helgi. Will you get the body ready?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Miss Cruz said with an impatience he’d never seen before. ‘There’s something else here you really need to see.’

  Gunna woke later than she usually did. She deliberately hadn’t set the alarm and revelled in the pleasure of still being wrapped in a duvet as the first rays of sunlight made their way into the room around the edges of the living room’s blinds.

  The muted sound of Osman snoring in the apartment’s only bedroom told her he was still asleep.

  She hadn’t undressed more than necessary the night before and she felt clammy; she was longing for a shower, but decided against it. Hunger overcame any thoughts of hot water and she pulled on her boots.

  Outside it was a fresh morning, no warmer, but brighter than the previous few days had been. The wind came off the sea, bringing with it the sharp tang of seaweed, and she took deep lungfuls as she walked down to the quay to check on the boat.

  ‘All right to leave her here for a while?’ she asked at the fuel berth, where it had been tied up the night before.

  The harbourmaster looked at her curiously.

  ‘You came across the bay last night?’

  ‘That’s right. Tied up here just before midnight.’

  He scratched his chin, a thumbnail rasping on bristles.

  ‘I thought so. Bumpy night, was it?’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘Staying long?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Gunna said. ‘But the boat might be staying longer than I am.’

  ‘No problem. Put her on one of the pontoons on the other side if you’re going to be staying any longer than tomorrow. The weather’s supposed to ease off tonight, so there might be people wanting fuel.’

  Gunna thanked the man and left him to check over the pilot launch. She walked back up the slope, in no doubt that Kallabakari was the next essential place for her to visit; sure she could already smell the fresh bread on its shelves.

  Ana lay in the bath for a long time, enjoying the solitude and the chance to read a book until the water began to cool. She turned the last page, put the book aside, and her thoughts went back to her reasons for being in Iceland and what the next step would be.

  The completed assignment would keep her solvent for a good long time to come and allow her to spend the next few months in the near-solitude she preferred. Maybe even a few weeks in this odd little country, she wondered, and immediately dismissed the idea. Work and personal lives needed to be kept as separate and remote from each other as possible.

  She had a leisurely breakfast of tea and toast with honey, without Michel’s silent but irritating presence in the apartment. She wondered how long it would be before he was found, and guessed it wouldn’t take long before some dog walker stumbled across his corpse on a beach. It was always people walking dogs, she reflected, people who went where normal people didn’t, and at ridiculous times of the day and night.

  She would have to check in using an anonymous computer somewhere, in either a café or at the city library, where she could log into one of her dummy social media accounts to confirm that she could travel now that the operation was over, suspended as being too hazardous to achieve on this remote island.

  Ana took out the smartphone, switched it on and watched it come to life. She activated the application that monitored the trackers, which were so laughably easy to embed in phones if people didn’t take care. All it took was for the target to answer a call from a sender’s unknown number, even for a few seconds, and the process began to implant an inconspicuous nugget of software that piggy-backed on the target phone’s location software. Every time the phone was in contact with a mobile network, it would discreetly update the little blue dot on the screen of her phone.

  She was intrigued, as she munched her toast, to see that Osman’s blue dot had left Reykjavík and was now on the coast across the bay from the city, while the red dot’s position was still in the city. Maybe it was time to pay this one a visit at last.

  In the cubicle that served as a break room, he found Helgi with a bony woman in late middle age, with dark rings under her eyes and an air of tension about them both.

  ‘Miss Cruz has filled me in,’ Ívar Laxdal said. ‘I’m sorry, Helgi, but I’m going to have to keep a few secrets from you. Do you mind if this lady comes with me?’

  ‘Sure,’ Helgi said, clearly perplexed. ‘Do you want me to wait here?’

  ‘For a few minutes,’ Ívar Laxdal said; the grim look on his face was enough to silence Helgi’s protests. ‘I’ll be back soon, and I’ll explain then – as far as I can.’

  They left Helgi muttering under his breath, and Hanne felt the chill of the mortuary as Miss Cruz opened the door for them.

  Another gurney had been wheeled into position and he beckoned Hanne over.

  ‘I understand there were two men, Hanne,’ Ívar Laxdal said. ‘All I want from you is a yes or no.’

  Hanne gulped and nodded. Miss Cruz lifted the sheet.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered and looked up at Ívar Laxdal. ‘Yes,’ she said again in a firmer, louder voice. ‘This is the other man. I have no doubt about it.’

  Miss Cruz dropped the sheet.

  ‘I can put him away again now?’

  ‘Please do,’ Ívar Laxdal said, taking Hanne’s arm and escorting her back to where Helgi was quietly fuming as he waited for his witness to return.

  Gunna dropped the bag of rolls and pastries on the table, set the percolator to run, and with Osman’s snores still audible through the thin wall, she made for the shower and stood for a long time under the scalding water, regretting only that she had travelled light and had no clean clothes to change into.

  She emerged freshly scrubbed to find that Osman’s snoring had ceased and the smell of coffee filled the apartment. She elbowed his door open an inch.

  ‘Morning. Breakfast is here.’

  ‘Good morning, Gunnhildur,’ he said, and coughed. ‘No breakfast in bed?’

  ‘Not a hope. Breakfast is on the table, and if you’re not quick I’ll eat it all.’

  She rooted through the contents of a chest of drawers in the hall, and found a pair of socks that would fit, but decided that if they were going to be here for long, then she would have to pay a visit to a shop for some clean clothes.

  Osman appeared drowsily and sank into a chair by the table. Gunna pushed a mug towards him.

  ‘There’s coffee in the machine and a carton of fresh milk in the fridge.’

  To her surprise, he stood up and, without a word, helped himself to coffee. A week earlier he would have stayed in his chair, eyes going from mug to machine, expecting her to do it for him.

  ‘You’re in the news,’ she said as he sat down and reached for a pastry.

  ‘What?’

  Gunna showed him the freesheet newspaper she had picked up from a rack in the bakery.

  ‘Admittedly this is something of a scandal sheet,’ she said as Osman chewed a sweet roll. ‘But you’re in there.’

  His brow furrowed and he rubbed his eyes.

  ‘What does it say?’

  Gunna ran a finger under the type on the front page as she translated.

  ‘It says that a suspected arms and people trafficker is linked to the death of
James Kearney at the Vatnsmýri Hotel this week, in what they call a surprise revelation by a source who declined to be named.’ She looked up at Osman. ‘I guess that means they made it up, or that it’s guesswork on their part. Not that I know anything about the Kearney case, so I can’t even guess who they might have talked to. Look,’ she said, turning the paper round to show him the picture that filled a quarter of the page, directly below a grainy photograph of refugees on an anonymous beach. ‘You’re front-page news.’

  Michel’s belongings fitted neatly into the backpack she found in his room. She went through everything, methodically emptying the pockets and placing everything personal in a pile. There wasn’t much: a French passport, a health card and driving licence that she knew to be fakes, a couple of photographs in a plastic wallet of a smiling family with a white beach in the background. She peered at the pictures, seeing a smiling African woman and three small children gathered around a barbecue. It was a far-from-new photo, and for a moment she hoped that the children were grown up now, old enough to cope with the fact that their father would not be making any further appearances in their lives.

  The clothes folded neatly into the bag, and she slung it over one shoulder as she left the apartment.

  She dropped a carrier bag folded around Michel’s passport and other documents into a bin along the street, wondering when the next collection would be. It would have been better to burn them, but lighting a fire anywhere in the city was too much of a risk.

  ‘Hi. These are for you, if you want them,’ she said to the man with an ash-grey ponytail.

  The charity shop was a ten-minute walk from the apartment. She had noticed it a few days earlier, when she’d been tempted to spend half an hour among the cast-offs to see if there were any interesting vintage items there. Clothes could wait, though.

  ‘God bless you. You want the bag?’

  ‘No, keep it.’

  He unzipped the bag and shook the shirts and trousers onto the counter.

  ‘Good clothes,’ he said. ‘Not yours?’ he asked, eyeing her from beneath one bushy eyebrow.

  Ana shrugged.

  ‘My ex-boyfriend went back to his wife and left all this at my place. I’ve given up waiting for him to come and get them. If he wanted his clothes, he’d have been back by now, I suppose,’ she said dismissively.