Frozen Out

by Quentin Bates

  The stairs were dark and the first landing showed her a row of closed doors, but when she heard the sound of a television from behind the first one, she rapped at it. She heard the springs of a sofa complain inside and shuffling feet approach. The door opened and Gunna recognized Tóta immediately.

  ‘What?’ Tóta demanded, smoke from the stub of cigarette between her lips curling past half-closed eyes.

  ‘Good morning, Tóta. I’m sure you remember me. This is what you might call a friendly visit.’

  ‘Since when have coppers been friendly’s what I want to know?’

  ‘Well, you were happy enough every time we carted that lad of yours off to cool down in the cells.’

  ‘Yeah, well. He was a bit high-spirited when he was younger, my Pesi was. Anyway, what does the law want round here?’

  Gunna looked over Tóta’s shoulder at the dingy room behind her, curtains drawn to keep out summer sun, and a large flatscreen TV gabbling to itself in the corner, the only new thing in the room. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in, then?’

  Tóta shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

  Tóta settled herself back in the corner of the sofa that fitted her snugly and finally took the cigarette from between her lips. ‘This can’t be anything that serious, otherwise there’d be two of you,’ she growled.

  ‘Like I said, just a friendly visit. I’m looking for Matti Kristjáns. I understand he’s living here at the moment.’

  ‘Yeah, Fatso lives here.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  Tóta shrugged and lit another cigarette from the glowing stub of the first. ‘Dunno. He went out.’

  ‘When?’

  Another shrug. ‘Yesterday, maybe?’

  ‘Was it or wasn’t it?’

  ‘Dunno. Can’t be sure.’

  Gunna took a deep breath and counted to ten. ‘So, Tóta, has your bloke still got his little hobby going in the cellar, or has he given that up?’

  Tóta looked away from the TV for the first time and glowered. ‘You’re not going to make trouble for an old man, are you? What difference does a bottle of moonshine here and there make?’

  ‘Hard to say. I might not look too closely here and there. Depends how helpful you are. Where’s Matti?’

  ‘Dunno. He went out yesterday. Paid his rent and was gone. That’s all.’

  ‘All right. So now you’re sure it was yesterday. Early? Afternoon? Evening?’

  ‘Morning,’ Tóta said. ‘Morning-ish. I don’t know.’

  ‘Any idea where he went?’

  Tóta didn’t even shrug, just spread her hands wide. Gunna levered herself thankfully from the chair.

  ‘Right. I need to see his room.’

  ‘Upstairs.’ Tóta pointed vaguely towards the door.

  ‘Show me.’

  Tóta trudged ahead of her up the flight of narrow steps, slippers a size too big flapping against cracked heels, and fished for a set of keys in the pocket of her housecoat. She tried several before the right one clicked into the lock and the door swung open.

  ‘You ought to have a warrant,’ Tóta said dubiously as Gunna snapped on surgical gloves and went into the room.

  ‘If you want a warrant, I can get one of my colleagues to be here with one in half an hour and I’ll wait in your living room until he gets here. If that’s what you want? Hm?’

  Tóta lapsed back into insolent silence and watched from the doorway, scattering ash on the carpet.

  ‘Have you been in here since Matti left?’

  Tóta said nothing and Gunna pulled the drawers of a small dresser open to find only dust inside. Some of Matti’s clothes were draped over the back of a chair and the creaking wardrobe was empty apart from a raincoat that might have gone out of fashion a generation ago.

  ‘I said, has anybody been in here since Matti left?’

  ‘Look under the bed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just look.’

  Gunna swept aside the hem of the duvet and bent down to peer at the dust and a noticeable dust-free square patch underneath.

  ‘Nothing there.’

  ‘Then the old man’s been in here and nicked Fatso’s porn mags. So he’s been in here.’

  ‘Tóta, do you have any idea where Matti is? I’m not going to bugger about here. This isn’t something trivial.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tóta whined. ‘He paid his rent, he went out.’

  ‘Did he say when he would be back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you expect him back, considering he’s taken most of his stuff?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. If he isn’t back by the end of the month, I’ll rent his room out to someone else. I could get three Polish in here, easy,’ she said, brightening at the prospect.

  ‘Let’s try again. Do you know who he was going about with? Any friends who visited him here? Anyone looking for him? Did he mention anyone in particular?’

  ‘No. Nothing. He whinged all the time about Nonni the Taxi and the bloke at some club he did business for. Some foreigner, he said. I reckon Fatso was a bit scared of him, didn’t want to upset him.’

  Gunna shut the door behind her, but decided to keep the surgical gloves on until she was out of the house. ‘What sort of business?’

  ‘Don’t know. Didn’t ask. But Fatso had plenty of money. Lots of money.’

  ‘Where from, d’you know?’

  ‘Ask Fatso when you find him. I’ll bet he won’t tell you either.’

  At the front door, Gunna rolled off the gloves, taking her time as Tóta was clearly anxious to get back to her television.

  ‘Thank you for your assistance. If you hear anything about Matti, I’d appreciate it if you let me know. That way I won’t have to look for him down in your cellar, if you get my meaning,’ Gunna said as Tóta scowled through the crack of the door.

  Dagga decided to take the stairs instead of waiting for the lift. As she reached the first landing, she heard the lift hiss and open above and behind her, but shrugged and decided to carry on anyway.

  Hardy stepped from the lift and dialled a number on his mobile, letting it ring until a disembodied voice told him in soothing tones that the number was either switched off or out of range. He cut the voice off before it had a chance to ask him to try again later and stepped quietly into Spearpoint’s offices.

  Dísa looked up as the door opened and recognized him. Without a word spoken, she buzzed through to Sigurjóna.

  ‘What?’ Sigurjóna snapped through the intercom.

  ‘Mr Hardy is here to see you,’ Dísa replied.

  ‘One minute, please, Dísa. Then show him in.’

  ‘Sigurjóna will be right with you,’ she said in her careful English, looking back up at Hardy who simply nodded in reply.

  Hardy stood impassive at the desk. Dísa found the man sinister. He said little, but what he said was always polite. On his rare visits to Spearpoint’s offices, he always looked the same, always dressed in the same way come rain, shine or snow. As she waited for the minute to pass, Dísa thought to herself that what really made Hardy sinister was the impassive look that gave no clue as to what he was thinking.

  The intercom light flickered in front of her and Dísa looked up to where Hardy was standing at the window, hands folded together behind his back and rocking almost imperceptibly on the balls of his feet.

  ‘Sigurjóna’s free now,’ Dísa said to his back. Hardy twisted round soundlessly, nodding at Dísa with a hint of a smile.

  Sigurjóna was sitting at her desk, watching a TV news channel with the sound turned down low. She glowered as Hardy came in and padded across the thick carpet.

  ‘It’s started again,’ she said, without bothering with a greeting.

  ‘The blog?’

  ‘Last week. I thought you had stopped it when it went quiet. I thought you’d found someone who was responsible for all this?’

  ‘A message has been sent. I’m sure it will be effective.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sigurjóna
spat. ‘And do you know what that stupid Skandalblogger is saying now?’

  ‘No. I haven’t read it.’

  ‘All right. It’s saying that someone who drowned in Hvalvík harbour was put there deliberately.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘I hear the police are asking questions again.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I thought I could trust you after Horst said that you could fix anything?’

  Hardy wondered how many drinks Sigurjóna had already had at this early hour of the afternoon. He felt that drinking while concentration was required was the sure sign of an amateur, or someone in deeper than they could cope with.

  ‘Some tasks take longer than others, I’m afraid. But the important work is progressing well. I understand that Horst is satisfied with progress at the site in Hvalvík and that the Lagoon site is also coming along well.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s all on schedule. I have well-paid staff to look after the details, so they do just that,’ Sigurjóna said. ‘Now, I’m wondering if you’re going to finish the little job I asked you to do before?’

  ‘It’s in hand,’ Hardy assured her. ‘It’s not often that something like this can be done overnight. But I have to ask for your help with another matter as well.’

  Sigurjóna smiled a touch more broadly than she would have done without access to the vodka bottle in the cabinet. ‘In that case we’ll help each other out. But why do you need help with anything from us?’

  ‘I need to locate someone and, as I don’t have local knowledge, I need assistance from someone who does.’

  ‘I’m sure one of my people can help. But what about the driver who was fixing stuff for you? Can’t he help you with whatever you’re on the lookout for?’

  ‘That’s the person I need to locate.’

  Without looking away from Hardy’s face, Sigurjóna pressed a button on the intercom console on the desk in front of her. ‘Dísa, would you ask Jón Oddur to come and have a word with us, please?’

  She released the intercom button. ‘By the way, Mr Hardy, what are you doing on Friday night?’

  25

  Tuesday, 23 September

  ‘You’re on your own again, Haddi. Anything you need?’

  Gunna leaned over the desk and peered at the monitor as Haddi appeared in the doorway. ‘Keflavík again?’ he asked. ‘Taking Snorri as well?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I hope this isn’t going to take too long, but it is something a bit out of the ordinary,’ she added as the computer chimed to indicate new messages.

  ‘Bloody hope not,’ Haddi grumbled. ‘I’ve got enough on my plate as it is with all this traffic and whatnot going through the place. As for paperwork …’

  His voice dropped to a mutter when he realized Gunna’s attention was on the computer as she quickly scrolled through her messages, deleting as she went.

  Hi Gunna,

  The article’s almost finished and I have just a couple of points I’d like to go over with you before I hand it over to the editor. Can we meet in the next few days? By the way, I’ve attached a few of Lára’s photos that we’d like to use with the feature. Can you let me know if these are OK? If there’s any you really hate, I’ll make sure they’re left out.

  Thanks, regards, Skúli.

  ‘Hey, Haddi,’ Gunna called. ‘Come and have a look. We’re going to be famous,’ she said, clicking on the icons one at a time to open the picture files.

  Haddi bustled in and stood behind her as she ran through the photos of the station, Haddi and Snorri sitting at their desks, both of them being briefed, Snorri manning a speed camera with Gunna scowling behind him.

  ‘Good grief, Gunna, my girl, you look like you’ve had a bag of sour lemons for breakfast there.’ Haddi guffawed.

  ‘And you look like one of the Keystone Kops.’

  ‘That’s a good one.’

  ‘I like that, the way they’ve got the whole village in the background.’

  ‘She’s bloody good with a camera, that girl is,’ Haddi had to admit.

  Gunna clicked on the final picture and brought up an image of herself taken during the march on the InterAlu compound, from a low viewpoint and with the hills and some of the marchers reflected in her mirror sunglasses.

  ‘So’s that. Makes me look like a proper mean old cow. I hope they use that one.’

  Haddi took off his glasses, polished them on his tie, put them back on and peered at the screen.

  ‘I’ve seen that bloke,’ he said, pointing to a man among the crowd behind Gunna’s shoulder in the picture, who was staring directly at the camera. She peered at the screen and found herself looking into the eyes of a man she had last seen on a car park surveillance camera.

  ‘Him?’ she asked, pointing.

  ‘That’s him. Fair-haired feller, the one in the pale leather jacket.’

  ‘All right. When did you see him?’

  ‘Saturday morning, I think. He was down at Hafnarkaffi, getting out of a taxi with a big fat bloke.’

  ‘Any reason you noticed him?’

  Haddi scratched his head. ‘Not really. You don’t often see a Reykjavík taxi round here, that’s all, and the driver looked a right shady sort of character, didn’t like the look of him at all. I was going to check his tyres, but I’d just been down the quay and it would have made me late for coffee here. So I didn’t bother.’

  ‘A Reykjavík taxi? Did you get a number?’ Gunna asked sharply.

  ‘No. Didn’t bother. They were probably going to the aluminium place and stopped off to get petrol or something.’

  ‘What sort of car was it?’

  ‘Mercedes,’ Haddi replied instantly. ‘Green, station wagon. Dent in the passenger side front wing. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just wondering. What about the driver? Big guy?’

  ‘Big, well, a fat bloke anyway.’

  ‘Big tache? One of those seventies ones like the Smokey and the Bandit guy?’

  ‘That’s it. Didn’t like the look of him at all.’

  ‘Not to worry, Haddi. Not to worry,’ Gunna said, reaching for the phone and stabbing at numbers.

  ‘Skúli Snædal, please,’ she said crisply to the receptionist who answered. ‘Yes, it is important. This is Gunnhildur Gísladóttir at Hvalvík police and I don’t care in the least if he’s in a meeting.’

  Matti opened his eyes and looked at the lumps on the ceiling that took him back to being a small boy again when he had been dispatched to Álfasteinn every summer, until he was precocious enough a teenager to spend the summer baiting lines and watching the slate-grey halibut flop over the gunwale instead.

  He reached out, expecting Marika to be curled in a ball beside him, but his hand found only a cold depression in the mattress.

  ‘Marika!’

  ‘What?’

  Matti hauled on his trousers and made his way blearily to the bathroom where he peed loudly and with great relief. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she replied from the next room.

  In Álfasteinn’s long kitchen, she sat in a ragged armchair with a large black and white cat perched on its arm. Both of them looked at Matti as he appeared, face puffed and the hair on one side of his head standing on end. Marika put the book she was reading on the other arm of the chair.

  ‘Where’s Lóa?’

  ‘Gone out.’

  ‘Going to be long, d’you know?’

  ‘She say she be quick. An hour, maybe. She is nice lady, your cousin.’

  ‘Ach, she’s all right, is Lóa. A bit of a monster sometimes. Any coffee?’ he asked through a yawn.

  ‘On cooker.’ Marika picked up the book and returned to it.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Reading.’

  ‘Reading what?’

  ‘English book. Grapes of Wrath.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Matti shuffled over to the stove and poured coffee from the pot. He yawned again, scratched and drank. Marika looke
d up for a moment and shook her head briefly. Matti switched on the radio over the sink and listened for a minute to an announcer reading out a list of forthcoming funerals before he switched off again and wandered to the window to look out over the sea. Marika turned a page and carried on reading.

  Suddenly the cat jumped down to the floor and went to sit expectantly by the door. Matti watched it drowsily and wondered if it had seen a mouse, but the door creaked open and a large collie loped in, greeting the cat before lying down on a square of carpet under the window. Behind the collie came the stocky figure of Lóa, kicking off rubber boots at the door and padding in thick socks into the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, Matti my boy, so you’ve finally managed to drag your fat arse out of bed, have you? The whole bloody house was shaking, you were snoring so loud.’

  ‘Yes, Lóa, dear cousin.’

  She heaved a bag on to the worktop and a chunk of meat oozing blood could be seen inside.

  ‘What’s for dinner, then?’

  ‘Hallgrímur over at Einarsnes shot a seal yesterday and this is my share of it. Good of him, I think.’

  She lowered herself with a groan into a chair.

  ‘Bad back still?’ Matti asked.

  Lóa nodded. ‘Now and again. Well, what brings you up here this time?’

  ‘Ach. You know. Needed to get away for a while.’

  ‘In trouble again?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What sort of?’

  ‘Nothing much. Just need to let the dust settle.’

  ‘That’s not what I gathered from your young lady.’

  Matti goggled. ‘But …?’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You don’t speak English or Romanian or whatever it is she speaks.’

  ‘Well, Matti, it may have escaped your notice, but Marika speaks quite passable Icelandic.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘Language, please.’

  ‘Sorry. I never noticed. We just speak English together.’