Frozen Out

by Quentin Bates

  ‘What do we have?’ Gunna demanded, without bothering to greet anyone and hauling off her jacket as she sat down.

  ‘I went to the Gullfoss like you said,’ Bára began. ‘Tracked down a doorman who saw Hårde leave with Erna at about two in the morning. They left on foot and he didn’t see them take a cab or get in a car.’

  Vilhjálmur shimmered silently in. Gunna looked up at him inquiringly, but he held both hands up palms outwards to indicate that he did not intend to take part other than to listen.

  ‘Who spoke to the snapper, Ármann?’

  ‘Me, chief,’ Snorri replied quickly. ‘Nothing much to tell, really. He didn’t notice Erna and Hårde particularly, just snapped off the photo of every table and got as many names as he could.’

  ‘Nothing, then?’

  ‘Nothing we didn’t know already. He showed me the whole file of pictures he took, and our two can only be seen in a couple of them. He left before the party really got going. But he said he saw all the awards being presented and also Sigurjóna dropping hers on the floor.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ Gunna asked.

  ‘Just pissed, I think. Ármann also did some video and he admitted he’d posted the clip of Sigurjóna dropping her statue on to YouTube, the one that Skandalblogger linked to.’

  ‘Any significance there? Does this guy have a link to the Skandalblogger?’ Gunna asked.

  ‘Could be. But if so, he’s not saying anything, which is hardly surprising. Is that relevant at this stage?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Gunna decided. ‘Making a fool of yourself in public generally isn’t a criminal offence. I just want to know where that bloody Hårde is and if Sigurjóna’s fruitcake sister is still in the land of the living. Who dug up the flight ticket info?’

  ‘Me again, chief.’ Snorri’s hand went up. ‘17.35 flight this afternoon to Madrid, booked in the names of Erna Daníelsdóttir and Gunnar Hadre.’

  ‘Hadre?’

  ‘Well, close enough to Hårde. I checked back with the airline. It was booked over the net using a credit card that checks back to Erna Dan.’

  Gunna leaned back and stretched her legs out in front under the table. ‘What I’m wondering is this, did Erna book this and maybe type in Hårde’s name wrong? Or did maybe Hårde book this using her computer and credit card? I have to admit, I’m getting a nasty feeling that we’re going to find a seriously dead Erna somewhere sooner or later.’

  ‘Ah, I’ll see if I can check,’ Snorri said. He seated himself in front of one of the semi-dormant computers and tapped at the keyboard to wake it.

  ‘What does anybody think?’ Gunna asked. ‘I reckon it stinks.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘The man knows we’re looking for him.’

  ‘How would he know that?’ Vilhjálmur asked quietly.

  ‘Because Sigurjóna bloody Huldudóttir told him so. Anyhow, it seems too easy. Watch the airport and wait for him to show up. It’s too simple. A man like Hårde doesn’t get caught out like this.’

  ‘Where else could he go?’ Bára asked.

  ‘Hell, I don’t know. There are private aircraft coming in and out, more than ever now that Iceland has more billionaires per square metre than anywhere else in Europe. There are other airports, shipping, the ferry in the east. Or he might lie low until the heat’s off.’

  ‘Where, though? He’d be noticed, surely?’ Snorri suggested.

  Gunna opened her mouth to speak, but closed it as the door banged open and Bjössi came in.

  ‘I thought you were at Hverfisgata practising police brutality on Sigurjóna?’ he said, as Gunna watched deep disapproval register on Vilhjálmur Traustason’s face.

  ‘Gave up. She flatly refuses to say anything at all without her lawyer present. I left her in an interview room with old Viggó Björgvins to bore the crap out of her.’

  ‘That’ll do the trick. People have been known to admit to all sorts rather than listen to that old fart drone on for hours on end,’ Bjössi agreed. ‘Oh, and there’s a young man down in reception, wants to speak to you and says it’s urgent.’

  ‘What? Who’s that?’

  ‘Don’t know. Said his name’s Skúli. Does that mean anything to you?’

  ‘Ah. Yes. In that case, ten minutes for a coffee and a fag for the puffers. Back here at …’ She looked up at the clock, registering that any chance of a lunch break had been and gone. ‘Back at five past.’

  ‘Getting anywhere, Snorri?’ Gunna called across the room as she opened the door.

  ‘The technical bloke at the airline says he’s sure enough that the flights were booked using the Icelandic version of the web page. Also, whoever booked it got all the accents right in Erna’s name, but got Hårde’s name wrong.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that indicates Erna was alive when the flights were booked,’ Gunna rumbled.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s not all. There’s a Gunnvald Ström booked on a flight to Billund this afternoon as well.’

  ‘Bluff? Coincidence? We’d best have a presence at the airport and look out for Mr Ström and hopefully eliminate him.’

  Skúli was sitting in the police station’s lobby with Lára at his side.

  ‘What brings you here?’ Gunna asked as she sat down next to them.

  ‘The guy. We’ve seen him.’

  ‘Which guy? Who do you mean?’

  ‘The one you’re looking for. The one on the Hot Chat pages I showed you.’

  ‘Hårde?’

  ‘I don’t know his name. But the one who was sitting at the table in that picture.’

  ‘He was on the march,’ Lára added.

  ‘Where? When?’

  ‘About twenty minutes ago. At the check-in desk at the airport.’

  ‘You’re sure? What was he up to?’

  ‘He was in the queue to check in for a flight, I suppose.’

  ‘Bloody hell. What were you doing up there, anyway?’

  Skúli grimaced. ‘A shot in the dark. Bjarni Jón Bjarnason was arriving from Berlin. We were supposed to try and get a comment from him if we could, now that the InterAlu withdrawal seems to be happening, but he must have been whisked away through the VIP lounge. Which is what we’d expected anyway. Instead of going straight back, we decided to go for a coffee in the café by the departure desks and Lára almost walked into him.’

  ‘Did he see either of you?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Would he recognize either of you anyway?’

  ‘I doubt it. We only spoke for a few minutes.’

  ‘Good. Right. I have to run, as you can imagine, Skúli. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the information, and if this comes off, I owe you an enormous favour.’

  Skúli grinned broadly. ‘No problem.’

  ‘By the way,’ she murmured in a voice that wouldn’t carry, ‘maybe you ought to know that a certain prominent political figure’s wife is in a cell at Hverfisgata, not that you heard that from me.’

  Skúli grinned. ‘Great. Thanks, chief.’

  ‘Call me tomorrow. OK?’ Gunna shot at him, departing at a trot.

  ‘Vilhjálmur!’ Gunna bellowed, bursting back into the incident room. ‘Where the hell is the bloody man when you need him?’

  ‘Here, Gunnhildur. If you’d slow down for a second, you’d find me right behind you,’ he said tartly.

  ‘Right. No time to fart about,’ she said briskly as the rest of them appeared, having heard Gunna’s bellow echo through the building. ‘Our man’s at Keflavík airport right now.’

  ‘And you thought he wouldn’t be?’ Snorri mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich.

  ‘I may be wrong. So fire me. I’m told he was at check-in twenty minutes ago, so he’s probably checked in by now and waiting for his flight. Vilhjálmur, I want the airport force alerted straight away.’

  ‘They’re already on standby for this person, but it hasn’t helped with the Minister going through and all the press they expected.’

  ‘I
don’t give a stuff about the Minister. He’s long gone by now. Get them back on the ball and tell them that our man is probably in the building. Remind them he’s dangerous. Now, please, Vilhjálmur.’

  Vilhjálmur Traustason left the room at the closest to a run anyone had seen since he had been in the police handball team twenty years before.

  ‘Snorri, Bjössi, you’re with me. Bára, I want you to stay here and hold the fort. Get on to the airport and explain what the hell’s going on.’

  ‘Isn’t Vilhjálmur doing that?’

  ‘Vilhjálmur is safely out of the way talking to his opposite number at the airport. I want you to communicate with us and with the guys on the ground. Make sure they know what’s happening before we get there.’

  ‘OK. Will do,’ Bára said, parking himself at a computer screen and placing a headset over one ear.

  ‘Come on. Snorri, you’re driving,’ Gunna said, tossing the keys to the second-best Volvo high in the air.

  Hårde didn’t believe in disguise. A confident approach, preferably with a discreet smile, was his preferred way of staying inconspicuous, although it wasn’t always easy for a man of above average height.

  He was unhappy with the airport while being unable to put his finger on precisely what was wrong, apart from Sigurjóna’s having told him that the fat policewoman was looking for him. The check-in queue moved quickly enough and the concourse area was crowded enough for him to meld into the throng. He looked carefully at the queue ahead of him and singled out a couple of possible targets, men of roughly his own age and build, travelling alone.

  He knew he would be ahead of Erna and had to admit to himself that he was looking forward to seeing her again, even though they had only parted that morning. He forced himself to think objectively and not to let the thought of her writhing beneath him cloud his judgement. Women come and women go, he reminded himself.

  He watched the girl at the check-in desk for reactions that would betray that his name had been flagged up by the computer system, but she was mercifully bland.

  ‘Have a nice flight, Mr Ström,’ she smiled, passing him his boarding pass.

  He passed security painlessly as a bored guard waved him through to pick up his X-rayed hand baggage. Inside the departure lounge, he drank a coffee at the bar and made his decision.

  Ib Torbensen was bored and tired. His business trip to Iceland had been successful enough, but the small company representing his employers’ products had exhausted him. The evening before they had taken him to dinner and a few drinks that had become a crawl through some of the noisier parts of downtown Reykjavík, ending in a raucous bar only a few hours before he needed to be awake at a meeting that he had not been able to stop yawning through.

  He drank coffee, but didn’t feel well enough to eat. His coat was making him too hot and he regretted not having packed it in his luggage. After three cups of coffee, he stood up, dropped some notes on the bar and wandered idly among the shops until the need to pee became too strong to fight.

  He found a toilet on the far side of the concourse. Standing at the urinal and watching the yellow stream hit the bowl, he vaguely registered the door open and someone else enter the toilets.

  When Hårde’s right arm snaked around his neck, Ib Torbensen tried to shout. But Hårde’s left arm quickly connected with his right hand, trapping the arm around Ib Torbensen’s neck in the crook of the elbow, while the flat of Hårde’s free hand forced his victim’s head forward. As Ib Torbensen collapsed into unconsciousness, Hårde caught him and hauled the body to a cubicle, shutting the door behind them both.

  Five minutes later, Hårde emerged, leaving an unconscious Ib Torbensen on the cubicle floor, having divested him of all his travel documents, passport, money and every piece of identification.

  He walked smartly back across the concourse to the bar and saw Erna perched on a barstool. He hesitated for a moment, and made a second decision.

  He dropped a hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Don’t say anything, Erna.’

  She turned to him in surprise, but kept quiet.

  ‘You said you thought I was a dangerous man?’

  Erna nodded, eyes wide.

  ‘I’m not coming with you.’

  ‘What? Why?’ she couldn’t help demanding, eyes wide.

  ‘Listen. I have to fix something and you haven’t seen me.’

  He squeezed her shoulder gently with the hand that had nearly killed lb Torbensen. ‘You haven’t seen me since yesterday. Go to M’diq as planned. I’ll see you in a few days.’

  ‘How many days?’

  ‘A few. That’s all I can say.’

  He squeezed her shoulder once more as Erna looked at him with a mixture of sorrow and fury. ‘OK, Mr Dangerous. Make it soon.’

  ‘Soon,’ Hårde said, his eyes wrinkling at the corners with a suppressed smile, and in seconds he had melted back into the crowd around the bar.

  He walked purposefully but not too fast towards the long walkway leading to the departure gates and passport control. Halfway along, he spied a noisy group of people coming towards him from an arriving flight, laughing and joking among themselves. Hårde took a step to one side to make way for them and turned to double back, following until they reached the top of the steps for arriving passengers to go down to the baggage reclaim.

  He stood behind an elderly couple on the escalator. At the bottom, he took a deep breath and walked past the carousels to the Nothing to Declare channel, where he was waved straight past and out, back on to Icelandic soil.

  At the car hire desk, he thought the girl might recognize him, but with a queue to deal with, she simply asked him to sign in the right boxes, photocopied Ib Torbensen’s passport and swiped his credit card before handing over the keys.

  In the rental car lot, Hårde smiled grimly to himself as he heard the distant wail of sirens and prepared to drive on to the road, pausing at the exit to allow an ambulance followed by two squad cars to hurtle past and halt to disgorge a group of uniformed police officers led by a broad-shouldered woman.

  There were uniforms everywhere, customs officers, airport officials, two paramedics and police officers from both the town and the airport.

  One of the customs officers explained to Gunna and Snorri, while a groggy Ib Torbensen was revived by the paramedics and Bára went with one of the security staff to examine CCTV data.

  ‘Who are you?’ Gunna asked as soon as Ib Torbensen appeared to be awake enough to answer a question, but he shook his head in reply.

  ‘Icelandic? English?’ Gunna barked.

  ‘I’m from Denmark. It’s OK to speak English,’ Ib Torbensen said slowly.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  Ib Torbensen thought as he raised his hands to his throat and massaged his neck.

  ‘I do not know,’ he said drowsily. ‘I went to piss, and woke up in the lavatory when someone was shaking me.’

  ‘When did this happen?’ Gunna demanded, reverting to Icelandic.

  ‘He was located at 16.35 in the departure lounge toilets,’ one of the security men replied.

  ‘And when’s he supposed to be flying, and where to?’

  ‘Billund, he says, and he’s missed his flight. It’s closed.’

  ‘What’s your name? Can I see your tickets and passport?’ Gunna asked, switching to unwilling English, attention back on the forlorn Ib Torbensen, now massaging the sides of his head with the palms of his fat hands.

  ‘My name is Torbensen. Everything has been taken from me, everything.’

  He rooted in the pockets of his coat and jacket, and hauled himself upright to check the pockets of his trousers.

  ‘Nothing. Everything gone,’ he announced.

  ‘You’d better see if you can stop that flight from leaving and be quick about it,’ Gunna told the airport security officers. ‘There might well be someone on that plane masquerading as this gentleman. Snorri, you go with them and have a look. Be careful. This guy’s nasty.’

  Snorri an
d the security men loped away, muttering into microphones on their lapels.

  ‘What worries me is if he isn’t on that flight,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Otherwise the bloody man could be anywhere by now.’

  In the airport’s operations room, Gunna growled every time unwelcome news came in. Nobody had used Ib Torbensen’s seat on the flight to Billund. In fact, there were two empty seats, Ib Torbensen’s and another in the name of Gunnvald Ström.

  The flight to Madrid had already departed on time, with Erna Daníelsdóttir on board. But nobody by the name of Hadre, Hårde, Hardy or Ström had boarded and the Hadre Erna appeared to have booked a seat for failed to check in for his flight.

  Gunna was even more gloomy when she realized that in the furore around Ib Torbensen, she had overlooked searching Erna out and preferably questioning her for long enough for her to miss her flight.

  Ib Torbensen was taken off to hospital in Keflavík for questioning and to be met by hastily summoned staff from the Danish Embassy in Reykjavík, while Snorri accompanied the groaning man, his neck in a brace, to get a statement. Gradually the crowd thinned.

  ‘Where did the bastard get to?’ Gunna fumed. ‘The bastard,’ she emphasized. ‘The bastard outflanked us. Never, never, never underestimate these people.’ She glared balefully at Bára.

  ‘He checked in as Ström,’ Bára announced.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He checked in,’ Bára repeated. ‘We’ve worked it all out. It’s all on CCTV. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  At a computer terminal in the operations room, she showed Gunna what they had been able to piece together from the CCTV data.

  ‘He checks in here, hand baggage only. OK?’

  ‘Yeah, got that.’