Chilled to the Bone

by Quentin Bates

  ‘No. I hardly spoke to her,’ he said, pointing at the blonde.

  ‘But you spoke to the gentleman who was with her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course. He’s a regular guest here,’ he said, clearly confused.

  ‘You tell me. Have you seen either of these women before?’

  Kolbeinn’s voice was slow and unconvincing. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this one,’ he added, looking carefully at the picture of the woman with the curls.

  ‘Who was here first yesterday?’ Gunna asked, although she already knew the answer from the CCTV footage. ‘Him or her?’

  ‘Like I told your colleague yesterday, the gentleman was here yesterday morning, reading the paper. Then the lady arrived and went over and sat next to him. I brought him a coffee and she asked for camomile tea.’

  ‘Hold on a second, which of my colleagues did you speak to yesterday?’ Gunna asked in irritation, looking through her notes and wondering why Eiríkur and Helgi hadn’t mentioned speaking to the barman.

  ‘The one with the beard,’ Kolbeinn said, as if he felt sorry for the confused police officer speaking to him. ‘Nice guy,’ he added. ‘We went to Café 22 over the road and had a beer. He asked for my friend Magnús, but he’s working over at the Harbourside Hotel these days.’

  ‘Really?’ Gunna asked. ‘What did he ask you about? I’m sorry, but there seem to be a few crossed wires here.’

  ‘Everything you’ve been asking. Do I know this woman and all that.’ Kolbeinn was gabbling as Gunna glared. ‘He had a badge and everything.’

  Gunna took a deep breath. ‘All right. Now, tell me where you spoke to this man, will you?’

  Kolbeinn looked frightened. ‘Here. He came in and had a coffee. There wasn’t anyone about, so we got chatting and he told me he was a policeman who was looking for someone who had been reported missing and had I seen her? Then he showed me his badge and some pictures.’

  ‘These pictures?’

  ‘I’m not sure if it was these,’ Kolbeinn floundered, ‘but it was definitely her. My shift was over and Gussi was supposed to take over, so we went for a beer and he asked a lot more questions.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he gave you his name, did he?’ Gunna asked and was rewarded with a shake of the head. ‘No, I don’t suppose he did, and I don’t imagine it was a police badge he showed you, either. Look, if you speak to anyone about this, it’s either me or one of the two guys who are here with me today. Understand? Now, what time did this man appear and tell you he was one of us?’ she asked, her anger cooling at the sight of the young man’s crestfallen face.

  Baddó was delicately sipping coffee when Hinrik appeared. He waved him to a seat, knowing that anywhere but propping up the bar wasn’t the thin man’s style.

  Hinrik frowned at the sight of the cup in Baddó’s hand. ‘You don’t want a real drink?’

  ‘Not this early. Sit down.’

  Hinrik lowered himself uncomfortably into a chair and looked about him until he caught the eye of the youth behind the bar, who scuttled over with a glass on a tray. ‘You look more wide awake today, Baddó.’

  ‘Well, you know, home cooking can do wonders for a man after eight years of cabbage.’

  ‘So. What’re you thinking?’

  Baddó sipped and put the cup down. He extracted the envelope containing the two photographs from an inside pocket. ‘I’m thinking, why me, considering the cops are probably keeping an eye on me?’

  Hinrik shrugged. ‘You’re the right man for the job, and the police force has enough to do already without keeping tabs on a reformed character like yourself.’

  ‘Bullshit. You must have plenty of people you can call on to do some snooping and snap a few thumbs. Why pick this old fart?’

  ‘Since you ask, I’ll be honest with you.’ Hinrik laid a finger on the table next to his glass. ‘To start with, you’re a new face who’s not a new face, if you see what I mean. You’ve been out of circulation for long enough that most of the young fuckwits with their brains in their bollocks were still playing about on their skateboards when you were around.’

  Baddó nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Two.’ Hinrik laid another finger on the table’s edge, alongside the first. ‘This calls for discretion, so it had to be someone with something upstairs who wouldn’t spill his guts after the first two shots on a Friday night.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  A third finger joined the other two.

  Baddó nodded. ‘And three?’

  ‘There isn’t a third reason. Except maybe for old times’ sake.’

  ‘Get away with you, Hinrik. You don’t have a sentimental fibre in your entire body.’

  The thin man smiled, making it look like a facial muscle exercise. ‘True,’ he admitted, and took out a fat envelope, which he placed next to the one Baddó had already put on the table. ‘Down payment plus expenses.’

  Baddó stowed the fat envelope away in one smooth move and opened the other one. ‘I need something to go on here. Where’s this taken? I’m not going to ask who she’s upset, but what’s this tart done that you’re looking for her?’

  Hinrik’s smile disappeared. ‘I’m not sure what she’s done,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘But someone has been mightily pissed off.’

  Helgi was immersed again in the hotel’s CCTV footage, alone this time as he pored over the blurry images fast-forwarding through the hotel’s lobby and corridors.

  ‘We’ve had some unwelcome company,’ Gunna said without preamble. ‘Can you put that thing on to the bar at around six yesterday?’

  ‘Yesterday evening?’

  ‘That’s it. Some smart operator came in here masquerading as a copper and chatted up the bartender. He even took him across the street and bought him a beer.’

  Helgi grimaced as he fiddled with the computer to find the footage from the previous evening. ‘Buying anyone a beer would rule him out as one of us, wouldn’t it? So what do you reckon that was all about?’

  ‘Ach, I don’t know,’ Gunna said, failing to hide her irritation. ‘Some nosy bastard. A journalist, I’d imagine.’

  ‘Are you all right, chief?’ Helgi asked, looking around and peering over the reading glasses on the end of his nose.

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ Gunna scowled. ‘What’s on the screen?’

  Helgi clicked and the figure of Kolbeinn in his white shirt and black waistcoat could be seen at the bar, polishing a glass. He served a couple of customers in rapid, jerky fast forward as Helgi scrolled through half an hour in a matter of minutes. As the clock rolled over to six precisely, a bearded man in a leather jacket approached the bar and Gunna could see him in conversation with Kolbeinn, their talk continuing over the cup of coffee the barman served him; she could see a wallet being flashed quickly.

  ‘He could have showed that lad a library card at that speed and got away with it,’ Helgi grunted as the bearded man left the bar with a spring in his step. ‘That was pretty quick, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Remarkably so. Let’s have a look at the lobby, shall we? He’s admitted that this guy invited him over the road for a beer, so let’s just see how fast that happened. Then you can get me a still of this deadbeat hack’s face. I’ll see if he can be tracked down and I’ll have a quiet word in his ear.’

  ‘Enough to sow fear in any God-fearing man’s heart,’ Helgi intoned.

  ‘Any news?’

  Jóel Ingi shook his head. ‘Tonight, I hope.’

  ‘I hope so. Ægir’s not going to let this go easily.’

  ‘He’s a bastard. A real bastard,’ Jóel Ingi announced in a whisper not quite discreet enough for comfort.

  ‘Shhh. Someone could hear you,’ Már scolded, stepping back and taking a closer look at Jóel Ingi. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked eventually. ‘Been overdoing it?’

  ‘Not sleeping all that well, but I’m fine. I can handle this. You wait and see.’

  Yngvi was in his office, and as Gunna approached the open
door she could hear his querulous protests in the face of a verbal onslaught. Stepping past the door, she was able to see through the narrow gap between it and the frame and catch a momentary glimpse of Yngvi behind his desk, leaning back in his leather office chair as a bulky man leaned with both hands on the desk.

  ‘It’s a damned disgrace and it shouldn’t be allowed for you people to harass staff outside working hours . . .’

  ‘I assure you . . .’ Yngvi protested uselessly.

  ‘Reprehensible,’ the broad-backed man complained. ‘If you want to carry out your damned investigations into the disgraceful things that happen in this place, then you should do them on the premises. You shouldn’t be doing it in people’s own time and invading their privacy. It’s a damned scandal and I shall be taking this to the union. Have no fear.’

  ‘If I can say something,’ Yngvi finally managed to say as the bear of a man paused for breath – Gunna could almost hear Yngvi collecting his thoughts. ‘If I can say something. Look, Hákon. That’s your name, isn’t it? I’m sorry if your wife has been inconvenienced. She’s an outstanding member of staff.’

  ‘And so damn what?’ The big man wheezed. ‘Why’s she getting this harassment? That’s what it is,’ he said in triumph, as if he had been searching for the right word. ‘Damned harassment.’

  ‘Listen to me, will you? We will be carrying out an internal investigation, but that hasn’t started yet and it probably won’t be conducted until the police investigation is complete.’

  ‘So what are you trying to tell me?’ The big man demanded and Gunna stayed out of sight, also interested to hear Yngvi’s explanation.

  ‘I’m telling you that if your wife has been harassed, it wasn’t anything to do with the hotel management. It must have been the police. It wasn’t anything I have authorized and any internal investigation here certainly wouldn’t leave the building.’

  Gunna continued along the corridor slowly enough to hear Yngvi’s final comment to the man. ‘I suggest you speak to the police. There are three officers here right now, and the one in charge is a woman called Gunnhildur. Maybe she’ll be able to put your mind at rest.’

  The picture wasn’t clear, but it was clear enough. A broad-faced man with a goatee beard worn distinctively long had been caught on CCTV footage in a screenshot that was blurred but showed him looking almost towards the camera. Shortish hair and a faded dark leather jacket completed the picture. Gunna wondered where she had seen that face before with its determined look beneath heavy brows.

  When the man she had overheard in Yngvi’s office hadn’t found her half an hour later, Gunna zipped up her coat as high as it would go and strode out of the hotel’s entrance, the door grinding as it closed automatically behind her. Grit in the mechanism, Gunna guessed, screwing up her face in distaste as the wind swept flakes of stinging snow into her face; she could feel that the slush under her feet had begun to harden again in the thickening frost.

  There was no post-Christmas rush to the centre of Reykjavík. With earnings having remained static for those fortunate enough to still be employed, while prices had risen since the financial crash that now seemed to have receded practically to the Saga Age, shoppers were hardly spending much – at least not until the new credit card month began, Gunna reflected. A few years earlier she had been seriously considering leaving the police to earn more money in a new environment with private security work, but with the upheaval of the crash vivid in her memory, she had resigned herself to holding on to her state pay cheque, and the transfer to plain clothes in Reykjavík after her rural beat in Hvalvík had made life more stressful but considerably more interesting.

  In the lee of a shop, she extracted her phone and punched in a quick SMS.

  At the office?

  She had hardly put her phone away when it buzzed in reply.

  Slaving away

  Coffee?

  5 mins?

  OK. Round the corner

  The café was almost empty, and as the man behind the counter chewed his lip every time someone walked past, Gunna assumed he must be the proprietor. He brightened as she pushed the door open and stamped snow from her boots.

  ‘I’m sick of winter already,’ she said. ‘Coffee, please, and one of those things.’

  ‘What coffee you like?’

  ‘Just old-fashioned coffee-style coffee. My mate’ll be here in a minute and he’ll want something fancy with asparagus honey and organic goat’s milk, I expect.’

  The man took Gunna’s money and she had taken off her coat and was deep in the previous day’s newspaper when Skúli pushed open the door and followed her route to the counter.

  ‘How goes it at the rockface of contemporary journalism?’

  ‘Chipping away,’ Skúli admitted, sitting down with a tall glass of coffee. ‘Still at Reykjavík Voice – four days a week now. They advertised for someone, couldn’t get anyone they liked, so they offered me an extra two days.’

  ‘So now you’re working eight days a week?’ Gunna asked, biting into the something she’d blithely ordered and discovering it was covered in a sticky coating that clung to her teeth. ‘Shit, hell and damnation,’ she cursed quietly, taking a mouthful of coffee and dropping the remains of the biscuit onto her plate.

  ‘Are you all right, Gunna?’ Skúli asked with concern.

  ‘Yeah. Just a bit stressed at the moment. This guy,’ she said, placing in front of him the screenshot Helgi had extracted from the hotel’s system. ‘Any idea who he is?’

  Skúli gave it a quick glance. ‘Is this some kind of test?’ he asked as Gunna gave him a long stare. ‘You don’t know?’

  Gunna stifled the urge to snap back at him: No, I don’t know who this is, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking. ‘He’s a hack, I reckon, and someone I’d like to have a quiet word with, or else a chat with his editor.’

  ‘He’s not a journo.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. His name’s Baddó. He was in prison somewhere in Eastern Europe and was only recently released. I did a story about him a while ago because he didn’t want to be repatriated and finish his sentence in Iceland as people normally do. He fought quite hard not to be sent home and he also fought against being deported from wherever it was once he was released. I’m trying to remember what his real name is. I tried to get an interview with him once he was finally sent back to Iceland – before Christmas, I think – but he wouldn’t have it.’

  ‘Hróbjartur,’ Gunna supplied, her memory jogged back into gear. ‘Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson.’

  ‘Yeah. Isn’t it a terrible name?’ Skúli said with a smile. ‘It doesn’t get much more nineteenth century than Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson. It’s like something out of Laxness. Now I’m wondering why you’re interested in him and if there’s anything you can tell me?’

  ‘Not right away. He’s been snooping around a case I’m working on and I want to know why.’

  ‘This is about the thing at the Gullfoss? The shipowner who was found strapped to the bed?’

  Gunna gave him another hard stare. ‘You don’t know anything about that, do you, Skúli? I’m not asking, by the way. I’m telling you that you haven’t heard anything, especially from me.’

  Skúli shrugged. ‘Fair enough. It’s not exactly something I can print in Reykjavík Voice. But I do shifts at Dagurinn, and they were knocking together Jóhannes Karlsson’s obituary last night. Nothing to worry about,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Just the usual crap about which farm his grandparents came from and how many grandchildren he had.’

  Gunna started uncomfortably at the mention of grandchildren.

  ‘Nothing about him paying a hooker to tie him to a bed in a smart hotel,’ Skúli added.

  ‘There’d be hell to pay if you did.’

  ‘But there are rumours.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Skúli scratched his nose and looked about him theatrically, reassuring himself that apart from the two of them, the only other person in the café wa
s the proprietor, yawning behind his counter.

  ‘There’s nothing concrete, but you know what Reykjavhík Voice is like. It’s seething with gossip. It seems that it’s the latest scam. Man books a kinky escort, she ties him up and disappears with his wallet after taking a couple of compromising photos, presumably as insurance. Simple as that. It seems one guy wanted his fun in the wardrobe, but she locked him inside it and stole his wallet. It’s been going on for a while and it’s all “somebody knows someone who heard something from . . .” You know?’

  ‘Yeah. I know, Chinese whispers that don’t stand up in court.’

  ‘I thought it was just an urban myth until this thing at Hotel Gullfoss happened yesterday. Not that we journos know any more than the police,’ he said with a sly smile. ‘Although now some of us know that Bigfoot Baddó is involved. Not that we’d say a word out of place.’

  At lunchtime Jóel Ingi went for sushi. It wasn’t something he did often, nor did he like it particularly, but the others enthused about the delights of raw fish and he joined the group of four at a small, smart place on Laugarvegur that had yet to become popular. Once it did, they would probably abandon it and find somewhere else, Jóel Ingi thought, enjoying the unaccustomed slow pace of the meal, made slower by his lack of skill with chopsticks, which he did his best to disguise.

  The two women in the group departed together for the restaurant’s bathroom, leaving Jóel Ingi and Már with Sævar, a translator from the next floor. Jóel Ingi daydreamed as the other two talked British football, something he had never been able to muster interest in. Coffee arrived as the two women returned, and Katrín from the press office sat down opposite him and smiled. Jóel Ingi liked her. Katrín had a sense of humour that seemed irrepressible. A short, round woman who he decided had never seen the inside of a gym in her life, she didn’t attract him in the same way that his wife’s spare, bony frame drove him wild, but there was no denying that Katrín was fun in a way that Agnes could never be.

  Jóel Ingi remained distant, answering the questions Katrín laughingly set him. Her friend, a wiry girl called Ursula, was definitely more his type, he felt. The only one of the group not from the ministry, she seemed reluctant to engage in conversation with him, apparently preferring to talk to Már. Although he noticed her stealing the occasional glance his way.