Summerchill

by Quentin Bates

  ‘How much extra?’

  ‘Half a million. The boys’ll need two hundred thousand each, and I need the timber and the boards here in an hour or two.’

  Rafn’s smile was forced. ‘I think we can do that.’

  Logi fished in his pocket and handed him a note. ‘There’s the list. You can get it all from Bauhaus or anywhere, just so long as it’s here right away. That way you’ll have your office built by Sunday.’

  ‘Danni’ll sort it all out.’

  ‘Cash up front? I won’t get the boys to do the job otherwise.’

  ‘Like I said, Danni’ll sort it out.’ Rafn seemed relaxed again. ‘Now, I’ll tell you exactly what we’re looking for.’

  The flat in Straumsbær was on the second floor. It was bathed in warm evening sunlight, as was the girl in tight white clothes who opened the door for him.

  ‘Aníta Sól?’ Helgi asked. ‘I’m Helgi Svavarsson from CID. You called earlier about Axel Rútur?’

  She stepped back to let him in and perched on the edge of a sofa as white as her trousers; hair so bleached it looked as if it had been spun from the same material.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘He went out about half seven-ish last night, said he’d be an hour or so.’

  ‘He didn’t say where he was going?’

  ‘He never tells me.’

  ‘All right,’ Helgi said, deciding to try a new tack. ‘Where do you think he might have been?’

  Aníta Sól shook her head and looked into the distance. ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t going to the gym, because he’d already been and it wasn’t a training night.’

  ‘What training is that?’

  ‘He does this martial arts stuff, fighting in a cage.’

  Helgi frowned. ‘Mixed martial arts, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s it. He goes to that three or four times a week.’

  ‘But not last night? Where does he train?’

  He looked around the pristine living room and realized that the cups and shields on the sideboard were for tournaments.

  ‘It’s a place in the business park on Fossháls. It’s above that car place.’

  ‘So tell me about Axel’s movements? Where does he work?’

  ‘He’s a doorman at a couple of nightclubs in town.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  Aníta Sól looked blank. ‘Different ones, I think. Highliners, sometimes, and the one that was closed down a while ago.’

  ‘Sugarberries?’ Helgi asked with distaste.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘So he works for Mundi Grétars?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The man he works for. Is that his name?’

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me things like that. He normally works with a guy called Stebbi.’

  ‘Stefán, OK. Whose son?’

  ‘I don’t know. But he trains at the MMA place with him.’

  Helgi was starting to wonder if the girl lived in some kind of cocoon, considering how little she knew about her boyfriend’s movements.

  ‘And you? Where do you work?’

  ‘Hairways.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A hairdressing salon. It’s in Smáralind,’ Aníta Sól said in a tone that indicated her amazement that Helgi hadn’t heard of it.

  ‘Anything unusual about Axel Rútur’s movements in the last few days? He didn’t go anywhere different, or behave out of the ordinary at all?’

  Aníta Sól shook her head and Helgi sighed inwardly.

  ‘No. He was just the same as usual.’ She shook her head and shrugged.

  ‘Has this happened before?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Has he gone off before without saying anything?’

  ‘Not for as long as this. A few hours sometimes.’

  ‘But he’s always back at night?’

  ‘If he’s not working at a club, yeah.’

  ‘Does he drink? Use drugs?’

  ‘Hell, no. He’s a real health freak. He won’t even take an aspirin.’

  ‘What’s his temper like? I mean, does he get into arguments or disputes?’

  ‘He’s a big guy. People don’t normally argue with him.’

  Helgi made notes and closed his notebook. The sun had shifted a few degrees and the rich light no longer bathed the room. Traffic on the nearby main road hummed in the background. Aníta Sól looked forlorn in the paler light and Helgi started to feel sorry for her, wondering how someone so shallow managed to survive in such a tough world.

  ‘How about family? Has he got family close by? Do you have people you can call on for support?’

  ‘Yeah. I can go to my mum.’

  ‘And Axel Rútur’s family?’

  ‘There isn’t much. His father lives in Denmark and his mum is in the country at Kirkjubæjarklaustur.’

  ‘So he’s not a Reykjavík boy?’

  ‘Yeah. He was brought up here. But then his mum got a job as a housekeeper at this hotel place she works at and we don’t see her much these days.’

  ‘Siblings?’

  ‘There’s a half-sister who lives with their father.’

  ‘In Denmark, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The place fell silent and Helgi stood up. He inspected the pictures on the walls, hands behind his back and leaning forward as if he were in a museum to peer at the framed photographs showing Axel Rútur with groups of similar beefcakes brandishing cups and prize belts.

  He stepped back, thought for a moment and took a card from his wallet.

  ‘Could you call me if you hear anything about Axel Rútur, or if there’s anything you recall that might be relevant?’ he said. ‘Or if he turns up?’

  Aníta Sól took the card and held it in one hand, as if it were fragile. She nodded and Helgi wondered what was going on inside that coiffured and carefully painted head.

  ‘Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch when I’ve made some enquiries.’

  Rafn was as good as his word. A truck appeared two hours later loaded with timber and wallboards, and they sat down to review the day’s progress. Tadeusz munched a slice of cold pizza and Marek painstakingly rolled a joint.

  ‘Why the walls so thick, Logi?’

  ‘No idea. That’s what they want, so that’s what they get.’

  ‘Something not right about this,’ Tadeusz said with a smile.

  Marek lit up, puffed contentedly and passed the spliff to Tadeusz.

  ‘That’s their business,’ Logi replied. ‘I’m more concerned about where Danni is with the cash.’

  He reached for his phone and scrolled through it to find Danni’s number and, to his amazement, it was answered on the first ring.

  ‘Turn around, my boy,’ he heard Danni greet him, and spun around to see him coming through the open door.

  He sat down on a crate and reached for the last slice of pizza. ‘Pineapple, yuk,’ he pronounced, but ate it anyway.

  ‘Cash, Danni?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Danni, just for once, no shit. Please. The boys have worked like slaves and if you don’t stump up, the job’s not going to get done.’

  Tadeusz shook his head slowly and Marek blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke. ‘That’s right,’ he said slowly.

  ‘I only have four hundred thousand,’ Danni said apologetically, and smiled weakly.

  ‘Let’s have it,’ Logi said.

  ‘Listen, I can have the full whack for you in the morning.’

  ‘Cash on the nail, Danni. That’s what I agreed with your friend Rafn.’

  ‘All right.’ Danni grumbled and went through a pantomime of patting his pockets to find a bulging wad of brand-new 10,000 krónur notes that Logi gently took out of his hand.

  ‘I’ll count out the boys’ shares and you can fix my cut tomorrow, all right?’

  It was only half a kilometre away and Helgi decided to go right away on the off chance that someone might be there. The next day was Saturda
y and the place could be closed. He was off duty on Sunday, so it was now or Monday, he reasoned.

  He recognized the car sales place that Aníta Sól had mentioned, and above it was a block of offices. On one window was a blue and black banner proclaiming Fossháls MMA in jagged letters. Helgi parked his down-at-heel Skoda among the cars for sale and jogged up the steps, losing himself for a moment on the stairwell as he worked out which floor the MMA place was on.

  It was a yell of pain from behind a door that told him, and he pushed it open gingerly.

  ‘Hello! Anyone here?’ he called as he saw an unmanned reception desk. There was no reply and, hearing voices, he went past it to look through a door where he saw a group of men and women on the floor, half of them with their legs spread wide while the others sat with their feet braced on their friends’ knees.

  ‘Dig deep. Two . . . Three . . .’ Helgi heard a hoarse voice intone. ‘And relax. Well worked.’

  The hoarse voice belonged to a thickset man in a tight Fossháls MMA shirt. He glared as he noticed Helgi watching from the doorway.

  ‘What can I do for you, pal?’ he asked in a tone that was anything but helpful. ‘All right, boys and girls. See you all for Sunday’s session.’

  He got to his feet and came over, vast arms folded in front of him as the class vanished into a changing room.

  Helgi opened his wallet. ‘Helgi Svavarsson, CID. Looking for Stefán?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘No idea, except that he’s Axel Rútur’s mate.’

  ‘That’ll be me.’ His attitude had thawed, but the deep suspicion remained. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Your friend is the problem. When did you last see him?’

  ‘Yesterday. He took a morning class here and went home around midday.’

  ‘You have classes on weekdays?’

  ‘Yoga yesterday. Axel takes the beginner’s yoga class.’

  ‘And you haven’t seen him since?’

  ‘Nope. Should I have?’ This time there was menace in his tone.

  ‘I don’t know, which is why I’m asking,’ Helgi snapped back. ‘Axel Rútur went out last night and hasn’t been seen since. He hasn’t been home and his wife is concerned. So if he doesn’t turn up by soon, he’ll be a missing person.’

  Stefán deflated and stared at Helgi. ‘You’d better come inside,’ he said eventually. In the long training hall that looked out over the concrete business estate and the main road beyond it, Stefán leaned against one of the windowsills, arms still folded. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘You know him well? You work together, or so his wife tells me?’

  ‘Yeah. Not as much as we used to.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Is that any business of yours?’

  ‘It might be. Until I know where Axel Rútur is, then I reckon that anything could be my business. So what happens here?’

  ‘OK,’ he responded defensively. ‘We run this place together. We both do MMA. I teach kettlebells classes. He does some yoga and general fitness stuff. There’s a hippie woman who comes in and does the advanced yoga classes, but apart from her, it’s all Axel and me. Then we teach some self-defence courses as well.’

  ‘What sort of people come to those?’

  ‘You’d be surprised. All sorts. A lot of employers like to send their staff on a day’s self-defence course. We get ten or a dozen in here at a time and we make sure they have a good time as well as learning how to gouge eyes and break fingers.’

  ‘And do you use any of that stuff yourselves?’ Helgi asked softly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I understand from Aníta Sól that you both work as bouncers.’

  ‘We work as door security for a couple of clubs downtown, you mean.’

  ‘So I’m wondering if Axel Rútur may have upset someone?’

  Stefán shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t be unusual. But neither of us have done any door work for a few months.’

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘It’s not fantastically well paid, it goes on until past daybreak and you’re on the receiving end of all kinds of shit from drunks and arseholes. Now this place is doing better, neither of us needs the hassle any more.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You must have been in uniform at some point,’ Stefán said, his jaw jutting towards Helgi. ‘You must know as well as anyone what fun Friday and Saturday nights are.’

  Helgi smiled to himself, recalling evenings and nights patrolling the centre of Reykjavík on summer’s nights when the party was in full swing.

  ‘Better than most, I’d guess,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Axel Rútur. Was he in any trouble? Any feuds? Disputes? Any disaffected former staff here?’

  ‘Nothing that I know about,’ Stefán said and looked down at the floor.

  ‘He has a record. Assault, threatening behaviour.’

  ‘Yeah. So do I. We were kids and it was a long time ago.’

  ‘Six years. Not that long ago.’

  ‘It was when we were first working as bouncers. Some fuckwits from out of town decided they wanted a ruck, so we gave them one.’

  ‘And one of them came away from that with a fractured skull. So which of you is the one with the temper?’

  Stefán sighed and looked up as an athletic-looking woman in Lycra looked around the door, smiled and waved.

  ‘See you Sunday, Silla,’ Stefán said.

  ‘Was that . . . ?’ Helgi asked. ‘Whatshername, the high-jump champion?’

  ‘Yep. Silla Steinthórs. She trains here twice a week.’

  ‘Hell. I’d have got her autograph for my kids if I’d realized quicker.’

  ‘Then come back on Sunday,’ Stefán said.

  ‘I might well do that if I haven’t found Axel Rútur by then. What do you know about what he does when he’s not here?’

  ‘Not a lot these days. We used to hang around together all the time when we were younger. But now he’s snuggled up with Aníta Sól, and he’s a lot less tense.’ He looked at his fingers and screwed up his face for a moment. ‘He’s clean now as well.’

  ‘In what way? What was he doing?’

  ‘For a while he was into bodybuilding and he took steroids. But now he’s with Aníta Sól that’s come to an end.’ Stefán scowled. ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but they were affecting his libido. Couldn’t get it up, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘So he gave up muscles for a healthy sex life? I can understand perfectly.’

  ‘Yeah. Pretty much. He’d been told already to pack it in, so I guess he knew he was on borrowed time on that score.’

  ‘Doctor’s orders?’

  ‘Yeah. Some of us were worried about him and we finally got him to go to a doctor about it, before it became a real problem. He seems OK now and Aníta Sól’s getting what she likes.’

  ‘So back to my question. What does he do when he’s not here?’

  ‘Sits on his rowing machine at home, goes to the movies and lets Aníta Sól massage his back. That’s about it, I reckon.’

  ‘Anything unusual about him being out late of an evening? Another woman, maybe?’

  Stefán thought, and Helgi decided that the fact he needed to think about it spoke volumes.

  ‘No. I don’t think so. A year or two ago, maybe, when he was still a bit wild. But not now.’

  It was late. The Polish boys had gone and Logi walked around the showroom to give it a final check before going home himself. The studwork for the walls was already up and he was sure they might even be able to get the job finished tomorrow. The wallboards would have to go on in the morning, and after that he and Tadeusz could hang the doors and fit the window while Marek ran a few spurs from the electrics to put in a couple of sockets and to separate the showroom lights from the two lights in the office ceiling.

  He wondered why Rafn had wanted the long wall to be so thick; he’d made it plain that that was what he wanted, and Logi assumed there had to be a good reason, which was no conce
rn of his. He flicked on the lights of the big workshop behind the new showroom, which made up the larger part of the building. There was a pit for working underneath vehicles, as well as steel-topped benches on all sides and a long changing room. There was nothing unusual there, he decided, certain that there was something illegal going on; something it would probably be healthiest to forget all about once the job was done.

  ‘Piece of piss,’ he told himself as he locked up and walked through the thickening darkness to his pickup. At last, with his mind clear of the job, he found himself brooding about the dead man the boys had taken away and presumably disposed of somewhere remote.

  He wondered whether or not to go back to the little house he currently referred to as home. He was nervous about going back there – maybe the big guy who’d arrived last night had even bigger and nastier friends? Logi sat in the pickup with the engine running and tapped the steering wheel with his fingertips as he made up his mind. Home could wait.

  Saturday

  Helgi found himself looking for silver Outlanders as he drove to work, but the only one he saw contained a family of five, and he felt it was unlikely to have been stolen from a missing martial-arts instructor.

  He started with a visit to the traffic division to check if the missing Outlander had been located, taking the opportunity for a chat with the couple of motorcycle officers waiting to go out on patrol. Secretly he admired these officers and felt that if he’d joined the force as a younger man, then he would have liked a year or two on traffic duties. Now that he was past forty, he was sure that he’d be told he was too old to ride a bike. Besides which, Halla preferred him to be doing what she was sure was largely safe work behind a desk.

  At his desk, he went through the log for the night and checked the records for Axel Rútur’s friend Stefán’s history. It looked depressingly similar: a couple of arrests for being drunk and disorderly; one break-in, also committed while drunk, and a slew of assault charges. The differences, he noted, were that some of Stefán’s offences were relatively recent, one only a year ago, when a young woman had brought charges against him.

  He made some notes and thought to himself, noting down the name of the officer who had handled the case. He wrote a few lines on a sticky note, stuck it to Gunna’s computer monitor and made his way downstairs.