‘Good morning, Unnur,’ Helga Dís greeted the officer manning the station. ‘I’ve brought someone to see you.’
Unnur took off her glasses and looked at them. ‘Good morning, Helga. You’re about early.’ She looked Jóhann up and down. ‘And who might you be?’ she asked.
‘My name is Jóhann Hjálmarsson and I believe you might be looking for me,’ he said with an effort.
‘Tell me about your relationship with Boris Vadluga.’
‘That was Vilhelm and Elvar,’ Sunna María said stiffly. ‘We were sleeping partners, Jóhann and I.’
‘But still partners. You were directors of Sólfell Investment. Mr Vadluga could hardly have been happy when his money went up in smoke.’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t get involved.’
‘You’re a director, so you’re involved. Not reading the small print doesn’t absolve you of any responsibility.’
‘Is this going to take long?’
‘It’ll take as long as it takes, and my colleague from financial crime would like to speak to you as well. Of course, you’re free to leave at any time,’ Gunna said, folding her arms, and Sunna María instantly scraped her chair back across the floor. ‘But then we might have to look at other options, and if you decline to co-operate it won’t reflect well when we find ourselves in court.’
‘When? You mean if.’
‘When,’ Gunna assured her. ‘Two people dead? If it doesn’t come to court, then something’s seriously wrong, I’d say.’ She laid the photocopy of the hook-nosed man’s driving licence on the table between them. ‘It’s a faked licence, naturally. I’d be interested to know this man’s real name.’
‘I have no idea. I told you that before and I’m getting tired of telling you this.’
‘You’re absolutely sure you’ve never seen this man?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Sunna María repeated. ‘I don’t know him.’
‘Now that’s odd,’ Gunna said softly. ‘This is the man I suspect may have abducted and possibly murdered your husband, and I have a witness who has seen him in your company. On one of those occasions under circumstances that would indicate you’re quite intimately acquainted with him.’
Sunna María opened her mouth and closed it again.
‘In that case, there has to be some mistake,’ she said finally. ‘It happens, I’m sure.’
‘He and another man were living at Kópavogsbakki fifty until recently.’
‘We have nothing to do with the letting. Óttar Sveinsson handles everything.’
‘Óttar told me you knew this man. How do you explain that? And how come the basement of Kópavogsbakki fifty had been painted? Surely that’s the letting agent’s job, but Óttar said he had no idea that the place had been painted.’
Sunna María’s face twisted into something that was a long way from a smile but was clearly supposed to be one.
‘You’ll have to ask the tenant that, won’t you?’
The squad car emerged into the daylight and Unnur Matthíasdóttir brought it to a halt in the lay-by outside the Hvalfjördur Tunnel’s southern exit. Reykjavík could be seen dimly in the distance across the bay beneath scudding spring clouds. She got out of the car and went round to open the door for Jóhann, helping him out as Eiríkur hurried across from his own car.
‘Jóhann? Eiríkur Thór Jónsson from CID,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how pleased I am to see you in one piece.’
‘Thank you,’ Jóhann said with tears in his eyes, bewildered by the attention he was getting. ‘I’d just like a lift home, if you don’t mind.’
Eiríkur helped him into the Polo and shut the door. He saw Jóhann huddle into his borrowed coat and reach forward to turn up the heater.
‘What’s the story?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know. The lady who brought him in has her sheep and horses miles up in the highlands at a place called Geirsmörk,’ Unnur said. ‘She and her father had been up there for a few days and they stumbled across this guy in the road the night before last; they took him back to the chalet they have up there and warmed him up. She said he was too weak to be moved yesterday. It seems he was at a place called Vatnsendi, which has been abandoned for at least fifty years. How he got up there, who knows?’
‘How is he?’
‘He’s very weak. I wanted to take him to hospital, but he wouldn’t hear of it and wanted to go straight home. We had already had an alert about this man, so I called and here you are.’
‘Thanks. We’d more or less written him off.’
‘Did he walk out, or what?’
‘It seems he was abducted. Hopefully he can tell us how he managed to get to somewhere that far up country. Have you asked him any questions?’
‘Only to make sure he was feeling all right and wasn’t going to have a seizure on the way. So now he’s all yours,’ Unnur said with a bright smile.
‘Thank you,’ Eiríkur said. ‘I’d best get him to Reykjavík and we’ll see if we can work out what happened to him.’
‘Are you telling me my wife may have had something to do with this?’
Jóhann’s eyes were wide. Anger and surprise made his voice lift in pitch. Gunna could see that both of his hands trembled. A drip had been put into one arm below where the borrowed shirt that was several sizes too big for him had been rolled up high above a skinny forearm.
‘We don’t know, but for the moment I really don’t want anyone to know that you’re alive and well.’
‘I see,’ he said, subsiding thoughtfully. ‘What’s today? Thursday? Is it almost a week?’
‘What happened last Friday morning? Tell me every detail you can remember.’
His brows knitted. ‘It’s hazy,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been trying for days to remember everything.’
‘It’s important,’ Gunna reminded him.
‘You don’t need to tell me that,’ he shot back in irritation. ‘I had a message asking for a meeting at the old Sólfell offices at twelve.’
‘How? Email or text?’
‘Email, I think. I’d have to check my computer. But it was no problem, so I got a taxi up there.’
‘That fits. I traced you that far. Who were you going to meet?’
‘So I went up to the office on the eighth floor. I can’t remember. It might have been Óttar or one of the property managers.’
‘Óttar Sveinsson?’
‘Yes. His company leases our property and Sólfell also rented its offices through him. But I can’t be sure. It might have been one of his staff. So when I got there the place was open and there was someone there I didn’t recognize, but he said his name was Boris.’
‘Boris Vadluga? The man you were in partnership with?’
‘That’s him. Well, I was surprised.’
‘You had never met Boris Vadluga?’
‘No, we’d spoken on the phone a few times, but Sunna María saw to all that business with Vilhelm and Elvar. All I did was sign the accounts once a year.’
Gunna took a photo from her folder of notes. ‘This man?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Boris Vadluga.’
‘Definitely not him. This fellow was older, I thought.’
‘This man?’
The driving licence photograph was indistinct, but Jóhann almost jumped from his chair when he saw it. ‘That’s the man! I’d recognize him anywhere,’ he squeaked and calmed down quickly, his breathing laboured. ‘If that’s not Boris, who is it?’
‘That’s just what we’d like to know as well. So what happened?’
‘We chatted, had a coffee. He was clearing stuff out of the office since the company had folded.’
‘Didn’t you find that strange?’ Gunna asked. ‘Wasn’t it odd that he should be doing something like that himself. Wasn’t it odd that he should be in Iceland at all?’
‘I did find it very unusual, but he said something about being here on other business. Then I started to feel very strange, unsteady on my feet. It was as i
f I knew there was something very wrong but couldn’t do anything about it.’
‘You were doped,’ Gunna said. ‘As soon as you’d drunk that coffee, your friend didn’t need to worry any longer about being convincing. A witness saw a man answering your description leaving the building with this man on Friday afternoon. He thought you were drunk. So you wake up in the wilderness and then what?’
‘I think I’m lucky to be here. I don’t believe I was intended to survive.’
‘Maybe he got the dose wrong,’ Eiríkur suggested.
‘We’ll probably never find out what it was he gave you. Most of these drugs are out of your system after a day or two and this was a week ago. Rohypnol, ketamine, there’s plenty to choose from.’
Jóhann shuddered as he thought back to the moment he woke up in the distant ruined farmhouse.
Gísli fidgeted as the waitress took away the empty plates, casting glances around him.
‘Why this place?’ Gunna asked. ‘Not your usual stamping grounds, surely? I thought you would have preferred the place by the dock.’
‘Actually, I would have. But here there’s less chance of seeing anyone I know.’
‘Don’t want any of the guys to see you out with an old lady?’
‘Come on, Mum. It’s not like that. If we’d gone to Kænan then there’d be someone around I’d sailed with or worked with, or someone who knows Steini. We’d just be talking boats and engines.’
‘Instead of what?’
Gísli sighed and looked up as the waitress brought them fresh cutlery. He stayed silent until she had gone, shredding a piece of bread between his long fingers. A craftsman’s fingers, Gunna thought, like his grandfather’s.
‘I’m not a complete slob, you know, Mum. I do like to go to smart places occasionally. I came here with Soffía once or twice,’ he said wistfully.
‘How is she?’ Gunna asked.
‘Soffía’s fine. For a skinny little thing she’s as tough as old boots.’
‘It’s something that hadn’t escaped my notice,’ Gunna said as the waitress returned with steaming dishes. Pasta with chicken for Gísli, grilled fish for her. ‘Looks good,’ she said as the girl vanished silently into the background.
They were silent for a few minutes as each made inroads on lunch. The restaurant was quiet, with only a few lunchtime customers holding quiet conversations over their meals beneath subtle lights and sprays of dried flowers on the walls between dark abstract oil paintings. The quiet suited her. Conversation at the table had never been encouraged when Gunna had been growing up in a large family where food had to be eaten before it disappeared into two hungry big brothers, and the same custom had been unconsciously carried on in her own household.
‘The pasta’s a bit overdone,’ Gísli said eventually and Gunna stared at him.
‘Overdone? You can overcook pasta?’
‘Sure, mum. Haven’t you seen Steini timing it every time he does pasta?’
‘I suppose so. I hadn’t noticed that.’
‘It should be al dente, so it still has a little texture to it, not boiled to death like . . .’
‘Like I do?’
‘I wasn’t going to say that. I meant like a ship’s cook does it.’
‘In that case you can be forgiven.’
Gísli cleared his plate first and fidgeted again while Gunna finished her plaice.
‘Not bad,’ she said, downing her knife and fork. ‘Gísli, what’s bugging you? I know there has to be plenty, but what in particular? Soffía? Drífa? Any decisions? I know I’m only your old mum, so I’m the last one to get any information, but it would be nice to know what’s going on.’
‘I know Soffía would be your choice, wouldn’t she?’
‘I like the girl a lot. There’s bone in that nose.’
‘And Drífa?’
Gunna took a deep breath. ‘She’s lovely, but she’s a child.’
‘She’s growing up fast. I think she needs me more than Soffía does.’
‘You don’t have to tell me. I see more of her than you do.’ The words slipped out and Gísli flushed. ‘I’m sorry, Gísli. I didn’t mean it like that. You have to make your own choices and decisions.’
‘Like you did, you mean?’
Gunna frowned her eyebrows into a dark bar. ‘In what way?’
‘Like when you and my dad . . .’
She sat back and looked him in the eye. ‘Your father was a mistake on my part.’
‘So I was a mistake?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
The waitress sensed the tension as she collected their plates. ‘Would you like to see a dessert menu?’ she asked shyly.
Gísli shook his head. ‘Just a coffee for me.’
‘I would, thanks,’ Gunna decided. ‘As I’m being treated.’
‘Sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to snap at you,’ Gísli mumbled. He reached across the table and placed a hand on hers.
Gunna wanted to snatch her hand away but resisted the temptation.
‘Listen. Your father was five minutes of madness. I should have known better, but I wasn’t much older than your little sister is now. I was sixteen when you were born.’
‘You must have been . . . ?’ Gísli said and stopped, colouring.
‘You can work it out easily enough,’ Gunna said sharply. ‘A month or so short of my sixteenth birthday if you must know.’
‘You weren’t . . . together at all?’
‘Are you joking? Your father was in the process of divorcing his first wife and the last thing he wanted was to be shackled to a wayward teenager. Why? You’ve seen him, haven’t you? What’s your impression?’ Gunna scanned the dessert menu the waitress handed her. ‘The fruit salad, please. And a coffee.’
‘Latte, expresso?’
‘Just ordinary coffee will do nicely.’
‘He’s a charming man,’ Gísli said. ‘In his own strange way.’
‘I wouldn’t say charming,’ Gunna said after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s a fascinating man, and when he was younger he was a remarkable character. But there’s a dark side to everyone and your father’s dark side is very close to the surface. So what did you make of him?’
‘Disappointed,’ Gísli mumbled.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because he wasn’t interested, like I told you before.’
‘He must know when your birthday is but he never sent a present or a card, never tried to maintain any contact. But to his credit, I suppose, he never tried to claim you were nothing to do with him. You thought he’d have been waiting all these years for you to come and find him? Think again. He could have had access when you were a child but he didn’t want to know then. So why would he now? I’m afraid Thorvaldur Hauksson is a rather self-centred character.’
‘Have you seen him?’ Gísli asked.
Gunna let the fruit salad the waitress delivered sit untouched on the table in front of her as she wondered whether to tell Gísli the truth or not.
‘He left Vestureyri before you were a year old,’ she said finally. ‘It wasn’t exactly a healthy place for him to stay. He had an affair with a woman whose husband didn’t take kindly to it when he heard. So he left town and moved to Reykjavík, taking only what he could pack in the back of that old American gas guzzler he had at the time.’
‘That’s the last you saw of him?’
‘After I moved south to go to the police college I heard of him around town, but we didn’t run into each other, which was probably just as well. You were being looked after by your uncle Hafsteinn’s Anna Sigga at the time. They had three children of their own, so she said one more didn’t make much difference. It was very generous of Anna Sigga, I realize now.’
Gunna toyed with the fruit salad, but her appetite had deserted her, while Gísli sipped his coffee.
‘I saw him once,’ she said slowly. ‘You must have been about six or seven, I think. I was at the Hafnarfjördur station at the time. Two of the guys had been to a fight at a club
and rounded up everyone who’d been involved, herded them into the back of a meat wagon and brought them down to the station to be charged.’
‘And my dad was one of them?’
‘He was the only one they had to handcuff,’ Gunna said sorrowfully. ‘It was a shock to see him sitting there having his details taken, sloppy drunk and with his hands behind his back. Someone had smacked him and given him a fat lip. He didn’t recognize me, I don’t think. At any rate, I didn’t say anything and just left the boys to it. I suppose he must have been turned out first thing the next morning because they were all gone when I came in for the next day’s shift.’ She forked up a slice of guava. ‘That was the last time I saw your father.’
‘You didn’t say anything?’
‘Not a word. I thought I’d leave the poor bastard a bit of dignity without having some young copper crowing over him,’ Gunna said and reached for her coffee. ‘So, how is he? He must be past fifty by now.’
‘Fifty-six,’ Gísli said. ‘He’s tired, I think. High blood pressure and he smokes like a chimney.’
‘Like a coal-fired sidewinder, as Steini would say,’ Gunna said and was relieved to see Gísli smile.
‘Something like that.’
‘You want some of this?’ she asked, pushing the fruit salad over to him and watched him spoon up what was left.
Outside the restaurant Gísli hugged her. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘For what?
‘You know,’ he mumbled. ‘Nothing. You’re going back to work?’
‘Oh, yes. I have to go and make some decisions before Ívar Laxdal makes them for me.’
‘Well, you’ve a track record of making tough decisions, I suppose. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Gísli walked down the street and Gunna affectionately watched his broad back as he made his way downhill, car keys hanging from one finger, until he was no longer in sight. When he had gone, she shook herself, recalling their conversation and setting off towards the Hverfisgata station where Orri Björnsson was waiting in a cell for the hour-long ride in a police van to the prison at Litla Hraun.
Cold Steal Page 31
