Black Ice (5 page)

Without glancing up, Blondie  began  talking.

'Correct any  factual   errors. Name,  Samuel  Craven.  Age, thirty-eight.  Marital  status,  divorced. Height,   five  foot  ten inches. Weight,  twelve stone.  Black hair,  brown  eyes, distinguishing  mark, slight scar on left temple,  result of car accident.' He lifted  his eyes to check  that  last  item.  He  needn't have bothered. It only showed  against a sun-tan.

'Father unknown, abandoned by mother, childhood in a Dr

Barnardo's home in Norfolk, England.'

'Little Orphan Sammy,' I said,  as I usually  did  when  that bloodless   recitation  came   up.   He   didn't  acknowledge it. Perhaps he didn't like musicals.

'Next  of kin, daughter Sally, aged  nine.'

He  glanced   up  again,   then  added: 'No   known   security affiliations.'

He put the file down  and folded his heavy,  tanned  hands on

it.

'Is that  correct?  No known security  affiliations?'

'I'd say so.'

'What does that  mean?'

'Well, if they were known you wouldn't be asking me, and if I have  any  unknown  security  affiliations  I wouldn't be telling you about  them,  would  I?'

Not traceable, Batty had said. I was beginning to see what he meant.

At  the  other  end  of the  room,  the  older  man  cleared   his throat. Blondie leaned forward on beefy forearms  and looked at me as though  he'd  like to see me taken  home in a bucket.

'You  claim  to be a journalist? Can  you prove it?'

'I've got a liver and  an overdraft, both enlarged.'

I   don't  think   he   picked   up   on   all   the   full   humorous implications of that,  but  he caught the tone.  He gave a tough, tired smile and cracked  his knuckles. He wasn't impressed with me. He wouldn't have  been impressed  with three of me.

'You claim in your statement that you met Solrun Jonsdottir at Thingvellir ... why?'

'Because it's  romantic.'

'Romantic?' He  gave  a  laugh  that  was dangerously over loaded  with scorn.  'You  meet this ... girl,  you go to bed with her, you say this is romantic?'

'It isn't  the way you tell it.'

He gave me the laugh  again:  three sneers  for Craven. 'Well, well, that is something very new for us. We did not realise that our famous  Solrun  was romantic.'

'No? Well, I don't suppose you get much time for that sort of thing  down  at  the Hitler Youth.'

The  muscles  moved  in his neck and  tightened up his face. That was all. Very softly, he said: 'You are her boyfriend?'

'I would  be honoured to be called  that.'

'It is not  such  an  honour,' he said,  with fastidious  malice.

'The lovers of Solrun do not make such an exclusive club. They are men like you. Nobodies.  Pick-ups. Drunks. Party scrapings. One   night  stands.' He  added   the  last  word  in  Icelandic - 'Utlendingar' - with   more   contempt  than   all  the  others.

'Foreigners,' he added, for my benefit.

He switched to a grave,  impartial manner. It is a shame,  of course.  Sadly, she represents our country. But I think she will only bring  us shame.'

Now,  you don't get  many  puritans in  Iceland. That interested  me. So I asked  him if having a wide and varied social life was illegal these days. 'Not  illegal,' he said, in the same  tone of controlled  menace.

'But  it is dangerous. When  it is with scum.'

He  picked  up  the  documents again,   pretended to look at them, and  then  threw  them down  with evident  disgust.  'Your whole story  is a fabrication. It is obvious.'

As  he spoke,  he  pushed   himself  up  on  his finger-tips  and walked  slowly,  heavily,  around his desk  until  he was  behind me.

'I can see your problem.' I stared at his empty chair, waiting for the blow.

'I don't have a problem. You have a problem. We are not the logga [even  I knew the friendly  slang word for police] and you should  understand this. We are talking about  national security. Perhaps you think it is funny  that a little island like this should worry  about national security? Does that  amuse  you?'

He didn't wait for an answer. 'It is just as important to us as your  Buckingham Palace  and  Tower  of London. Remember that. Remember that  before you tell us any  more stupid  lies. Who  are  you? Why are  you here? Where  is Solrun?'

He fired the last three questions into my left ear, so I couldn't help but jump. His face was so close to the side of mine  that  I had  to lean  back to get him in focus.

'I've told you. And  I don't know where she's  gone.'

A pistol shot cracked  in my ears and  my heart  hit the back of my throat. I hung  on to the seat of the chair  to prevent myself hitting the ceiling. When  I opened  my screwed-up eyes, he was holding a wide, black plastic  ruler he'd slapped on the desk for the sound  effect.

'Tell  ... me,'  he said,  spacing the  words  a second  apart, 'tell ... me ... what  ... she ... said.'

'Nothing.' By now,  my  nerves  were  hopping like  fleas.  'I mean,  she  said  all sorts  of things  but  nothing you'd   want  to know.'

'Everything.  I   want   to know   everything.  Did   she   say goodbye?  Did she mention any friends?  Did she say anything about an American? What were her last words? Tell me the last thing she said to you.'

'It wouldn't help.'

'Tell me! Now! Tell me the last words she said.'

'To me?'

'Of course to you. What did she say?'

Well. He had insisted.  I did warn  him. So I told him. And if they weren't the very last words she said, at least they were the ones I remembered best.

'She said ... "I don't think  I'll  ever get  my toes  uncurled again." I think  that  was it, more or less word  for word.'

His  face, open-mouthed, hung  in front  of me. Slowly,  like creeping pain,  I watched  the understanding rise into  his eyes.

'You did ask,'  I said,  with a winning  smile.

Sometimes I do overcook  things  a bit.  Listening to the  hot breath  whistle  through  his teeth and  seeing  the red rage in his face, I thought this could  be one of those occasions.

With elaborate care,  he raised  the black  plastic  ruler  in his bunched fist  and   brought  it  down  so  it  tapped   me  on  the shoulder. Once.  Twice.  He  could've  been  knighting  me.  I didn't move. Hell,  I didn't even  breathe. He  raised  it a third time and  held it there above  the side of my face. It was only a ruler.  In  his hand  it might  as well have been an axe.

The  click of a cigarette lighter  snapped the tension.

'That will do for now, Magnus. Would you bring some coffee in for myself and Mr Craven. He must be ready for one, and I certainly am.  Milk and sugar?'

It was the older  man,  standing out of sight, just behind  me.

'No sugar,' I said.  'Got to watch  the old weight. Don't want to die of a fatty heart.'

'I should   be very surprised if you live to have  the opportunity, Craven,' said  the same man, in an even, pleasant  voice.

'Two coffees, white,  no sugar, please.'

My breath escaped  from my body in a flood as the big blond man  moved  away  and  placed  the ruler  carefully on the desk.

'That's better,' I said. 'I don't like talking to the dummy when the ventriloquist is in the room.'

Quite unexpectedly, a neat smile of admiration touched  his features and  he bowed  his head  to me in some sort of salute.

10

'Smoke?'

'I gave  up.'

'Ah.  Iron  will. Did you smoke a lot?'

'Sixty  a day.'

'That's a lot. Now it doesn't bother  you?'

'Only sixty times a day.'

The smoke got mixed up in his rasping laugh and he waved it away from me with his hand. The packet on his desk identified them   as   small   cigars   called   London   Docks:   presumably because  of the smell.

'Petursson,' he said, extending his hand into the smoke-free zone between  us. 'I'm a government official.' As he spoke  he removed  his expensive  continental tweed jacket and put it on a hanger which he then placed  with care in a narrow teak cupboard in the corner.  He also flicked at the flawless front of his cream shirt in case a speck of  ash had dared  to settle there. He was that odd combination of big and  neat,  the sort of hefty men they say make good dancers.

He  must've been sixty  and  you  might  have  taken  him  for another of those big men who got into  police-type work to get shoes the right size, until  you saw the intelligence in the hard slits of his eyes.

'That was very clever. The chair squealed under  his weight as he sat down. 'Magnus was supposed to make you angry. You turned it around.'

He picked up the plastic ruler and wagged it. The crack had split it down  the middle. It is a delicate subject  here.' He gave me a sharp look. 'It is a delicate subject  anywhere, wouldn't you say- outsiders who come and  take the local girls?'

I knew what he was after, and I wasn't going to let him have it. Father unknown. He'd  picked up on that all right. I gave him a smile and let it grow into a yawn to remind  him of the time. Without  speaking, Magnus delivered  two coffees, and on the tray he placed  in front of his boss I recognised  the contents of my pockets.

One by one,  Petursson picked  up  the  bits of junk,  and  put them  down  again.   A sleek Waterman  pen  I  never  used.  A wrist-watch I got duty-free on a plane before finding they were cheaper on the ground. A red plastic rhino, cunningly concealing  a  pencil-sharpener,  that   Sally   had   given   me  for   my birthday. Two chewed pencils.  A parking ticket, still  creased from where it had been screwed  up in rage, then smoothed out again. Ford Escort keys on a Ferrari key-ring. A bill from Rugantino's commemorating dinner with a girl who'd  extolled the wonders  of celibacy - over  the coffee and  Sambucca.  My passport. My press card.  Come  to think  of it, my life.

He flicked the press card without  picking  it up.

'Are you really a journalist?' He had a conversational style, not nearly  as pugnacious as his apprentice.

'More or less.'

'A scandal  rag, I believe.'

'That sort of thing.'

Suddenly he began  to  pull  hard  on  the  cigar,  which  was threatening to die on him. When he'd kissed it back into life, he grinned up at me.

'You see, Mr Craven, we have people who come here who are not what they seem. Tourists who are not tourists.  Business men who have no business.  You understand?'

'I suppose so.'

'You seem a sensible young man. Why on earth do you work for a newspaper like that?'

'That's what people  want  to read.  Who am  I  to deny  the masses? That's democracy, isn't it? Crap for crap-lovers- I just shovel  it.'  I'd   heard  Grimm   make  that  speech  once,  in  El Vino's, but  I must admit  he did it with more conviction.

Petursson's eyes vanished in a silent  smile. 'If that  is what you say then  I must  believe you, Mr Craven. Do you- forgive me for  asking  - do  you  know  a journalist who is also  based  in London  who is called  ...' he made a pretence  of looking in a file, 'Ivanov. Oleg  Ivanov.'

'Old  Ivan?  Sure.'

'Well,  well. Mr Ivanov  is also here in Reykjavik. I believe he works for one of the Moscow agencies.'

'That's what  he says.'

'And  here you are together. Is this a coincidence?'

I was wondering that myself. 'Unless we're both working on the same story.'

'Of  course.  Solrun. Don't worry.'  He began  to chuckle and held out  both  his hands, palm downwards, in a calm-down gesture. 'I am not so excitable as my young colleague. But she is a little wild. Even for us, Solrun  is a little wild. But where has she gone?  You cannot help us? You don't want to help us? I wonder.'

At that point, a cough started churning in his chest and then caught in his throat. He glared accusingly  at the cigar. A few ambling strides took him to the window and  he flicked it out.

'London Docks.' Back behind his desk, he looked regretfully at  the  packet, then  sat  back  in his chair.  'I lived in London. Over  a year.' He stifled a small yawn, then continued with his calculated rambling. 'Yes, a most pleasant  time for me. I was attached to one of your government departments. I stayed with a family called Shivas. Charming people. They  were very kind tome. I was young, and a little lost. We still write. Originally it was a Huguenot name.  I could never  understand why it was that  they  were  more  proud  of that  than  they  were  of being British. That is the tragedy of your country, I think.  People talk of being Welsh  or even  Yorkshire  but  they  no longer  talk  of being British.  In Scotland, at your rugby  matches, they boo the national  anthem. That is what happens when a country loses its identity and its pride- the people retreat  into tribalism. Or am I being unfair?'

'I don't know. Does it matter?'

'Perhaps not. But don't make that mistake  here. We do care.

You saw that in Magnus. We are very close to our history  here, and  you must remember that.'

'The only bit of history we celebrate is the anniversary of the bloke who tried to blow the whole bloody place up. I've always thought that was a sign of maturity myself. By the way, Mr Petursson, which department were you attached to in London?'

'One of those in Mayfair. I forget the exact  title ...'  He let the sentence die.

We  both  knew  what  he  meant.  Those   buildings without plaques   which  you  find  dotted   around  Mayfair.  Everyone knows what they are. The first principle of espionage is to stay near  the good  restaurants: they'd  rather risk their  lives  than their lunch.

The  phone  rang and  Petursson listened,  then spoke  briefly.

'A friend, Christopher Bell, is inquiring for you.'

'That's right.  I thought I might  need an interpreter.'

'You   won't   have   any   problems   being   understood,  Mr Craven, providing  that you speak the truth, of course.' His eyes vanished   again   at   his own   little  joke,  and   he  tipped   my belongings in the tray towards  me. 'You'd better take these. We do know where to find you, I believe. Ah, one moment. What is this?'