Frozen Out

by Quentin Bates

  ‘Who’s the missing person?’

  ‘Her sister, Erna Dan. You know, the hairdresser?’

  ‘OK, give me the gist of it.’

  ‘The call was an hour ago. It seems her sister hasn’t been seen since Friday night.’

  ‘But it’s only Tuesday now. We’re not talking about a child here.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, and it’s not as if the sister doesn’t have a history of vanishing for a few days now and again. I checked our system and she’s on that as well.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Drunk and disorderly, mostly. A few fights, just handbag waving, really. Always booze-related.’

  ‘Married? Kids?’

  ‘Two kids, separated. One child’s father lives in Grafarvogur, the other’s is in the US. Both kids with their fathers at the moment, due back to be with their mother in two weeks.’

  ‘And Sigurjóna?’ Gunna asked. ‘What’s her theory? Does she have a basis for believing her sister to be missing?’

  ‘So it seems. Says she went off with some foreign guy called Hardy and hasn’t been seen since, and now she’s not answering her mobile.’

  ‘Checked anywhere else?’

  ‘No answer at her home either.’

  ‘Ah. In that case I’d better have a word with the lady.’

  ‘Do you have an angle on this?’ Edda Sif asked curiously.

  ‘Bloody right. It’s Hårde I’m after.’

  Sigurjóna’s tearful presence occupied the whole of the expensively furnished room. She sat on a leather sofa overshadowed by a huge abstract painting in blocks of primary colours, sniffing as a young policeman probed with gentle questions.

  Gunna marched in and looked Sigurjóna directly in the face. She stared back with hostility in her eyes.

  ‘You? What are you doing here?’ she asked as anger and some colour began to seep back into her face, carefully made up in spite of her tearful demeanour. A tiny rivulet of mascara had begun to flow southwards from the corner of one eye.

  ‘Olli, isn’t it?’ Gunna asked the young policeman, perched with an open notebook on a corner of a deep armchair. The young man nodded.

  ‘All right. Leave me with this lady for ten minutes, would you? There must be a kitchen here somewhere, and I’m sure Sigurjóna won’t mind if you put some coffee on.’

  At a loss at Gunna’s unexpected appearance, Sigurjóna nodded mutely.

  Gunna perched on the edge of the deep chair that Olli had vacated to search for the kitchen.

  ‘Where the hell is Hårde?’ she demanded.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sigurjóna wailed and dabbed at her eye with a tissue.

  ‘All right. Tell me what’s happened. Quickly, please.’

  ‘I don’t know. Erna was with us all at the awards party –’

  ‘Hårde as well?’

  Sigurjóna nodded.

  ‘How come he was there at a party for PR people?’

  ‘I invited him,’ Sigurjóna admitted and hesitated.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He was dancing with Erna and they disappeared about the same time. Quite early. I think they may have gone home together.’

  ‘To Erna’s home?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Have you been there? Called her?’

  ‘I’ve tried to call, but just get her voicemail and she doesn’t call back.’

  Gunna watched Sigurjóna carefully. As far as she could make out, the woman’s concern for her sister was genuine. ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Skólagata twelve.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Kópavogur. Up the hill from Smárinn.’

  ‘Olli!’ Gunna called and the young man came in from the kitchen with the aroma of coffee behind him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Get on the radio. I want a squad car at Skólagata twelve in Kópavogur in five minutes flat. Tell them to check the place out quietly. Don’t knock, don’t be too obvious, don’t approach any men who might be on the property. I’ll be there in a minute, all right?’

  Olli ducked back and they could hear him talking in the other room as his set buzzed.

  ‘Sigurjóna, I have every reason to believe that you have been rather economical with the truth so far. I believe that this man you think your sister has disappeared with is an extremely dangerous character. I believe he’s responsible for at least two murders here in Iceland and probably more elsewhere. Now, where’s he been living?’

  ‘It’s a guesthouse in Mjósundsvegur. Can’t remember the number. Right at the end near the old church.’

  ‘Do you have any phone numbers for this guy?’

  Sigurjóna picked a mobile phone up from the black glass coffee table in front of her where Olli had just placed a mug of black coffee for Gunna.

  ‘They’re on their way,’ he reported quietly while Sigurjóna scrolled through her phone’s stored numbers.

  Gunna nodded at him without her eyes leaving Sigurjóna.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said quietly, holding out the phone.

  ‘Write the number down, Olli. Get on to the phone company and find out every bit of information you possibly can, and whether it’s switched on, and if possible where it is. Bully them if you have to. This is on the National Commissioner’s authority if they quibble,’ she instructed as Olli retreated.

  ‘Sigurjóna, now. Your sister. Tell me about her. Has she done anything like this before?’

  ‘Plenty of times. She’s hopeless with guys. She finds one she likes and she’s like a little puppy and can’t keep her hands off him. Then after a week or two there’s a row and she hits the bottle. It’s happened time and again, and she always ends up here crying on my shoulder. I’ve always been able to reach her and she tells me everything. But this time I can’t get hold of her at all. It’s just not like her.’

  ‘When did you last speak to Hårde?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Right after you left the Gullfoss. I told him you were looking for him.’

  ‘You told him? Bloody hell,’ Gunna exploded and quickly contained her anger. ‘What else did you tell this psycho?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘So, what then?’

  ‘That you’re in charge of the investigation,’ Sigurjóna said.

  In disbelief, Gunna sat back and thought in silence, ignoring the buzzing of the phone in her top pocket. She stood up suddenly, decision made, pulling the phone from her pocket to see who had called.

  ‘Edda! Olli! Here, now.’

  The two young officers tumbled into the room from the kitchen.

  ‘Any luck?’ Gunna asked Olli.

  ‘Not yet. They’re on to it and are calling me back. They want to verify my status as well.’

  ‘You can do that at the station. This lady is going to Hverfisgata with you, right now.’

  Sigurjóna half rose to her feet and began to protest. ‘Why? What is this for? I want my lawyer here right now, this instant—’ she crowed before Gunna cut her off.

  ‘You are going to Hverfisgata to be questioned properly about your role in assisting a wanted felon in evading custody, to begin with. Then there’s your role in the deaths of Egill Grímsson and Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson, and I’m sure there’re a few things to be found out there.’

  ‘I knew nothing about that,’ Sigurjóna snarled.

  ‘And then we can move on to the fact that you’ve knowingly hindered an investigation. From there we can go on to possession of a proscribed substance with intent to supply. How’s that?’

  ‘You fucking evil fat lesbian bitch,’ Sigurjóna hissed. ‘Arresting me, you’ll fucking suffer for this. You know who my husband is.’

  ‘Yeah. A soon-to-be ex-Minister. You’re not being arrested. You’re being taken into custody for your own protection. You’ve five minutes to put some clothes on.’

  Edda and Olli took unsure steps forward.

  ‘Take her to Hverfisgata and let her sober up a bit befor
e we start talking to her. Her lawyer can be called, but don’t hurry any more than you have to. If she kicks up, cuffs. All right? Get a move on then,’ she ordered, as Edda stepped forward and gripped Sigurjóna’s upper arm to bring her to her feet.

  Erna decided that she had time for an hour at the gym and a visit to the salon before her flight. As she stopped at the junction to turn left, a police car came fast along the main road, slowed sharply and turned into her street. She wondered what it was doing in such a quiet neighbourhood and decided they would probably be looking for one of the neighbours’ teenage kids. She’d find out when she got back, she thought, grinned to herself and patted the shoulder bag on the seat beside her.

  Erna had packed no more than a change of underwear, shorts, a couple of T-shirts and a minimum of toiletries, as well as her laptop and an old address book. Hand baggage only this trip. If she needed anything else, hell, there were shops in Morocco as well, she decided, not that she was planning on wearing too many clothes. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation of seven days at the secluded villa in M’diq, a sleepy resort an hour’s drive east of Tangier still known only to a discerning few.

  She had booked the flights and the hire care online, and called to let Hardy know to meet her in the departure lounge. She listened to his deep chuckle with a pleasure that bordered on the sensual, recalling listening to that rumbling laugh through his chest.

  Hårde’s rented car rolled out through the compound gate and along the road back to Hvalvík. At the crossroads outside the town, he turned away from the main road and took the old unmade track that he knew would be noisy and uncomfortable, but would take him unobtrusively to Keflavík and the airport where Erna would be expecting to meet him in a few hours.

  Outside the town and on a curve that was out of sight of prying eyes, Hårde pulled off the road. There were several hours to wait since his work at the compound had been simpler than expected. He had decided not to tell the site manager about InterAlu’s decision – they’d find out soon enough.

  Hårde closed his eyes and kicked off his shoes. He drew his feet up into the closest approximation he could manage of a lotus position and concentrated on each breath, forcing himself to be calm.

  Bjarni Jón Bjarnason fretted in club class. With the aircraft in flight, he was cut off from phone, email and the exchange rate, and hated it.

  He hailed a passing stewardess, asked for a brandy and admired the woman’s muscular bottom as she bustled away to fetch it.

  The meeting with Horst had left him numb. He could see little more than the whole edifice crashing about his ears. Spearpoint would be left high and dry by the bank with crippling commitments and no customer to buy the power it was due to start producing at the end of the year – if they were even to get that far.

  Maybe he could pull strings and get the National Power Authority to absorb the project – in return for a quiet payoff of some kind that would settle outstanding debts. Nationalizing it could be the answer. ESC could become public property, with Spearpoint’s holding quietly transferred somehow, which would look good at any rate, he thought idly, and caught himself as his thoughts drifted back to Sigurjóna.

  Maybe it was time for a change, a quiet parting of the ways and a smooth divorce? But he knew that, with Sigurjóna, nothing was likely to be quiet or smooth. A husband in government was a major asset to her that she would be unlikely to let go easily.

  He sympathized with her. Spearpoint had been doing extraordinarily well on the basis of her undoubted personal skills and their combined access to the right people. They both felt they had worked hard to get this far. But Sigurjóna was certainly hard work. A sweet little thing who would do as she was asked, give him a brood of children and not spit venom every time he lit a cigar would also be nice.

  And what about her lunatic sister? Bjarni Jón groaned to himself out loud. The stewardess with the magnificently toned behind looked at him with momentary concern as she delivered his brandy with a flashing smile, and he smiled wanly in return. No rings on her fingers. He quickly considered asking for her phone number but decided against it.

  But Erna, bloody hell, what a mess. Two out-of-control kids, two failed marriages, numerous smashed cars and a discreet spell in rehab, not to mention bailing her out of a cell once or twice after screaming matches in the street. Bjarni Jón was fully aware that Sigurjóna and Erna were close, but the woman was a liability he could do without. So where the bloody hell had she got to this time? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t disappeared for a day or three before, but this time Sigurjóna was clearly more worried than usual. Hell, he’d worry about it when he got home, he thought, allowing his eyes to drift back to the stewardess’s buttocks as she backed down the aisle with the trolley of drinks yet again.

  Hårde opened his eyes. The sun was higher in the sky than it had been when he had closed them. His mind was calm. The dusty surface of the road told him that nobody had passed while he had thought.

  The time he had spent concentrating on every breath, guiding his attention back to counting each slow inhalation whenever his thoughts wandered, had cleared his mind.

  He picked up the mobile phone that he had switched off at the InterAlu compound and opened it. He deftly lifted out the SIM card, dropped it out of the car’s window into the grass at the roadside and replaced it with another that had been wrapped in a twist of paper in his wallet. He switched on and scrolled to one of only a few numbers in the directory.

  ‘Horst,’ the gravel voice answered.

  ‘Hårde.’

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Not sure. I need an alternative route off this island.’

  ‘You are mobile? Car?’

  ‘For the moment. I may have to get rid of the car soon.’

  ‘Call me back in twenty minutes. I’ll have something for you,’ Horst said, ending the call abruptly.

  She watched Sigurjóna sit defiantly in the back of the squad car, handed the keys of the house to Edda for safekeeping and shut the door behind her. Pacing Sigurjóna’s gravelled path with a Camel, Gunna returned Snorri’s missed call.

  ‘You called. What is it, lad?’

  ‘Hårde, I think. There’s a pair of seats booked on a flight to Madrid at five thirty this afternoon. Names of Erna Daníelsdóttir and Gunnar Hadre.’

  ‘Madrid? Erna as well? You know she’s been reported missing?’

  ‘Maybe she’s not that missing after all.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ Gunna pondered. ‘It might be a smokescreen of some kind. I don’t like it. The man knows he’s being looked for. I want a team up there to grab him if he does show up for this flight, but I want surveillance up there straight away. Get on to the airport force, will you? Tell them what’s happening.’

  ‘Yeah, of course, chief.’

  ‘Is Vilhjálmur about?’

  ‘In his office, I think.’

  ‘OK. I’ll call him there.’

  She dialled again and listened to the ringing tone with impatience.

  ‘Vilhjálmur,’ announced the expected measured tone.

  ‘Gunna. There’s plenty going on and now I need you to do your bit.’

  ‘Ah, Gunnhildur. Making progress, I assume? Excellent—’

  Gunna cut him off abruptly. ‘Vilhjálmur, listen. Sigurjóna Huldudóttir’s in custody at Hverfisgata.’

  ‘What? The Minister’s wife? You’re certain?’ he demanded through a sharp intake of breath.

  Gunna could feel the tremor of fear in the voice on the other end. ‘Of course I’m bloody sure, and I can find grounds to hold the miserable cow if she makes a fuss. Now, listen, and you’d better write this down. I want you to get on to Reykjavík now, straight away. I need a car in Mjósundsvegur with at least two officers before I get there.’

  Vilhjálmur was silent, but she could hear the scratch of his fountain pen.

  ‘Mjósundsvegur. Number?’ he asked to her relief.

  ‘Don’t know. It’s a guesthouse at the top end by the church. T
hat’s where our man’s been staying. I doubt he’s there, but I don’t want to chance it alone.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Vilhjálmur replied. ‘I’ll get it fixed for you right away.’

  ‘Ask forensics to get there as well. If there are any prints, I want them. As soon as I’m done there, I’ll be on the way out to Keflavík again. Things are happening at the airport, I reckon, so I want you to get on to the most senior officer there and brief him. Snorri can tell you more. All right?’

  Vilhjálmur Traustason had the fleeting feeling that Gunna had been promoted over his head.

  ‘Nine five five zero, zero three five five.’

  Gunna’s communicator buzzed and she pressed the button on her headset to reply.

  ‘Zero three five five, nine five five zero.’

  ‘Olli here. The phone company just got back to me. The number is an ordinary pay-as-you go SIM card that was never registered. It’s the sort you can pick up at petrol stations. Nothing special about it and no hope of identifying the user.’

  ‘Not to worry. It was worth a go.’

  ‘Hang on. It’s been switched off for about two hours.’

  ‘Any idea where?’

  ‘The last connection was through the mast at Lækjarbakki.’

  ‘Outside Hvalvík?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Two hours ago?’

  ‘Last connection was 10.05.’

  ‘OK, thanks, Olli. Make sure the number’s monitored in case it comes up again, and will you ask the phone company to call me direct if there’s any activity?’

  ‘Will do. We checked Erna Dan’s house as well, all quiet, no sign of anything unusual and the intruder alarm says it’s active.’

  ‘Good,’ Gunna said. ‘Sounds like nobody home there.’

  They were back around the incident room table, ignored computer screens lighting the room with their dim glow. There was a chill in the room now that the sun had travelled far enough west by midday for its rays to leave their side of the building in shadow.