Chilled To The Bone Part 23

'You're insane. I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Yeah. That's not what your detective said.'

Agnes picked up the joint and relit it from a candle without taking her eyes off him. She took a long pull at it and moved across the room, keeping the white sofa between them.

'What detective? Joel Ingi, I really don't know what the h.e.l.l's got into you,' she said in an ice-cold tone. 'But I think I'm the one who's owed an explanation.'

She lifted a hand to her red cheek. Joel Ingi's stomach lurched and he felt sick seeing the outline of his hand etched in red on her cheek.

She still had her phone. They hadn't taken anything off her, not that there was a great deal to take as she'd been careful to leave anything important in the car. She adjusted the mirror and looked at the damage to her face. She would have a black eye in the morning, she thought, though she was more worried about the tooth that she sucked at and rolled her tongue around, wondering if it was likely to come out.

The nondescript Renault that had once been dark blue rolled out into the road. It was time to go home. Checking the mirrors carefully for anyone who might be following her, and taking a couple of false turns that would take even a vigilant pursuer by surprise, she drove through the city, wondering if she really ought to tell Joel Ingi's wife where he had been, and consoling herself with the thought of the domestic strife she had probably caused.

The weeks of tailing Joel Ingi Bragason had finally been worth it. The confirmation of seeing him white with anger in the background while that oaf Hinrik and the bald barman went through their tough guy act with a woman who didn't even come up to their shoulders was something that would be worth pa.s.sing on.

Gunna's phone buzzed; it was back to the usual ringtone after she had managed to persuade Laufey to remove the sound of bubbling water.

'Gunnhildur.'

'Hae. Siggi. Busy?'

Gunna laughed. 'Next question, please.'

'That phone you wanted tracked, with the number ending 017. You remember?'

'Yes. The unregistered number. Any sign of it?'

'Half an hour ago it was switched on for a couple of minutes and there was a ninety-second phone call. Then it was switched off again.'

'Right. Where? And do you have the number called?'

She could hear the clicking of a keyboard on the other end of the phone as Siggi in the communications division went through his records.

'Sure it's him?'

'Yup. No doubt about it.'

'OK, and the number called? Another unregistered mobile, I expect?'

Siggi laughed. 'Just to make your day, it's a landline and it's in the phone book, and there's a mobile number registered to the same user. Ready with a pencil are you?'

Gunna wrote down the number quickly. 'Thanks, Siggi. Can you keep an eye on this one for me? Call my mobile as soon as you have anything.'

'Yep. Will do,' Siggi agreed and rang off.

Eirikur found her a few minutes later with a pencil between her lips and a frown on her face as she hunched over her computer.

'Chief?'

'Yeah?'

Eirikur said nothing, knowing that the expression on Gunna's face meant she wasn't listening; he waited patiently.

'Where's Helgi?' she asked after a few minutes. 'Been sitting there long, have you?'

'An old p.i.s.shead called Egill Skafta down at Grandi, lives in the hostel there and is supposed to be drying out, reckons he saw a man walking quickly just after that car burst into flames.'

'OK, any more details?'

'I asked him if he was sure it wasn't just kids larking about, and he looked at me like I had two heads, told me that kids these days stay indoors and shoot each other on computer games but don't get up to stunts like that any more. He's something of a character and he's no fool when he's sober, anyway. He reckons that car went up like a Roman candle, so it was more than just someone setting light to a bundle of rags.'

Gunna nodded. 'Promising. Go on.'

'I bought him a coffee and a sandwich, and he opened up a bit more. Valdi reckons he saw a thickset man with a beard walking away quickly. He couldn't swear this guy had anything to do with the car, but it's a coincidence.'

'Good. Excellent. I have a candidate in mind.'

'You do?' Eirikur asked, startled.

'I do. I have a few things to do for ten minutes, so I'd like you to check with forensics and see if there's anything on that car. If it's Magnus Sigmarsson's car, I want to know, and preferably yesterday. Think you can manage that?'

'Yeah, of course.'

Gunna rummaged through a tray of papers on her desk and handed Eirikur a file.

'Once you've done that, get yourself back down to Grandi, find Egill Skafta, and show him that picture.'

Eirikur looked at the photo of Hrobjartur Bjarnthorsson, looking into the lens as if the man behind the camera were beneath contempt. 'You reckon this is him?'

'As usual, Eirikur, I have no idea. But if it's not him, then we need to start looking for someone else.'

'An old friend of the police?'

'You can read it later. But he's more than an old friend of ours. He's one of us, sort of.'

'How come?' Eirikur asked, perplexed.

'He was almost a police officer once, back in the nineties. What went wrong, I don't know, but he completed police college and then decided he didn't want to join the force after all.'

'The phone's registered to Petur Steinar Albertsson,' Gunna told ivar Laxdal without any explanation.

'Something to do with Magnus Sigmarsson, is it?' he asked in a grumpier tone than usual. 'I have a press conference in half an hour and by rights you should be there as well, Gunnhildur. I've already had calls from two newspapers and TV today asking if there's any progress, and I'm going to have to give them something.'

'I'm concerned about this character who's been shadowing everything we do.'

'You have a stalker?'

'Someone who has an interest in Johannes Karlsson's death pumped some of the Gullfoss Hotel staff for information.'

ivar Laxdal's single thick eyebrow that stretched across his face thickened as he frowned. 'Why didn't you tell me this before?'

'I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure, but it's becoming clearer.'

'Johannes Karlsson and Magnus Sigmarsson's deaths are linked, you reckon?'

'There are too many links for comfort,' Gunna said thoughtfully. 'I didn't think so at first, and I was sure that his girlfriend's father had a hand in it. But now I'm confident we can rule him out. He didn't like the lad, but not enough to want to kill him.'

'So what the h.e.l.l's going on?'

'My guess is that someone else has an interest in Johannes Karlsson's death, and in finding the woman who was with him, which is exactly what we've been trying to do. I have a suspicion who this person might be, and it's the first link to someone else who might be involved.'

'What do you want to do?' ivar Laxdal asked, looking at his watch.

'Ten minutes ago I was tempted to go charging in and haul this Petur Steinar Albertsson into the station. But now I'm more inclined to sit back and watch.'

ivar Laxdal nodded. 'Do that. Find out every last bit of information you can about the man first. But don't hang around. There's pressure from all sides to get this wrapped up.'

'Where from, exactly?'

'The ministry; the commissioner; the press; Johannes Karlsson's family, who are discreetly pressuring the minister through their MP. You name it,' he grumbled. 'I'll see you in the morning, but you can see me on TV this evening. It'll probably be the fourth or fifth item, right after the city not being able to afford any more snow clearance until the year after next.'

There was a spring in Baddo's step. He parked Maria's car carefully, as it would never do to have to admit that he'd scratched his sister's Ford's paintwork, even if it was an old wreck. He had celebrated his conversation with Hekla, or Sonja as he still thought of her, even though she was now a flesh-and-blood person, with a visit to Kronan on the way back to town, where he'd bought some pork that he was already looking forward to hearing sizzle under the grill. A bottle of wine would complete the evening, but he'd keep that for Ebba later.

He toyed with the idea of having a word with Hinrik to try and find out a little more about why someone found Sonja so interesting, and what it was that was so valuable, but he decided that a night owl like Hinrik needed to be approached first thing in the morning when his senses were dulled with vodka and homegrown gra.s.s, not with evening drawing on and his mind still relatively fresh.

Baddo locked the car, put the key in his pocket, zipped it up and hefted a carrier bag in each hand as he pushed open the door of the apartment block. Once he'd made a bit of money, he'd get Maria somewhere better, he thought, hearing the outside door click shut. He stiffened as a second click immediately alerted his senses.

'Hae, Baddo. Long time since you've been seen around here.'

He spun round to confront the soft voice, and as he looked into the shadow of the stairwell, a stocky figure emerged and a hand grabbed his collar from behind just as a swinging kick swept his feet from under him, sending him sprawled face down. The wine bottle smashed on the concrete floor and its aroma flooded the lobby as it soaked into the dust.

Baddo thrashed furiously as a knee was planted securely on his neck and one arm was wrenched high up his back.

'Stay still, Baddo. No point in arguing, is there?'

He thought fast. These weren't cops. The police would have cuffed him by now. He lay still for a second and could hear someone leaning over him. There had to be two of them. Or maybe three? With his cheek crushed to the floor in a rivulet of wasted Chilean merlot, it was hard to tell.

With a feeling of dread, he recognized again the metallic click that had alerted him to start with. It took him by surprise that the cut as it sliced into his cheek wasn't painful. It was only once the carpet knife's blade was clicked home again that he felt it begin to sting as drops of blood dribbled onto his lips and the floor, mingling with the rich red wine. He blinked sweat out of his eyes and screwed his head round as far as he could to get a sight of his attackers, but he saw only faded combats and black boots.

'This is payback from an old friend, Baddo,' the soft voice hissed in his ear, cut short as a burst of cold air told him the outside door had opened. He could feel the pressure of the knee in his back relax as its owner was distracted. Baddo twisted with all his strength, taking the man by surprise as he rolled and kicked out. He took in the shocked face of the elderly woman from the flat below Maria's in the doorway, staring at the tableau in front of her.

's.h.i.t-' the soft voice snarled, momentarily distracted and giving Baddo an opportunity to scrabble for the remains of the wine bottle, pulling himself onto all fours and catching hold of it by the neck just as the smaller of the two men barged the woman to one side and was gone. Baddo was fast enough to swipe with the smashed bottle at the heavier, slower man as he followed his friend out and was rewarded with a howl of pain and surprise as the gla.s.s slashed deep into fabric, skin and muscle.

Baddo leaned on the door frame and watched as a blue 4 4 that had seen better days skidded to a halt and the two men tumbled into it, one trailing drops of blood into the snow behind him, the leg of his trousers already soaked with blood, his face alight with agony and alarm.

The elderly woman picked up her shopping bags.

'Are you all right?' he asked once he'd managed to steady his breathing as his legs turned to jelly beneath him.

'I'll be all right, young man,' she replied in a voice of schoolteacher severity, 'but you aren't.'

Gunna yawned and looked at her watch, startled to find that it was long past the end of her shift. Eirikur and Helgi were already long gone, both of them only too happy to escape the office. Gunna cursed herself for being tempted to do just a few things that had since eaten up almost two hours of her own time.

Nevertheless, a stack of routine paperwork had been dealt with, either signed and sent on or returned, or else consigned ruthlessly to the bin overflowing behind her. On top of that, she had already identified the occupant of the house at Kjalarnes that the phone number belonged to. A quick call to the communications division confirmed that the mobile phone belonging to the man she knew of only as Jon had remained stubbornly silent. It had been switched off following that single call earlier in the day and it had stayed that way.

Gunna tapped her teeth with a pencil and wondered how Haraldur Samuelsson and the mysterious Jon were connected to Petur Steinar Albertsson. A search through police records showed that Petur Steinar had a criminal record with convictions for vehicle theft, drunkenness in a public place and a little housebreaking. Gunna looked at the dates and frowned to herself. His record had been clean for more than twenty years, which meant that she was most likely looking at a series of youthful indiscretions.

Moving to the vehicle register, she flashed up Petur Steinar Albertsson's driving licence and saw a picture taken ten years earlier of a thickset man with heavy five o'clock shadow and laughing eyes. Gunna moved to the national registry and found Petur Steinar Albertsson, Hekla Elin Hauksdottir, a teenage girl and two toddlers with identical dates of birth. She compared dates of birth and decided that the teenager could, at a stretch, be Hekla Elin's child, but that it was more likely that Sif Petursdottir was the result of an earlier relationship on Petur's part.

Looking back at the police records, she saw that Hekla Elin had a drugs conviction for a minimal amount of cannabis more than a dozen years ago; Gunna calculated that the woman would have been nineteen at the time. There was nothing since, other than a solitary speeding ticket and a fine paid promptly. Neither he nor his wife had fallen foul of the law for a long time and there was no reason to expect that either of them had done anything wrong. Smiling humourlessly to herself, Gunna reflected that one of her colleagues in particular would have observed in his usual foghorn voice that once a criminal, always a criminal, and would advise her to drop down on the family in Kjalarnes from a great height and with maximum manpower.

Not that I'm inclined to take Saevaldur Bogason's advice on anything, she said to herself softly. Out of curiosity she went to the vehicle register and typed in Hekla Elin's name. The computer hesitated and a photograph of Hekla Elin finally appeared. Gunna frowned at the sight of the young woman, whose picture had presumably been taken when she was around twenty. A distinctive long face and toothy smile looked back at her; Gunna quickly rooted among the papers on her desk, lifting up the CCTV photo of blonde Sonja next to her monitor.

The face had filled out in Hekla's thirties, with cheekbones that gave it character, and the dark brown hair and fringe that framed her youthful face had to be taken out of the equation and replaced by the blonde version, but the line of the jaw and that distinctive nose with its slight kink were convincingly similar.

So there you are, Sonja, Gunna breathed to herself, sorry that she was alone in the office, with neither Eirikur nor Helgi there to share her discovery. She wrote down the phone numbers that she'd extracted easily enough from the online phone book, and made notes of the registration numbers of the red Toyota and the antique Land Rover, both of which were registered to the address, before shutting down her computer.

It can wait until tomorrow, she decided, wondering whether or not it would be worth a quick drive out to Kjalarnes to check out the neighbourhood, but immediately telling herself not to be stupid. Half an hour or more to Kjalarnes, the same back, plus the hour's drive home to Hvalvik would see her arriving home close to ten o'clock, and as Steini had promised to be back from wherever he was working at a reasonable hour, it would be worth being home on time at least once in a week.

She pulled on her coat and zipped it up in the lift, preparing herself for the cold shock of the car park after the warmth of the office, and wondering if she would find time to read the records she had printed out.

Shoving open the door, she scrolled through the numbers on her mobile and dialled, listening to the phone on the other end buzz once.

'Comms.'

'Hae, Siggi. Gunnhildur.'

'I know. I recognized the number. We are supposed to be the communications wizards, after all.'

'Apologies for underestimating you, in that case. Listen, do me a favour, would you?'

'I never say yes without knowing what it is first,' Siggi laughed.

'It's all right. It's not your body I'm after.'

'That's a relief.'

'You cheeky young pup. Just keep an eye out for that number, would you?'

'Yeah. Will do. I've been monitoring it, but it still hasn't been switched on.'

'OK, thanks. Just send me a text it if it pops up, can you? All quiet, otherwise?'

She heard Siggi yawn on the other end of the phone as she opened the car door.

'Yeah. Not a lot happening on a night like this. There was a fight of some kind an hour ago and the victim's in casualty having his face sewn up. Quite nasty, I'm told.'

'Not something for me to deal with? Not tonight, anyway?'