Chilled to the Bone

by Quentin Bates

  ‘I’m sorry, Gunna. I had to get away from Reykjavík for a few days. It’s so lonely in the place I’m in and I wanted to get out of that miserable city for a while,’ Drífa sniffed. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. You’re always welcome here,’ Gunna said, shocked at the change in Drífa, not just in her spreading width but also in her transformation from a confident young woman to this tearful, lost child. ‘Are you hungry, Drífa? Do you want something to eat? I’m going to work soon so I was going to have something anyway.’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

  ‘It’s no trouble, sweetheart,’ Gunna said. ‘Laufey,’ she added and needed to say no more as the girl opened the fridge and started piling food onto the table.

  ‘I’m not sure I could eat anything,’ Drífa said, buttering a slice of bread and spreading it with cheese. ‘I keep bringing everything up; I can’t see why I’m getting so chubby when I’m hardly eating,’ she wailed.

  ‘It could be water retention, you know, Drífa. Once the baby’s born . . .’ she said and gulped. ‘Once the baby’s born you’ll probably lose a lot of it straight away. That’s what happened to me when Laufey was born.’

  ‘Please, Mum. Not endless pregnancy stories,’ Laufey said darkly. ‘This isn’t a sewing circle.’

  In the end Drífa put away half a dozen slices of bread with cold meat, cheese or herring, an apple and a carton of juice, finally sitting back with more colour in her cheeks than there had been half an hour earlier.

  ‘I’ll have to leave you to it, I’m afraid, girls. I have to go to work,’ Gunna said finally, after the table had been cleared and the usual family news had been exchanged. Nobody had mentioned Gísli, and she hoped that it would stay that way for a while.

  ‘On a Saturday?’ Drífa asked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Sadly, there are criminals who need to be chased and locked up at weekends as well. It would be lovely if murderers and drug dealers could stick to office hours.’

  ‘Is that what you do?’ Drífa asked, wide-eyed, while Laufey sniggered. ‘I mean, like, I knew you were in the police, but I didn’t think you did stuff like that.’

  ‘OK. What did you think Mum did?’ Laufey asked, trying not to laugh.

  ‘Well, I thought you were in an office or something.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think I’m quite the office type,’ Gunna said stiffly and the two girls fell silent, Drífa a little crestfallen and Laufey smiling broadly. ‘Now I have to get myself changed.’

  She returned to find the two of them chattering over the table, but they fell silent as she appeared, pulling on her quilted jacket and wrapping a scarf around her neck.

  ‘Cold out today,’ she said to break the silence.

  ‘Er, Gunna?’

  ‘Yes, Drífa?’ Gunna asked absently as she tied her bootlaces.

  ‘I was wondering. Do you mind if I stay for a couple of days?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Gunna said, her mind already elsewhere. ‘But you’ll have to use Gísli’s room.’

  ‘Gísli’s room? All right,’ Drífa said doubtfully.

  ‘That’s all there is, I’m afraid. I think he’s taken most of his stuff anyway. Laufey, would you sort out Gísli’s room for Drífa? Sorry, but I have to rush.’

  ‘No problem, Mum,’ Laufey said, taking charge.

  ‘Right. Look after the place, ladies. I’ll be back tonight; Steini should be here around seven and he’s in charge of food tonight.’

  ‘Who’s Steini?’ she heard Drífa whisper just before the door closed.

  ‘Duh. He’s Mum’s squeeze,’ Gunna heard Laufey explain as the door shut behind her.

  Jóel Ingi left the warmth of his bed with a heavy heart. Agnes was still pretending to be asleep as he showered and dressed. He felt restless and out of sorts and it was as well it wasn’t a working day. The intention had been to stay at home and take it easy, maybe spend the morning in bed and suggest that Agnes do the same, but as she was in a foul temper he decided that he might as well go for a run, regardless of the miserable weather.

  There was nothing to suggest he was being watched. There was nobody to be seen anywhere as he jogged the lightening streets, wondering if running in the wind and rain was a sign of insanity. He was angry with himself for being so paranoid as to imagine that someone would want to tail a lowly temporary officer, long passed over for promotion. The lost laptop haunted his thoughts, not that he could tell Agnes why he’d been so nervous and preoccupied these last few days.

  Shit, what if someone were to stumble across the computer’s contents, he thought to himself, turning a corner and crossing Sæbraut behind a line of cars queuing at the lights. The traffic moved off and gradually overtook him, cars and vans spitting black slush from beneath their wheels as snowflakes that were almost raindrops spun the glare of the streetlights, turning to water as soon as they landed and adding to the flow gurgling down the drains. Buffeted by a blustery wind, Jóel Ingi picked his way carefully between the worst of the rivulets trickling along the seafront, wondering why he bothered to live in Reykjavík 101 and telling himself that if it were to freeze later, it would be impossible to get around.

  The miserable weather and his own bad temper momentarily eclipsed his worries about the lost laptop and its dangerous contents. He even forgot to look around him to check if he were being followed, but if he had done, it was unlikely he would have recognized the blonde woman he had almost walked into on the pavement the day before as the same one who passed him half a dozen times behind the wheel of a down-at-heel Renault while keeping a wary eye on his progress.

  ‘I’ve found out something about hotels,’ Eiríkur announced.

  Helgi didn’t answer, enthralled by the sight of old-fashioned food of the kind his young wife wouldn’t allow in their house.

  ‘Go on, then,’ Gunna said, ‘what’s that?’

  ‘If you want to get an idea of what really goes on, then go in the evening. The managers work nine to five, and once they’ve gone home you’re more likely to get some thwarted droid who’s only too happy to drop the man in the shit.’

  ‘So you came away with some dirt, did you? Excellent. Let’s hear it.’

  The bus station was quiet. The early buses were long gone and in the dead of winter, with difficult roads all around the country, only a skeleton service ran. The cafeteria, which buzzed with life during the tourist season, was all theirs as they sat beneath old photographs of buses that travelled the country back when there were no tarmac roads outside Reykjavík and timetables were little more than inspired guesswork.

  Eiríkur dissected his pizza while Helgi looked up from his plate to glare at it with distaste. He munched a slice and washed it down with Coke.

  ‘Hell, and you dare to lecture me about eating healthy food,’ Helgi grumbled.

  ‘Boys,’ Gunna said, reining them in. ‘Eiríkur . . . hotels. Remember?’

  ‘Yeah. I went round a few of the big ones. The Airline Hotel, Hotel Ocean, Hotel Glacier, and avoided the Harbourside and the Gullfoss like you said. It’s the same story everywhere once you get someone lower down the pecking order talking. At every hotel there’s been at least one instance of this scam. Normally there’s a phone call to reception from an outside number and a request to help a gentleman in a certain room. The gentleman is untied, is deeply embarrassed and disappears. Nobody ever wants to complain, and the reasons are pretty obvious.’

  ‘So each of these hotels has had the same thing happen? That’s half a dozen times to our knowledge, which includes the late Jóhannes Karlsson.’

  ‘Mmmmm, yes,’ Eiríkur said, hurriedly swallowing. ‘The bar manager at one of the hotels said the same thing had happened at Hotel Moon out near Borgarnes at least twice, as far as he knew, and it had happened at that cheap place up on Ármúli, whatever that’s called.’

  ‘A regular epidemic, isn’t it?’ Helgi ventured, straightening his shoulders as he pulled a sheep’s head apar
t, much to Eiríkur’s disgust.

  ‘That’s not all,’ Eiríkur said, bubbling with enthusiasm. ‘I spoke to Jóhannes Karlsson’s son last night, and he said that there were five transactions on one of his debit cards that morning. Details should be on my email when I get back to Hverfisgata.’

  Gunna tapped the tabletop with her fingernails, rattling an irregular tattoo that Helgi and Eiríkur both knew and recognized as a signal that ideas were called for on their part.

  ‘So how do we crack this, chief?’ Helgi asked, pre-empting the expected comment.

  ‘Y’know,’ Gunna said slowly, ‘I reckon it’s time to push hard and give someone a fright. Look, there must be a dozen or so men around Reykjavík who have fallen for this scam over how long?’

  ‘About a year, I guess,’ Eiríkur said.

  ‘So we have to find at least one of them and pull his fingernails out one by one until he spills the beans.’ Gunna smiled grimly. ‘So I suggest we take one hotel each and give the manager a hard time until they come up with some names. How does that sound, gentlemen?’

  Gunna was back at the Harbourside Hotel and this time Símon’s smile had disappeared into the depths of the carefully shaped beard that framed his mouth.

  ‘It’s simple enough,’ Gunna told him. ‘There’s a scam that’s been taking place in hotels all over the city and I’m sure you’re aware of it. A man takes a room and goes up there with a lady. An hour or two later there’s a phone call to the hotel asking for someone in a certain room to be assisted. You get the picture?’

  Símon shifted uncomfortably in the chair that fitted snugly into his curved desk. ‘I’ve heard . . . rumours that this was more than a one-off,’ he admitted finally. ‘But it’s not something I’ve had to deal with personally.’

  ‘All right, then. Tell me a few of these rumours, would you?’

  He scowled and Gunna could see him wondering what to say.

  ‘As you can imagine, this is terribly sensitive,’ he said finally, with an effort. ‘I’m not sure what I can tell you.’

  ‘I would suggest that you tell me everything you know, because if you don’t and it comes out later that you withheld information, then you’ll find yourself in a heap of trouble up to your eyeballs.’

  Gunna watched as Símon fought an internal struggle.

  ‘I think you might have to speak to the managing director,’ he said finally. ‘This is something that affects the whole group.’

  ‘Right. So where’s the managing director?’

  ‘Er . . . she’s in London at the moment but should be back after the weekend.’

  ‘Good grief!’ Gunna exploded. ‘I don’t have the time or patience to wait for someone who’s on a jaunt overseas, especially as this concerns what could conceivably be a murder investigation at the Gullfoss, which is all part of the same group, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Símon replied, a querulous note in his voice. ‘I’m not sure that I have the authority to disclose this kind of information.’

  ‘Fair enough. If you don’t want to make a decision, then I’ll speak to your managing director and she can make it for you. Whichever way, it looks bad, doesn’t it?’

  ‘There have been . . .’ Símon paused and Gunna waited expectantly. ‘There have been incidents. We obviously want to keep this as quiet as possible, as you can appreciate,’ he gulped. ‘I don’t have details. We don’t log this kind of thing. Instructions from higher up. It happens. Whoever is on duty deals with it and we don’t encourage staff to tell management about it afterwards.’

  ‘So if something does go wrong, you can say, with a grain of truth, that you didn’t know anything about it?’

  Símon grimaced again, and while Gunna understood that he was in a difficult position, she found it hard to feel sympathy.

  ‘Look. Nobody wants to make waves. It’s a tough world out there,’ he said with a vague jerk of his head towards the window and the street outside. ‘Jobs don’t grow on trees like they did a few years ago, so we keep quiet and don’t make a fuss. And if the MD knew I’d told you that, I’d be joining the dole queue tomorrow morning,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘All right. Let’s make it easy for all concerned, shall we? Tell me what you can and I didn’t hear it from you.’

  Símon raised his hands helplessly. ‘I’ve already told you everything I know. The duty managers deal with these incidents. I only hear about them indirectly later. But I can tell you that Magnús dealt with such an incident recently.’

  ‘And he’s not here?’

  ‘No. Still off sick, apparently.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘Don’t be so idiotic. Who would want to keep tabs on you? Me, I can understand, being the handsome devil I am.’ Már Einarsson grinned, hoping to put Jóel Ingi at his ease, but the flinty expression stopped any attempt at humour.

  ‘That fucking computer is dynamite,’ he hissed, flicking a glance around the coffee shop that was at the far end of his morning run. ‘Do they know that?’

  ‘I’m not sure what they know. I don’t think Ægir knows anything, but he suspects everyone of everything. It’s a power game for him. Don’t let him grind you down, because he’ll jump down your neck if he senses weakness.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all that,’ Jóel Ingi said. ‘But you remember the Libyans. There were no memos, no notes, nothing.’

  ‘Of course. And that’s only right. No paper trail to follow.’

  ‘Yeah. No paper trail,’ Jóel Ingi snapped. ‘But there’s a fucking electronic trail. It’s in that computer if someone can figure out how to hack their way into it.’

  Már stared at Jóel Ingi in disbelief. ‘You mean you didn’t delete everything?’

  ‘I thought I had,’ he said miserably. ‘I deleted all the incoming mails but not the outgoing ones. I just forgot,’ he added bleakly.

  ‘And if that gets into the wrong hands’ – Már breathed – ‘it’ll destroy the man, and he’ll take everyone he can with him, if I know him right. Ægir, you, me. We’re all expendable as far as he’s concerned.’

  ‘It’s password protected,’ Jóel Ingi offered.

  ‘Yeah. That’s crackable for someone who knows what he’s doing. But it’s not easy, unless your password’s “password” or “admin” or something obvious like your wife’s name.’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘Shit, you didn’t?’ Már said, watching Jóel Ingi’s face fall.

  The phone rang cheerfully and Svava Gunnarsdóttir answered equally cheerfully.

  ‘Hello! Svava.’

  ‘Good day,’ a gruff man’s voice offered. ‘I’m looking for Haraldur Samúelsson. Do I have the right number?’ he asked politely.

  ‘Yes, you’ve come to the right place, but I’m afraid he’s at work at the moment. Can I take a message or do you want to call his mobile?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘It’s all right. I’ll call back later. It’s nothing urgent.’

  ‘Can I tell him who called?’ she asked and there was a second pause.

  ‘Could you just tell him that Jón called and it’s about his stay at the Harbourside Hotel recently? Thanks,’ the voice said, and Svava found herself listening to a dialling tone as the call was terminated.

  The sound of air bubbling through water confused her for a moment until Gunna remembered the new text message alert that Laufey had programmed into her phone.

  Bingo, Eiríkur’s message read.

  Full house? She thumbed back, walking through the angrily sleeting rain towards the car parked on the street outside the Harbourside Hotel.

  Got one for you. Want the juicy details?

  OK. Back at H-Gata in 10, she texted back, getting into the car and noticing with dismay the stack of printouts on the passenger seat that she still hadn’t found time to read. She remembered with a stab of discomfort that Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson’s file was there and that as the name had cropped up linked to the hotel case, she should have read it by now.<
br />
  She fished out her phone and scrolled down to reply to Eiríkur’s last message.

  Make that 20, she thumbed in as a second reply and started the engine, switching on the heater to clear the windscreen and start warming her feet as she skimmed his file.

  Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson, born in Reykjavík in 1972, known as Baddó or Bigfoot, she read. Average height, weight and looks, no distinguishing marks. She read through a list of misdemeanours from extracting money with menaces to assault, along with several stretches in prison that included fights with other prisoners and on one occasion an extension of his sentence for knocking a warder’s front teeth out.

  In 1996 he had been involved with a shipment of ecstasy that had been intercepted on the basis of information received, questioned and then released when there was insufficient evidence to link him to the goods. But some weeks later a man had been badly beaten and Gunna’s heavy eyebrows knitted in a frown when she saw the name. According to the file, Baddó had been identified as the attacker, but with no firm evidence, no prosecution had resulted. A few months later, Baddó disappeared from Iceland and the file was empty until a request from police in Lithuania for information had been logged. Baddó, it seemed, had been involved in an operation that shipped cars stolen in Denmark and Sweden through the Baltic States to destinations in the Middle East.

  As a footnote, someone had added that Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson had attended the police college in 1993–94 and had graduated with good marks, but had never applied for a position with the force, presumably having decided that the other side of law and order was more his style. Gunna noticed that prior to 1994 the man had a clean sheet; she wondered what had sent him down that particular path.

  There was just one recent photograph, supplied by police in Lithuania. Gunna found herself looking into the deep, truculent eyes of a man with a bull neck and heavy shoulders, who was clearly having his picture taken against his will. His head was pitched slightly forward, showing an expanse of wide forehead and close-cropped hair, black eyes looking up at her from under heavy brows.