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

by Quentin Bates

  ‘News, Gunnhildur?’

  Gunna put the printout of Magni’s passport photo on the desk. ‘Our mystery man is called Magni Klemens Sighvatsson.’

  ‘How did you figure that out?’

  ‘Someone who knows him identified him as driving Erna Björg Brandsen’s car in Selfoss a week ago, and spoke to him in the shop there.’

  ‘No doubt about it? No mistaken identity?’

  ‘No. No doubt about this guy.’

  ‘What are you after?’

  ‘A search warrant for a flat at Hólabraut 70 in Gardabær. It’s his legal address, although I don’t think he actually lives there. According to the national register, the occupiers are a couple called Hjalti Traustason and Kamilla Oddsdóttir, and Magni Sighvatsson’s registered domicile is also there. According to my witness, Magni and Hjalti are old friends, each was best man for the other, although I’m given to understand that both those relationships have long since broken up.’

  ‘So this Kamilla is Hjalti’s new wife?’

  ‘That’s what I need to check. Eiríkur’s looking for contact numbers right now.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure I want this guy’s face in the papers and on TV yet. If we find them, then we’re going to need the Special Unit to flush them out. Össur’s armed, so I’m not inclined to take chances.’

  ‘Quite right, Gunnhildur. Let me know when you need them.’

  There was a tap at the door and Ívar Laxdal looked up, frowning as the door opened.

  ‘Chief?’ Eiríkur said, hastily jotted notes in his hand. ‘I’ve spoken to Kamilla Oddsdóttir. She’s a big cheese at some pharmaceuticals company and it wasn’t easy to prise her out of a meeting.’

  ‘But you did. So?’

  ‘She and Hjalti are married but separated, and they’re still joint owners of the apartment. She moved in with her parents when the two of them fell out and Hjalti still lives there.’

  ‘She confirmed that Magni Sighvatsson’s legal residence is registered there?’

  ‘She said she has no idea whether he has a key to the apartment, but that it wouldn’t be a surprise if he did.’

  ‘Sounds promising, doesn’t it?’ Gunna looked at Ívar Laxdal and back to Eiríkur.

  ‘She also said that Hjalti definitely isn’t there, as he’s an engineer on a Norwegian oil survey ship and is away for two months at a time. So if there’s anyone in the place, it’s not going to be one of the two owners as she has no reason to go there. Then she got quite angry and wanted to know what the hell this was all about?’

  ‘You told her?’ Ívar Laxdal asked.

  ‘Of course not. I just said it was a very serious investigation and that she should keep away from the place and keep quiet about what we had talked about, and that I’d be in touch to let her know what the situation is.’

  ‘You’re a diplomat, Eiríkur,’ Ívar Laxdal said, and Eiríkur glowed at the compliment. ‘But on the downside, I’m afraid we’re going to have to let one of your bad boys go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Baldvin has confessed to starting the fire and procuring the petrol, and his prints were on the can, so he’s staying put. That means that Alli’s lawyer can convincingly argue that he should be released.’

  ‘Hell. I was hoping it would be the other way around.’

  ‘Sit the fuck down, will you? Take it easy.’

  It was Össur who was edgy and nervous. He had spent much of the day asleep on the smaller sofa in the borrowed apartment’s living room, while Magni and Tinna Lind lay entwined on the larger sofa, she with a paperback and he watching the TV with the sound turned down low.

  ‘I don’t like it. There’s something wrong. I can feel it.’

  Össur stood at the end of the living-room window, where he could see past the next block of flats to the road outside.

  ‘What’s your problem? Anything suspicious?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, yes.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A scooter has passed by a few times too many, and he’s sure as hell not delivering pizzas.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Tinna Lind asked, marking her place in the book with an envelope and putting it aside.

  ‘If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be telling you, would I?’

  ‘What time are we meeting Rafn?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘And what’s the time now?’

  Magni yawned. ‘It’s almost four. Where are we meeting him?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. We’ll sort out a place at the last moment,’ Össur said, stretching and craning his neck to see past the next building. ‘I really, really don’t like this. We’re rats in a trap in this place, with only one way out.’

  ‘Where else can we go?’ Tinna Lind asked.

  ‘Between now and eight? I suppose we could drive around a bit and find ourselves something to eat. We could drive out of town, go around Grindavík or Keflavík.’

  ‘Yeah, but are we going to be safe coming back here?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Magni said. ‘But Össi has a nose like a bloodhound, so I guess if he thinks things aren’t right, then we’d be best off getting out of here for a while.’ The snick of the Baikal in Össur’s pocket made his mind up. ‘Come on, let’s get out for an hour or two. We can drive around, meet Rafn and then come back here and see if the place looks like anyone’s been in? What do you reckon?’

  ‘Take all your stuff with you,’ Össur said, teeth bared as he snarled at the sight of the scooter again. ‘We might not be coming back here at all.’

  Thorvaldur Hauksson’s eyes followed her as she walked in. Gunna saw straight away that the bright blue eyes that had once had such a captivating intensity to them had turned watery as his illness had taken its implacable hold. His laboured breathing filled the room and he lifted a hand a few inches off the bedspread before dropping it back.

  ‘Gísli, you all right?’ Gunna murmured as she sat next to him and Thorvaldur turned his head to one side to look at her. She could see the effort it cost him to do just that.

  ‘Yeah, Mum. I’m fine.’

  The man in the bed had always been slim, but now he was painfully thin, his hair wolf-grey and his hands blotched with spots while the bones could be seen through skin as thin as paper. He whispered something and Gísli leaned forward, his face close to the old man’s to hear what he was saying.

  ‘What’s that, Valdi?’ he asked gently and Gunna offered up a prayer of thanks that Gísli had not called him dad. ‘Yeah, that’s my mum,’ he said and listened as he whispered a reply.

  ‘He wants to talk to you, Mum,’ Gísli said, sitting back up straight, and Gunna froze for a moment.

  Thorvaldur’s hand fidgeted and found hers as she leaned towards him, forcing herself not to snatch it back.

  ‘Thorvaldur,’ she said.

  ‘Little Gunna,’ he wheezed. ‘He’s a fine boy, my Gísli. A lovely boy,’ he repeated and closed his eyes. For a long moment Gunna wondered if he had fallen asleep as the heart monitor continued its sweep across the screen by his bed, but then his eyes opened with a vestige of that old intensity behind them. ‘You did a good job with the boy,’ he whispered. His eyes closed again and the grip on her hand relaxed.

  ‘That’s it for the moment,’ Gísli said with a sigh. ‘He’ll sleep for half an hour at least now.’

  Gunna took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  ‘Right.’

  Gísli flashed a glance sideways at her with a worried look on his face.

  ‘All right, Mum?’

  ‘Give me a minute. I will be.’

  Outside in the corridor Gunna told herself that twenty years’ worth of anger could now be consigned to history as she leaned against the wall and craved a cigarette for the first time in years. She wanted to punch the wall in frustration.

  ‘“Your Gísli”?’ she whispered savagely to herself. ‘My Gísli, you mean. You had nothing to do with him, Thorvaldur Hauksson
, not a single thing.’

  She collected herself as the door swung silently open and Gísli stepped out to join her.

  ‘Sorry, Mum. But he really wanted to see you. I’m glad you came,’ he added.

  ‘I’m not sure if I should have.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ Gísli said. ‘For my sake, if not for his.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Gísli. I can’t help being angry at him. It’s not the things he did,’ she said with a gulp. ‘It’s all the stuff he didn’t do that’s made me furious all these years. All those years of no Christmas presents, no birthday cards and precious little maintenance when I was struggling to make ends meet.’

  ‘I know, Mum.’

  ‘Gísli. You’re some kind of a saint, you know that? Where are all his other kids?’

  ‘One in the States, one in Norway, two in Kópavogur and one in Ósvík, who’s three months older than I am,’ Gísli counted. ‘I never knew I had so many half-siblings.’

  ‘Neither did I, and I’d guess there might be a few more about that aren’t on the list,’ Gunna said. ‘And you’re the only one of the tribe here to see the old scoundrel off.’

  ‘It’s a second floor flat,’ Helgi said and the group of four men in black uniforms looked up briefly from the plan in front of them. ‘Two bedrooms accessible from the living room, one kitchen, one bathroom.’

  ‘What can we expect?’ asked the raw-boned man in charge of the group, an experienced officer who had often worked with Helgi and Gunna before.

  ‘Two men, one woman. One of the two men is probably armed.’

  ‘You know who these jokers are?’

  Gunna placed the driving licence pictures on top of the plan of the block of flats and Steingrímur’s eyes flickered with recognition.

  ‘Össi Óskars?’

  ‘That’s him, a record a mile long,’ she confirmed. ‘These two are the unknown quantities. Tinna Lind Bogadóttir – she may be a hostage or being held against her will, although that seems unlikely. The big guy is called Magni Klemens Sighvatsson. No record.’

  ‘Ah, a new face.’

  ‘But he was a powerlifting champion a few years ago, so he’s not likely to be a pushover.’

  Steingrímur nodded and cupped his chin in one hand. ‘Össi’s the one who’s armed, I take it? What’s the weapon?’

  ‘A 9mm pistol, judging by the slugs Miss Cruz recovered from Brandur Geirsson’s body,’ Helgi said.

  ‘So we don’t need to use kid gloves?’ Steingrímur asked, his eyes twinkling in anticipation.

  ‘Not with Össur, no. He’s killed someone already, so don’t take any chances.’

  ‘That suits us. How do you want to go about this? Do we know if they’re in there?’

  ‘No. We’re going to have to wait for someone to show up.’

  Össur tapped his phone on his knee in the back and fidgeted, but Magni was just happy not to hear the clicking of the pistol’s safety catch behind him. They cruised into town at a speed that wouldn’t attract attention just as the rain started to come down again, slowing the traffic. Magni tried not to be nervous. The whole thing had turned into a combination of exhilaration and disaster, he thought. A girl like Tinna Lind, with a mind of her own and demands he was only too happy to meet, doesn’t come along every five minutes, but neither does the threat of a longish prison sentence, and he had no doubt in his mind that if the police were to catch up with them then Össur would be going away for a very long time. His own sentence would hardly be a short one, and it seemed unlikely that Tinna Lind would wait patiently while he sweated out a year or two locked up in Litla Hraun.

  Behind him Össur’s phone buzzed.

  ‘Hey. Text from Rafn. He wants us to suggest a place. He says he’s easy.’

  ‘What? Tell him the car park at Smáralind, the big car park at the top. And ask what car he’s driving.’

  He could hear Össur breathing heavily behind him as he texted back. A moment later the phone buzzed again.

  ‘What’s he say?’

  ‘He says no. Too many cameras at Smáralind. Any ideas?’

  Magni racked his brains for somewhere suitably public but without CCTV cameras covering it.

  ‘Hell, let me think a minute, will you?’ He leaned towards Tinna Lind. ‘Any ideas? Somewhere with no cameras? Somewhere busy?’

  ‘A trading estate?’ she suggested. ‘Plenty of people about in those places.’

  ‘Össur, what do you reckon?’ Magni asked.

  ‘Suits me.’

  ‘All right, tell him Skútuvogur, fifteen minutes. We’ll text him with an exact place when we get there.’

  Össur grunted again in the back seat and Magni imagined him mouthing the words to himself as he painstakingly tapped them into his old-fashioned mobile.

  Traffic swept past them in the rain, throwing up sheets of water behind them as Magni kept the Skoda just below the speed limit.

  ‘Not a great night for it,’ he said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Tinna Lind said, and he heard a hard edge of determination in her voice. ‘Everyone will be in a hurry and nobody’s going to look twice in this kind of weather.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. The cash is ready, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep. Counted out and ready to go.’

  They sat in nervous silence as Magni took the Skoda through the intersection with Miklabraut and edged it into the right-hand lane, ready for the turn-off, and pulled up at the lights.

  ‘Did Rafn say what car he’s driving?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You asked, right?’

  ‘Yeah. But he didn’t reply to that.’

  ‘Did you tell him what we’re driving?’

  ‘I just said a grey car.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Magni said, and pulled away as the lights went green, checking in the mirror that there was nothing behind them and taking a turn onto a long, well-lit road lined with warehouses and square discount stores. ‘We’re on Skútuvogur. You’d best call Rafn and see where he is.’

  In the mirror he could see Össur with the phone at his ear.

  ‘Where are you?’ he heard Össur ask without preamble.

  ‘Tell him the car park outside Bónus,’ Magni instructed. ‘And ask what he’s driving.’

  Össur relayed the message and Magni drove as slowly as he dared past the supermarket with its sparsely populated car park, peering at the cars parked there and the few people hurrying through the rain for the doors.

  ‘He’s in a black van,’ Össur relayed.

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘Where are you?’ Össur snapped into the phone.

  Magni turned into the deserted car park outside a closed plumbing supplies warehouse and tapped the wheel impatiently.

  ‘He says he’s there,’ Össur muttered, leaning forward.

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  The black van was parked at the end of the car park, in view of the road, but far enough away that nobody was likely to come close. Magni pulled up, leaving two clear spaces between the cars, and wound down the window. The black van’s tinted window opened halfway and Rafn looked out.

  ‘Suspicious, Össi?’ he called across.

  ‘Always, Rafn. Never take a chance, me.’

  ‘Come on then.’

  Rafn opened the door of the van and stepped out, placing a wide-brimmed leather hat on his head as he did so.

  Magni turned his collar up, squeezed Tinna Lind’s hand and got out of the car, following Össur, who was walking towards Rafn with his hands ostentatiously out of his pockets. Rain was already flattening his sparse grey hair to his scalp.

  ‘What do we have?’ Össur asked.

  ‘What you wanted. Three passports.’

  ‘Icelandic?’

  ‘Yep. D’you have the cash?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Alli’s cash.’ Rafn smiled.

  ‘Yeah, I guess he’s not a happy bunny right now.’

  ‘Alli’s not at all a happy man, but
not for the reasons you might think.’

  Össur looked sharply at Rafn. ‘Why? How so?’

  ‘Alli’s sidekick is on remand.’

  ‘Árni?’

  Rafn nodded and his voice was soft. ‘Alli’s lawyer got him released this afternoon. Baldvin confessed that he’d set fire to Árni’s flat. It was on the news earlier. No names, but it’s easy enough to join the dots. They’ll put him away for years.’

  ‘Shit. I didn’t know. And Alli gets away with it?’

  ‘Alli may be a bastard but he’s no fool. The law’s probably keeping quiet about it while they’re still looking for you.’

  ‘Could be. They’re going to be looking for a long time.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Rafn grinned. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Passports?’

  Rafn reached into an inside pocket and took out three blue passports. Össur jerked his head at Magni. ‘Check them.’

  ‘Hands, Össi,’ Magni reminded him softly as he saw a hand straying towards a jacket pocket.

  Magni flicked through the three passports. All were valid and looked genuine. The older man looked enough like Össur to pass in a crowd. The young woman was older than Tinna Lind.

  ‘Glasses. Get glasses, both of you,’ Rafn said, as if reading his thoughts.

  The younger man’s passport was of a clean-shaven character with long hair and Magni wondered if he could pass muster with his sprouting beard and short hair.

  ‘What’s the score with these? How did you get valid passports? I mean, these haven’t been reported stolen or anything, have they?’

  ‘They’re valid and they’ll get you though a passport check,’ Rafn said, passing him a sheet of paper. ‘Just to help you on your way, here’s all the information you need on these people: addresses, ID numbers, workplaces. Just in case there’s a question or two.’

  ‘You’re being very helpful.’ Össur said.

  ‘The Undertakers take their business seriously. We don’t want you singing like a bird in a cell at Keflavík. We want you off our patch.’

  ‘You sly bastard. You’re after Alli’s territory.’

  ‘No comment, Össi. No comment.’