Cold Steal (37 page)

‘How do you know?’

‘He used to buy presents for the children, really expensive toys, until I said stop. He used to buy me things. Never anything useful, but perfume, that sort of stuff.’ She reddened. ‘Underwear,’ she whispered. ‘Expensive. Designer. But it wasn’t comfortable so I never wore it.’

‘I understand,’ Gunna said. ‘What else?’

‘He didn’t work long hours. Half days mostly. So where did all that cash come from?’

‘You never asked him?’

‘Why?’ Emilija snorted in derision. ‘Why ask a question when you know the answer will be a lie? Sometimes it’s best not to know. So I didn’t ask where his money came from.’

‘Drugs?’

‘I suppose so.’ Emilija shook her head. ‘But what do I know? I’ve been wrong so many times that you shouldn’t take my word for much,’ she added bitterly. ‘I would never have dreamed for a moment that Ingi would stoop as low as he did, unless it was his bitch of a mother pushing him.’

‘Alex was driving the day you last saw him?’

‘Of course. He had his keys in his hand as he left. He had a red Accord. I don’t know the number, quite an old one.’

‘What time did he leave you on Sunday morning?’

‘Around nine thirty. That’s when I left for work as well. I know he should have been at work earlier, but being on time never worried Alex much.’

Jóhann had no idea what had become of his own clothes, but he pulled on the outsized shirt and trousers that had been left folded by the couch he had slept on. With food in his belly, not too much as he knew that overeating would be as bad in his condition as starvation, he hobbled around the chalet on painful feet. It was tiny, one room lined with bunks and bookshelves, and with a small bathroom at one side and a verandah at the front.

He had no desire to go past the door, and simply watched the rain course down the window against the unbroken blackness beyond, revelling in being warm and no longer hungry. He had found his glasses, phone and wallet on the windowsill, but there was no charger to be found that would fit, so his phone remained obstinately dead, refusing to give him more than a second of life before the red warning flagged up on the screen and it died yet again.

In the chalet’s only comfortable chair, he sat hunched with his arms around his legs, reflecting that a week before he would have been frantic at not having checked his email for more than a few hours, but now he was thankful to have simply escaped the ravens; the thought of them made him shudder.

‘You’re awake, then?’

The door banged open and an elderly man and a younger woman came in, kicking off their boots by the door.

‘Don’t stand up, man,’ the woman said, as Jóhann struggled to get to his feet. ‘Helga Dís,’ she said, giving him a hand to shake and then opening the fridge to throw packets onto the table.

‘Jóhann Hjálmarsson.’

‘Bjarni,’ the man said, proffering a calloused hand. ‘You look better now than you did last night, I must say.’

‘I don’t remember. Where was I? Was I still conscious?’

‘You were in the middle of the road, spark out as far as I could see, like a bundle of rags with that old coat wrapped around your head. What the hell happened to you, then? How did you find your way up here?’

‘I’m really not sure. What day is it?’

‘Wednesday today.’

‘Five days,’ Jóhann said, suddenly animated. ‘It’s been five days since I was abducted.’

‘What’s that you say? Kidnapped?’

‘I think so, I don’t remember very well. Where am I?’

‘Geirsmörk.’

‘I’m sorry. Where’s that?’

‘Borgarnes is that way,’ Bjarni said, a hand waving towards the door.

‘I passed a place called Brekka yesterday, I think. Or maybe the day before.’

‘You were a long way up.’

‘I don’t know where I was. I’ve been walking for days. I’m not sure how many.’

‘I know,’ Helga Dís sang out. ‘We gave you a bit of a scrub yesterday and put you to bed. I’ll bet your feet are sore, aren’t they? How far have you walked?’

‘I really don’t know.’

‘It must have been a distance if you passed Brekka?’

‘I was at a place with a hill behind it shaped like a loaf of bread, with a lot of fish in drying racks next to it.’

Bjarni cracked his knuckles. ‘Sounds like you must have been at Vatnsendi. It’s not that far from here across country, but the road goes the long way round to get there. How the hell did you get all the way up there? Hardly anybody goes there from one year’s end to the next.’

‘And all that dried fish?’

‘It’s been there a few years now. I think they must have forgotten it’s there. Anyway, if that’s what you were eating, then you really are very fortunate to be alive.’

Jóhann sat in silence for a moment, digesting what he had heard as cups and plates clinked on the table.

‘You don’t have a phone here, do you?’

‘We’re out of range. Even the radio reception isn’t that good up here.’

‘Oh. Is there any chance of being able to get to town?’

‘Not now,’ Bjarni said. ‘It’s dark and you’ll be in no condition to go anywhere until the morning.’

‘Explain, Gunnhildur.’ Ívar Laxdal scowled and shook his head. ‘But sit down, you’re making me nervous pacing up and down like that.’

‘It’s a drugs operation.’

‘What is? And how have you figured this out?’

‘I haven’t figured it all out,’ Gunna said, sitting uncomfortably. ‘Just the outline of it all, Maris cracked when I asked him a few uncomfortable questions and mentioned having him sent to a Latvian prison.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s a speed factory. Maris was here to make dope. His family got into some serious debt a few years ago and the only way they could pay it off was by him agreeing to work for the same people who were doing the loan sharking. Vison is financed by this character in Latvia, Boris Vadluga, and it’s a pretty clever operation. The speed is made in Iceland, which is what Maris was doing. Alex works at the transport company . . .’

‘Green Bay Dispatch,’ Eiríkur put in.

‘Exactly, Green Bay, which was about to go bankrupt a year ago, when Boris Vadluga stepped in and bought two thirds of the company. Alex collects the fish that’s being air freighted to Europe, and he replaces the cold-gel packs in the boxes of fillets with sealed bags the same colour.’

‘But packed with amphetamines?’ Ívar Laxdal suggested.

‘Exactly. Iceland’s the perfect place to smuggle something out of. You’d expect drugs shipments from southern Europe or the Middle East. But Iceland? So the fish boxes hardly get looked at and Maris said they’ve been careful to ship their gear only with every third or fourth consignment – so far as they haven’t been producing big amounts.’

‘But they’re planning to?’ Eiríkur said excitedly. ‘Vison? The fur farm?’

‘That seems clear enough. The place even has a lab of its own for quality control. They were producing this stuff in the basement at Kópavogsbakki fifty, but it was too small and too close to people who would notice the smell sooner or later. So that was packed up, the place was painted from top to bottom, and they moved out, leaving it pristine.’

‘Except that the cleaners found that someone had broken in and stumbled across more than he’d bargained for, you mean?’

‘That’s it.’

‘So who killed Vilhelm Thorleifsson? Where’s the missing dentist? Who murdered Alex? Fair enough, you’ve found a dope factory. Let’s hand that over to narcotics to deal with and concentrate on the two dead people and three missing ones, shall we?’

‘It all ties in together. If the drug squad bust them now then everything’s wide open and my guess is that we’ll never find the killers. In any case, there’s nothing to bust. The dope lab at Kópavogsbakki is gone. We might find a few traces if we strip the paint off the floor, but I wouldn’t bank on it, and the new lab they’re setting up under cover of the mink farm isn’t a speed factory yet.’

Ívar Laxdal rubbed his chin. The rhythmic rasp of the back of his hand against his chin was like sandpaper on a wooden floor. Gunna thought he looked deeply tired for the first time since they had started to work together almost three years ago.

‘All right, Gunnhildur. How do you want to do this?’

‘I don’t know,’ she fretted. ‘The last definite sighting we have of Alex was leaving his girlfriend’s house fairly early on Sunday morning. After that we have nothing to go on, and my best guess is that he was dumped in those foundations on Sunday night, as the construction team was there to start work early on Monday morning.’

‘Could he have been put in there on Monday?’ Ívar Laxdal asked.

‘No. They put a layer of concrete at the bottom of the trench on Monday.’

‘Without noticing the body at the bottom?’

‘It was dark at that time of the morning and I don’t suppose they make a habit of checking for corpses before they throw concrete down there. I suppose it wouldn’t have been that hard to hide the body with a layer of earth or gravel. No, Alex was murdered on Sunday, and he must have been disposed of by someone who knew the trench was going to be filled in the next morning.’

‘Sunna María?’

‘You see her with a cosh and a black mask? She wouldn’t do anything that might risk laddering her tights. I don’t get the feeling she’s exactly giving us bullshit, but she’s evading a lot of questions and there’s a whole load of stuff that she’s not telling us. I want to know why Alex? He was fencing stolen goods, almost as a hobby it seems, and he was a cog in the delivery part of the speed business. So why kill him?’

Gunna was out of her chair, smacking one fist into the palm of the other hand. Ívar Laxdal watched her pace to and fro while Eiríkur stood by the door.

‘Alex had made a mistake, maybe?’ Ívar Laxdal suggested.

‘More than likely, but what? And how do Sunna María and Jóhann slot into the puzzle? Why has Jóhann vanished? Is he dead as well? Who’s next on the list? What about this other joker who seems to have vanished off the face of the earth and who the combined police forces of northern Europe can’t find?’

‘Elvar?’

‘That’s him. Has someone already bumped him off, or is he the next body we’re going to stumble across?’

‘You think there’s more to come?’

‘Don’t you?’ Gunna shot back. ‘What’s going on here? Is this a turf war between Boris Vadluga’s Latvian operation and some local criminals? That doesn’t strike me as likely as we’d have heard the rumblings for a while by now. Or are we watching some old scores being settled?’ She stopped and her hands dropped to her sides. ‘On top of that we have Sævaldur’s burglar in another interview room, and I know perfectly well he’s involved in all this, but he’s keeping his trap firmly shut. Any ideas? Because I’m running out.’

‘Arrest everyone connected to this and bring them in?’ Eiríkur suggested.

‘We hold them for twenty-four hours and then let them go again? No, we may as well just tell them to hide every scrap of evidence and shred their bank statements right away. Ívar, you tell me. It’s your investigation,’ Gunna said. ‘Do you want to keep them under surveillance until the dope factory is up and running and then let narcotics grab the whole lot of them red-handed, assuming we haven’t scared them off already? That means a pat on the back all round. Or do you want to push these people hard right now and hope it leads to the killers before they kill someone else?’

Steini yawned and laid aside his book.

‘Any good?’ Gunna asked, looking up from the television.

‘Last year’s Arnaldur. Not bad at all.’

‘I thought you’d already read that one?’

‘That was the one before. This one’s better. You’ve had a tough day?’

‘Not the easiest day’s work I’ve ever had, but I’ll manage,’ Gunna said, lifting her feet onto the edge of the table and stretching. ‘How about you? A boiler suit in the washing basket tells me you’ve been doing something dirty.’

‘The perils of living with a detective. There’s not much gets past you, is there, Sherlock? We got the engine on the
Ísborg
running this afternoon, so Svenni’s a happy man now.’

‘How long has it taken? Three months?’

‘That’s what comes of having an antique engine. He had to get the spares from a scrap yard in Denmark.’

He hauled himself to his feet and padded to the kitchen, returning with two bowls.

‘As you’ve been busy, I thought I’d do you a little treat.’

‘You wouldn’t be after something, would you, young man?’

Steini laughed. ‘Young. I like that. No, pure altruism on my part.’

‘Just the goodness of your heart? What a man,’ Gunna said, taking the bowl and a spoonful of the fruit salad with a generous lump of ice cream on it. ‘Not good for the waistline, though.’

‘We can’t have you wasting away, can we?’

‘There’s no danger of that,’ Gunna grunted, dropping her feet to the floor and sitting up straight. ‘Steini, you picked up Gísli the other day. What did he have to say?’

‘He’s on your mind, isn’t he?’

‘Rather more than the case I’m working on,’ Gunna admitted. ‘I’m his mother. I can’t not be worried about him.’

‘You think I hadn’t noticed?’

‘Touché, Sherlock.’

Steini nibbled at a wafer. ‘He’s worried, as you can imagine. He did ask about you and I told him the truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘Like you said, you’re his mum. You can be as pissed off as hell with him, but you’re still his mum.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s about time you two made peace, don’t you think? I know you’re as hard-headed as each other, but it’s affecting everyone else. Laufey’s walking on eggshells because she doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and upset you, Gísli’s lost his way because you’re hardly speaking to him and Drífa’s nervous around you as well.’

‘And you?’

‘You’re not as much fun as you used to be, but I’m older and a little more patient than the youngsters, so I can recognize that we’ll have the Gunna we know and love back soon enough.’

‘Ever the optimist. Keep up the treats and she’ll be back before you know it, especially if we catch this devious bastard before too long.’

‘Difficult case?’

‘Horrible. Some very unpleasant people, as well as mister über-chauvinist chief inspector Sævaldur Bogason, who is in the running to be the least pleasant of the lot. I’ll call Gísli in the morning and see if we can meet in town for a change, away from the various girlfriends and offspring.’