Cold Breath (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 7)

by Quentin Bates

  With a finger under the text, she puzzled her way through the headline and the picture caption, consulting the dictionary in her phone for the words that escaped her.

  She folded the newspaper, already well thumbed after having been on the cafeteria tables for most of the day, and stood up, leaving a few coins on the table for the staff.

  The coach hummed into the darkness and Ana stared into the gloom as snow settled on the darkening landscape at the side of the road, forming a soft covering over the jagged lava.

  The hotel in Keflavík was overheated and stuffy, and she shook off her coat the moment she stepped into the lobby.

  ‘One night?’

  The young man behind the desk eyed her curiously.

  ‘One night,’ she confirmed. ‘Early flight tomorrow, so could you please order me a taxi for five?’

  ‘Going somewhere nice?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, passing a credit card across the counter. ‘Home.’

  She punched in the number, took her key and shouldered her bag.

  ‘Your room’s on the first floor. Would you like me to help you?’

  ‘I can manage, thanks. Is there a bar here?’

  ‘Through there. Open until midnight.’

  ‘Cool. I’ll be down for a nightcap.’

  ‘If there’s anything you need, I’m here to help,’ the young man behind the desk said with an unmistakable hint of suggestion.

  ‘And in the unlikely event there’s anything I need, then you’ll be the first to find out,’ Ana assured him.

  ‘What you were doing was illegal?’

  Osman smiled properly for the first time.

  ‘Illegal? What is illegal in a lawless land? I can’t say if what we were doing was right or wrong. We were just meeting a demand. If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have been there to take the money.’

  ‘And the risks.’

  ‘And someone else would have found themselves staring a pistol in the face. This is life.’

  ‘So the other side of the business, the refugees. You were happy to do that as well?’

  ‘Again,’ Osman said, ‘there was a demand, a very strong demand. People wanted to escape a war zone, and they were prepared to pay with practically everything they had. Business is business. If someone wants to give you money, you don’t turn them away.’

  Gunna shook her head.

  ‘It’s difficult for me to understand how you could do this. We see on the news here—’

  ‘You see half the story. You see penniless migrants. What we see on the beaches are people desperate to escape the bullets or persecution. They don’t ask the price of a place in a boat; they just pay it, and we made sure they were able to wade ashore and weren’t put to sea in some hulk that was ready to sink.’

  ‘And the same in North Africa?’

  ‘That is not my affair. White Sickle is active with the refugees who come to Italy from North Africa, but I’ve had nothing to do with bringing them across. Gunnhildur, I have been there. If I were to try and steal business from the people who are there, then my throat would have been cut within an hour. I may have been unlucky sometimes, but I’m not stupid.’

  He yawned and lifted the wine bottle. He poured himself another glass, then held the bottle over Gunna’s. She put her hand over it.

  ‘I’m on duty. Remember?’

  ‘Of course. I don’t think you are ever off duty, Gunnhildur.’

  ‘It does happen. I’ll be off duty for a week once you’re on your flight.’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘Relax. Try not to think about this last week. Read a book and play with the grandchildren.’

  Osman shook his head.

  ‘I can still hardly believe they appointed a grandmother as my bodyguard.’

  His smile returned, broad this time, his teeth a brilliant white. Osman reached across the table between the glasses and the pizza crusts, his fingers seeking out her hand. She did not withdraw it as his fingertips trailed across the back of her hand.

  ‘Gunnhildur, I admire you tremendously.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He held her hand and squeezed it, and Gunna felt her stomach flutter as he gazed into her eyes with a warmth she hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Gunnhildur, this is our last night,’ he murmured. ‘Maybe we should spend it together?’

  Gunna lifted her hand, laid it over his and squeezed back, hard enough to make Osman wince.

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ she said at last. ‘No offence, but I have a guy of my own and it just wouldn’t be right. We can both just have an early night and go to bed with a good book.’

  The look of disappointment on his face was clear and Gunna wanted to laugh, but restrained herself. Her own momentary hesitation in refusing had taken her by surprise, and she wondered why she had even thought about it. Osman was an undeniably attractive man and capable of being captivating when he wanted to switch on the charm. Maybe if he hadn’t treated Sif so coldly on the night of the shooting, which now seemed so long ago, she would have taken his suggestion more seriously – how much more seriously, she wondered?

  She reminded herself that she was on duty, and while that did not have to be a reason to turn down an adventure, she knew there was a good chance that every word they said was being recorded.

  ‘Go on. You can take a shower while I clear up here. Old grandmothers like me need our beauty sleep. We have to be up early; Ívar will be here at five.’

  Chapter Eight

  Bundled in a woollen hat that came down to his eyebrows and a coat that reached his ears, the taxi driver said not a word until he pulled up at the terminal.

  The young man at the hotel’s reception desk had been equally taciturn; either he was tired at the end of a long shift or disappointed that she hadn’t required his assistance with anything during the night.

  Ana handed the driver cash, waved away a receipt, and shivered as she marched through the cold darkness and into the building. She felt as if she were on holiday, with one job done and another called off. Now there was the flight home, a debriefing in yet another anonymous central European hotel, followed by a few days of relaxation. It had been a long assignment – for five months she had tailed Osman, then for the last few weeks she’d tried to manage those two knuckleheads; she felt she deserved a rest.

  ‘Sandra Blondel?’

  She nodded as the checkin clerk scanned her passport, pressed a button for a conveyor belt to whisk her case away, and handed her a boarding pass.

  ‘Enjoy your flight,’ he said, giving her the first welcoming smile of the day.

  She had nearly finished breakfast when the sight of a familiar figure almost made her spit coffee out before she froze.

  Valgeir walked past as if in a daze. His eyes were red and there was a scarf wrapped high around his neck as he stood peering at the screen showing the departure gates.

  Ana turned away and pulled her collar up as she fumbled for her phone. She switched its camera to selfie mode and looked at her own face in the screen, while watching Valgeir as he stood behind her shoulder. Her heart hammered and she bitterly reproached herself for not having dealt with him conclusively the previous day.

  She quickly took stock, wondering what her best option was. The safest one would be to leave the airport and get a later flight. But she had the advantage of having seen Valgeir while he was unaware of her, and as long as he didn’t get a clear look at her face, she could probably avoid being recognized. The problem was he could be on the same flight, and that would be fraught with problems.

  Squinting at the phone’s screen, she watched him shamble towards the bookstall where he scanned the rows of magazines and foreign newspapers on display. Ana quickly gathered her belongings, stuffed the phone in her pocket and set off for one of the souvenir shops, keeping Valgeir at enough of a distance that he would be unlikely to recognize her if he turned around, but close enough that she could watch and avoid him.

  ‘Sleep we
ll?’ Ívar Laxdal asked with a shadow of a smirk, confirming her suspicion that the flat had been bugged.

  ‘Very well, thanks,’ Gunna replied and placed Osman’s case on the back seat.

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘Were you expecting any?’ Gunna asked.

  ‘Not at all. I knew everything was in safe hands. We need to be quick, so where’s our boy?’

  Osman appeared, bleary-eyed and shivering in the wind that seemed to be even colder in the pre-dawn gloom.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, extending a hand for Ívar Laxdal to shake.

  A surly Luc huddled in a thick anorak, stamping his feet, taking puffs from a cigarette cradled in one hand. He gave a surly wave, trod the butt of his cigarette into the snow and got back into the passenger seat of Ívar Laxdal’s car.

  There was silence on the way to the airport until Ívar Laxdal pulled up behind a black Mercedes outside the terminal. Inside the building he led the way, glancing from side to side as he strode through the half-empty building, with Osman at his side, Luc hurrying to keep up and Gunna following, aware that somewhere behind them Steingrímur and his team were outside.

  ‘No formalities here,’ Ívar Laxdal said, rapping on a door that opened to admit them to a meeting room where Steinunn and a glum Matthías were waiting.

  ‘Ali, I’m so sorry,’ she said, standing up to take Osman’s hands in hers, leading him to a corner of the room where they talked in undertones. Gunna could see tears begin to well up in Steinunn’s eyes and Osman nodded as she talked rapidly.

  ‘Ready for this?’ Ívar Laxdal asked Luc, who looked as if he were reining in his impatience.

  He shook his head and pursed his lips.

  ‘Yeah. There’s a welcoming committee at Brussels, so once our friend is their responsibility, I’ll be happier. I don’t like flying, even when I don’t have someone to escort safely to the other end,’ he added and turned to Gunna. ‘Did he tell you anything that might be useful?’

  ‘You can listen to the tape,’ she growled, and Ívar Laxdal looked uncomfortable.

  At the other end of the room, Osman and Steinunn stood up, and she again clasped his hands in both of hers as he looked into her eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again. ‘I do wish . . .’ she continued, without finishing her sentence.

  ‘I appreciate what you’ve done, and what you tried to do,’ Osman told her, his voice raw. ‘It’s unfortunate that so much trouble came with me to your peaceful country. I would have liked to stay a little longer.’

  ‘We have to go,’ Ívar Laxdal said as Steinunn squeezed Osman’s hands again before letting them go.

  ‘We should go,’ Osman agreed, with a parting look at Steinunn.

  Ívar Laxdal led the way, this time with an airport official at his side, who opened doors for them as if by magic.

  ‘You’re going all the way to the gate?’ the man asked. ‘Or just to the departure lounge?’

  ‘The gate.’

  ‘No problem. It’s a bit of a mess at the moment, I’m afraid. The place is being rebuilt.’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘Yeah, as if we haven’t had enough building work here. But winter’s the time to get it done.’

  He pulled open a door that Gunna noticed only had a handle on one side, and they stepped out into the departure lounge.

  Ana’s heart sank as she saw Valgeir join the queue for the departure gate she wanted. He seemed completely absorbed in his phone, and she wondered if she could safely take the same flight without being seen. What could he do even if he were to see her? If he’d reported what had happened yesterday, he would hardly be leaving the country so soon afterwards, or would he?

  She joined the end of the line and could see the back of Valgeir’s head some way in front of her, almost at the front of the queue. Ana put on a baseball cap with a puffin motif that she had picked up at a souvenir stall, pulling the brim low to hide most of her face, and took a deep breath. She told herself there was still time to bail out if things looked awkward, and there was every chance that she would make it home in time for lunch without Valgeir having any idea that she was on the same flight.

  The queue moved in fits and starts as the passengers boarded, a sleepy attendant checking passports against names on boarding passes – Ana quickly checked that she had a passport in Sandra Blondel’s name in her hand.

  She saw with satisfaction that Valgeir was in the middle of the aircraft, while she had paid extra and booked a window seat near the front. Confident that she would be able to avoid him, she handed her documents across.

  ‘Is it a full flight?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ the attendant said. ‘It doesn’t help that we have a VIP on this flight, so he gets a row to himself.’

  ‘Anyone famous?’ Ana asked.

  ‘No idea. But it’s short notice, so that normally means it’s some politician.’

  ‘So this is goodbye. Luc is travelling with you,’ Ívar Laxdal said, and turned to the airport official. ‘And this gentleman will take the two of you to the gate once the other passengers have boarded.’

  Gunna thought Osman looked a completely different man to the self-assured figure who had stepped out of a private jet what seemed like an age ago. The coat he was wearing still carried the stains from the boat, but he stood upright, with the bearing of a man accustomed to being listened to.

  Osman extended a hand to Ívar Laxdal.

  ‘Thank you, Commander. I’m deeply grateful for all your efforts. I appreciate I have made life difficult for you.’

  ‘It’s been interesting,’ Ívar Laxdal replied.

  ‘And Gunnhildur,’ Osman said. No hand was extended and instead he opened his arms. Gunna could feel the Glock in its holster pressed against her side as Osman’s arms closed around her in a fierce embrace and she hugged him back.

  ‘I won’t say it’s been all fun and games,’ she said, disengaging, ‘but it has been an experience. I hope everything works out for you, Osman.’

  ‘I hope so too, Gunnhildur. I hope so. And I hope that one day we can meet again.’

  ‘And with that, we must go,’ Ívar Laxdal said. ‘Look after him, won’t you, Luc, and thanks for all your efforts.’

  Luc coughed. ‘And you. I’ll be in touch next week, and I’ll send you the information you asked for on your cases. All right?’

  Ívar Laxdal gave him a wave that was almost a salute, and Gunna had to hurry to keep up with him.

  ‘What now, Gunnhildur?’ he said as they walked back through the terminal. ‘What now? Back to the shop?’

  ‘For you, maybe, but I haven’t been home for more than a week, so you could start by giving me a lift to Hvalvík. Steini might even make us breakfast if we’re lucky.’

  Squeezed into the window seat next to a man in a suit who had merely nodded as he took his place before absorbing himself in a movie on his computer, Ana wanted to laugh. What were the chances of all three of them being on the same flight?

  The man she had somehow failed to murder was seated a dozen rows behind her, while the one she was still hoping to deliver to angry men who wanted him dead had taken a seat at the front of the cabin. Osman had been ushered on board by an official, accompanied by a dishevelled man she knew as Commander Kerkhoeve. She knew him by sight, and sincerely hoped he wouldn’t recognize her; not that there was any reason he should. As far as she knew, she didn’t appear on any police records, either under her own name or under any of the various aliases she used.

  The man in the next seat looked sideways over his glasses and closed his laptop for takeoff. Ana had no desire to strike up a conversation and closed her eyes, pulling the brim of her cap down over her face.

  She was surprised to wake well into the flight, having dozed off while the aircraft climbed into the skies over Iceland. The movie the man in the suit had been watching had finished, replaced on his laptop’s screen with a spreadsheet that looked less interesting, but which he seemed to find just as absorbing.r />
  What next, she wondered. Would there be an opportunity to shadow Osman? It was unlikely. Kerkhoeve’s shabby figure might not look much, but the man had a reputation for ruthlessness and results. At least she knew where he would be going, should the not entirely reliable tracker in Osman’s phone fail.

  Then there was Valgeir. Should she simply avoid him at the other end, or give him a wave and a smile before disappearing into the crowd?

  *

  ‘You’re coming in, aren’t you?’

  Ívar Laxdal switched off the Volvo’s engine and they sat in silence.

  ‘You know, Gunnhildur,’ he said at last, ‘you have no idea how relieved I am that Osman is no longer our problem.’

  ‘I think I can guess. But now we have to clear up all the mess he caused.’

  ‘Some of it. The two mercenaries haven’t been formally identified, although Luc gave us a rough idea of who they were. One of them was responsible for the murders of Thór Hersteinsson and James Kearney, before drowning in an as yet unexplained accident. Neat, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Much, much too neat. Certainly too neat to have been an accident.’

  ‘Whatever went on there, it’s a mystery that you and I will probably never get to the bottom of.’

  Gunna chewed her lip.

  ‘Now you’re wrapping all this up, hopefully you can tell me if there’s likely to be an inquiry.’

  Ívar Laxdal frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The dead man. The one I . . .’

  ‘Ah, you mean the unidentified individual who accidentally shot himself with his own illegal handgun?’

  Gunna stared at him. ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘Gunnhildur, I’m serious. Nobody wants an inquiry. Not me, not you, and certainly not anyone higher up.’

  ‘But there are people who know. You, Steingrímur, the twins, Sif Strand, Valgeir, Steinunn, plus a few others. This can’t be kept secret.’

  ‘An open secret.’ Ívar Laxdal shrugged. ‘Whispers. You’ll have to live with the rumours. But if I have anything to do with it, that’s as far as it’ll ever go.’