by Grant Nicol
For the briefest of moments he stared straight at the tiny camera in her laptop. All the day-to-day worries and problems had disappeared for a man who probably had plenty to concern himself with during the course of each and every business day. Aron Steingrímsson lit a cigarette and stared right at us through the lens.
Eiríkur pulled the piece of sticky tape that had been used to cover the ON light next to the tiny camera lens off the laptop and smiled. He looked at Grímur, who then looked at me, the three of us not really knowing what to say. Aron Steingrímsson stood up, exposing his full business credentials to the camera, and exited the shot. I hoped that that would be the last we would see of him.
Elín rolled over towards the laptop and gave the camera her best What do you think of that, then? smile before turning the thing off. The first image the two officers had of my sister was that of a smug, idiotic woman with no shame. If they had known her as long as I had they couldn’t have got to know her any better. She was just that shallow and predictable.
Before the financial meltdown of 2008 Aron Steingrímsson had been one of the ten richest men in Iceland. Unlike many of his peers he had managed to avoid the embarrassing fall from grace that so many others had endured. He was now in the top three of that rich list. Grímur’s gaze had become an intense stare. He was waiting for me to offer an explanation.
‘You’ve got to keep in mind that I’m seeing this for the first time as well,’ I said. It was supposed to placate him but it didn’t work.
‘Are you trying to tell me that your sister has been sleeping with Aron Steingrímsson and she’s never told you about it?’
His tone said it all. If I’d been him I wouldn’t have believed me no matter what I’d said next.
‘She told me she’d been seeing someone, she didn’t say who it was. She said he was rich and that she had become disillusioned with the way things were.’
An air of incredulity hung like a heavy cloud over the table. I could tell that Eiríkur was struggling to believe me too, although I sensed that he maybe wanted to a little bit more than his older colleague.
‘So,’ Grímur continued, ‘she was unhappy with the way things were going. She wasn’t merely content to be having an affair with one of the richest men in the country... ’ he paused, waiting for me to say something but I kept my own counsel, ‘ ...but felt it necessary to make this foolish tape in order to blackmail him. My first impression of Elín is that she appears to be a uniquely stupid woman.’
Eiríkur had been working away on the computer, going through her files to see what else he could find. At last he took a break from his typing and looked across the table at me. His expression was more serious than it had been previously. He pushed the laptop over to Grímur to let him read something that he had found.
A wry smile spread across the old detective’s face as if all his suspicions about my sister being a complete idiot had proved to be well founded after all. He struck me as a man who wasn’t accustomed to being wrong all that often. He looked as if his years of seeing the worst possible sides of people had left him enjoying the times now when his misgivings about how rotten they all were inevitably proved to be correct. Without looking up from the screen he started reading what I assumed was an email my sister had written.
I thought that you might like to see what you look like while you’re cheating on Róshildur. You should probably avoid her seeing this, though, don’t you think? A divorce would be costly and embarrassing for you and your businesses and all I want in return for not showing her this proof of your infidelity is enough money to get out of your hair forever.
Ten million krónur or its equivalent in any major foreign currency, in cash (euro preferred) is all I require and you will never see me again. I think the figure is reasonable but if you consider it to be too steep then I will be happy to ask your wife what she considers your marriage to be worth when I meet up with her.
Grímur finally looked up at me and once more waited for a response. Again, I was not terribly forthcoming. All I wanted was some help finding my sister. It now looked as though she would be arrested as soon as they could get their hands on her. If they could get their hands on her. Her stupid plan had backfired after all. Just as she had predicted it would. And how.
‘When was the email dated?’ I asked hoping to throw the old dog off the scent a little. He dropped his eyes again and did some mental calculations.
‘It’s dated the day before the boy was killed,’ he replied, realising instantly what I was getting at. ‘Our main concern now, however, is the attempted extortion by your sister of ten million krónur. It goes without saying that we will need to speak to her as soon as possible.’
‘But she’s been kidnapped,’ I protested.
‘Ylfa, there is no proof whatsoever that this is the case but there is undeniable proof that she has broken the law. Do you have an address for her?’
I gave him her address on Álagrandi knowing full well that they wouldn’t find her there. As far as I knew she hadn’t lived in that flat for some time now. I thought hard about what she had told me about the house where she had been staying. Something on Grandavegur I think she had said, maybe with two storeys. I wish I had paid more attention to her ramblings in the bar now that I actually needed to know where she had been living. Grímur told me that I could go but that I needed to get in touch with him the minute I heard from Elín. If I heard from her.
‘Don’t do anything stupid before I see you again,’ was his parting advice. Good advice it was too. If only I had planned on listening to him.
I knew that trying to get to sleep would be an absolute waste of time. I was convinced that the same people who had killed Jóhannes had Elín somewhere and yet the police were now looking at her as a criminal, not a victim. In a very short time she had somehow managed to become both.
Grímur was right in one respect, though; she was a spectacularly stupid woman. That she had got herself in trouble wasn’t at all surprising, it was just how much trouble she had managed to land herself in that had me worried. I had to look for her. Whether I stood any chance of actually finding her was completely beside the point.
My first destination was Grandavegur, a small dead-end street that ran off Álagrandi virtually on the shore of Faxaflói Bay. If this was where she had been shacked up then she hadn’t moved very far. The police would be visiting her flat any time now but they would be looking for her, not me.
There was only one house on the street that came anywhere near to the picture I had built up in my head. It was a two-storey timber house at the end of the street with a garage and a fence that ran along the front of it, affording it great privacy despite the block of flats directly opposite. It would have suited Aron perfectly for his purposes.
The rain hadn’t abated and if anything, had increased a little since my walk along the harbour side. This time I had brought the car and there were now warnings on the radio that the approaching storm was imminent. It was hard to imagine the weather getting any worse but that was apparently to be the case.
Once I’d parked I sneaked over to the property’s fence line, surreptitiously checking up and down the street for anyone else who might be lurking in the shadows. I was paranoid that the police might be keeping an eye on her old flat and taking down the numbers of any cars in the area. I hadn’t seen anyone at all as I’d turned off Álagrandi onto Grandavegur but that didn’t mean a thing. More importantly, I thought that Aron Steingrímsson might have someone watching his house for him. As I crouched down in the teeming rain I tried to see if any nosy neighbours were peeking out of their windows across the road. Everyone appeared to be in be in bed already or too busy glued to their televisions to be bothered watching the street, which was just the way I wanted it. I fumbled through the contents of the letterbox and pulled out two envelopes, both addressed to my sister. At least I had the right place. I virtually crawled along the driveway and went to turn around the fence and into the tiny front yard when my progre
ss was impeded by a big black motorbike.
I couldn’t be entirely sure but it did strongly resemble the one that had almost run me down outside her office on Borgartún. Staying down on all fours I made my way tentatively around the motorbike and towards the tall windows that made up the front of the house. The diminutive area in between them and the front fence contained among other things a barbeque that I had to negotiate my way around but at least I had a clear line of sight into the living room, where I could clearly see a man seated in front of the television. The lights inside the house were on, which I hoped would stop him from being able to see me from the other side of the glass doors. From where I was now, even if he looked directly at me all he should be able to see would be his own reflection in the glass.
Sitting on the sofa was a tall bearded gentleman probably somewhere in his forties. He had his feet up on the table next to a half-empty bottle of Brennivín. From my vantage point I couldn’t see what he was watching but it seemed to have his undivided attention. When his mobile rang he answered it only after carefully checking the caller ID. I wasn’t the only one who did that, then.
He listened intently to whoever it was on the other end, screwing his face up slightly at some comment and taking another drink of schnapps. When he spoke his voice seemed raised, presumably from all the booze in him. Whoever it was he was talking to, they’d pissed him off.
Barely two minutes later a car pulled into the driveway at such a speed that I doubted it would stop before ploughing through the garage doors. Aron Steingrímsson lurched out of the car and made his way straight through the front door. It was probably not one of his more discreet arrivals at the property but he seemed to be slightly preoccupied. A heated exchange followed in the living room, very little of which I could actually make out as the two of them were constantly talking over the top of one another.
Eventually, things cooled down and a black leather bag full of money appeared on the coffee table. Aron paid the hairy biker in cash from the bag and then when it looked as though he was set to leave, I decided to head back to the shelter of my car. It wasn’t long before he pulled out of the driveway, this time around driving a little more conservatively.
As he headed down Grandavegur I started the car and followed him at a prudent distance. We headed onto the Hringbraut before turning on to Hofsvallagata and following it down to just outside the Catholic church on Túngata. He came to a halt outside a huge two-storey house and waited for the electronic gates to open for him. I pulled up outside a house further down the road and watched him disappear into the cavernous double garage. I didn’t feel any closer to finding out where my sister was but I just knew that wherever it was, he held the key to unlocking that secret for me.
CHAPTER 11
Nine o’clock the next morning came and went and there was no Elín on the flight to London. That was hardly a surprise but Grímur seemed to think that she would still try to get on the plane and so dispatched officers to intercept her at Keflavík Airport. I tried telling him that she hadn’t caught the flight because she had been kidnapped but again my pleas fell on deaf ears. It was possible he thought that whatever had happened to her was her own fault but he would have been foolish to admit as much to me.
From what I had seen and heard on Grandavegur I was convinced that some sort of handover had been arranged but somehow it had all gone wrong for Elín. How exactly I wasn’t sure but it was clear that she’d never got her hands on the money, at least not for very long. Over the phone I told Grímur that I knew Aron had tried to pay the money to keep her quiet but that something had gone wrong and that was why she had disappeared. The silence on the other end of the line was thunderous, albeit brief.
‘How exactly do you know this, Ylfa? Let me remind you that if you are in any way a part of these negotiations or are withholding information from us then I will have no hesitation in arresting you.’
‘I know because last night I found out where she has been living these last few months and I saw two men exchange money. I’m pretty sure that it was the money she had been planning to take overseas with her.’
‘If you knew where she has been living then why didn’t you share that information with me yesterday when I asked you where she was?’
‘I only found out where the house was last night. If I had known earlier, I would have told you. She mentioned a place on Grandavegur but all she gave me was a vague description. Last night I went looking for it and I found it.’
‘Ylfa, this is not how this is supposed to work. If you have any sort of information that would help us find her then you are supposed to let us deal with it and not keep it to yourself. Do you understand?’
‘I’m extremely worried about her but I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t making it all up. I never know what to believe when it comes to her crazy tales. All I did was go looking for a house that looked like the one she mentioned and that was when I saw Aron Steingrímsson collect a bag of money from another man. It was nothing more than a lucky guess. I just want to find her in one piece.’
He didn’t sound overly convinced but I told him exactly what I had seen at the house on Grandavegur and where to find it. I told him about the hairy man with the motorbike that could have been the one who almost ran me down. He told me that he would look into it and that I was to put a halt to all detective work. I promised him I would. He didn’t believe me any more than I meant it. He observed that I was treading a very fine line and hung up on me.
My first stop was to be Aron’s house on Túngata, where I eventually found myself a parking spot from where I could keep an eye on the house. The temperature outside had dropped again and the rain subsided for the time being but the wind seemed to be building in strength with every hour that passed. After about an hour of sitting impatiently in the car without any movement in or out of the house I decided to make my move. I wasn’t sure if he’d be home or not or if he’d even talk to me if he was but I was convinced that he knew where my sister was and I was determined to get that information out of him. One way or another.
I turned the radio off and strode over to the waist-high white wooden fence that surrounded their beautifully kept lawn, put one hand on it and launched myself onto the other side. As casually as I could I straightened my clothes and made my way to the front door. I rang the doorbell and waited for an answer. Nothing. It was possible that no one was home but I wasn’t convinced. Places like his always had somebody home. I rang it again and let it ring the second time. Eventually, I heard some signs of life from within so I rang it again and waited.
A short, heavy-set woman in her forties or fifties, it was hard to tell, finally opened the door after what seemed like far too long unless she’d had to walk from the other side of town. She asked what I wanted in faltering English with an Eastern European accent. I asked if Aron was home and she told me that he wasn’t, that no one was home – except her, I presumed.
I tried to explain to her who I was and why I wanted to speak to him but I could tell I was wasting my time. I found Elín’s business card in one of my pockets and scribbled my mobile number on it. I gave it to her with instructions to give it to Aron and no one else. She nodded several times and told me that it wouldn’t be a problem or something to that effect even though she obviously didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I tried again in English but only managed to extract the exact same response from her.
I thanked her for her time and made my way back to the car, once again vaulting the fence, but this time the one at the end of the driveway. When I took one last look back at the house she was still standing in the doorway holding the business card and staring at the footprints I had left across the lawn. I felt a little guilty but I was sure that he had someone to take care of those for him as well. If he didn’t, it wasn’t because he couldn’t afford one.
I decided to swing past Elín’s work on the way home to see if I could chat with her bosses, Elias and Bjarki.
By the time I arrived they
already had company in the form of a couple of uniformed police officers so I made do with asking the receptionist if she had heard any updates on Elín and left it at that. She didn’t have anything new to tell me and I was mindful of the fact that I had already put Grímur’s nose out of joint so I made myself scarce before my presence was noted.
I had been trying to piece together in my head just how things might have transpired once Aron had received my sister’s ultimatum. His first reaction would have been easy to predict. One of sheer fury and disbelief. Once he had calmed down, though, he would have realised that she did have him at quite a disadvantage. No matter which angle you approached his predicament from, he had a lot to lose. People with a lot always stood to lose the most.
He would then have come up with a plan of his own to take care of this nasty business, almost definitely involving the man with the long hair and the beard. He had probably been plucked from any number of Reykjavík motorcycle gangs and commissioned with the task of retrieving the cash from Elín once the trade-off had been made. What I couldn’t quite picture yet was how or even if the cash had actually changed hands in the first place. If the biker had taken the cash from Elín in her office then where was she while this was happening?
Surely he didn’t just walk into an empty building and walk out again. I couldn’t remember if he’d had a bag on his back or not when I’d seen him disappearing up Borgartún. It had been dark and I’d been too busy getting out of his way to get a good look. Too much of it failed to make any sense yet and that was the main reason I wanted to hear what Aron had to say for himself. He might just be tempted to find out who had dropped off one of her cards. It was a long shot but I didn’t have any other options. I could just picture him questioning the housekeeper when he got home. I didn’t expect he would have much more joy with her than I’d had.
