Chilled to the Bone

by Quentin Bates

  ‘No, just wanted to see what you’d say. But I’m finished with Hólmgeir, and he sang like a bird eventually.’

  ‘Good. Explain, if you would be so kind.’

  ‘Right, the bones of it is that Hólmgeir and Ási were paid a bag of grass and their debts written off to beat someone up, and no, he absolutely won’t say who paid them; says it’s more than his life’s worth. He also swears blind he has no idea who the victim is and that they were just given an address and a picture, which he dropped in a bin afterwards.’

  ‘So they beat this person up, or tried to?’

  ‘So Hólmgeir says. But he said their victim lashed out with a broken bottle, which is what gashed Ási’s leg. That’s a fatal wound, so I guess we could be looking at a murder charge there.’

  ‘Not sure the legal eagles would swallow that,’ Gunna mused. ‘Manslaughter, certainly, I’d say. Anything from Eiríkur?’

  Helgi laughed. ‘Yep. The lady in the top flat is María Helga Sturlaugsdóttir. She’s mystified and hadn’t seen her brother for a few days until she came home and found a note saying he’d left town for a bit. She does shift work so it’s not unusual for her not to see him for days at a time, she told Eiríkur.’

  ‘So who’s the brother? Anyone we know?’ Gunna asked, slowing down and checking her mirror for the Kjalarnes turnoff. She could hear Helgi’s hollow laugh echo down the phone.

  ‘He’s her younger half-brother and goes by the name of Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson. So, yes. Our elusive victim who sneaked out of hospital this morning is Bigfoot Baddó, and he’s definitely someone we know.’

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Helgi?’ Gunna fumed. ‘First he’s shadowing us at the Gullfoss and then his description fits the character who was spotted after that car burned out at Grandi. Any news on that yet, by the way? Do we know if it was Magnús’s car?’

  ‘I don’t know. Haven’t had time to pester forensics.’

  ‘Right. Do it now. Kick them, bribe them, buy them doughnuts, whatever. If we can tie this to Bigfoot Baddó we’ll have made real progress. But circulate his description anyway. If Hólmgeir doesn’t fall apart in the witness box, we’ll have the bastard for manslaughter as well as Magnús’s murder.’

  Jóel Ingi almost wanted to shed bitter tears of frustration. Agnes hummed in the bathroom, and hadn’t even asked why he was back from work so early. His distress was evident, and she seemed to be ignoring him, acting as if he wasn’t even there, sitting and staring into space as she casually piled clothes into a suitcase on the bed.

  He sat on the sofa, his fingers twitching nervously as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Glancing at it, he saw ‘private number calling’ and decided that it was best left unanswered. Hinrik had told him nothing of any use and he had come away from the flat where Hinrik lived with that bruiser of a woman as frustrated as he had been when he’d arrived.

  His phone buzzed a second time and he gulped as he saw the text message displayed.

  One hour. Be here. Ægir L

  A minute later the house phone began to chirp. Surprised that anyone would call his landline, Jóel Ingi hunted for the handset and found it behind a pile of magazines just as Agnes padded in from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, towelling her hair and giving him a dazzling smile that confused him even more.

  ‘Jóel Ingi?’ An unfamiliar, brisk voice asked.

  ‘I’m not buying anything—’

  ‘That’s a shame, because I have something you need.’

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My name’s Jón. Our mutual friend Hinrik mentioned that we ought to talk, so answer your mobile in half an hour.’

  Agnes listened to Jóel Ingi’s side of the conversation, her head cocked to one side, watching as the conversation was abruptly terminated and Jóel Ingi was left holding a buzzing phone. ‘You’re going out,’ she said, sitting down in an armchair and opening a drawer in a table next to it to bring out the makings of a joint.

  ‘Do you have to smoke that fucking stuff in the house?’ Jóel Ingi snapped, his irritation boiling over.

  Agnes shrugged. ‘It’s my house as well.’

  ‘I’m a public official. If you get caught—’

  Agnes’s laughter tinkled. ‘Who’s going to catch me? Anyway, I like it. It helps me think,’ she said. ‘It helps me relax and it makes me horny. Not that you complain about that.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Shame,’ Agnes said coolly, rolling with practised ease. ‘Going to be long? My flight’s at six.’

  ‘Hello! Pétur Steinar Albertsson?’ Gunna asked, recognizing from his driving-licence photo the tall man with a lined but fresh face who looked round from his workbench. ‘I knocked on the front door, but nobody answered.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m Pétur. What are you selling?’

  ‘I’m not selling anything,’ Gunna said and held open her police ID as the man stood up and a cloud of concern descended on what looked like a normally cheerful face.

  ‘Anything wrong? The children . . . ?’

  ‘Nothing like that,’ she assured him. ‘But I need a few questions answered.’

  Pétur wiped his hands on a rag and limped towards her. ‘That sounds ominous, and we have enough problems as it is. But what can I do for you?’

  Wondering how far she should go, Gunna looked around the workshop with interest. ‘What do you make here?’

  ‘These,’ Pétur said, tossing up and catching a wooden bowl from the top of a stack. ‘I’m disabled and can’t work a full day any more, so I make these for a tourist shop. They sell pretty well once they’ve been polished up.’

  ‘Who lives here?’

  ‘Me. My wife. Three children.’

  ‘I know your name already. What’s your wife’s name?’

  ‘Hekla. Hekla Elín Hauksdóttir. Why?’

  ‘Just wondering who lives here.’

  Pétur shifted his weight uncomfortably, leaning on a stick. ‘We’re renting this place month by month. We thought we were only going to be here for a few months, but now it looks like we might all be here for a while.’

  ‘All?

  ‘There’s me and Hekla. My daughter Sif, and mine and Hekla’s children, Albert and Alda. You still haven’t told me what this is about.’

  ‘To be straight with you, I’m not entirely sure myself,’ Gunna told him. ‘In any case, there’s only so much I can tell you. But this address has come up in connection with an investigation and I need to decide whether or not it has anything to do with you, or maybe whoever lived here before you. How long have you been here?’

  ‘About a year. Just over. We moved in a few days before Christmas last year.’

  ‘And who lived here before you?’

  Pétur smiled grimly. ‘Hard to tell. The place had been empty for about two years. It was owned by a big shot at one of the banks, who was going to tear the place down and have a summer house built on the site. But he didn’t get planning permission and by the time it looked like he might, the bank had gone tits-up and the gentleman in question left the country in a hurry.’

  ‘So who’s the owner now?’

  ‘It went to one of the pension funds in the fallout. One of Hekla’s uncles is involved with the bank’s winding-up committee and he put in a word. We can stay until it sells, however long that takes.’

  ‘So there’s been nobody here but you?’

  ‘I don’t really know. There’s a scout troop that camps on the meadow in the summer, and there were some squatters here for a while when the big shot owned the place, but that was before our time. I gather he got them out pretty quick. It was something of a pigsty when we moved in. Part of our agreement with the winding-up committee is that we fix the place up and make it habitable, not that there was much that needed doing. The house itself was fine. It just needed a massive amount of cleaning.’

  ‘So you fell on your feet. Your wife at home, is she?’

  ‘She has a day’s work today.’

  ‘Wh
at does she do?’

  Pétur smiled fondly. ‘She trained as an actress, but times are tight these days. Mostly she does voice-overs and things like that. She’s reading something for a radio ad today, as far as I know.’

  Gunna nodded. ‘Mind if I take a look around?’

  Pétur looked surprised. ‘Sure. Anything in particular you’re looking for?’ he asked, suspicion etched across his face.

  ‘I don’t know, to be quite honest. But as this address has come up as part of the investigation, I’d like to get a feel for the place and an idea of the layout in case things go any further.’

  ‘And you can’t tell me what all this is about?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Gunna smiled, seeing the disappointment on his face as Pétur made for the workshop door, swinging his stiff right leg with each step.

  The house was small but warm, she thought, imagining what it had been like after a few empty years. Pétur had sanded and varnished the floor of the living room and a large window provided a view over the sea, with Reykjavík in the distance across the bay. Unconsciously, Gunna compared the warmth of what was clearly an old building against her own modern concrete terraced house. Somehow wood gave a house a friendly feeling, she thought, scanning a line of pictures on the living-room wall and stopping herself from doing a double take.

  ‘Is that your daughter?’ Gunna asked, pointing to a teenage girl in a low-key monochrome print, who looked to be hiding behind long dark hair that covered half of her face as she sat cross-legged, flanked by a gap-toothed, light-haired boy and girl.

  ‘That’s my Sif with the twins,’ Pétur told her, pride unmistakable in his gruff voice.

  ‘And you and your wife behind them?’ Gunna asked, leaning forward to peer at the print and the slightly out-of-focus background figures. ‘Any idea when she’ll be back?’

  ‘This evening sometime, I expect.’

  ‘Do you know where she’s doing this reading?’

  ‘Nope. There are a couple of studios where they do that kind of thing. I don’t bother asking which one any more.’

  Baddó swore and dropped the phone on the car seat. Fatigue was starting to catch up with him and the painkillers were making him drowsy. It was taking every ounce of his mental energy to concentrate on the road and he desperately wanted to close his eyes and rest for a few hours. He felt exhausted, staring at the road in front of him without knowing quite where he was going, but certain that if he were to relax for a second, the car would be off the road. He was also sure that the police would be looking for the mud-coloured Hyundai by now, so it would have to be either dumped or disguised somehow.

  He stopped just as it was becoming fully dark. The wind had dropped and it looked like it would be a cold night with no low cloud to help keep the day’s warmth close to the ground. An endless stream of cars and trucks swished past in the growing darkness and Baddó squinted at his phone to punch in the numbers.

  It rang only once before it was answered, and there was a moment’s silence before anyone spoke.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jóel Ingi? This is Jón and we need to speak. I have something you want but it’s going to cost you.’

  There was a moment’s silence as the passing traffic roared in his ears and rocked the car.

  ‘What for? Why are you calling me?’

  ‘I know Sonja and I can retrieve what you’re looking for – at a price.’

  ‘How do I know you’re not stringing me along? How do I know this isn’t bullshit?’

  Baddó sighed. ‘I know about Sonja, and I know about personal.is. Hinrik contracted me to do some investigation on your behalf, but you can forget Hinrik. I’m the professional; you deal with me now.’

  ‘But I’d already paid Hinrik,’ Jóel Ingi protested, a plaintive tone in his voice.

  Baddó wanted to laugh. ‘That’s between you and Hinrik, but I have a feeling Hinrik will be busy elsewhere for a while.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want five million, right now.’

  ‘Cash? I can’t get that much money in cash.’

  ‘You can get it in euros, so do it. Five million is thirty-two thousand euros. Let’s call it thirty thousand for cash, shall we?’

  ‘Twenty thousand is the best I can do. But you have the . . . ?’ Jóel Ingi asked and Baddó wanted to punch the air with glee.

  ‘Make it twenty-five thousand and I’ll make sure that what you don’t want seen doesn’t see the light of day. Understood?’

  There was another long silence as the roar of the wind died down.

  ‘You have the computer, then? I want that laptop handed back to me.’

  Baddó thought fast and wondered what was so special about the computer. ‘It stays with me. You pay for it to stay safe – and for me to stay safe as well. You shit on me and I’ll do the same to you. It works both ways.’

  ‘I’ll need to get the money together. I can’t do it straight away. And I need to see the laptop.’

  ‘Of course,’ Baddó said coldly. ‘You wouldn’t want anyone to rip you off, would you? Give me an hour. Call me on this number then,’ Baddó ordered, and stabbed the red button.

  Ívar Laxdal seemed to fill the whole of the detectives’ coffee room. Gunna, Eiríkur and Helgi sat around the table as Ívar waited expectantly.

  ‘Gísladóttir, Eiríkur and Helgi. Well, Gunnhildur?’ he invited.

  ‘The woman who was pulling the stunts at the Gullfoss and a few other hotels is Hekla Elín Hauksdóttir. She calls herself Sonja as her business name and advertises on personal.is and a few other places, as far as I’ve been able to find out, such as classified ads in the press. She’s thirty-three years old and lives out at Kjalarnes with her husband and three children. One’s his, the younger two are theirs. She’s an actress, it seems, or was. Until a year or so ago they were living in Akranes; they lost their house when the bank foreclosed and managed to swing this old place instead. The husband is a decent enough character, a good bit older, disabled in an accident a few years ago when he lost his job.’

  Ívar Laxdal nodded. ‘And she’s in an interview room right now, is she?’

  ‘No, we haven’t tracked her down yet, but as we have her address, phone numbers and the number of her car, I don’t expect it’ll be long. According to her husband, she was out today recording an advert at a studio somewhere. That’s what seems to be left of her theatrical career: dubbing voices onto cartoons and reading ads for the radio.’

  ‘Fine. What else? You didn’t bring me down here just for that, did you?’

  ‘Far from it. What did you get from Siggi at comms, Eiríkur?’

  ‘Mister 017, who we are certain is Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson, has been in touch with these numbers so far and we’re keeping a watch on his phone,’ he said, passing across a sheet of paper. ‘He’s been pretty quiet most of the time. It seems he switches on his phone, makes a call, and then switches it off again, mostly from around the same area. But today the phone has been switched on all morning and these are the numbers called.’

  Eiríkur tapped the sheet of paper and circled a group of numbers in red.

  ‘This is an unknown mobile that Dísa over there at the drug squad believes is one of several used by a dealer called Hinrik Sørensen,’ Gunna said. ‘These two here are the mobile and home phone number of Jóel Ingi Bragason,’ she said, her finger on the paper. ‘Both calls were made less than an hour ago.’

  Ívar Laxdal’s mighty eyebrows knitted. ‘Jóel Ingi? That snot-nosed young pup who lost his laptop and expected us to find it for him?’

  ‘That’s the one. Either Baddó has been shadowing our investigation of what happened at Hotel Gullfoss when Jóhannes Karlsson kicked the bucket, or else he’d already been digging into it. Wherever we look, someone has been there first or right after us, normally calling himself Jón and telling people he’s in security.’

  ‘He has been in security,’ Helgi laughed and the smile disappeared from his face. ‘He spent s
even years in prison in Kaunas, so he should know a thing or two about security.’

  ‘You’re sure about this?’ Ívar Laxdal growled.

  ‘When I visit Sonja’s victim in Akureyri, who’s already been in touch? The mysterious Jón, who we have identified from CCTV at the Gullfoss as being Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson, aka, Bigfoot Baddó,’ Gunna continued. ‘We grill Magnús Sigmarsson, then he vanishes. That points to the mysterious Jón, who it seems had already pumped other hotel staff members for information. We start to get close to Jóel Ingi and, hey presto, Jón/Baddó again. He is now, without doubt, our prime suspect for Magnús Sigmarsson’s murder, as well as the manslaughter of Ásmundur Ásuson.’

  ‘And now we have Jóel Ingi implicated in the mix as well,’ Ívar Laxdal mused, elbows on the table and his chin resting on his hands as one stubby forefinger tapped out a slow rhythm against the other hand. ‘What do you want to do, Gunnhildur?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Probably what you won’t let me do.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Haul Jóel Ingi Bragason down here and make him sweat. There’s something very suspicious about that young man.’

  Ívar Laxdal smiled in a way that made his features light up under those heavy black brows. ‘You can do what you feel necessary, Gunnhildur, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a serious case and we can’t pussyfoot around with half measures. But there’s one piece of advice I’d like to give you before you approach the ministry.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘There’ll be an election soon. This year, or next at the latest. As they’ll be back out in the cold soon enough anyway, you can piss off the politicians as much you like. But don’t upset too many officials without good reason, as they’ll still be running things when we have new people in charge.’

  A phone call to a friend in the car trade told her the mud-coloured Hyundai was more than likely a stolen vehicle. The man with the scarred face was certainly not the Elma Líf Sævarsdóttir the car was registered to, and she guessed that there was something shady that linked Jóel Ingi, Hinrik the Herb and the desperate-looking man with his face covered in stitches.