Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5)

by Quentin Bates

As he trudged back across the hotel yard Magni saw that the man in blue overalls had been practically covered by snow. The tip of his nose was still visible but his eye sockets had been filled with the white flakes that had started to cover his body like a blanket. He guessed that in an hour or so the corpse would be completely hidden.

  Magni hadn’t realized just how cold he was. He pushed through the door and dropped into the first chair he found, shivering and beating the snow from his arms. He pulled off his gloves and saw that his fingers were white. He rubbed them but the feeling obstinately refused to return.

  ‘You OK?’

  He nodded in reply to Tinna Lind’s question, unable to speak, hunched in the chair and with each hand thrust deep into the opposite armpit.

  ‘You’re frozen stiff,’ she said, the concern in her voice clear as she took his arm and hauled him upright. In the lounge she made him sit on the deep sofa next to Erna, who sat there red-eyed and in shock while Tinna Lind pulled off his coat and boots. She wrapped a heavy duvet around his shoulders and he shivered next to Erna, who sat immobile, staring at the wall.

  It took Magni half an hour to recover enough to stand up and stretch his legs. The feeling had returned to his fingers, and with it the pins and needles that stung as he ceaselessly rubbed his hands together, wincing at the pain and wondering if he’d done permanent damage. The walk back had taken him longer than he’d expected and he had become dangerously cold, he realized now. It scared him how close he had come to disaster so near to the warmth of the hotel.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ Tinna Lind whispered, hugging him tightly in the kitchen once he had finally managed to get to his feet.

  ‘I don’t have a clue,’ he replied despairingly. ‘I hate to say it, but probably the best thing we can do is get in the car, drive to the nearest police station and give ourselves up, except that I’m not sure I trust myself to drive that far with the snow coming down this hard.’

  ‘Is that what you want to do?’ Tinna Lind pulled her shoulders back and cocked her head to one side as she looked into his eyes. ‘If it is, then that’s what we’ll do, but you’ll go to prison, won’t you?’

  ‘Probably. But not for as long as Össur will.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be locked up.’ She disentangled a hand from behind his back and tugged at his trousers, snaking a hand down and cupping the tight, cold ball of his testicles through the heavy denim. ‘I’d miss these.’

  ‘Me, too. So what’s the best way out of here that lets us pass go and still collect our two hundred?’

  ‘We have to be out of this place soon, don’t we?’

  ‘The sooner the better,’ Magni agreed. ‘Someone will come looking for that guy eventually and we have to be out of here as soon as the snow lets up. We might be able to get away tomorrow if there’s a thaw tonight.’

  ‘Can we move him? Hide him?’

  Magni stopped with his mouth half-open. The thought of moving the man in the blue overalls had not even occurred to him.

  ‘We could,’ he said slowly. ‘But you realize we’re digging a deeper hole for ourselves, don’t you? Concealing a crime is only going to make things worse.’

  ‘We had to, didn’t we?’ Tinna Lind whispered. ‘Don’t forget your pal Össur has a gun and he tells us what to do.’

  ‘His name’s Össur Óskarsson,’ Gunna told Ívar Laxdal, entering his office with a perfunctory knock to find him reading through a report, an old-fashioned fountain pen in his fingers as he unhurriedly initialled the final page and closed it.

  ‘And who is the gentleman?’

  ‘Gentleman’s not exactly the word I’d use. He’s a minor criminal with a string of convictions stretching back into the last century; dope offences mostly, some drunk and disorderly, housebreaking and one assault charge a long time ago. On top of that there’s a stack of old motoring offences that includes one which was a massive smash that killed the poor bastard he ran into. Össur’s blood-alcohol level was practically off the scale and he did time in Litla Hraun for that.’

  ‘This is in connection with the house fire that Helgi and Eiríkur are investigating?’

  ‘Too early to say. But Össur Óskarsson is the guy whose prints are all over the back of Erna Björg Brandsen’s car, which we found this afternoon tucked away behind the Digranes church in Kópavogur,’ Gunna said, deciding to keep some of what Matti had said her to herself until she could be certain of it. ‘It looks like someone made a half-hearted attempt to wipe the prints off the car, but didn’t do a great job of it. We’ve already identified Erna’s prints, her daughter’s and her husband’s, plus there’s an unidentified set of prints in the back, over the petrol cap and the steering wheel.’

  Ívar Laxdal sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. Gunna took the opportunity to sink into a chair.

  ‘Two missing persons, a known criminal and an unknown set of prints? Sounds interesting. What do you make of it?’

  ‘I have no idea. It’s bizarre, especially as Össur Óskarsson’s prints are only in the back of the vehicle.’

  ‘The drivers are Erna Björg Brandsen and the unidentified man?’

  ‘That’s the shape of it.’

  ‘The woman picks up two hitchhikers who then steal the vehicle?’

  ‘And what do they do with the two women?’

  Ívar Laxdal lifted his shoulders in a shrug. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘From what I’ve gathered from the husband, picking up a hitchhiker would be totally out of character for Erna Björg Brandsen.’

  ‘The daughter, maybe?’

  ‘I need to talk to the husband again, and then try and track Össur Óskarsson’s movements.’

  ‘No response from the appeal on the radio or the newspaper?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Gunna said. ‘Not even any crank calls, which is unusual.’

  ‘Sitrep on the house fire investigation?’

  ‘There’s a lot of knocking on doors going on in Hafnarfjördur all over the district around the house. The victim had been beaten up quite recently, possibly only a few hours before the fire, plus there are indications he was intoxicated.’

  ‘You’re leaving it to Eiríkur and Helgi?’

  ‘As much as possible. They have a couple of uniformed officers with them doing the legwork. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.’

  ‘Cooking again?’

  ‘This is for tomorrow. I’m getting it ready now in case we need to move out tomorrow.’

  Tinna Lind helped herself to slices of onion and chewed them thoughtfully. ‘We could get that gun off him easily enough,’ she said in an undertone.

  Magni shook his head. ‘Not yet,’ he said absently, turning a panful of minced beef with a spatula. ‘Pass me the pepper, will you?’

  Tinna Lind jumped down from the worktop she had been sitting on. Magni gave the pepper mill a couple of twists over the sizzling meat.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Össur is dangerous with or without a gun. He doesn’t have any brakes and he doesn’t have a conscience. The pistol makes him feel safe, and I’d rather he felt safe than threatened.’

  ‘Mister psychologist, aren’t you?’

  ‘I try my best.’

  She leaned close to him. ‘Have you thought about . . .’ she said, jerking her head to where Össur lay half asleep in the lounge, curled up on the sofa. ‘About what I said?’

  ‘Yeah. I like the idea,’ he said and watched Tinna Lind’s face crack into a smile. ‘It’s a question of picking the right moment and not getting noticed.’

  ‘So what do you reckon?’

  ‘I’m not sure at the moment. We can either try and run for it, and get a flight from Akureyri, which is what I reckon Össur has in mind. Or – this might be safer – we get hold of the dosh, stash away about two thirds of it and just give ourselves up.’

  Tinna Lind frowned. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘It’s all right for you. You’re the victim here. It’s different for me. Öss
ur will sing his heart out once the police get hold of him, and I can expect a sentence of some kind, although by the time the justice system gets round to it, it’ll probably be a year’s suspended sentence. If it even gets that far.’

  ‘I think we should go for it.’

  ‘You want to just leave?’ Magni asked, pouring the meat into a deep saucepan and adding the contents of tins of chopped tomatoes. ‘Just cut yourself off completely? Walk away from family, friends, all that stuff?’

  Tinna Lind’s nose wrinkled. ‘If you’re coming with me, then yeah. Let’s do it.’

  Magni stopped stirring the pot and stared.

  ‘You’re certain of that? We’ve known each other for what? Four days?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m certain. Mind’s made up.’

  ‘All right . . .’ he said slowly.

  ‘And you? Is your mind made up?’

  ‘To be honest, no it’s not. I have ties that I’m not ready to walk away from just like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I have kids, to start with.’

  ‘And how often do you see them?’

  ‘Well, yeah. You’re right there,’ he conceded. ‘Once a year, if that. Maybe I wasn’t top-quality husband material.’ He put the spoon down and reduced the heat under the saucepan to its lowest setting. He turned back to face her where she had resumed her seat on the worktop as she watched him cook. ‘So, what do you think?’ he asked as he put his arms around her. Tinna Lind responded fiercely, hugging him tight and wrapping her legs around his waist.

  ‘What is there to keep you here? No job? Kids you never see? A couple of ex-wives who hate you?’

  ‘You’re doing a great job of persuading me here.’

  ‘And this old bastard that you and Össur robbed. What’s he going to do when he tracks you down,’ she whispered in his ear, her head resting on his shoulder.’

  ‘He’s going to break my legs,’ Magni replied. ‘That’s if he finds out who I am, and unless he gets hold of Össur first. Össi’s the one he really wants. Össi worked for him, I think. I’m not part of this criminal stuff. I just used to drink with these guys in the Emperor. I didn’t really hang around with them anywhere else.’

  ‘So why don’t we just give the old guy what he wants?’

  ‘What he’ll want to start with is his bag of money back. The second thing he’ll want is Össur. I’m probably third on the list.’

  ‘All right. Let’s give him some of what he wants,’ Tinna Lind murmured. ‘How about we give him Össur to play with while we disappear with the money?’

  ‘I’m looking for Össur Óskarsson.’

  ‘He’s not there,’ the young woman with a toddler at her ankles and a baby on her hip said, looking around the door. ‘Thank God,’ she added with heartfelt relief.

  ‘Any idea where he is? When did you last see him?’

  The woman looked Gunna up and down. ‘You don’t look like one of the lowlifes he hangs around with.’

  Gunna showed her warrant card and the woman relaxed.

  ‘In that case, please lock him up when you find him and don’t let him out,’ she said with feeling. ‘The last I saw of him was the middle of last week.’

  ‘You remember which day that was?’

  ‘Wednesday, I think.’ She stopped to consider. ‘But it might have been Thursday. Hold on, I had the doctor on Thursday and I saw Össur when we were going out, so it must have been Thursday.’

  ‘Does he usually disappear for days at a time?’

  ‘It’s nothing unusual, not that I keep tabs on him.’

  ‘Somehow I get the impression that you don’t get on?’

  ‘We don’t,’ she said with even more feeling. ‘I can’t stand the sight of him and hate having to live in the same building. We’re thinking of selling up and moving if it doesn’t improve.’

  ‘Noisy, is he?’

  ‘Sometimes. It’s more the way he undresses you with his eyes every time you see him, and those vile friends of his. There were some of them here yesterday looking for him.’

  ‘Can I come in? I could do with getting some questions answered.’

  Gunna perched on a stool in the corner of what served as a kitchen while the woman fussed with coffee and gave the toddler an iPad playing cartoons to watch.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘And has Össur been here all that time?’

  ‘Yes. He rents the flat upstairs. What’s he done? Anything serious?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you, but there are concerns about his safety,’ Gunna said, making an effort to sound diplomatic. ‘All I can say is it’s not trivial.’

  ‘No concerns here,’ the woman snorted.

  ‘Does he come and go at regular times or all hours?’

  ‘It can be him coming and going or his pals turning up at all hours. My husband works shifts and sometimes he can’t get a wink of sleep all day, and the next week he’ll be on days and there’s endless noise at night instead. Not loud noise, you understand, but people coming and going, shouting, that sort of thing. We’ve complained to the police but nothing happens,’ she added sharply.

  ‘Nothing regular? I take it he doesn’t have a job or anything as mundane as that?’

  She snorted. ‘Job? I don’t imagine he knows what a job is.’

  ‘And his friends? Any idea who these people are?’

  ‘Lowlifes like him. I don’t know who they are, but there are plenty of drunks who find their way up there.’

  ‘And the people who came looking for him yesterday. Who were they? Bailiffs? Drunks?’

  This time the woman looked dubious.

  ‘Well, they weren’t the usual crowd,’ she said finally. ‘One of them parked a motorcycle outside.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you happened to get the number?’

  ‘Well, my husband was at home yesterday and he likes motorbikes,’ she said and leaned down to the toddler. ‘Hey, darling, can Mummy use the iPad, please? Just for a moment?’ She clicked and swiped with her finger. ‘He likes bikes and cars and stuff, and he took a picture of the bike out of the window.’ She turned the iPad round to show a low-slung black bike on its stand in the street outside.

  Gunna took it and enlarged the picture until she could make out the licence plate.

  ‘Thanks,’ Gunna said, jotting down the number. ‘Oh, and don’t worry about selling up quite yet. I have a feeling your neighbour might not be back for a while.’

  Össur told himself to think straight. The door was locked. The pistol was on the bedside table. He had turned the television’s volume down low and now only disjointed images on a music channel flickered past him for a few seconds at a time, pneumatic women in skimpy clothes and flashy pseudo-gangsters of the kind he inwardly despised. Alli the Cornershop had taught him long ago that it’s better not to stand out in a crowd.

  A vision of Erna squealing as he bent her over the back of the sofa downstairs, those designer trousers round her ankles, appeared before him and he relished the thought. Magni was clearly screwing the daughter, he decided. The loved-up sloppy grins on both their faces told the story clearly enough, and Magni looked as if he was falling for the girl in a serious way. In other circumstances, and if he’d thought about it, Össur might have been almost happy for Magni, but now the sight of them cooing to each other, their hands snaking under each others’ clothes, made him feel sick.

  But he recognized, to his chagrin, that he needed Magni, and their biggest mistake had been not to ditch the two women right away and just take the car. That way they would have been free of the pair of them. A hunt would have started up right away, as soon as the women reached a phone and alerted the police, but there was a hunt in progress for the two missing women anyway, which would inevitably lead to him and Magni.

  Össur picked up the pistol and weighed it in his hand. He put it down, comforted by the weight and feel of it, and reached for the bag of grass, before he put
that down as well and told himself to get a grip.

  They would have to get rid of the girls, he decided, after suitable treatment for the vinegar-faced old bitch. Then he’d have to lose Magni, but not until Össur had been delivered to somewhere close to an airport without registering on Alli the Cornershop’s radar.

  He knew with a crushing certainty that the odds were heavily stacked against him, and he reflected that it had always been this way. Every time he felt he had made a little headway in life, something came along that would knock him back to where he’d started, broke and alone. He took a final toke on the spliff before crushing it out on the blonde wood of the bedside table and lay back watching the ceiling throb. Everyone was against him, even Magni. Especially Magni, he decided, and the sudden thought gripped him that the three of them would take the car while he was asleep and leave him alone in this empty building miles from anywhere to starve or until someone turned up in the spring, if he were to survive that long.

  Then he remembered the depth of snow in the yard outside and reminded himself that Magni hadn’t been far off dying of exposure just that afternoon. He reassured himself that nobody would be going far for a while, as he curled himself into a ball under the duvet and put a comforting thumb into his mouth.

  ‘I need a warrant,’ Gunna said, without bothering to introduce herself.

  ‘What for?’ Ívar Laxdal asked.

  Gunna looked up and down the quiet street, her phone at her ear. ‘I’m outside Össur Óskarsson’s flat. He hasn’t been seen for a few days and I want a look inside.’

  ‘You’re concerned for his well-being?’

  Gunna laughed. ‘Not really. I just want to know where the hell he is.’

  ‘You’re concerned about his well-being,’ Ívar Laxdal decided. ‘Get yourself a locksmith and some uniformed back-up and get in there.’

  ‘On your authority?’

  ‘On my authority,’ he agreed. ‘Get on with it. I’ll fix the paperwork.’

  ‘Good. I’ll let you know what happens.’

  She closed the connection and made a second call.

  ‘Siggi. Communications.’