Cold Steal (12 page)

Valmira shook her head and tutted while Natalia tittered, her brilliant toothy smile running around her dark face.

‘What’s this one called?’

‘Alex. He’s a sweet enough lad, but he’s . . . you know. Childish.’

‘Get an old guy. Fifteen years difference is about right. He’ll be pushing sixty and thinking about nothing but golf while you’re still young enough to have some fun.’

‘Yeah, just like your older men,’ Emilija said sharply. ‘We see how long your old guys hang around.’

‘It’s the kids. Guys don’t like teenagers,’ Natalia said defensively. ‘It’s all right for you, yours are still young.’

‘Which is why I pay a fortune for childcare, so I can work all day and earn peanuts,’ Emilija said. ‘I’d be better off on benefits, I’m sure of it.’

‘So why don’t you stop working?’ Natalia asked, stung by Emilija’s tone.

‘You know. Because if I’m on benefits Ingi’s family will do everything they can to have the children off me, and then where would I be?’

‘Try old Jakob. He probably hasn’t had it since the last century.’

Emilija opened her mouth to deliver a sharp retort, thought better of it and instead turned to Valmira. ‘Is it that house in Kópavogsbakki again?’

‘It’s the one we were at yesterday plus another one further up the street. Two for the price of one,’ she said with a wintry smile. ‘It’s just the annexe flat at the first one, then the whole place at the next one.’

‘Is that all for today?’

Valmira braked gently to allow a car waiting at a roundabout time to get onto the road ahead of them.

‘That’s what I was going to ask you about. There’s an office in Gardabær that Viggó has signed up for a month’s contract.’

‘So why ask us?’

‘Because it’s overtime. Cleaning has to be done between six in the evening and six in the morning. Four hours each evening, but it has to be evening because the place is in use during the day.’

Emilija looked dubious. ‘I could do with the hours, but it depends on the children. I’ll do it if I can get a babysitter,’ she said.

‘Get your young guy in,’ Natalia said with a snigger. ‘Feed him, screw him, and when he’s asleep you can run out and do two hours cleaning. If the kids wake up, he can read them a story.’

‘Listen . . .’ Emilija said, her irritation starting to boil over into anger.

‘Now, then,’ Valmira said loudly. ‘That’ll do, ladies. Let me know, will you? But I need to know tomorrow, so I can tell Viggó if we need to find someone else to do evenings. Maybe you could rotate it somehow, do a couple of evenings each?’

‘If I can find a sitter,’ Emilija said.

‘OK for me,’ Natalia decided. ‘I leave Nonni with food and TV, no problem.’

‘Otherwise I’ll do it myself until you can sort yourselves out. All right?’ She said, turning the van off the main road and through Kópavogur towards the street of quiet mansions overlooking the Sound.

Lísa watched him suspiciously as he dropped his work boots, sat back and sighed. She had seen the cuts on his wrists and rather than ask, had merely given him a stern look that invited answers, but he brushed it off. Lísa slept with her back to him that night, arms folded over her chest in a way that told him an explanation would be required before any fun could be had.

Orri was less worried about that than about the voice he constantly expected to hear whisper in his ear in that peculiarly accented but clear English he had heard in the basement of the house. He carefully checked the apartment for anything that might indicate that someone had been in there. He put a new lock on the front door, fitting below the worn Yale a mortice lock with a key that felt heavy in his hand.

Lísa glared at him as he handed her the new key.

‘Orri, what the fuck is going on?’

‘Just . . .’ he floundered. ‘I just want us to be safe,’ he finished lamely as she rolled the key between her fingers and pursed her lips in irritation.

‘Is there something you should be telling me? Like how come you didn’t come home until the middle of the night?’

‘I have to go. I’ll be back at six,’ Orri said quickly as he scuttled for the door. ‘You’ll lock up when you go to work, won’t you?’

She heard his boots clatter on the concrete stairs as he hurried down them and she looked at the new brass key. It was as long as her little finger and dwarfed the rest of the keys on her key ring. She shook her head and wondered what Orri had got up to. Lísa knew well enough that he had some kind of dubious racket going on and that he stored boxes and bags in the basement storeroom that would disappear and be replaced at intervals. He rarely mentioned where he might be going when he left the flat, and while she was fairly sure that whatever he was doing didn’t involve drugs, she was less and less happy about the fact that this man she was increasingly involved with was up to something dubious.

Lísa looked out of the kitchen window and surveyed the car park. Orri’s car had gone, and as he had taken his working boots, that meant he had a shift that would keep him out of the flat for at least six hours. In the bedroom she shuffled through his bedside table, turning up old electricity bills, decade-old birthday cards, obsolete mobile phones, a few ancient Christmas cards, coins and broken ballpoints, but nothing useful. She stood in the middle of the room at the foot of the sagging bed and thought before turning on her heel and leaving the flat to clatter down the stairs to the basement.

There had once been a laundry down there, lined with washing machines. But now that people preferred to have a washer and a dryer in their own apartments, the washroom had been stacked with bicycles that had seen better days.

Next to the washroom was a long storeroom of steel cages, one for each of the eight apartments. Orri’s store was the tidiest. There was a bench against the wall lined with boxes and an old chest of drawers next to it, all out of reach behind the padlocked door. Lísa tried every key from the handful she had brought downstairs with her until she had no choice but to give up, glaring at the chest of drawers as if it had personally offended her.

Natalia and Emilija shivered as the wind blew along Kópavogsbakki. Sprawling modern houses squatted heavily on their half-submerged basements and huge blank windows stared blindly at the houses opposite. Valmira fumbled with the bunch of keys for the day and finally found one that opened the door, which swung open into a dark hallway.

Once gratefully inside out of the wind, she dropped the heavy vacuum cleaner and shivered.

‘Empty house this time. The people have just moved out, so it only needs to be made presentable for the next tenants.’

‘Top to bottom, is it?’

‘Every corner,’ Valmira confirmed. ‘And we have all morning to do it. So who feels like doing what?’

‘Same as usual,’ Natalia said. ‘I take kitchen, Emilija does bedrooms, you living room, and we do bathroom last?’

‘Bathrooms,’ Valmira corrected, looking at the list in her hand. ‘There are three.’

‘Three?’ Emilija echoed. ‘Are there ten people living here, or what?’

Valmira shrugged. ‘People with money.’ She shouldered the vacuum cleaner with a wince and set off along the hall, flicking light switches as she went. ‘If you make a start, I’ll check out the rest of the place. All right?’

Natalia made a start on the kitchen, a long room tiled in dark slate that she decided with a frown was perfect for highlighting every spillage and speck of dust, and fitted with discreetly opulent appliances with matching dull steel fronts. She began at the top, walking on the worktops to wipe down the walls from the ceiling down, and as everything was already clean, a rapid wipe-over was all that was needed. She hummed as she worked, occasionally breaking into a few words of a half-remembered song in Spanish, satisfied with the steel extractor hood over the stove when she could see her face in it.

‘Hey, Emilija!’

There was a muffled answer over the whine of the vacuum cleaner in the distance.

‘Hey!’ Natalia called again, wiping the doors of the cupboards after she had checked they were both empty and spotlessly clean.

‘What is it?’ Emilija asked, her face in the kitchen doorway.

Natalia sat down on the worktop, her legs dangling into space, and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead.

‘I don’t think anyone’s been here. The place is perfectly clean. Weird, isn’t it?’

‘The beds have been slept in, so someone’s been here.’

‘How’s Valmira getting on? It must be time for a smoke break for some of us by now.’

Emilija looked along the hall. ‘I heard her a while ago but I’m not sure where she is now. I’ll go and have a look when I’ve finished in there,’ she said and left, pushing her thick brown plait over her shoulder.

Natalia jumped down lightly. With her soft shoes and slight frame, she landed soundlessly. She decided that a break was needed and stepped outside the front door into the icy wind, lighting up under the shelter of her jacket and sending a plume of smoke to be whipped away by the wind.

‘Talia!’

‘What?’ She called back, holding the cigarette outside while leaning into the hall.

‘Come here, will you?’ Quick.’

Natalia regretfully took a long drag and flicked the rest of the cigarette into a puddle next to the set of steps leading to the house’s front door and stalked along the hall to see Emilija with panic on her face at the door to the basement.

‘Down here, quick. It’s Vala.’

‘She’s hurt?’ Natalia asked, imagining her falling down the stairs.

‘Hell, I don’t know. Come with me, will you?’

Their feet clattered on the steel steps into the wide basement.

‘She’s here . . .’

Emilija crouched down and put an arm around Valmira’s shoulders, where she sat immobile with her back to the wall.

‘Vala, it’s all right. We’re your friends,’ she crooned while Valmira stared into space, her eyes blank and focused on thin air.

‘What’s all that stuff there?’ Natalia asked, bewildered.

‘I don’t know. But don’t touch it. Something’s happened here.’

‘What do we do? Call Viggó?’

‘Call the police. Then you can call Viggó.’

Natalia’s mouth set in a thin, hard line. ‘The police . . . ? You’re sure we need them?

‘Jesus, Talia. Look at all that blood, will you?’

‘But the police. Police is bad news. We take Vala home, tell Viggó she’s sick. Clean it all up. Nobody needs to know.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Look at all that stuff. Someone’s been hurt here, or killed. We don’t tell the police and they find out afterwards, we’ll be in prison ourselves.’

Natalia pouted. ‘In Chile . . .’

‘We’re not in Chile, Talia. This is Iceland. The police aren’t going to throw you in jail for reporting something. Jesus, call an ambulance, will you? Vala’s in a bad way.’

Emilija brushed a lock of Valmira’s dark hair away from her eyes and saw a tear on her cheek.

‘It’s all right, Vala. Natalia’s getting help. You’re going to be just fine. You hear me?’

Gunna saw that the ambulance and a squad car were there before her as she strode up the path to the gaping door where a small figure with a look of outright distrust on her pinched face glared at her.

‘Good morning,’ Gunna offered, stepping past her and looking about.

‘You police?’ asked the small woman in the jacket wrapped tightly about, her fists thrust deep in her pockets.

‘That’s right. I’m a detective. And you are?’

‘Natalia.’

‘You called us, did you?’

‘Yeah. Emilija, she said call you,’ Natalia said and Gunna could hardly make out her words through the thick accent.

‘All right, where’s this Emilija, and the officers who are already here?’

Natalia jerked her head towards the recesses of the house, every sound inside echoing of the bare walls and uncarpeted floors. ‘In there. Downstairs. I stay here.’

Gunna’s footsteps sounded loud on the smooth wood floor and she heard voices as a figure in paramedic’s overalls appeared from a doorway, a thickset woman on his arm and leaning heavily on him as another paramedic followed them.

‘Hæ,
I’m Gunnhildur from CID, what’s the situation?’

The woman with the dark fringe over her blank eyes and clutching the paramedic’s arm did not appear to be injured and Gunna wondered what the problem was.

‘Your guys are downstairs and I guess they’ll tell you the story,’ the paramedic said in a patient bedside-manner voice. ‘This lady’s had a shock and we won’t be leaving quite yet. We’ll be in the ambulance if you want to catch up with us in a little while.’

‘Thanks, will do,’ Gunna said, and made her way down the stairs.

At the bottom two officers in uniform surveyed a broken chair in the middle of the floor.

‘Ah, the cavalry’s here.’

‘Hæ,
Geiri. What’s the story, then? Who did what and who got hurt?’

The heavily built officer stepped back while his colleague, a young woman with a sharp face, frowned at the debris on the floor.

‘Three cleaners arrived to give this place a scrub. They’re all foreigners; they work for some outfit called Reindeer Cleaners. The house is rented and the tenants left a couple of days ago, so it’s being cleaned for the next tenants. Anyhow, it looks like one of the cleaners came down here, and I can’t really make out what happened. Whatever, one of the others came down here and found her sitting on the floor as if she’d been knocked on the head.’

‘Had she?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Fallen over, maybe?’

‘No injuries as far as the paramedics can tell.’

‘There’s blood here,’ the male officer said, leaning forward and picking up a leg of the smashed chair.

‘Hold on,’ Gunna ordered, hurriedly snapping on a pair of surgical gloves to take it. ‘Best if you get back and don’t touch anything,’ she added, holding the chair leg under the light to inspect it. Ragged lengths of ripped duct tape stuck to the wood and the dark stains looked suspiciously like dried blood. She stepped back, surveying the floor where the remnants of the wooden chair were scattered, and quickly made out the other leg, also bound with ripped tape, and patches of blood that had stuck to the polished cement floor.