Cold Steal

by Quentin Bates

  ‘And you’re caught in the middle?’

  ‘You could say that. Drífa’s mother is in the middle of the world’s longest-lasting sulk and has hardly spoken to her since Kjartan was born. My brother Svanur calls once or twice a week, not that it’s me he wants to speak to. He’s just checking on Drífa. He’s been to see her, but his wife hasn’t.’

  The baby burped and gurgled.

  ‘You want to hold him?’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘And is she all right?’

  ‘I think so.’ Gunna held the little boy tenderly, looking intently at the placid, sleepy face. ‘I hope so, at any rate. It’s not easy to tell. Drífa is a very bright girl, but she’s a dark horse and doesn’t give too many secrets away. As far as I can see she’s coping, but it’s not easy for her and she’s always broke.’

  Soffía smoothed her shirt, not knowing what to do with her hands now that Gunna was holding the baby. ‘I ought to see her.’

  ‘Drífa? You think so? You’re probably right.’

  ‘It’s not her fault that . . .’

  ‘Come on, Soffía. It takes two.’

  ‘I know, but I’m not going to harbour a grudge. Life’s too short. Ari and Kjartan are half-brothers, so we owe it to them to bury any differences and let them grow up with as much of a relationship as we can.’

  Ari Gíslason yawned in her arms and opened one eye a crack to look up at his grandmother.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ she said and crooned to the baby in a way that would have Eiríkur, Helgi and Ívar Laxdal wondering if this was the same person. ‘Would you like me to speak to Drífa? I see her most days.’

  The scabs on his wrists and ankles were hardening, while Lísa’s attitude was starting to soften. Orri told himself that he should have made up a story of some kind to explain why he had been out so late, but there was no way he could explain all those cuts, so he simply didn’t try; he just kept his mouth shut and waited for it all to blow over.

  It had been a frosty day. Lísa had hardly spoken to him after he came in from work, but in some ways that was just fine, as good as a holiday, with no discussions about curtains, vacations or any of those increasingly clunky dropped hints about acquiring a permanent home together, or pets, or children or weddings. Orri liked his independence. Living alone and having Lísa stay with him a few nights a week was about right, he felt, although he could see that what had been a night or two had become practically the full week and his flat was overflowing with Lísa’s stuff.

  Lísa appeared from the shower, one huge towel wrapped around her and another around her head, bare feet slapping the kitchen’s plastic floor tiles as she passed him and trailed a hand over his shoulder. She rooted through the bottom drawer as Orri admired the curves under the towel stretched tight as she bent over.

  ‘Wasn’t there an extension lead in here?’ She asked, turning her head to look at him accusingly.

  ‘In the cupboard, I think,’ he answered, his mouth full of toast. ‘What do you need it for?’

  Lísa stood up and pulled the towel tighter. ‘Hairdryer. The cable doesn’t reach far enough.’

  ‘There’s one behind the TV,’ Orri said, reaching for his phone as it buzzed with an incoming message.

  ‘I’ll use this one,’ Lísa decided, the towel slipping slightly as she passed him.

  ‘Coming?’ she asked, her voice dropping to an inviting tone.

  Orri grinned. The offer of a quick one was an olive branch. Things were getting back to normal.

  ‘That’s an offer a man shouldn’t turn down,’ he said, reaching out to pinch an end of the towel between thumb and fingers as Lísa swept past, leaving him with a fluffy white heap on the floor as she giggled her way to the bedroom. He heard the whine of the hairdryer as he thumbed the button on his phone to display the text message, and as he read it his world went silent.

  Hi Orri Björnsson, he read in English. Pleased to make your acquaintance the other night and sorry I haven’t been in touch before. I have a little job for you, nothing too difficult. Check your mailbox on the way to work. You’ll find written instructions there and the equipment you’ll need is on the back seat of your car.

  He sat and stared at the screen, his head buzzing in shock. He had pushed what had happened to the back of his mind, convincing himself that the man who had tied him up would not really call on him, telling himself that he had just wanted to give him a fright.

  ‘Orri.’

  He scrolled down to see if there was anything more, but there was only a blank screen and no caller’s number to reply to.

  ‘Orri,’ Lísa called from the other room.

  Orri stared, his mind in a whirl as the memories of that night resurfaced.

  ‘If you’re not coming, then I’m getting dressed,’ Lísa called from the bedroom.

  He shook his head hard, as if to scatter the bad memories and collect his thoughts. He got up abruptly, pushing the chair back as he did so. Lísa sat cross-legged on the bed as she brushed her hair.

  Orri forced a lecherous smile that didn’t suit his mood in the least.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she said, tossing the hair brush onto the dressing table and lying back as Orri pulled at his jeans, his mind elsewhere.

  Chapter Seven

  Eiríkur scratched his head. ‘Gunna?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something interesting here.’

  She looked up, catching the tone in Eiríkur’s voice that indicated as much excitement as he was ever likely to display.

  ‘Let’s hear it, then.’

  ‘The woman in that Aunt Bertha shop described a man with stubble, medium height, brownish hair, quite short.’

  ‘You’re still working on that?’

  ‘Well, no. I was going to come back to it when I have time. But when we were knocking on doors along Kópavogsbakki yesterday, one of the people in the street reported seeing a man who answered to the same description. It seems this guy has been observed more than once.’

  ‘That’s all well and good, but that description could apply to around a third of the male population.’

  ‘Yeah. But both Aunt Bertha and this old boy at Kópavogsbakki specifically mention a green fleece with some kind of yellow logo.’

  ‘How come you’ve only just noticed this?’

  ‘I’m going through the notes the uniformed officers collected from the neighbours. Tinna and Geiri knocked on a lot of the doors and this is one of Tinna’s. She spoke to a retired gentleman who appears to have too much time on his hands, according to her notes.’

  ‘Then you’d best get out there and start asking questions, hadn’t you? Did you pass this on to Sævaldur?’

  Eiríkur shook his head. ‘No. He’s busy enough as it is for the moment.’

  ‘Good. Go on, then. Get yourself out to Kópavogsbakki and chase it up, will you? That way if the Laxdal asks if we’re getting anywhere I can tell him truthfully that you’re following a lead.’

  Orri trudged along the narrow street in the western end of Reykjavík. He had the location memorized and the black Chevrolet was not quite where he had been told to look for it, though close, a few hundred metres further along and parked badly by the side of the road, with one wheel on the pavement.

  He looked around quickly to see if anyone were about and felt nervous. He would have preferred darkness and walked further along the street. He felt ravenously hungry, and at the bottom of the street where it widened to join another road he found a snack bar and bought himself a hot dog and a drink.

  Orri’s hands trembled as he ate the sausage in its bath of ketchup and remoulade in a just few gulps, washing it down with a can of fizzy drink and asking himself why a man who revelled in the thrill of not being seen as he explored people’s houses was so nervous. He knew the answer as he downed the last sugary drops from the can and tossed it into an overflowing bin. Working for himself, he was in charge and in control. This time, he was someone else’s puppet,
doing their dirty work for a wage instead of a bounty.

  He stared moodily through the scratched clear plastic of the snack bar’s windows, leaning on the chest-level bar that ran around the unheated inside of it and watching a few people walk past, heads bowed into the fresh wind. Lamp posts along the street shivered in the uneven gusts.

  The door banged behind him and he thrust his hands into his pockets, one fist clasped around the little back box as he walked back towards the hulking black car.

  This time he approached it from the rear, the end he was supposed to get to. Orri looked around smartly, made sure there was nobody about and dropped to one knee. He reached up high under the wheel arch and put the box in place, feeling the magnets snap it firmly to the American steel of the bodywork. In only a few seconds, he was back on his feet and walking fast.

  He took a side street, then another to zig-zag back to the harbour where the work van was parked in a corner of a public lot. He hardly dared breathe until he was hunched in the stream of traffic heading back to the depot, his hands gripping the wheel tight to stop them trembling.

  Gunna spied the blonde mop by the check-in desk first, before Bára turned round and saw her.

  ‘Thanks for the gig.’ She grinned. ‘I might even get a couple of weeks on a beach somewhere hot out of this.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Charging a decent rate, are you?’

  ‘Fairly respectable,’ Bára said. ‘A hundred thousand a day.’

  ‘Cash, or are you going to be honest?’

  ‘Probably a combination of the two.’ Bára winked. ‘A week for me and a week for the government.’

  ‘Very wise. But I guess you’re working for it?’

  ‘Twelve hours a day, seven days a week until further notice. Which would be fine if they weren’t such a pain in the neck.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Sooner or later I’m going to have to have a little discussion with Sunna María about just what I’m supposed to be doing, as she seems to think that a security consultant is some kind of gopher. It makes a change from collaring shoplifters by the clothes racks, though.’

  ‘And Jóhann?’

  Bára thought. ‘I’m not sure. Haven’t seen a lot of him so far as he’s mostly stuck behind his laptop, but he seems to be humouring her.’

  Gunna cracked her knuckles. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better go and make their acquaintance. You won’t forget to drop me a line if anything suspicious crops up?’

  ‘Me?’ Bára said in mock shock. ‘Haven’t you heard of client confidentiality?’

  ‘I have indeed. But I’ve also heard of doing discreet favours for pals who recommend your services.’

  ‘Touché. There’ll be a text if anything turns up that doesn’t smell right. But can you tell me what happened to shake them up so much?’

  Gunna looked around before replying. ‘A man was shot in his summer house with a .22 handgun, very professional, according to what we’re being told. So far there are no leads, and it’s as if the killers have just vanished. The man was in business with your clients, so watch your back.’

  A serious look stole over Bára’s face. ‘You’re sure you think you’re doing me a favour with this?’

  ‘Ach. You’ll be fine. It’s them these villains want to knock off, not you.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think a hundred thousand a day is enough to take a bullet for.’

  ‘Far from it. And before I forget, both of them are screwing other people on some kind of semi-regular basis, just to make the security issue even more complex.’

  ‘Oh, that’s just wonderful.’

  ‘But Jóhann’s likely to be less of a headache on that score as it seems he keeps his in Germany, according to his wife.’

  ‘Is it a serious case?’ Geir Einarsson asked eagerly. The overheated front room was stuffed with books from floor to ceiling. Eiríkur looked at them as the old man shuffled towards a chair by the window, and saw that they were predominantly crime novels, mostly in English and a few translated into Icelandic with lurid covers.

  He fussed with a pipe and moved a book that had been placed open, face down on a footstool.

  ‘What happened over there? This is such a quiet neighbourhood normally.’

  ‘I’m sure you understand that we can’t say too much, other than that it appears a crime has taken place.’

  ‘Say no more.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Of course. Walls have ears.’

  ‘My colleague tells me you’ve observed some suspicious activity around here?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, young man. But I sit here by the window most of the day and see everyone who goes by.’

  ‘You’re retired, I take it?’ Eiríkur said.

  ‘Long ago, my boy. I’m past eighty. You think that people of my age can walk into a job just like that? Not that I would, even if there were jobs to be had.’

  ‘So you sit and read all day long? That sounds like the kind of thing I dream of.’

  ‘It was wonderful for the first few months, but these days I’d rather be outside, and I hope I will be when the weather’s warmer. For now, though, I’ll stick to indoors.’

  ‘Right, can you tell me what you’ve seen?’

  ‘Better than that. I can show you my log.’ There was pride in the old man’s voice as he strained to lean down for a folder that had fallen to the floor. ‘I’ve been reading crime stories for years, so I know how important it is to be precise. Look.’

  He pointed to a list, made out day-by-day, of people passing by the house. It wasn’t a long list, as Eiríkur guessed that relatively few people other than residents walked along the exclusive cul-de-sac, but Geir Einarsson had carefully listed them.

  ‘I’m particularly interested in a man wearing a green fleece with yellow lettering on it.’

  ‘Ah. Stripes.’

  ‘Stripes?’

  ‘That’s what I call him. I’ve noticed him passing now and again. I don’t think he lives around here, but I could be wrong.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  Geir Einarsson tapped the side of his nose a second time. ‘Ah, intuition.’ He smiled gleefully. ‘Is that what you sleuths depend on most of the time? Flashes of inspiration and intuition?’

  Eiríkur wanted to retort that results were normally obtained by endless mundane questions and cross-checking, but decided not to shatter any illusions.

  ‘What’s your villain done, I’d like to know? No, I know you can’t possibly tell me, so I’ll not ask. Merely a rhetorical question.’

  ‘He could have been a witness to an incident and we’d like to be able to rule him out, that’s all,’ Eiríkur assured him. ‘Nothing sinister.’

  ‘What a shame.’ The old man chuckled. ‘I was hoping for a criminal mastermind being brought to book, but we can’t have everything, I suppose. What do you want to know about Stripes?’

  ‘When have you seen him? What time of day? And how many times?’

  ‘I keep a close eye on the neighbourhood, and not just because I don’t have anything else to do. I was brought up in this street, and until a few years ago this house was all on its own. The rest of these homes are all new. I thought at first that Stripes was a workman on one of those new houses they’re building at the end of the street, but there hasn’t been any work going on there for weeks. Too cold for concreting, I suppose. But even with no work in progress, Stripes still takes a walk around the district.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’ Eiríkur asked, hoping that sooner or later a question would hit its target. ‘And I’m interested to know why you think he might not be local.’

  ‘Because people round here don’t walk; they drive. Even to the shop on the corner. They might go for a run, swaddled in latex . . .’

  ‘Latex?’

  ‘You know, those stretchy clothes that young people wear.’

  ‘You mean Lycra.’

  ‘Latex, Lycra. Whatever. That’s what I mean. They’ll run around dressed in cloth
es that leave nothing whatsoever to the imagination, but they don’t walk anywhere. Stripes walks. People who live in this district wouldn’t dream of doing anything as ordinary as just walking.’

  There was clear disdain his voice, and Eiríkur could only agree, trying guiltily to remember when he had last walked any further than to the car.

  ‘It’s like America, where nobody walks. I went there once and didn’t like it much,’ Geir said.

  ‘“Stripes”,’ Eiríkur reminded him. ‘Why “Stripes”?’

  ‘Why Stripes? Because of the two yellow stripes,’ Geir answered, as if speaking to a child, putting a finger to the opposite wrist and running it up to his shoulder. ‘I just told you, he has two yellow stripes up one arm of a green jacket. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘And lettering as well?’

  ‘Ah. I could see there’s a badge of some kind on his sweater, but I’m afraid he was always too far away for me to make it out.’

  ‘But you can describe him?’

  ‘I can,’ Geir said with relish. ‘Not only can I provide a description, I write it all down, so I can give you the times and dates that he walked down the street.’

  Jóhann’s half-moon glasses slid almost to the end of his nose and he smiled warmly at Gunna.

  ‘Good afternoon, officer. Unfortunately you find me in slightly uncomfortable circumstances.’

  ‘Pleased to see you’re following advice.’

  ‘Obviously I would prefer to be at home, but . . .’ He shrugged and closed the laptop on the desk in front of him. ‘What can we do for you? Coffee?’

  ‘Why not?’ Gunna said, wanting to see if he would ask Bára to fetch coffee, but instead he called the front desk and ordered it through room service. ‘I wanted to ask you about Kópavogsbakki fifty, which I believe you own?’

  This time Jóhann’s stare became harder and lasted a moment longer than was comfortable as Gunna met his gaze head-on, refusing to be overawed.

  He took a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly as he tapped the table.