Chilled to the Bone

by Quentin Bates

  ‘No ideas, Gussi?’ Gunna asked.

  Gústav spread his hands wide and his face was a picture of innocence. ‘Do you see me there anywhere? I was on the reception desk all morning. I didn’t see what was going on in the restaurant. The bar is Kolbeinn’s domain today, not mine.’

  The waiter returned with coffee. The pair at the table in the corner of the empty restaurant sipped and talked, although it seemed that Jóhannes Karlsson was doing most of the talking. The woman crossed and uncrossed her long legs several times, and leaned forward to sip from her cup.

  Eventually the woman stood up, slipped the straps of a holdall over her shoulder and strode from the room. Jóhannes Karlsson could be seen admiring the expanse of long legs in knee-high boots reaching to a short skirt that peeped below the hem of her coat. She looked around her and gave the camera a quick glance, looking right into it.

  ‘Stop right there,’ Gunna ordered. ‘Can you get that as a still picture, Helgi?’

  ‘No idea. Gussi?’

  His fingers tapped at the keyboard and Helgi inserted a flash stick into a slot. ‘Save it onto that, would you?’ he instructed.

  Gunna studied the face, blurred but with a piercing look directed straight at her from beneath an ash-blonde fringe. The lips were full and too dark to be anything other than painted. The woman’s coat was open enough to show a pale-coloured dress or blouse underneath, while the hand that held the straps of the holdall on her shoulder sported a broad ring, which was distinct even on the grainy image.

  ‘I wonder,’ Gunna muttered to herself.

  ‘What, chief?’

  ‘Nothing. This is someone we ought to have a word with sometime very soon. Roll the tape, would you? I’d like you to root around the other cameras and see if you can find out where the girl went, but first let’s see what Jóhannes Karlsson decides to do.’

  They watched as he unfolded his newspaper unhurriedly, sipped his cup of coffee and read quietly, occasionally looking up. Gunna watched the clock ticking in the corner of the screen; five minutes passed before Jóhannes Karlsson stood up, refolded his copy of Morgunbladid, tucked it under his arm and strode from the room, looking neither to the right nor left. As soon as he had gone, the waiter appeared, cleared the table, wiped it carefully and retired, leaving the bar deserted.

  ‘Baddó.’

  It was a familiar voice, and not a welcome one.

  ‘I thought I’d be able to live the rest of my life without hearing you wheezing in my ear again. What the fuck do you want?’ Baddó asked without turning round.

  ‘That’s not a nice thing to say to an old friend who has your best interests at heart, is it?’

  Baddó wondered if the best move would be simply to abandon his beer and walk out, but a sneaking curiosity as to why Hinrik the Herb had made the unwelcome effort to find him held him back.

  ‘Tell me what you’re looking for. You have as long as it takes me to finish this beer, and then I’m out of here.’

  Hinrik beckoned to the barman, who scuttled over as quickly as his feet would carry him, ignoring the line of people already waiting to be served. ‘Vodka, neat, and not the piss you give the usual customers.’

  ‘You run this place, do you?’ Baddó asked, curiosity getting the better of him. ‘Come up in the world, haven’t you?’

  A smile that made Hinrik’s narrow face look even more menacing appeared briefly and then vanished. ‘Let’s say I have an interest in this place, as well as a few others.’ He sipped the vodka that appeared at his elbow. ‘Insurance,’ he explained modestly.

  ‘You mean you’re running a protection racket?’

  Hinrik shrugged. ‘Call it what you like. It works. The people who run this place don’t get any trouble, and we get a cut of the profits. Pre-tax, of course,’ he said and the menacing smile reappeared.

  Baddó drained his beer and banged the glass down on the bar. ‘Well, a pleasure to see you again, Hinrik. Let’s leave it another ten years before we catch up again, shall we?’ he suggested, turning to go.

  Hinrik’s hand descended on Baddó’s forearm, and he made to shake it off impatiently as a second glass of beer appeared in front of him.

  ‘What’s the hurry, Baddó?’ the silky voice asked. ‘It’s not as if you have work to go to.’

  ‘And what the fuck does that have to do with you?’

  Baddó looked at the beer in front of him and put a hand towards it. He knew that taking a sip would mean listening to whatever Hinrik the Herb had sought him out for. As he lifted the glass he had the feeling he was watching a mistake being made.

  Hinrik looked into his eyes and raised his vodka. ‘Cheers. Welcome back,’ he said, and threw the spirit down his throat in a single fluid movement that saw the empty shot glass return to the bar before Baddó had even wet his lips.

  ‘There are people around the city who don’t like your face, Baddó, and they have long memories.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ Baddó flashed back, the old fury rising inside him. ‘I’ve paid my debts. There’s nothing I owe anyone.’

  ‘I didn’t say there was, did I? Don’t jump to conclusions.’ He paused. ‘Don’t forget your beer,’ Hinrik reminded him. ‘A free beer doesn’t come anyone’s way too often.’

  ‘Like a free lunch?’ Baddó sneered. ‘They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and in your world there’s no such thing as a free drink.’

  ‘Your world as well, Baddó. It’s your world as well.’

  ‘Not any more,’ he said with decision, draining the glass and putting it back on the bar upside down. He glared at the barman, who was already at the pump, waiting to pour him another.

  ‘That’s where you might be wrong. There’s some work for you if you want it, and I think you do.’

  ‘How much?’ Baddó asked quickly, and immediately regretted it.

  ‘That’s more like it.’ Hinrik crooked a little finger towards the barman and down at the two empty glasses. ‘Six-fifty.’

  ‘And the job?’

  ‘Find someone.’

  ‘Not for six hundred and fifty thousand.’

  Hinrik frowned. ‘Baddó, you’re not in a position to negotiate. But for old times’ sake, I reckon we could stretch it to a million.’

  ‘Yeah, that means you’ve already negotiated a couple of million from whoever it is who wants someone found,’ Baddó said and saw the first flash of anger on Hinrik’s otherwise impassive features.

  ‘Whatever. You know well enough how business works,’ Hinrik retorted and reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He extracted an envelope and pushed it along the bar with one finger. ‘You might want to start your enquiries over there,’ Hinrik said, the cruel smile returning to his face as he jerked his head towards the bar’s long window and the imposing bulk of the Gullfoss Hotel across the street. ‘It’s part of a chain now. A customer of mine works there, name of Magnús; he drives a beaten-up old black Golf. Ask him. But don’t ask him too hard, y’know. I don’t want to lose any trade. Of course, a successful outcome could also wipe out any past misdeeds, don’t forget.’

  ‘What are you looking for? Name, address, shoe size, bank accounts, or what?’

  ‘A name will do nicely. An address would be worth a bonus.’

  ‘And an advance,’ Baddó decided just as two glasses appeared on the bar.

  ‘Meet me here at the same time tomorrow and there’ll be cash,’ Hinrik said, raising his vodka aloft. ‘Cheers. Welcome home.’

  On the main road she joined the stream of lights heading out of town at a steady pace through the falling sleet that had made the road treacherous. Once past Mosfellsbær, the traffic thinned and Hekla kept her speed to a manageable and unobtrusive seventy as she followed a truck rolling through the dark in front of her. As the truck slowed going up an incline, Hekla took the opportunity to signal to the less patient traffic on her tail and pulled onto a slip road leading to an unused roundabout with turnoffs heading to outlying districts of t
he city that so far existed only on plans.

  She rolled down the window and lit a cigarette, with the car parked and ready to roll down the slip road and back onto the main road. It was a relief at last to have the cigarette she’d been denying herself all day and she savoured each drag as she hauled them deep into her lungs, flicking ash out of the open window as she thumbed a text message into her phone.

  She looked carefully about her and, with a swift movement, her ink-black hair was pulled off to reveal a short mousy crop that nestled above the tips of her ears. She quickly ran a hand through it, relieved to be free of the day’s second itchy wig.

  The cigarette butt was dropped into the slush at the side of the road and she pulled away and joined the stream of traffic again, blindly following the car in front along the busy but unlit road, with cars bound for the city flashing past and wheels throwing up a constant barrage of wet spray that the wipers struggled to clear.

  A few kilometres before Kjalarnes, Hekla wound down the window and looked in the mirror to see that the driver of the nearest car behind was too far away to notice anything falling from the vehicle in front. A handful of credit cards and receipts fluttered into the darkness to be crushed and lost in the frozen sleet on the road’s surface.

  It was still cold outside, but a miserable damp cold, as if winter were deciding whether to stick it out or give way to spring a few months early. It was the kind of insidious chill that ate its way into your bones, he felt, as he longed for summer and sunshine. Jóel Ingi huddled into his coat and turned up the collar. Then he turned it down as he felt it made him look ridiculously suspicious, especially as he had left the building to make a surreptitious phone call.

  ‘Hæ. It’s me,’ he said as the phone was answered. ‘Any news?’

  ‘No, not yet. Look, you can’t expect results just like that,’ the voice on the other end replied irritably.

  ‘But you said you’d get onto this as quickly as you could, didn’t you?’

  ‘That was only a few days ago, pal. This stuff doesn’t happen overnight.’

  ‘I’ve paid you a lot of money. You said you’d be as fast as you could.’

  ‘I work as fast as I can, but I don’t have a magic wand,’ the voice replied dismissively. ‘That kind of stuff costs extra. A lot extra.’

  ‘But this has to be done quickly. You have to find it. You have no idea how important this is.’

  ‘Look, pal,’ the voice said, staccato. ‘You can have cheap, you can have fast, you can have discreet. No way can you have all three. If you want discretion, then it has to take time. You understand?’

  ‘Yeah, I get you,’ Jóel Ingi replied resignedly.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ the voice said shortly and the line went dead.

  Gunna stared at the image that Yngvi had printed out for her. The woman’s eyes were shadows under heavy makeup, eyelashes unrealistically long and heavy, but the eyes still had a piercing quality that the camera had captured as she’d glanced directly into its lens. The hair seemed too perfect, elegantly coiffured in a deceptively complex cut that let the hair spread over her shoulders.

  The face was long, with a distinctive bony nose that wasn’t quite straight, and Gunna had little doubt that she would recognize the woman if she were to see her in person. She tapped the table as she thought things through. The woman had clearly arrived at the hotel with the intention of meeting Jóhannes Karlsson, and it was just as clear that he had been expecting her, but the handshake indicated that this was a formal meeting of some kind, or else the first time they had met.

  ‘Here, chief,’ Helgi called softly, his finger on the mouse as he scrolled back through the digital recording.

  ‘What do you have?’

  ‘Look.’

  Gunna and Helgi watched as the woman emerged from the lift on the fourth floor and made her way around the corner towards the room where Jóhannes Karlsson’s body was still spreadeagled on the bed as the forensic team examined every fibre in the place. She looked quickly left and right as she passed the camera, after which the camera recorded twenty seconds of blank corridor before it stopped.

  ‘It’s automatic,’ Helgi explained. ‘On the floors upstairs the cameras are fitted with motion sensors, so they start recording as soon as they sense someone moving.’

  ‘I got the gist of that, thanks, Helgi.’

  ‘So the next thing we see on the tape is this,’ he said, eyes still glued to the screen as Jóhannes Karlsson emerged from the lift with a swagger, and looked both ways along the plush corridor just as the young woman had done, before disappearing from view.

  ‘That’s it, is it? We don’t get a view of the door to the room itself?’

  ‘Nope, according to that weird night porter, the cameras record the lift and the door to the stairs, so that they only record who goes to each floor, not who goes to which rooms. It’s a human rights violation, apparently, if they record who strays into someone else’s room.’

  ‘And this is the kind of place lawyers can afford to stay in, so I suppose they have to be careful. Helgi, what’s your take on all this?’

  Helgi sat back; the recording was paused with Jóhannes Karlsson’s back freeze-framed in the swing doors leading to the fourth-floor suites. ‘Simple. He orders a hooker, meets her in the bar downstairs. They go up to the room separately, although I’d bet the staff here knew exactly what was happening. She takes off her bra, his blood pressure goes through the roof when he gets an eyeful of her tits, he has a heart attack and she gets out as quick as she can.’

  Gunna held her chin in her hands as she looked at Jóhannes Karlsson’s broad back on the screen, frozen in mid-stride. He had been a big man, and a muscular man in his youth, who walked with all the assurance that money or power can give.

  ‘I reckon you’re probably quite right. I’m sure this isn’t a murder case, but we’re going to have to talk to this woman and get her side of what happened. I doubt we’ll even be able to pin an immoral earnings rap on her as it’s her word against ours that they were anything other than just good friends,’ Gunna said thoughtfully. ‘Not that I expect Jóhannes Karlsson’s wife will be too impressed.’

  ‘Right enough,’ Helgi agreed.

  Gunna stood up. ‘But as this guy was a wealthy man, and I’d guess he has a few friends in high places, we’d best cover our backs and do it all by the book, otherwise it’ll come back to haunt us later. I’m going to have a chat with some of the staff again. Go through the rest of the recordings, will you, and see if you can get a glimpse of her leaving the building so we can see when she left?’

  María wasn’t home and the flat echoed. Baddó’s head buzzed after three beers and he reflected that a few years ago three beers would have been nothing more than the precursor to something better. Years of enforced abstinence had merely ensured that three beers made him want to spend the rest of the afternoon sleeping on his sister’s sofa.

  He made coffee, and made it strong enough to bring him back to reality with a jerk. A sandwich of cheese and cold peas mashed into the thick bread helped settle his stomach and, with a second mug of extra-strong coffee at his elbow, he looked at the envelope on the table in front of him.

  Baddó reflected that he could return it to Hinrik the next day, unopened, and tell him that he couldn’t do the job. But he knew that wouldn’t be acceptable to the man in the leather jacket who made barmen jump with a wave of his little finger. He shook his head, disappointed in himself that his curiosity had got the better of him, instead of turning down Hinrik’s job without asking any questions.

  There were two photographs in the envelope. Printed on heavy gloss paper, but grainy and not as distinct as he would have liked. Looking at them carefully, Baddó decided that one at least was lifted from CCTV footage and showed a dark-haired woman in a tracksuit top zipped up under her chin and with the straps of a bag over her shoulder. The expression on her face was tight and determined, as if there were an insecurity or a tension about her. The ringlet
s of black hair fell past her eyebrows and around her head to her shoulders, as if she were hiding behind them.

  The second photograph showed another woman. Taken in better light, this one was clearer, showing a woman in a pale dress, caught looking over her shoulder to give a three-quarter view of her face. Baddó admired the long legs that ended in surprisingly low-heeled court shoes.

  Tall, he thought. She must be one-eighty, one-ninety if she can get away without heels.

  He placed the two pictures side by side and tried to compare the dark-haired woman looking past the camera to the tall blonde smiling at someone or something to one side. He stood up and rooted in a kitchen drawer, eventually returning to the table with a cracked magnifying glass that had lost its handle. Any thought of sleep had gone and it wasn’t because of the extra-strong coffee cooling in a mug at the corner of the kitchen table.

  He pored over both pictures, starting with the backgrounds. The blonde was standing in a big room, and Baddó could make out tables and chairs in the distance. A restaurant, he guessed. Or maybe it could be a club of some kind. The dark-haired woman appeared to be in a corridor, with a blank wall over her shoulder and an indistinct sign tacked to the wall behind her, half cut off by the edge of the picture. He stared at it through the glass and finally made out ‘ncy Exit’ picked out in large square letters.

  ‘Emergency Exit’, he decided with satisfaction. That means a restaurant, a club, a hotel, a school, an office even. Or some kind of government building, maybe, he mused.

  Last, he turned to the two faces, as if to confirm his suspicion. The tall blonde in the slimline dress bore remarkably little comparison to the dumpy-looking girl in the tracksuit, but the blonde’s bobbed hair accentuated her cheekbones, while the black curls made the other’s face look broader and rounder. Placing one as close to the other as he could, Baddó went from one to the other and, within a minute or two, he was sure. The set of the jaw and the shape of the nose told him that the two were either sisters, or else the same person.