Chilled To The Bone Part 12

At the eight-kilometre mark, he realized that if he had cycled to the gym he would have covered the same distance but through the early evening traffic instead of under pounding heavy metal. He decided to do at least another two kilometres before he stopped, not least because a slender young woman had just mounted the machine in front of him and the view of her muscular b.u.t.tocks immediately inspired him to complete the extra distance.

Mar appeared as he approached eleven kilometres, a towel round his neck to soak up some of the sweat a session on the rowing machine had produced. He nodded at the girl on the exercise bike in front and winked. Joel Ingi grinned back. Mar made a drinking motion and he nodded back, holding up two fingers to signify two more minutes.

'Didn't expect to see you here,' Mar said, handing him a bottle of chilled water.

'Ach. I had to get out of the house, y'know. Agnes is . . .' he shook his head.

'Agnes is what? She's OK, isn't she?'

'Yeah, she's fine. She's just being a bit hard work at the moment.'

'As long as she's OK,' Mar said doubtfully.

'I said, she's fine, all right?' Joel Ingi snapped, and immediately regretted the sharp tone. Mar had known Agnes since childhood and had introduced them. But still Joel Ingi sometimes resented her affection for Mar and that the friendship pre-dated his and Agnes's relationship, as well as the nagging curiosity that sometimes irked him. He wanted to know if Mar's and Agnes's friendship had been anything more than that, but had never dared ask.

'Does she know?'

'About what?'

'About the computer you mislaid?'

As far as Mar knew, the missing laptop in its bag had been lifted from Joel Ingi's shoulder by a pair of teenagers, one on a mountain bike, who pedalled along Posthussstraeti into the evening darkness, while his friend had been the distraction. Only Hinrik knew what had really happened, and he knew only a fraction of the truth, just enough to allow him to get CCTV stills from the hotel. Joel Ingi didn't even want to ask how he had obtained the pictures so rapidly, guessing that someone on the hotel staff had either been bribed or intimidated into extracting them from the surveillance system.

His mind elsewhere, Joel Ingi realized that Mar was speaking.

'Look, can't you take some time off? You're wandering around in a daze. AEgir's noticed you've gone off the boil and he'll rip you up if you put a foot wrong.'

'I'm all right. I can hold my own against that overblown windbag.'

'You think so? The minister hangs on his every word. He can blight your career like that,' he said, snapping his fingers to ill.u.s.trate the point. 'You're like me. No friends or relatives upstairs to fight our corner. Be careful.'

Joel Ingi scowled and said nothing, sipping from his bottle of water and watching as a gaggle of toned teenagers strolled through the chairs scattered around the gym's health bar.

'So what are you doing about this?'

'Don't worry. I have someone looking after it.'

'Police?'

'h.e.l.l, no! A friend. Well, a friend of a friend.'

Mar's eyes narrowed. 'Explain, will you?'

'Look, it's all in hand,' Joel Ingi told him, breathing deeply to keep his temper intact. 'It's a friend of someone my brother knows.'

'Your brother's not the most reliable character, is he?'

'Junkies aren't normally the most reliable people.'

'So is his friend trustworthy?'

'I don't suppose so. But there's money involved and he's being paid to do a job.'

'I'm not going to ask who this person is, but wouldn't you be safer going to the police?'

'Yeah. The police already know, and I'll bet you anything they've filed it away and forgotten about it. If I thought they'd actually do something, I wouldn't have had to find someone else to do the job. Anyway, I don't know the guy who's doing this, and it's better if I don't.'

He almost wanted to cry when he saw how much his stash of foreign currency had been depleted. Everyone had thought he was mad at the time, selling his shareholdings just as everything had been going up, and leaving the financial sector for a boring job with a bunch of grey-faced old men at the ministry. But as the currency tumbled and the banks tottered, Joel Ingi quietly congratulated himself on his astuteness. Another six months and things would have been very different, painfully different, he reflected.

But the stacks of euro notes that he'd originally stored in a bank deposit box, having decided that a foreign exchange account wasn't the safest option, were now looking decidedly thinner, and the equivalent of another million kronur in Hinrik's pocket was painful.

This time they met at a bookshop; they were practically the only people there who weren't sitting behind laptops and tablets over their designer coffees. Hinrik sipped his coffee with distaste. A proper drink would have been preferable at this late hour of the afternoon. Joel Ingi had a tall gla.s.s in front of him that Hinrik eyed with suspicion.

'What's that, then?'

'Latte. Try one.'

Hinrik wrinkled his nose. 'Nah. Not for me. Got it?'

'Half,' he said and watched Hinrik's eyes narrow in suspicion. 'No results yet. Half now, and half when there's a name and address.' Joel Ingi pushed a padded envelope across the table between the cups. 'Cash. In euros,' he added.

The sour expression across Hinrik's face lingered and then dissolved into a smile devoid of any warmth. 'In that case, as you're a valued customer, leave it with me.' The smile vanished as if it had been turned off at the mains. 'But we're a little light on information and you haven't given us a lot to go on. What's going on here? You're complaining that this isn't moving fast enough, but you won't tell me what I need to get the job done fast.'

Joel Ingi stared back at him.

'I mean,' Hinrik continued, almost disconcerted by Joel Ingi's dispa.s.sionate look, which told him nothing about what was happening behind those grey eyes. 'You want this done quick, so give me an idea what it's all about,' he said, lowering his voice. 'You know I offer a comprehensive service, don't you? No need to get your own hands dirty.'

'I'll think about it.'

Hekla was exhausted. The day since she had returned from the pool so abruptly had dragged by and she had been unable to settle into doing anything. She sat at the kitchen table, Alda happily colouring in a picture and Alli spellbound by the TV as Hekla flipped through the newspapers she had picked up at the garage that morning. Without reading anything much, she took in the headlines and checked that her own advertis.e.m.e.nt was still among the cla.s.sifieds, not that she'd be renewing it. The morning's scare had told her that line of business had to come to an end, and immediately.

She listened to the radio, punctuated by the whine of Petur's lathe in the garage, where he sat propped on a stool as he carefully turned out dishes, cups and ornaments from the lengths of wood stacked on the bench next to him. The whine stopped but she only noticed as the click of Petur's crutch told her he was on the way along the short corridor; she wondered how long he would be able to get in and out without help.

'There's coffee in the machine,' she said without turning round as she heard the clicks that accompanied the shuffle of every step Petur took. He stooped to kiss the back of her neck, wincing as he straightened up again and smiling as he watched Alda concentrating on the colouring book.

Hekla turned a page in the paper and felt a chill run through her as coffee gurgled into Petur's mug. He turned to her. 'D'you want some as well?'

She felt unable to speak, transfixed by the picture in front of her.

'Are you all right, love?' Petur asked, bemused. 'Something interesting?'

Hekla shook herself back to reality. 'No, fine. Just someone I thought I knew, but it's not. Yes, please,' she added, pushing a mug to the edge of the table.

Mug in hand, Petur looked at her fondly and made for the door again. 'I'll do another hour and then call it a day,' he said.

'I'll come and get you. Don't overdo it. You know what the doc said.'

Petur snorted. 'The doc. What the h.e.l.l does he know?' he demanded and was gone, with his step-shuffle-click signalling his progress down the hall and back out to the garage, leaving Hekla to stare aghast at the photograph of a young and dynamic Johannes Karlsson staring back at her from the midst of his full-page obituary.

With Helgi dispatched to Kopavogur to speak to the tearful girlfriend who had reported Magnus Johann Sigmarsson's disappearance, Gunna parked outside the Harbourside Hotel for the second time that day. The building was an imposing one, giving the upper floors some fine views over the bay, and Esja beyond it, with the stiff wind whipping up white horses on Faxa Bay in what remained of the daylight. Not that Reykjavik's favourite mountain could be seen in the gloom, Gunna reflected as she slammed the leased car's door and made for the entrance. Darkness fell early at this time of year and January was a bleak month, with New Year over and people nervously awaiting the first post-Christmas credit card bill of the year.

'Looking for Simon,' Gunna growled at the receptionist whose company-issue welcoming smile faded away quickly.

'I'm not sure if he's here right now,' she said. 'I can call his office if you like?'

'You do that. Call his office and if he's not there, call his mobile,' Gunna told the young woman. 'And if that doesn't work you can give me his address and I'll go and hammer on his front door.'

She walked around the lobby inspecting the vast canvases hung on the high walls of what had once been a hardware store and guessed that to get walls that high, the ceiling must have been raised by a metre or more when the place had been rebuilt.

Simon arrived looking fl.u.s.tered. Bags had appeared under his eyes since they had spoken that morning and he looked a dozen years older without the flirtatious twinkle in his eyes.

'Gunnhildur,' he greeted her with undeniable dismay. 'What can I do for you? Any developments?'

'You remember this place when the old hardware store was here, don't you?'

'I do,' he replied, puzzled.

'When it was turned into a hotel, how did they manage to make the ceiling higher down here? Or is it my imagination?'

'Er . . . the whole place was gutted, floors and everything came out. The only thing that's original are the outside walls. They more or less built a new building inside the sh.e.l.l of the old one.'

'Right. I thought so. I was wondering if my memory was playing tricks. Magnus Sigmarsson should have been here for a shift yesterday and didn't show up. Has he been seen since?'

Taken aback by the suddenness of Gunna's change of direction, Simon's face fell.

'I . . . er . . . I don't know. I need to check the rotas.'

'Good. Let's do that.'

Simon practically elbowed the receptionist from her position behind the desk and tapped at the computer. He sighed. 'Twelve to eight. He should have been on a twelve to eight shift yesterday, today and again tomorrow. He's skating on thin ice now. I could easily have him dismissed for this.'

Gunna looked over the computer screen, which was covered in blocks of colour.

'That's him there, is it?' she asked, pointing to a dark green block that stretched across four days of timetable.

'That's him. Or should have been. One of the restaurant supervisors covered his shift yesterday, but I don't know what today's arrangement is.'

'I have a feeling you might want to get his shift covered tomorrow as well. Something tells me he won't be in.'

Simon looked shocked. 'Has something happened to him?'

'You tell me. Magnus was reported missing by his girlfriend. She hasn't seen him for twenty-four hours. He hasn't shown up for work and his car's missing. Does he have a history of being unreliable?'

'He's often late, but he's never not turned up.'

Gunna heard her phone buzz and saw Helgi's number flashing. 'Yes?'

'Hae, chief. The drippy girlfriend saw him the night before last. He didn't turn up as expected yesterday. Phone's dead, and his car's gone.'

'All right, Helgi, thanks. Can you get onto comms and see if his name's on any flights?'

'Already done it. He's not on any pa.s.senger lists, and his pa.s.sport's expired anyway.'

'You'd best circulate the registration and if it's on the move traffic will pick it up soon enough.'

'Ahead of you on that one as well,' Helgi said with satisfaction. 'Next step, we have a look at his apartment?'

Gunna walked across the lobby of the hotel with her phone to her ear to give Simon and the receptionist less of an opportunity to eavesdrop. 'I reckon so. Can you arrange for the door to be opened? I'll meet you there in an hour.'

'Will do, chief. See you there,' Helgi said cheerfully and rang off.

'That was about Magnus, wasn't it?' Simon asked immediately. 'He's all right, surely?'

'No idea, but I would hope so. Now, carrying on from our conversation this morning,' Gunna said grimly. 'It's time you were a little more forthcoming, otherwise I'm going to be down here with a team at eight tomorrow morning to interview every single member of staff from the globetrotting managing director to the unemployed immigrant who washes dishes for cash. Do we understand each other?'

The landlord was an elderly man who wheezed up the stairs and had to stop for a breather on the landing.

'Had to move out, you see, can't cope with stairs any more,' he explained. 'Got a place with a lift now. So much easier,' he prattled as he selected a key from a bunch. 'This is on the level, isn't it?'

'How do you mean?' Helgi asked, smothering a yawn.

'Could get into all sorts of trouble, couldn't I? I know it's my flat, but it's let and I can't just go waltzing in there when I feel like it. Tenants have rights these days,' he said sadly.

'Open it, will you? If you get a complaint I think we can back you up.'

The landlord turned the key in the lock and Helgi put a hand on his arm as the door swung open.

'I think you'd best stay here. There's no knowing what we're going to find,' he said, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves.

The smell of long unwashed laundry was overpowering and Gunna wrinkled her nose as the aroma brought Gisli to mind; suddenly all the thoughts that had been running through her mind in the evenings came flooding back. She briskly banished them, forcing herself to concentrate on the job in hand as they went through the flat but found no clue as to Magnus Sigmarsson's whereabouts.

'At least the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's not drowned in the bath,' Helgi said with relief.

'No, but someone's had quite a time in here,' Gunna said, lifting a sodden towel from the floor to reveal another below it, stained red with blood. 'Water's been everywhere.'

'And somebody cut a finger over there,' Helgi said, squinting at the rim of the bathtub against the wall where a smear of blood could be seen against the pale-blue plastic and a handprint in blood could be seen on the wall by the door. 'We'd best get that checked, I suppose.'

'Arrange it with forensics, would you?' Gunna said absently, thinking back to the words of Magnus's disgusted neighbour. 'I wonder. Helgi, what does this look like to you? Water and blood everywhere and towels all over the floor?'

'No idea, chief. But it seems weird. The rest of the flat's much as you'd expect. It's a bit grubby and he hasn't done his laundry as often as he might have. I get the feeling something energetic has been going on in here.'

'And I'm wondering just what. Would you like to give Magnus's drippy girlfriend a call and ask if they made a habit of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g in the bath? Because if not, then what went on here may not have been that friendly.'

Haraldur jumped when his phone rang and Svava looked at him oddly over the dinner table as he answered it with a quaver in his voice.

'Haraldur.'

'Good evening. Haraldur Samuelsson?'