‘Wife?’ she mouthed at him. ‘Really?’
He pushed the Explorer through the darkness, furious at having been recognized in the shop and wondering if Svava having seen him there could prove to be a problem later. Realizing he was driving dangerously fast, he told himself to act rationally and slow down. There was nothing to connect him with anything illegal, he was sure of that, and he brooded all the way along the long straight road. He’d even wiped down the car’s interior as best he could to remove any prints and worn gloves for the journey, but he still had the nagging feeling there could be a print or two that had escaped him, and hoped they would be Össur’s rather than his.
At least the Explorer was behaving better now that the tank was full of fresh petrol, and as he barrelled along he almost missed the junction by the filling station onto the unmade road northwards, and had to stop and reverse to make the turning, scolding himself for not paying attention.
Hotel Hraun was in darkness. He parked at the front and took the boxes in one by one, stacking them on the kitchen table. All but one of the loaves of bread and cartons of milk went into the freezer, as did the bags of chicken and pork, along with a bag of still-frozen fish fillets, although he pulled out a couple to defrost for the next day.
‘Hello! Where is everyone?’ he called out. He put water on to boil and ripped open a bag of coffee.
‘How did it go?’
‘Ah, not bad. The tank’s full and there’s food in the fridge. How’s your mum?’
Tinna Lind grinned. ‘Going stir crazy, I think. She hasn’t been shopping for two whole days. She’s watching TV upstairs and fretting that you might be living the high life on her Visa card.’
‘In Selfoss? Yeah, sure.’
‘You could have gone to the booze shop, couldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, I could have. But I wanted to keep it discreet, so I got fuel and food, and that’s it. Don’t want to take too many risks with someone else’s card. In fact, the girl in the shop in Selfoss looked at it strangely and I said I’d picked up my wife’s card by mistake.’
‘And you got away with it?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ Magni said, and thought back to Svava mouthing ‘wife?’ at him as he left the shop.
Össur appeared in the doorway.
‘It went all right?’
‘It did. Food and fuel.’
‘You got smokes?’
Magni tossed a carton of Camels to him and Össur caught it with the first smile that any of them had seen on his face.
‘Food as well?’
‘Yep, stocked up with stores.’
‘What are we eating tonight?’
Magni delved into the last box and took out three paper bags.
‘As it’s Saturday night, grilled chicken and salad,’ he said, adding a couple of cartons to the pile on the table. ‘Help yourselves. The chef gets a night off tonight.’
‘Fucking hell . . .’
Magni turned to see Össur with the newspaper spread out on the table in front of him, an unlit cigarette in his mouth.
‘What?’ he asked, making his way to the other side of the table to see what had taken him by surprise.
ONE DEAD IN HAFNARFJÖRDUR HOUSE FIRE read the headline, over a picture of an old-fashioned house with smoke billowing from an upstairs window while a fire engine filled the foreground of the picture.
‘Shit. That’s Árni’s place,’ Össur said in a dead voice.
‘Fuck. You’re sure?’
‘Of course I’m fucking sure.’
Magni picked the paper up, checked the date, saw it was the previous day’s paper and went to an inside page for the full story.
‘“A man was pronounced dead at the scene after fire crews attended an incident in the upstairs apartment of a house in Hafnarfjördur early this morning,”’ he read out. ‘“The deceased is believed to be a man in his forties and his name has not yet been released as relatives are still being informed. A police and fireservice investigation is in progress to find the cause of the fire. Police have not ruled out that the blaze could have been started deliberately and are seeking witnesses who may have been aware of movements in and around Vitastígur between five and seven this morning.”’
‘That’s Árni,’ Össur said, lighting his cigarette with trembling fingers. ‘It has to be Árni. That’s his place. Fuck, that evil bastard Alli must have got to him.’
‘You think so? It might have been an accident.’
‘Sure. “Police have not ruled out that the blaze could have been started deliberately,”’ he said, finger on the page. ‘That means they definitely think someone set fire to the place. Christ, I could do with a drink. You didn’t go to the booze shop, did you?’
‘OK, thanks. That’s great,’ Gunna said. ‘I’ll speak to you again in the morning.’ She put the phone down and turned to face Ívar Laxdal as he appeared silently in the detectives’ office.
‘Busy weekend, Gunnhildur?’
Ívar Laxdal was finding it harder to take Gunna by surprise and he decided that she must have developed an instinctive sense of when he was approaching.
‘Weekends are always busy, aren’t they? Eiríkur’s liaising with the fire investigators on the house fire in Hafnarfjördur. He says the dead man’s a taxi driver and some kind of petty criminal, so he’s really waiting to find out for definite if the fire was deliberate or not.’
‘Was it?’
‘Officially, we don’t know yet.’
‘Unofficially?’
‘According to Rúnar, who was the fire officer at the scene, it looks like a bunch of petrol-soaked rags through the letterbox and the victim died of smoke poisoning, probably without even waking up.’
‘So it’s a murder investigation?’
‘It is, or will be as soon as the fire investigator confirms their findings. But Eiríkur’s on it and he’ll have Helgi with him tomorrow.’
‘Suspects?’
‘Hard to say. Working on it.’
Ívar Laxdal sat down in Helgi’s chair and leaned back, his hands clasped over his chest, fingers entwined in a way that reminded her of Bogi Sveinsson.
‘And this missing persons inquiry? Something of a mystery?’
‘Very much so, but a bit of information just turned up a few minutes ago.’
‘Explain.’
‘The bank where Erna Brandsen has her account. Her credit card was used a couple of hours ago to buy petrol at a filling station not far from Selfoss.’
‘Interesting. So the husband is no longer a suspect?’
Gunna rattled her fingernails on the desk. ‘To start with, I thought he could be.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I’m not so sure. I was sitting in his living room talking to him when the card was used, so that certainly wasn’t him.’
‘That’s as good an alibi as a man could hope for.’
‘The woman and her daughter, who is the husband’s stepdaughter, seem to have disappeared together. Their mobile phone records show they both dropped off the network at roughly the same time and place, somewhere near Thingvellir. So they’re most likely together, or their phones are. The husband has a solid alibi. He was in Akureyri and didn’t get home until Friday afternoon, and that’s been confirmed, so he’s out of the picture. Plus he’s devastated, doesn’t know what to do with himself. Strangely, he seems more upset about the girl than about his wife, who seems to me to be one of those women who landed herself a wealthy husband and then set about spending it all as fast as he can earn it.’
‘And the domestic violence angle you mentioned yesterday? Anything?’
‘Nothing at all. Nothing to indicate abuse. A fairly happy and well-balanced family, by all accounts. So I’m back to square one and a wider search.’
Ívar Laxdal straightened his back, clapped his hands together and nodded once.
‘Good. I’ll leave things in your capable hands. What’s next?’
‘On the missing women? I have alerts out al
l over the place for Erna Brandsen’s white Ford Explorer, their phones are being tracked and I’ll get an alert as soon as one of them pops up. I’m getting some poor droid at their bank out of bed on a Sunday morning to go through any more traffic on her debit and credit cards, and if nothing’s happened by midday it could be time to mobilize rescue squads for a search, although we really need a better defined area to search than just somewhere around Thingvellir. If that confirmation hadn’t come through that Erna Brandsen’s card had been used today, I’d be looking at organizing the rescue squads to start a search right now.’
‘You think they’re dead? An accident of some kind? A robbery or a kidnapping? Or some kind of personal crisis?’
Gunna spread her hands wide. ‘Who knows?’
‘A nervous breakdown? It has been known.’
‘Maybe. But it seems totally out of character for Erna Brandsen, who it seems didn’t like going further out of town than the outlet stores in Mosfellsbær.’
‘And the fire?’
‘I’m leaving that to Eiríkur and Helgi. They’ll shout if they need help from me.’
‘Do you need anything? Resources, bodies?’
‘A search flight if you can get the Coast Guard to organize it and the Dash isn’t in use elsewhere. It’s the car we need to find, if the cloud lifts enough for a flight.’
‘A white car on a snow-covered landscape,’ Ívar Laxdal smiled. ‘That’s not a problem, is it? So what now?’
‘It’s five o’clock on Saturday afternoon and I’m going home. ‘D’you know what date it is?’
Ívar Laxdal closed his eyes and thought for a moment.
‘Of course,’ he said softly. ‘It was today. Fifteen years ago. How could I forget?’
* * *
The booming of the television from the room at the end where Össur had once again locked himself in could be heard as a dull bass beat. Magni reached behind the sofa in the hotel’s lounge and lifted the whisky bottle out.
‘It’s Saturday night. Drink?’
Tinna Lind grinned. ‘Hell, yeah.’
He handed her two fingers. They clinked glasses and sipped. Magni rolled it over his tongue and leaned his head back to savour it.
‘We’d better not stay here too long or we’ll be out of whisky in a few days.’
‘Are you planning on staying long?’
‘Are you in a hurry to get away?’
‘Mmm, a bit,’ Tinna Lind said. ‘I can sort of imagine how worried my dad must be by now.’
‘You think he’ll have reported you missing?’
‘Oh, yeah. He probably did that on Friday when he got home and found my mum wasn’t there, or when she didn’t turn up by dinner time.’
‘So the police are going to be searching for you?’
‘Probably.’
‘What’s your dad like?’
‘He’s all right. He’s not my real father, though. Mum shacked up with him years ago. But he’s a decent guy. A bit dull, plays golf and that, but he’s a kind-hearted sort.’
‘What about your real dad?’
Tinna Lind giggled. ‘It’s a big secret. The olds never talk about it and they think I don’t know. Years ago Mum had an affair with her sister’s husband. It’s the big skeleton in the family closet and nobody’s allowed to know about it.’ She sat next to him on the sofa and cradled the glass in her hands, then she looked up at him with a sly smile. ‘Now you have to tell me a secret.’
Magni looked blank.
‘Well, I’ve led a pretty boring life so far. This is about the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.’
‘But you’ve been to sea on big fishing boats, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah, but that’s not exciting. Not mega-exciting, anyway. It’s pretty boring a lot of the time, like working in a factory but getting paid a bunch of money for it.’
‘No huge storms and wrecked ships?’
‘A few big storms. Quite a lot of them, really.’ He sipped his drink and looked at the ceiling. ‘All right. When I was a kid there was a teacher at school who really didn’t like me. He used to call me a thickhead and give me detentions all the time. So I got my own back on him.’
‘How?’ Tinna Lind asked dubiously.
‘I used to help out at one of the fish plants at weekends, and one day I managed to get hold of a catfish frame. You know, what’s left when the fish has been filleted? The head and the bones, right?’
‘And you put it through his letterbox or something?’
‘No, I wrapped it in tin foil, and then I wrapped the tin foil in a bit of chicken wire. And when it was dark I sneaked round to his house and fixed it to his car.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yep, crawled under his car and fixed the whole thing to the exhaust with some fencing wire, right under the driver’s seat. So he’d get in the car and drive somewhere, and the fish would start to get hot as the exhaust pipe warmed up and the car would fill up with this smell of hot, rotten fish. It drove him nuts. He had to drive everywhere with all the windows open. He couldn’t understand where the foul smell was coming from. He even took it to a garage and had them strip the seats out and search inside. But they never thought to look underneath.’
‘How long did this go on for?’
‘Oh, weeks and weeks. Months, until he gave in and scrapped the car.’ He reached back behind the sofa, retrieved the bottle and poured another finger each. ‘He couldn’t sell it because it stank so bad and he couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from.’
‘That’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’
‘Probably not, but it was the most fun and I’ve never told anyone before that it was me.’
‘So your teacher bought a new car. You didn’t do the same to that one?’
‘I thought about it, but I reckoned he’d had enough punishment.’
Tinna Lind lifted her chin upwards. ‘Your friend. What’s the worst thing he’s ever done, do you think?’
Magni shuddered. ‘I’ll tell you now, he’s done plenty of nasty things, and I don’t know the half of it.’
He put the bottle away and left his arm draped along the back of the sofa. Tinna Lind reached up, grasped his hand and pulled the arm down to rest around her shoulder as she huddled into the hollow of his side.
Ragnar Sæmundsson looked down on them from his photograph on top of the bookcase. The camera had caught him just as he looked into the lens with a mischievous grin on his face, his Coast Guard cap pushed too far back on his head for the regulations, hair awry in the wind and with the sharp look of cheerful intelligence that Gunna had found herself bewitched by all those years ago.
The house was full to bursting and she wondered how many years it had been since quite so many people had gathered around the table. Steini sat at the end nearest the kitchen, his hand holding Gunna’s under the table. Laufey’s eyes shone with unshed tears and Gísli had his hands full with Ari Gíslason while Drífa held baby Kjartan.
Steini let go of Gunna’s hand and stood up awkwardly.
‘It’s the first time I’ve done this,’ he said and paused. ‘I knew Raggi well and he was a magnificent character. A true friend and I still miss him. Glasses, everyone.’
Gunna gulped and glanced sideways at Laufey, who was looking at the tablecloth.
‘Ragnar,’ Steini said and lifted his glass.
‘Ragnar.’
‘Ragnar.’
‘Raggi,’ Gunna said and swallowed a sob.
‘Dad,’ Laufey said in a small voice.
They all drank and placed their glasses on the table. Laufey turned and buried her face in Gunna’s neck. Gísli looked solemn as Ari tried to wriggle out of his grasp and Steini bit his lip.
‘We are going to get out of this place, aren’t we?’
‘Sure we are. Why shouldn’t we?’
Magni lay back practically horizontal, hands behind his head, his legs stretched out and his heels on a low table. Tinna Lind lay flat on her back, her head res
ting on Magni’s leg and her cornrow hair spread out around her.
‘I don’t know. Össur just seems dangerous, you know.’
‘He’s fucking nuts, that’s true enough. But we’re the ones who are in danger, not you and your mum.’
‘You think so?’
‘Hell, yeah. Össur’s scared shitless of what the old guy he robbed will do when he gets hold of him, and I guess he probably will sooner or later.’
Tinna Lind looked up at Magni and he saw the concern in her eyes.
‘And you?’
Magni scratched his head. ‘I don’t really know. I don’t reckon I’ll ever be on his Christmas card list,’ he said with a gurgling laugh.
‘I don’t want you to get hurt, Magni.’
He put out a hand and tousled the cornrows spread across his lap.
‘Don’t you worry, sweetie. I’m a big boy.’
‘I’m serious. I don’t want you to get hurt because of something Össur did.’
‘And something I did as well. The old guy had a minder, too, but his minder was smaller than Össur’s. Oh, and Össi has a gun. That helped.’
‘He still has a gun.’
‘And a knife, and he’d use either of them if he feels he needs to. I told you he’s nuts.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘No, not really. Maybe just enough.’
‘I think you have to be. If I was you I’d be terrified.’
Magni upended his glass and leaned forward to place it on the table. ‘I ought to be, and maybe I will be in a day or two, but right now I’m warm, I’m not hungry and there’s a glass in my hand,’ he said. ‘That’s to say there was a glass in my hand. I’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes because there’s nothing I can do about it now.’
‘I like you, Magni.’
‘Thanks. You’re all right yourself.’
‘No, I mean it. You’re not like the guys I know from college or around Reykjavík.’
‘Oh? How so? What are they like?’
Tinna Lind stretched and twisted onto one side, lifting her head and propping it up with a hand under her chin.
‘Serious, artistic. Hipsters, y’know what I mean? They all play guitars and dream of being in bands.’
Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5) Page 10
