Cold Steal

by Quentin Bates

  Work was quiet. The old boys did most of what needed to be done and Orri drank coffee as he read a weekend’s worth of newspapers in the canteen, trying not to think about the package under the seat of his car that someone had delivered during the night. The instructions were clear and the task seemed simple enough, and he wondered who the victim might be, but the thoughts were pushed from his mind as Dóri came in, poured himself a mug of coffee and fetched his sandwiches from the canteen fridge.

  He sat opposite Orri and started to munch a sandwich heavy with the aroma of home-made meat paste. ‘Anything interesting?’ He asked, gesturing at the open weekend newspaper with the uneaten half.

  ‘Nope. Same old shit. Country going to the dogs because of the government, according to the opposition. Country gone to the dogs because of what the opposition did when they were in power, according to the government.’

  ‘You’re getting cynical in your old age, Orri.’ Dóri smiled. ‘It’s nothing to do with the government, as anyone who takes an interest in these things will tell you.’ His voice was soft and persuasive. People stopped talking and listened when Dóri said anything, and Orri wondered how he did it, reckoning that it was something to do with Dóri having been a teacher for many years. Retirement had not been as comfortable as it should have been and Dóri had watched his savings become virtually worthless in the wake of the financial crash. Orri wondered why Dóri wasn’t bitter, or maybe he was, though he hid it well?

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘It’s as clear as day if you look at it from the right perspective. Our elected representatives have next to no real power,’ he said with a smile that dripped sadness. ‘Business has this country sewn up tight in every way. People who own fish quotas or have access to power, or companies with monopolies on imports, that’s where the real power lies.’

  ‘Come on, Dóri. It’s not as bad as all that, surely?’

  Dóri let his glasses drop from his forehead to the end of his nose and spun around the newspaper Orri had been browsing through. He tapped the cover.

  ‘Look at this. There’s been an argument about joining the European Union going on for years. It’s not a popular point of view, but it would be overwhelmingly better for you and me if we were part of Europe. Right now wages are two-thirds of what they are in say, Denmark. OK? And food prices here are roughly double. Food and power prices would stabilize, and index-linking would have to go, so the cost of living would fall, not right away maybe, but over a few years ordinary people like you and me would see ourselves better off.’

  ‘Yeah, but what about the fishing grounds? They’d be wide open to foreigners, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘You might think so, but there would still be quotas and they’d be held by the people who hold them now. So those fishing grounds wouldn’t be open to foreigners unless the quota holders were to sell up to someone in Spain or Norway.’

  Orri looked confused. ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely. Look, Orri, you’re no fool but you walk around with your eyes closed. The government wants to do something that business doesn’t like, and what happens? Business whips up a storm of protest.’

  ‘You mean in the papers?’

  ‘The newspapers, TV, radio, everywhere. Who do you think owns the newspapers?’ He patted the folded newspaper on the table in front of him. ‘Who publishes this? Do you know?’

  Orri looked at the paper with its bright orange logo. ‘No,’ he admitted.

  Dóri opened it and flipped through the pages. ‘The gentleman who owns this also owns the supermarket that sells all this stuff,’ he said, pointing at a double-page spread of meat and vegetables on offer that coming weekend. ‘And he owns this as well,’ he added, opening it at a spread of televisions and sound systems. ‘Now, do you really think this lovely man, undoubtedly a philanthropist who loves his mother dearly, has any interest in welcoming the competition that being part of the EU would bring? Of course not. How come he can have his company’s accounts prepared in euros or dollars while plebs like you and I have no choice but to use a currency that’s being steered by hand by a government that does what the owner of Dagurinn tells it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Orri replied, feeling uncomfortable. ‘Does he?’

  ‘He does, my boy. He does. That’s why this delightful country of ours, which we proudly think of, for some bizarre reason, as a bastion of democracy, is run by a small group of men in suits who own banks, ships, land and a few other things.’

  Dóri sat back with a satisfied look on his face.

  ‘So why doesn’t anyone do anything about this?’

  ‘You think people haven’t tried? Old Jörundur did his best, and look what happened to him,’ he said with a smile that ran around his face. ‘I was a radical for all the years I was a teacher, stood for Parliament and the city council a few times, marched on the Yankee base at Keflavík once or twice as well. Not a hope. The good people of this nation, like people the world over, are sheep who are happy to be led to the slaughter, in that they’ll listen to any snake-oil salesman in a cheap suit ready to convince them to vote against their own interests.’

  Orri looked askance. ‘People aren’t that stupid.’

  ‘No?’ Dóri asked gently. ‘Maybe not everyone, but enough to ensure that nothing changes.’ He sighed. ‘But now we had better get some work done before the others notice that we’re taking it easy. Alex isn’t here. He called in this morning and said he’d be late.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Orri asked with a sideways look.

  ‘Something to do with an abnormal fluid intake, I gather.’ Dóri grinned. ‘It’s not what I’d call an illness, but just for this once he can have the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Anyone else would have been given the sack by now if they were as late as Alex is half the time,’ Orri grumbled.

  Dóri leaned forward, elbows on the table, and beckoned theatrically.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Orri, tell me. You know who owns this company?’

  ‘Óli Hansen, isn’t it? Not that we see a lot of him.’

  Dóri shook his head and leaned further forward, his voice was so low as to be inaudible. Orri strained to hear what he said.

  ‘Óli Hansen started the company and he still owns some of it.’

  ‘But, what?’

  ‘Óli is just a glorified manager these days. We have owners who have their offices in a city a long way east of here,’ Dóri said. ‘Don’t even think about why Alex is here, but he’s here for a reason and that means he can turn up late five days a week and still not get even a verbal warning.’

  Orri looked baffled. ‘So, why?’ he asked as Dóri put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Don’t ask. Don’t look too closely at what comes in and goes out. Don’t be too friendly with Alex. That way when someone asks, you can say truthfully that you had no idea.’

  ‘No idea of what?’

  ‘Hell, Orri, you’re dense today for a smart lad like you,’ Dóri said with a knowing look that made Orri shiver. ‘I don’t ask and I don’t want to know. I have a disabled wife and a bone-headed single-parent daughter to support, and I need this job for as long as it lasts. Now, the reason I asked you to come in is because we have a fish delivery to make today.’

  ‘Alex always does those, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Normally he does, yes. But Alex hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘So you want me to do it?’

  ‘Got it in one. It’s easy enough. Hafnarfisk have seventy boxes of fresh fish to go to the airport for the London flight this afternoon. You know where the cargo terminal is at Keflavík, don’t you? Just follow the signs and someone will show you where to go.’

  It was one of those impersonal blocks of flats almost as far from the city centre as you can get without being in the countryside. Eiríkur pushed at the outside door and was not surprised that the lock was broken as it swung inwards.

  He’d been able to get Elísabet Sólborg Höskuldsd
óttir’s address from the national registry, an easy enough exercise as there was only one person to be found with that combination of names. But he knew from bitter experience that the listed legal residence was, for many people, where their parents lived, where they had an address for work reasons, or often simply a place they had lived at one time and had long since moved on from without bothering to register the move.

  Although the registry specified the address, Eiríkur’s suspicions came true when he saw it was a block, with no way of knowing which of the eight apartments would be her one – and there was no name on the list of doorbells that looked likely.

  He knocked at the first door he found and got no response. The next door had pounding music coming from inside, which presumably drowned out his puny efforts at knocking, so he went a floor higher and tried again.

  The door was ripped open while his hand was still in the air.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  The face looking out at him from the darkness of the doorway snarled and Eiríkur backed away half a step. ‘I’m looking for Elísabet. She doesn’t live here?’

  ‘There’s no Elísabet here,’ the man said and made to slam the door.

  ‘How about the other flats here? Upstairs, somewhere?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ the man snarled and this time the door did close in his face, hard enough for the door frame to shake.

  Eiríkur shrugged his shoulders and carried on upstairs, knocking at two more doors before he got a reply. This time a middle-aged woman opened the door and looked at him curiously.

  ‘Good afternoon. I’m looking for someone called Elísabet who lives in this block. I’m sorry but I don’t know which flat, so I’m having to knock on doors.’

  ‘I don’t know any Elísabet, young man.’

  ‘Who is it, Margrét?’ A quavering voice called from inside.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad,’ she replied and looked back at Eiríkur. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know any Elísabet.’

  ‘I’m a police officer,’ Eiríkur said, opening his wallet to show his identification card. ‘I understand there’s a woman called Elísabet Höskuldsdóttir who lives in this block, but I don’t know which flat,’ he explained a second time.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the woman said, frowning doubtfully, and looking around to see an old man with white hair slowly approaching along the dim hallway, supporting his gradual progress with a stick in each hand.

  ‘He means the girl upstairs, Margrét. I’m sure of it,’ the old man said.

  ‘You’re sure? The one above, or on the other side?’

  The old man pointed one stick at the ceiling, while Eiríkur expected him to fall over, holding his breath until the old man was again supported by two sticks. ‘Upstairs. Lovely girl,’ he said as Margrét scowled.

  ‘If you think so, Dad.’ she sniffed. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She talks to me on the stairs sometimes, which is more than any of my other miserable neighbours do, and especially that idiot downstairs who plays deafening music all the time.’

  ‘Yeah. I can hear it,’ Eiríkur said. ‘It’s disturbing you, I take it?’

  The music itself was hardly audible, but a persistent bass pulse could be felt rather than heard.

  ‘It is a little irritating,’ the old man admitted. ‘But it’s not as if I can go down there and punch him like I could have done forty years ago.’

  ‘I’ll ask a patrol to stop by and have a word with him,’ Eiríkur promised. ‘But you’re sure it’s Elísabet who lives upstairs.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ the old man said. ‘Margrét here doesn’t like her, but she always says hello to me, and she told me her name’s Lísa, so I assume that’s short for Elísabet.’

  A few minutes later and after a quick phone call, Eiríkur was knocking on the door upstairs. He could hear his knocks echoing inside and knew that nobody was going to answer. He clattered down the stairs again to find the old man’s door still open and both the man and his daughter waiting for him.

  ‘I could have told you she wasn’t home,’ Margrét said.

  ‘I haven’t seen her for a while,’ the old man added.

  ‘She hasn’t moved out?’

  The old man shook his head. ‘No. I’d have noticed. There’s been no coming and going for a while.’

  ‘You don’t know where she works, do you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. All I can tell you is that she works odd hours, coming and going early in the morning or late in the evening. Something to do with food, I imagine, as she often wears those white clothes that chefs wear on the TV.’

  ‘And you don’t have a phone number for her, or know what car she drives, or anything like that?’

  ‘I’m sorry, young man,’ the old man wheezed. ‘I’m not sure I can help you any further.’

  Eiríkur thanked the old man and made his way down the stairs as two officers in uniform stepped into the building.

  ‘G’day, Eiríkur, you called?’

  ‘Yeah, that was me. Just follow the racket, would you, and maybe have a quiet word with the occupant about antisocial behaviour?’

  The taller of the two officers tilted his head to one side and listened for a moment. ‘Cradle of Filth,’ he decided. ‘That definitely constitutes anti-social behaviour.’

  Gunna looked up as Eiríkur arrived, breathless and excited at the hospital.

  ‘Found it,’ he announced.

  ‘What have you found?’

  He grinned in triumph. ‘Our friend’s girlfriend. I know where she lives, and with a bit of luck she should lead us to him. That’s her,’ he said, placing a sheet of paper in front of Gunna.

  ‘Our mystery man’s girlfriend?’

  ‘Elísabet Sólborg Höskuldsdóttir. I found the riding club the logo belongs to and someone there confirmed that she had seen the guy in the picture with this Elísabet. So, find her and we find him,’ he said. ‘I hope.’

  ‘And have you found her?’

  ‘Not so far. I know where she lives and I have her driving licence photo. There’s a grey Ford Ka registered to her, so at least I have a little more to go on.’

  ‘You’ve put an alert out for the car?’

  ‘Already done it.’

  Gunna looked closely at the picture and saw a young woman looking blankly past the camera. Unruly hair had been pushed back behind her ears and she saw thick lips and a stubby nose that gave the strong face a determined look, offset by the steel ring looped through the lower lip.

  ‘Distinctive,’ Gunna said. ‘But that photo’s almost ten years old, so she might well look very different now.’

  ‘Could be,’ Eiríkur said. ‘But at least I have some idea what she looks like, and if she can lead me to her boyfriend, so much the better.’

  ‘That’s brilliant,’ Gunna said and nodded at the computer monitor showing the shattered hand. ‘But she’ll have to wait. Take a look at that.’

  ‘Hell, that must be painful. Deliberate?’ Eiríkur asked, staring at the X-ray image of Maris’s smashed hand. ‘That’s no accident, surely?’

  ‘That’s my feeling,’ the doctor said, looking up from his desk at the other side of the room. ‘But you’d better get a specialist opinion on that.’

  ‘Listen,’ Gunna said, flipping through her notes. ‘Eiríkur, listen. The victim lives at Lyngvangur in Hafnarfjördur. Number 45, top flat on the right. I want you to get over there right away and have a good look at the place before we do much else. Take pictures and dust for prints. But I really want you to see if you can figure out how this happened. According to this gentleman,’ Gunna said, gesturing to the doctor who was again engrossed in his computer. ‘The victim had some kind of domestic accident.’

  ‘You think he’s lying?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s lying. I know so. So go and check it out while I have another word with him.’

  Orri would have given almost anything to be somewhere else. Houses were much more familiar and easier to deal with. Offices
had never been his style, and daylight even less so, but after the gut-wrenching experience of the motorcycle clubhouse, this had turned out to be easy, far easier that he had expected.

  His experience that a man carrying a toolbox and wearing overalls and a yellow waistcoat attracts no attention was again proved right.

  Not that this office had been a difficult one to get into, he reflected as he padded between the desks. He might as well have been invisible. The fire escape at the top of the external steel staircase was clearly this office’s smoking spot and it had been easy enough to open the door with a screwdriver jammed into the worn mechanism.

  He froze as the front door of the office downstairs at street level rattled and he peered cautiously out of the window of what he assumed was the director’s office to see a security guard with a dog on a lead walk away, satisfied that the place was locked up, and not expecting anyone to break into an office on a Saturday afternoon.

  The dog whined and pulled at its lead, aware of something that the man in the official cap and jacket with a logo on the back was clearly not worried about. The dog came to a stop, looking longingly at the upper floor windows and Orri jerked his head back, certain that it had seen him.

  ‘Pack it in, will you?’ He heard the security guard irritably scolding the dog as he made for the comfort of his van and Orri briefly felt sorry for the animal that was being prevented from doing its job, but relieved that the guard was too lazy to do his own job properly.