Frozen Out

by Quentin Bates

  ‘So, next we see him, he’s here. That’s Hårde, isn’t it?’

  Gunna peered at the screen and nodded. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Right. Next we see him, he’s here, near the bar in the departure lounge, and it seems he sits there for a while. Now, this is the interesting part,’ Bára said, fingers flickering over the keyboard as she scrolled forward and called up material from other cameras. ‘He’s here in the walkway that leads to passport control, but he never gets there.’

  ‘How does that work?’

  ‘Who knows? You can’t get to the departure gates and the flights without going through passport control, and he doesn’t. The security chief spoke to all the duty officers and our man didn’t go through.’

  ‘So if he’s not on a flight, he’s either hiding somewhere in the airport, or else he’s sneaked out and is still in Iceland,’ Gunna said, thumping the table with her fist. ‘The sly bastard. Knocking that poor Danish guy out cold and letting him be found was just a diversion to take the attention off him while he did a runner.’

  Hårde felt numb. He had not been happy about using the international airport, the only route off this weird island, he reflected. Creating a diversion may have been what was needed to get him away from the airport, but it would undoubtedly have spurred the amateurish Icelandic police into even more efforts to locate him. Hårde took a deep breath and reminded himself that no adversary should ever be underestimated – that way lay complacency and errors of judgement.

  At a petrol station in Reykjavík he bought sandwiches and calmly ate one over a plastic beaker of gritty coffee while he looked through the phone book. Matti had shown him how to find virtually anyone in the country – and there she was: ‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, police officer, Hafnargata 38, Hvalvík.’ Sigurjóna had described her as the fat policewoman. Even though he knew the woman’s name and had seen at the airport as she disappeared inside the building that Sigurjóna’s description had been less than kind, he still thought of her as the fat policewoman.

  The anonymous Toyota sprang eagerly into life and he sat in thought with his hands on the wheel. Horst had done his best, but even a man with influence can hardly work miracles, so this gave him a couple of days to lie low before he could make an exit. He wondered if it would be better to hide away, if somewhere suitable could be found, or if it would be worthwhile trying to derail the search for him.

  Without having consciously made a decision, he swung the little car on to the main road and followed it for a short distance before slowing to take the exit road that would take him through the lava fields towards the coast.

  Outside the station, Gunna puffed a hurried Prince cadged from Bjössi with her phone at her ear.

  ‘Sigrún? Hi, Gunna.’

  She waved Bjössi away as he appeared through the fire door, mugs in one hand, a cigarette packet in the other.

  ‘Sure. Yup. Thank you, Sigrún, that’s very kind of you. Yup, something of a panic right now and I can’t begin to tell you anything about it. Top secret.’

  Bjössi held out a mug and Gunna took it in her free hand.

  ‘OK. Thanks. No problem, I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll speak to Laufey and let her know. Great, bye.’ She thumbed the red button and finished the call with relief.

  ‘All right, sweetheart?’ Bjössi asked with concern.

  ‘Yeah. Nothing that can’t be sorted out. Just fixing up childcare.’

  ‘Laufey? How old is she now?’

  ‘Thirteen.’

  ‘Teenager yet?’

  ‘Getting there, but I’m sure there’s worse to come.’

  ‘You could send her to us if you need to. Dóra wouldn’t mind at all.’

  ‘Thanks, Bjössi. I might well take you up on that.’

  She took a gulp of coffee. ‘But Gísli came home yesterday and he’s got ten days off, so Laufey thinks that big brother is all the supervision she needs and the two of them will rub along just fine without Mum.’

  ‘And can’t they?’

  ‘Bjössi, my old and dear friend. Gísli is nineteen and he’s been at sea for weeks. I’m sure you can imagine that babysitting his little sister is not his top priority right now.’

  ‘Sorry. Should have known. The boy probably has beer and girls on his mind.’

  ‘Exactly. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ll call Laufey and try to explain that to her and why she’s staying with Sigrún down the street until Mum’s little panic at work is sorted out.’

  Darkness was starting to fall as Hårde parked the Toyota outside the deserted school and waited without being sure what he was waiting for. There was no car parked outside the terraced house, although there were tyre tracks in the mud. No lights could be seen at Hafnargata 38 and Hårde decided to leave it until it was fully dark before making a move.

  He huddled low in the seat and was sure he was unlikely to be observed as a woman in a heavy coat and rubber boots splashed up the street and went direct to number 38, opening the door and stepping inside without having to unlock it. Hårde waited and wondered if this were the right house, or if the new arrival were a friend or a relative, or even the fat policewoman’s girlfriend? It wouldn’t surprise him, he thought with a dark smile.

  The door swung open again and this time the woman walked back down the street, accompanied by a gangly teenage girl with a schoolbag under one arm. This time Hårde stepped from the car and followed at a discreet distance, observing as the pair walked downhill, clearly enjoying a lively conversation, before disappearing into a low-slung house set back from the road behind an untidy garden of stunted trees.

  Hårde smiled to himself and walked back in the growing gloom of the evening. Warm lights appeared at most of the windows in the street and he could make out television screens behind most of them. This was reassuring, as people who are busy watching a soap opera don’t tend to look out of their own windows.

  He opened the door of Hafnargata 38 with a single swift movement of a strip of flexible plastic and stepped inside, clicking the door to behind him.

  * * *

  It was close to midnight when the whole team assembled again in the incident room. Bára, Snorri and Gunna were haggard after the long day.

  Bjössi was his usual self. He always looked as if he had just woken up, regardless of whether he had been on his feet all day or had just started his shift.

  Gunna was surprised to see Vilhjálmur Traustason still on his feet. His face was paler than usual and Gunna guessed that he hadn’t closed his eyes either.

  ‘So,’ Gunna began, flexing her fingers in front of her and yawning. ‘He’s given us the slip. He was undoubtedly at Keflavík airport this afternoon and either we didn’t get there in time, or else he saw us coming and slipped away. We’re pretty sure we know how and I’m positive that half-strangling that poor Danish bloke was a red herring. With Vilhjálmur’s agreement –’ she gestured towards Vilhjálmur Traustason standing by the back wall near the door with the brooding presence of Ívar Laxdal at his side – ‘we have informed the media and a report was carried on every TV news report this evening, with a photo of Hårde, and an announcement that members of the public should not approach him. It’ll be in every newspaper in the morning as well,’ she added. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘We’ve interviewed everyone we could get hold of at the airport,’ Snorri said. ‘We’re fairly sure our man’s still in the country, but no idea where.’

  ‘We need traffic surveillance ramped up as much as possible overnight. If he’s not within a few kilometres of the airport, then Hårde must have got hold of transport somehow. I can’t imagine him not being mobile, judging by the way he’s worked up to now,’ Gunna concluded.

  ‘And Erna Daníelsdóttir?’ Vilhjálmur asked quietly.

  ‘Landed safely in Madrid, and jumped on a transfer to Tangier.’ Bjössi yawned.

  ‘Tangier?’

  ‘That’s it, Morocco. The Madrid airport police questioned her at our request, but nothing useful. We�
��d like her to come straight back and answer a few questions, but as she hasn’t committed a crime, it’s not as if we can have the woman shipped home. We just have to wait until she comes back. Unless there’s a chance of a trip to the Mediterranean to interview her, in which case, I’d be happy to volunteer. I know it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.’

  Vilhjálmur blanched, until he realized that Bjössi was joking.

  ‘All right, back here tomorrow, please, ladies and gentlemen,’ Gunna announced. ‘Bjössi and me at six. Snorri and Bára, I don’t want to see you here before ten.’

  ‘Do you want a lift home, chief?’ Snorri asked.

  Gunna thought briefly and brightened inwardly at the prospect of seeing Gísli for an hour or two. Then she remembered that Laufey would be at Sigrún’s house and Gísli would hardly be likely to be waiting for his mum to come home when he could be in Reykjavík with the girlfriend he hadn’t seen for weeks.

  ‘No. I’ll just get my head down here tonight, if Vilhjálmur has an empty cell I can use. But thanks anyway.’

  Hårde left his shoes by the door and padded from room to room, trying to decide his next move. One room was clearly a child’s, probably the one he had seen walking down the street, with bunk beds, posters on the walls and a row of neglected fluffy toys looking down from a high shelf. A smaller room looked like a guest bedroom, sparsely furnished but obviously recently used.

  A third small bedroom was the domain of someone older and Hårde could see that the clutter of washed but unironed clothes on the dressing table belonged to the whole family. The double bed that filled much of the room was unmade and smelled both musty and inviting as Hårde remembered just how tired he was after a short night in Erna’s demanding company followed by a long day.

  He shook himself, reminding himself as he did so that he had to find two days of seclusion and that this was not the place for it. He left the fat policewoman’s bedroom and scanned the long living room. He peered at pictures placed between books on the shelves along one wall, first of a smaller version of the girl he had seen walking down the street, then at a black-trimmed formal photograph of a man in some kind of military uniform, looking serious but with the same impish look of mischievous good humour that was evident in the girl’s face. A second set of pictures showed a heavily built young man at varying ages with a tousled head and freckles, who was trying to look at ease and failing.

  Hårde nodded and made his decision. In the L-shaped kitchen he found a carrier bag and loaded it with a bottle of wine, another of water and all the fruit and pastries he could find before slipping back into his shoes and over the road to the car, clicking the door behind him.

  As he started the engine and let the little car roll forward down the slope, a heavy Range Rover roared to a halt and parked outside number 38. Young people stepped down from it, a young woman with ginger hair in a loose bun and a broad-shouldered young man whom Hårde instantly recognized from the pictures on the wall.

  He drove away unobtrusively, taking the westbound road out of Hvalvík. He was relieved that he had not been interrupted in the fat policewoman’s house and pleased that he had not needed to make certain of the young couple’s silence, but annoyed with himself for giving in to curiosity and taking a chance of being seen without good reason.

  33

  Wednesday, 1 October

  Gunna surfaced from sleep unwillingly. Something behind her eyeballs throbbed and told her not to open them. She forced her eyelids apart and the light immediately stabbed deep.

  ‘Morning,’ Bjössi called cheerfully. ‘Wakey, wakey, sweetheart.’

  ‘Belt up, will you?’ Gunna snapped back before the thought occurred to her that maybe Bjössi wasn’t going out of his way to be unpleasant.

  He sat down on the bed in the station’s cellar in a room that was halfway between a cell and a storeroom and patted Gunna’s thigh under the heavy duvet that was wrapped around her.

  ‘Y’know, Gunna, my love? If that’s the way you are in the mornings, I can only say I don’t regret never having got you into the sack.’

  ‘Sorry, Bjössi. Didn’t mean to be short with you. What’s the time?’

  ‘Almost six.’

  He held out a mug of coffee and Gunna took it with both hands as she sat up, Bjössi shielding his eyes in mock horror.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m decent enough,’ she growled. ‘I don’t suppose I’ve got anything you haven’t seen before.’

  ‘Possibly. But not as big,’ Bjössi answered seriously, ducking a swipe from the hand not clasped around the mug.

  ‘What’s been going on?’ Gunna asked with the first mouthful of coffee helping parts of her mind recall what had happened before she had closed her eyes a few short hours before.

  ‘Looks like we’ve pretty much traced our man’s movements up to when he left the airport. He’s in a hire car on our Danish guy’s credit card.’

  ‘I suppose Torbensen isn’t anything to do with Hårde?’

  ‘Nope. Like you said, he’s a red herring. The man’s a salesman for an agricultural equipment manufacturer in some backwater in Jutland. Spoke to his managing director and he’s worked there for twelve years. The local company they supply confirmed who he is and that he’s been with them pretty much all the time he’s been in Iceland, all three days of it.’

  ‘So that’s him ruled out.’

  ‘Plenty of people think they might have seen Hårde at the airport, most of them aren’t sure though. Apart from the girl behind the bar who thinks he might have spoken to a fair-haired woman who was sitting there, but again, isn’t sure. The woman at the car hire desk reckons she’d recognize him if she saw him, but Ib Torbensen’s credit card and driving licence pretty much nail him down there anyway.’

  ‘And his phone?’

  ‘Still switched off.’

  ‘The man knows what he’s doing. I’ll bet you anything you like he’s ditched that phone and he’s using another one by now. Right, Bjössi, my man. Are you going to get out and let a lady dress in peace and quiet?’

  She gestured towards her shirt and uniform trousers folded over the back of the cell’s only chair.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Bjössi sighed. ‘Of course, if I’d known you were scantily clad under that duvet, I’d have crawled in before I woke you up.’

  ‘Get away, you randy old goat,’ Gunna retorted. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think your Dóra wasn’t giving you any.’

  Ten minutes later they met again in the incident room. Vilhjálmur Traustason put his head around the door and withdrew quickly.

  ‘What do we know?’ Gunna asked, yawning.

  ‘Last sighting of our man prior to the airport yesterday was at the InterAlu compound in Hvalvík. The operations manager there said he left before eleven. Maybe he went there yesterday to deliver the bad news.’

  ‘Bad news?’

  Bjössi put morning newspapers on the table and spread them out in a fan. Each one had a picture of Bjarni Jón Bjarnason on the cover, except for Dagurinn, which carried a picture of a tearful Sigurjóna shielding her face from the camera, with the police station on Hverfisgata in the background.

  ‘Has that bloody woman been let out?’ Gunna demanded.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Bjössi confirmed tentatively. ‘Orders from high up, or so we’re told. It’s handy to have friends in high places.’

  ‘Shit,’ Gunna cursed as the door opened and Vilhjálmur Traustason came in soundlessly. ‘Vilhjálmur, those idiots in Reykjavík have let that bloody woman out.’

  It wasn’t a question and Gunna’s tone made it into an accusation.

  ‘No choice in the matter. She’s not to leave Reykjavík, though.’

  ‘Lárus Jóhann?’

  Vilhjálmur Traustason allowed himself the thinnest of smiles.

  ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I have a feeling that Bjarni Jón Bjarnason’s influence isn’t quite as strong as it was a few days ago. Sigurjóna Huldudóttir’s lawyers made a case
for release that we couldn’t give a good reason for opposing. However, I have passed on your information to the narcotics squad and it’s being investigated. That’s all I know right now.’

  ‘I hope they hang the bloody woman out to dry,’ Gunna grated.

  ‘Are you telling me, Gunnhildur, my dear, that you don’t care for the lady?’ Bjössi asked with exaggerated courtesy.

  ‘Quite right. Now, business. Where’s Hårde now?’

  ‘Still in Iceland,’ Bjössi said. ‘We can be sure that unless he managed to disguise himself pretty fantastically, he didn’t leave through the airport yesterday and it’s so heavily monitored now that he daren’t even try.’

  ‘How good is the monitoring over there? I’m wondering how long he’ll have to lie low before things cool off and he can try again? Or try another route? Where do we look next?’

  ‘Do we need to?’ Bjössi asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The man knows what he’s doing, but he has to have some kind of contact with other people. The longer he’s in the country, the more chance he’ll show up or at least be noticed. He’s not a local and as soon as he opens his mouth he certainly can’t pass for one. His face was all over the TV last night and today it’s all over the papers. If he’s not aware of that already, he will be soon and he’ll know someone’s going to recognize him.’

  ‘So, you’re saying that he’ll have to move quickly?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Bjössi said thoughtfully. ‘We may have forced him to act faster than he would have wanted to.’

  He carefully spread out the sheaf of newspapers across the table. Alongside the main news of the day, including Bjarni Jón Bjarnason’s early return from a conference overseas to face the growing financial crisis, Hårde’s face could be seen somewhere on every one, leading to a story inside.

  Only Dagurinn had Sigurjóna on the front cover, with Lára’s by-line under the picture and ‘Skúli Snædal – crime correspondent’ right under the headline. Gunna felt a warm glow and suppressed a smile as she stood up and the others followed suit, taking it as a signal that the meeting was about to close.