Frozen Out

by Quentin Bates

  After three conversations in three languages, Hårde passed the ‘Welcome to Hvalvík’ sign in a cloud of dust that hung in the still air behind him, warming in the morning sun.

  The phone bleeped a fourth time. He looked down at the display and raised a finger to touch the button on his headset.

  ‘Good morning, Herr Horst,’ he said gravely, in English this time.

  ‘Good morning, Gunnar.’

  ‘Is everything confirmed?’ Hårde asked.

  ‘Of course. It’s just as we discussed. You are able to disengage?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. There might be some difficulties in leaving the country.’

  ‘If you need an alternative route, then call me on this number.’ Horst’s gravel voice rattled in his earpiece. ‘But I’m sure you’ll be all right. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume that we can meet here in a few days?’

  ‘A week, maybe.’

  ‘A week? Is there some delay?’ Horst asked in surprise.

  ‘Just a few days’ holiday for a change.’

  ‘Of course. I think you deserve a break,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Call me if there’s a hitch.’

  ‘I will.’

  Hårde clicked the connection shut as the car cruised around Hvalvík, past the harbour area and along the road to the compound, where he sounded the horn for a guard to open the gate.

  The room emptied quickly as Vilhjálmur Traustason stalked the length of the room, hands behind his back. He did not speak until the last one, Bjössi, winking at Gunna as he shut the door behind him, had left the room.

  ‘Just wanted to let you know I’m watching your progress and you’re doing a fine job,’ he said. Gunna could only look at him in disbelief.

  ‘What’s this for, Vilhjálmur? You’re not usually one for patting people on the back.’

  ‘That’s as may be. But you are making progress and the team is performing very well under your management.’

  ‘Where’s this going?’

  ‘Your promotion, and posting. I need to have a decision this week.’

  ‘Hell. I’d forgotten all about that.’

  ‘The Egilstadir force has requested you, Gunnhildur. Informally, of course,’ he added hurriedly.

  ‘I’ll think about it and you’ll have my decision next week.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, there’s another matter we need to discuss.’

  Vilhjálmur Traustason stood and looked out of the window at the queue of morning traffic collecting at the roundabout outside. ‘I’ve had a communication from Lárus Jóhann Magnússon.’

  ‘What? The Minister?’

  He nodded gravely. ‘The Ministry of Justice is concerned about the level of attention being focused on Bjarni Jón Bjarnason and his family and has requested a clarification.’

  ‘You mean Sigurjóna Huldudóttir has yelled at her husband, who has bleated to Lárus Jóhann?’

  ‘The Ministry has taken notice, shall we say?’

  ‘Look, Vilhjálmur. This woman is as crooked as they come. One of her staff was undoubtedly murdered and she is doing nothing to help the investigation – quite the reverse, in fact. I have a bloody good mind to haul her in for questioning on the basis of what she carefully didn’t tell us.’

  A look of fury, quickly suppressed, passed across his face. ‘Please, Gunnhildur, consult me first if you do. I have to say, to an extent, your promotion could ride on this case.’

  ‘Oh, so if I screw this up and embarrass someone with big friends, then I’m not going to be flavour of the month? Come on. There’s something extremely unpleasant going on here and I could really do with your backing. Just how serious is the Minister’s interest?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Bjarni Jón Bjarnason is a lad and belongs to the Independence party. Lárus Jóhann is Progressive and he’s an old fart. They’re not in the same party. They don’t even like each other. So what’s going on? How serious is this pressure you feel you’re getting from the top?’

  ‘I’m sure I couldn’t tell you. There was simply a concern over possible undue harassment of Sigurjóna Huldudóttir.’

  ‘What I’m wondering is this: is Lárus Jóhann just passing on Bjarni Jón Bjarnason’s whining for the sake of form? Or is there really something here they might be concerned about?’ Is it my promotion that’s at stake, or does yours depend on this as well, Villi?’ Gunna asked gently.

  This time the look of distaste on Vilhjálmur’s face was replaced by a brief flash of anger, rapidly erased.

  ‘We all depend on a certain success rate to see ourselves receiving the promotion we deserve, Gunnhildur,’ he said smoothly.

  ‘But are you going to back me up? This bloody woman is in it up to her neck and it’s going to look a lot worse for all of us in the long run when it all comes out and it turns out that we didn’t look hard enough.’

  Vilhjálmur stood stiffly and his face went entirely blank as he gazed over the long stream of cars snaking along the main street outside.

  ‘The wife of a minister …’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘Villi …?’

  ‘All right. Do what you need to do.’

  ‘And support from my superior officer?’

  ‘Of course. As long as you have evidence to substantiate everything.’

  ‘Ah, that means you’ll back me up if I can prove everything and you’ll drop me in the crap if I put a foot wrong?’

  ‘That’s it, in a nutshell,’ Vilhjálmur snapped.

  Erna walked on air and life seemed to be trying to be really good to her for the first time in months. Leaving the house that morning to run a few errands, she had given Hardy a long kiss that fizzed with passion and threatened to drag the pair of them back inside for another half an hour, until he pulled back, tapped the end of her nose with one finger and told her sadly that he couldn’t avoid going to the site.

  At the salon, the girls had noticed something about her, giggling and whispering among themselves. It was only Marta, the salon’s manager, she spoke to, but she assumed that by now all the girls would be in on the secret that Erna was taking a week off and taking a new man with her.

  Sitting at the traffic lights waiting to turn off into Bústadavegur and into town, Erna squeezed her thighs together and tingled in anticipation of a week in the sun, running her mind over everything already packed and ready.

  ‘Had a good time in the country, Matti?’ Gunna asked cheerfully.

  ‘Yeah. S’always good to get away from the tarmac for a while.’

  As he wasn’t under arrest, merely helping the police with inquiries, Matti wasn’t being held in a cell. They sat in an interview room at the central police station on Hverfisgata.

  ‘How’s Lóa?’

  ‘Ach. She’s fine, the same as usual.’

  ‘Still got the goats?’

  ‘Yeah. Same goats.’

  ‘Why did you walk into the police station in Hólmavík?’

  Sitting on his hands and with the hangdog expression Gunna remembered from the teenager who had always been in trouble, Matti looked wretched.

  ‘Lóa told me I should. She said old Hallgrímur’s missus had noticed me so it was only a matter of a few days till you found me, so I might as well go over to Hólmavík and have done with it.’

  Gunna nodded sagely. ‘Lóa is nobody’s fool.’

  Matti nodded back, head still hanging.

  ‘What happened to your girlfriend?’

  ‘Marika? Still at Álfasteinn, for all I know.’

  ‘This bloke you’ve been going about with, tell me about him.’

  ‘Hardy?’

  ‘If that’s what he calls himself.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Everything, and be quick about it.’

  ‘He’s a right hard bastard.’

  Gunna waited until Matti looked up, and she stared him straight in the eye. It’s a shame he grew up to be such a slob, she thought to herself. It’s a shame he went through life constantly o
n the back foot, considering what a pleasant boy he had been when someone gave him a little attention.

  ‘Look, I need to find this bloke before he kills someone else and I don’t have a lot of time to do it, so tell me what you know and please get on with it.’

  ‘So he really has killed people?’

  ‘Two that we’re sure of, possibly one more.’

  Matti went pale. ‘I knew he was a hard fucker, but I didn’t think he was that nasty.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it. Where is he, Matti?’

  Matti shook his head. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Come on. You must have some idea. Where did you usually meet him?’

  ‘He always called and told me where to pick him up. Normally by the side of the road somewhere, or else on the rank somewhere. Grensás or Lækjartorg normally. Down at Grandi sometimes. He liked to eat in Kaffivagninn, said it was a homely sort of place.’

  ‘Do you think he was living somewhere downtown?’

  ‘Yeah, probably.’

  ‘Come on, Matti. Think, will you? He’s bumped off two people already.’

  ‘All right. It’s in Hverfisgata, the other side of the crossroads. There’s a block of offices with a dodgy photographer on the ground floor. At the top of the place there’s a couple of little one-room flats. He lives in one of them. I followed him one day and saw him go up there,’ Matti announced proudly.

  ‘You mean he’s been just over the road from here?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Stay here.’

  Gunna and two burly officers emerged from the tiny flat, leaving a pair of technicians to dust painstakingly for fingerprints.

  The place was scrupulously clean, minimally furnished with little more than a narrow bed, a small closet and a threadbare chair in the single room, with a tiny bathroom off to one side. It reminded Gunna of a cell as she looked through everything, the photographer from the ground floor who owned the three flats standing at the door and wringing his hands.

  ‘So, who lives here?’

  ‘Just people passing through. A few days now and again. Never very long.’

  ‘Yeah, but who?’ Gunna asked, pulling off the surgical gloves she had worn inside the flat to pick through the sparse contents of the kitchen cupboard.

  ‘I don’t ask too much. If someone wants a room for a while …’ He shrugged.

  Gunna squared her jaw and shoulders, putting on her grimmest expression. ‘And who’s in this one?’ she growled.

  ‘Big guy. Don’t know his name. Only saw him a few times.’

  ‘When did you see him last?’

  ‘A while ago.’

  ‘How long a while?’

  ‘Not sure. Before the weekend, anyway.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘He rented a room and you don’t know his name?’

  The photographer looked deeply uncomfortable. ‘Well, yeah. I don’t ask too many questions, y’know?’

  ‘No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking. Don’t make this harder than it has to be,’ Gunna said quietly while the other officers were out of earshot. ‘Look, you come clean on this and I won’t have to say anything to anybody about tax-free income. OK?’

  Beaten, the photographer looked at the floor and twisted his hands. ‘All right. The place is rented by a guy called Jón Oddur for some foreign guy to use. He pays every month on the dot in cash. I don’t know the guy at all. He was at school with my brother, that’s how he came to me.’

  ‘Good man. What’s this guy look like?’

  ‘Jón Oddur? Beefy. Short hair, thin on top. Goatee. Always looks nervous. Only saw the foreign bloke a few times, tall guy, fair hair, quiet.’

  ‘Well done. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, when’s the rent due next? Because I think you might be disappointed.’

  At the station, Matti had laid his head on the table and was fast asleep. He jerked it sharply up as Gunna slapped the tabletop with the flat of her hand.

  ‘Now that you’re awake, Matti, and I have your full attention, tell me why you did a runner.’

  Matti kneaded his eyes with his knuckles as he struggled to make it back from sleep. ‘Scared, y’know? He’s a scary bloke, is Hardy.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He’s just …’ Matti fumbled for words. ‘He’s quiet. Doesn’t say much. He’s cool. But when he tied some guy up in knots and broke his arm, bloody hell, that opened my eyes a bit.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘That was a while ago. One moment he’s just stood there chatting to this bloke and the next the feller’s on the ground screaming. Hardy says to the guy: ‘‘This is a message to your friend to make it stop.’’ And he’s stood there smiling with one hand through the guy’s arm, twisting it. The poor feller was like a sack of spuds when Hardy finally let him up.’

  ‘Any idea who this was?’

  Matti shook his head.

  ‘Do you know someone called Arngrímur Örn Arnarson?’

  ‘Should I?’’

  Gunna placed a blow-up of the man’s national archive photo on the table. ‘Lived at a place called Grund, just outside Borgarnes.’

  Matti hesitated. ‘Well, I did take Hardy there,’ he admitted finally. ‘But I didn’t go in. Just waited by the car.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Not sure. Week before last?’

  ‘So why did you run for it?’

  ‘Scared. When I rang him up and said the coppers had been checking up on me, he went all quiet and said we should meet, and I don’t know why, but it didn’t seem right, so I thought, shit, best get out of the city for a while,’ Matti explained, words tripping over themselves as they tumbled out.

  Gunna glanced at her watch and Matti continued. ‘I knew he’d seen me with the girls, y’know, driving them to places and that. And I know he knew me and Marika, y’know, sometimes … So I thought he might go and scare her, so I went and got her, told her it was a bit of a holiday, so off we went.’

  ‘To Auntie Lóa at Álfasteinn?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sorry, Matti, I have to go. Look, you’re free to go later when you’ve made a statement, but I need to be able to reach you, so don’t go too far.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Matti said bitterly. ‘The taxi’s still in Hólmavík because your lot brought me down here in a cop car. Now I’d better go and tell Nonni the Taxi why his car’s not here.’

  ‘You do that. You’re living at Ugly Tóta’s still?’

  Matti groaned. ‘If she hasn’t filled my room up with Latvians. Unless I can stay in a cell here for a day or two?’ he asked with hope in his eyes. ‘Like, until you’ve caught him?’

  ‘Is he really your cousin?’ Bára asked. They were standing outside in the car park, having left Matti to go back to sleep in a cell.

  ‘He is, I’m afraid,’ Gunna admitted. ‘And he’s been a pain in the arse to everyone around him since the day he was born. Now, you heard what he said: ‘‘This is a message to your friend to make it stop.’’ Egill Grímsson and Einar Eyjólfur were both killed discreetly, if we can describe it that way. But Arngrímur was different. I don’t think Hårde intended to kill him at all, just provide a painful message. Do you get the impression that this was maybe a message for someone else?’

  ‘Hard to tell. Who is this a message for, do you think?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’d say Skandalblogger,’ Bára said with conviction.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We know Hårde’s worked for Spearpoint. Sigurjóna Huldudóttir and Bjarni Jón are constantly being skewered by the blogger, and the whole country reads it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Gunna agreed. ‘In that case, I’d like you to get back in there and put some pressure on Matti to get as much detail as he can remember on who this guy was that Hårde wanted to frighten. Could be a lead to this blogger and to Arngrímur’s associates.’

  Bára nodded. ‘When do you want me back in Keflavík?’

>   ‘Whenever you’re done. I’ll get Snorri or someone to come and pick you up unless one of them here can run you back to us. You can tell Matti from me that Cousin Gunna will make his life hell if he doesn’t cooperate.’

  ‘What going on here?’ Bára asked as Gunna stopped the car outside the glass and concrete block where Spearpoint’s offices occupied a floor near the top.

  Every parking space was full, with faces behind the windscreen of every car. A camera crew was in the process of setting up its equipment on the forecourt outside the building, to the consternation of the huddles of people on their way home through the crush of the evening rush hour traffic.

  Gunna double-parked across the row of spaces reserved for directors and they made their way slowly through the gathering crowd. Gunna scanned for a familiar face and eventually alighted on Jonni Kristinns, sitting in a tired grey Skoda parked in a disabled spot. She tapped on the window and Jonni looked around and grinned at her. The window hissed open.

  ‘Gunna, my dear. Good to see you.’

  ‘And you, Jonni. What the hell’s going on?’

  Jonni tapped the side of his nose theatrically. ‘Ah. That’s what we’d all like to know.’

  ‘Come on. Spill the beans, old lad,’ Gunna instructed. ‘No bullshit, now.’

  ‘Rumour has it that InterAlu is pulling out of its deal with Spearpoint. Nothing’s been confirmed and nothing’s been denied. Not a word so far.’

  ‘Big news, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Jonni said, licking dry lips. ‘Top story. Timing’s just right as well. Too late for the TV news and not too late for our morning edition.’

  ‘Is Sigurjóna in her office?’

  Jonni shrugged. ‘No idea. We’re just waiting to see what happens. It’s a hell of a story if it’s true.’

  ‘Won’t this leave her in trouble?’

  ‘And how. They have some colossal financial commitments and if their partner has pulled out, it means that Sigurjóna and her unpleasant husband have been royally shafted up their collective back passage. Of course, it could just as well be that the bank has run out of cash and is doing the same, without the benefit of lubrication, as one of my colleagues put it rather graphically this morning.’