Chilled To The Bone Part 27

Sif turned back. 'Easy. I cracked the pa.s.sword.'

'OK, fine. Well, I want it back now, thanks.'

'You're not using it and I don't know where I put it.'

'It's on your desk. And the case is on the floor.'

'The case, yeah. But the laptop's at Hilmar's house. It's been there for weeks.'

Hekla called on new reserves of patience. 'But it's in there on your desk.'

'That's an old one that belongs to college. What's the problem? It's not as if you were using it,' Sif retorted. 'Or even if you had a pa.s.sword for it.'

Baddo parked the Hyundai out of sight behind a van that had been on blocks for long enough to let a summer's worth of grime acc.u.mulate on it while snow surrounded it in shallow drifts. He preferred to deal with people in comfortable blocks of flats, not in these old houses with cubbyhole apartments and creaky doors that could take a man by surprise.

He switched on his phone and keyed in a number, leaning against the abandoned van, eyes on the house as he listened to the ringing tone.

'Baddo,' Hinrik wheezed, and he could hear the click of his lighter. 'Got something for me?'

'Could be,' he said. Hinrik was no early bird and he hadn't expected him to be awake. 'Let's say we need to do a little negotiation.'

'How come? Negotiate over what? I gave you a job and a good rate. Either you've come up with the goods or you haven't.'

Baddo walked quickly towards the house, looking it over as he spoke. 'I had a rough time last night. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?'

'What the f.u.c.k? Are you playing games, or what?'

Baddo nodded to himself. Thirty-six hours with practically no sleep meant that he was wide awake on energy alone, but he knew that at some point exhaustion would set in, and quickly. He eased open the back door of the old house and stepped inside, letting the hood of the parka drop back.

'Where the h.e.l.l are you, Baddo?' Hinrik demanded. 'And why are you talking in that stupid voice?'

'Never you mind. It's not as if I'm fit to be seen at the moment.'

'What's this c.r.a.p you're talking?'

Baddo heard Hinrik yawn as he spoke and stood still, listening to the creak of old floorboards above his head. He smiled as much as the numbness down one side of his face would allow. He put a cautious foot on the bottom step of the narrow stairs and gingerly made his way up, keeping close to the wall to avoid making the steps creak as loudly as the floorboards above his head.

'All right, you mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d. What's this negotiation bulls.h.i.t you're talking about?'

Another step, around the corner and the door to Hinrik's flat was in sight. 'Somebody tried to tell me to keep my nose clean last night, and I don't take kindly to a lesson in manners from deadbeats like those two f.u.c.kwits.'

'I'm telling you, man. I don't know what you're talking about. I want you to do the job I gave you.'

Baddo heard shuffling feet. Standing at Hinrik's door, he peered through the single remaining frosted gla.s.s panel next to a broken one that had been badly repaired with tape and cardboard.

'I'm not happy, Hinrik,' he growled, his jaw aching now that the painkillers were starting to wear off.

'What the f.u.c.k happened to you, man?' Hinrik asked and Baddo could hear him yawn just as he could see an indistinct figure shuffle across the hallway and disappear into another room. Hinrik's breathing suddenly magnified in his ear, together with the sound of running water. Baddo pushed though the cardboard taped over the broken window pane, thankful that he wasn't going to have to kick the door down, and eased a hand through it to unclick the catch. He padded down the hall, his phone now in his pocket, and turned to stand behind Hinrik as he urinated carelessly in fits and starts in the flat's tiny toilet.

'You still there, Baddo?' he heard Hinrik say into the phone jammed under his chin.

'Right here,' Baddo snarled, placing a foot in the small of Hinrik's back and pushing, sending him staggering forward, the yellow stream spattering his feet as he fell and one hand desperately reaching out to stop his face hitting the cistern, while his phone fell with a clatter and a splash into the toilet bowl.

'What . . . ?' He roared. 'Get off me, you mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

'I'm mad, right enough,' Baddo hissed, one hand in Hinrik's lank hair and the other wrenching his arm up high behind his back. 'Who were those two dips.h.i.ts who tried to turn me over last night?'

Hinrik twisted, forcing his head around. As he saw the livid cut and st.i.tches on Baddo's face, his eyes bulged. 's.h.i.t, man. Who did that to you?'

'You tell me. Or you're going down there until you think of something.'

Hinrik thrashed as his face was pushed into the toilet bowl. Baddo hauled his face back out after a few seconds and Hinrik gasped for air, retching between each deep lungful, which was cut short as his head was thrust into the bowl again. Hinrik's free hand stretched out, desperately scrabbling for a hold on anything, while his legs kicked feebly.

Baddo wrenched Hinrik's head clear of the foul water and gave him a few seconds to haul some air deep into his heaving chest. His spa.r.s.e locks of dark hair lay over his face and he made to push them away as he spluttered and fought for breath.

's.h.i.t . . .' he moaned, retching yet again. 'Baddo, man. I swear. It was nothing to do with me. h.e.l.l,' he moaned, his breathing starting to slow.

'Talk, Hinrik,' Baddo ordered, nodding towards the foul-smelling toilet. 'Spill the f.u.c.king beans, or you're going back down there and you're not coming out.'

Hinrik lay collapsed against the wall, one arm behind him and the other across his chest. He stared into Baddo's hard, dark eyes and didn't like what he saw.

'They made a real mess of you, Baddo man,' he said. 'Who were they? What did they look like?'

'You tell me.'

'Why would I have you rolled? You're working for me, remember? Why would I have you turned over before the job's done? Are you going to let me get up? I reckon you've made your point.'

Baddo allowed Hinrik to get shakily to his feet, one hand on the wall as he supported himself. He closed the lid of the toilet and sat down heavily on it, groaning. He took a better look at Baddo's face. 'They did a job on you, didn't they?'

'Who did?'

'h.e.l.l, Baddo. I don't know,' Hinrik snarled. 'It's none of my doing and it's not as if you're short of enemies who owe you a bad turn.'

'I need some cash. Right now.'

'You have a f.u.c.king weird way of asking to be paid for a job,' Hinrik said, the shadow of a smile appearing at one corner of his thin mouth.

'But it's more than just money, Hinrik,' Baddo snarled, pointing at his face. 'This changes everything. There's some information I'm after as well.'

Wondering if she was wasting her time, Gunna signed an unmarked car out of the pool and took it through town, pleased for a change to see clear skies after a dark night and more than a week of incessant snow, punctuated by spells of rain every time the temperature hauled itself above zero. Twice Gunna braked and swore as cars pulled across lanes without warning. The mid-morning traffic was fast and too close for comfort, with the road covered by a film of water quickening in the thin sunshine.

Past the half-empty car park at the Korputorg shopping centre the traffic thinned to trucks and a few cars heading out of town and by Mosfellsbaer the city receded into the distance. Esja's white slopes gleamed in the sun and the road became a black scar lying across a landscape the colour of a grubby bandage at ground level, rising to pristine white pierced with jagged black rock outcrops on the higher slopes.

The warmth of the sunshine was a welcome change, but Gunna wondered what the night would bring. The forecast was for clear weather and a northerly breeze, conditions bound to bring a chill with them, and she remembered how that morning's sparkling air had nipped at unprotected ears and noses, as if to provide a reminder that winter was still here.

She found herself enjoying the drive through less familiar scenery. The daily commute from Hvalvik into the city had become a routine ch.o.r.e on most days, especially the night-time drive both ways during the winter months. But driving this way out of town, in the opposite direction to the one that would take her to Hvalvik, was also fraught with memories of travel from her childhood home to Reykjavik in the days when roads were gravel and it was a long day's travel to the westfjords. She wondered idly how long it would take for people to miss her if she were to continue to the Hvalfjordur tunnel and keep driving north and then west, when her question was answered by her phone buzzing.

'Gunnhildur,' she answered.

'Driving, are you?' Helgi asked.

'Yeah. But it's all right. There are no cops about here.'

'You know Johnny Depp's waiting for you in reception?' Helgi asked, and Gunna could hear the grin on his round face. 'Refuses to speak to anyone else.'

'Can't be,' Gunna retorted. 'I left him at home, exhausted and strapped to the bed.'

'Like that guy at the Gullfoss?'

Gunna shuddered at the thought. 'Nice idea, but I'm afraid not. Is there really someone for me in reception?'

'No, just wanted to see what you'd say. But I'm finished with Holmgeir, and he sang like a bird eventually.'

'Good. Explain, if you would be so kind.'

'Right, the bones of it is that Holmgeir and asi were paid a bag of gra.s.s and their debts written off to beat someone up, and no, he absolutely won't say who paid them; says it's more than his life's worth. He also swears blind he has no idea who the victim is and that they were just given an address and a picture, which he dropped in a bin afterwards.'

'So they beat this person up, or tried to?'

'So Holmgeir says. But he said their victim lashed out with a broken bottle, which is what gashed asi's leg. That's a fatal wound, so I guess we could be looking at a murder charge there.'

'Not sure the legal eagles would swallow that,' Gunna mused. 'Manslaughter, certainly, I'd say. Anything from Eirikur?'

Helgi laughed. 'Yep. The lady in the top flat is Maria Helga Sturlaugsdottir. She's mystified and hadn't seen her brother for a few days until she came home and found a note saying he'd left town for a bit. She does shift work so it's not unusual for her not to see him for days at a time, she told Eirikur.'

'So who's the brother? Anyone we know?' Gunna asked, slowing down and checking her mirror for the Kjalarnes turnoff. She could hear Helgi's hollow laugh echo down the phone.

'He's her younger half-brother and goes by the name of Hrobjartur Bjarnthorsson. So, yes. Our elusive victim who sneaked out of hospital this morning is Bigfoot Baddo, and he's definitely someone we know.'

'What the h.e.l.l's going on, Helgi?' Gunna fumed. 'First he's shadowing us at the Gullfoss and then his description fits the character who was spotted after that car burned out at Grandi. Any news on that yet, by the way? Do we know if it was Magnus's car?'

'I don't know. Haven't had time to pester forensics.'

'Right. Do it now. Kick them, bribe them, buy them doughnuts, whatever. If we can tie this to Bigfoot Baddo we'll have made real progress. But circulate his description anyway. If Holmgeir doesn't fall apart in the witness box, we'll have the b.a.s.t.a.r.d for manslaughter as well as Magnus's murder.'

Joel Ingi almost wanted to shed bitter tears of frustration. Agnes hummed in the bathroom, and hadn't even asked why he was back from work so early. His distress was evident, and she seemed to be ignoring him, acting as if he wasn't even there, sitting and staring into s.p.a.ce as she casually piled clothes into a suitcase on the bed.

He sat on the sofa, his fingers twitching nervously as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Glancing at it, he saw 'private number calling' and decided that it was best left unanswered. Hinrik had told him nothing of any use and he had come away from the flat where Hinrik lived with that bruiser of a woman as frustrated as he had been when he'd arrived.

His phone buzzed a second time and he gulped as he saw the text message displayed.

One hour. Be here. AEgir L A minute later the house phone began to chirp. Surprised that anyone would call his landline, Joel Ingi hunted for the handset and found it behind a pile of magazines just as Agnes padded in from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, towelling her hair and giving him a dazzling smile that confused him even more.

'Joel Ingi?' An unfamiliar, brisk voice asked.

'I'm not buying anything-'

'That's a shame, because I have something you need.'

'Who is this?'

'My name's Jon. Our mutual friend Hinrik mentioned that we ought to talk, so answer your mobile in half an hour.'

Agnes listened to Joel Ingi's side of the conversation, her head c.o.c.ked to one side, watching as the conversation was abruptly terminated and Joel Ingi was left holding a buzzing phone. 'You're going out,' she said, sitting down in an armchair and opening a drawer in a table next to it to bring out the makings of a joint.

'Do you have to smoke that f.u.c.king stuff in the house?' Joel Ingi snapped, his irritation boiling over.

Agnes shrugged. 'It's my house as well.'

'I'm a public official. If you get caught-'

Agnes's laughter tinkled. 'Who's going to catch me? Anyway, I like it. It helps me think,' she said. 'It helps me relax and it makes me h.o.r.n.y. Not that you complain about that.'

'I have to go.'

'Shame,' Agnes said coolly, rolling with practised ease. 'Going to be long? My flight's at six.'

'h.e.l.lo! Petur Steinar Albertsson?' Gunna asked, recognizing from his driving-licence photo the tall man with a lined but fresh face who looked round from his workbench. 'I knocked on the front door, but n.o.body answered.'

'Yeah, I'm Petur. What are you selling?'

'I'm not selling anything,' Gunna said and held open her police ID as the man stood up and a cloud of concern descended on what looked like a normally cheerful face.

'Anything wrong? The children . . . ?'

'Nothing like that,' she a.s.sured him. 'But I need a few questions answered.'

Petur wiped his hands on a rag and limped towards her. 'That sounds ominous, and we have enough problems as it is. But what can I do for you?'

Wondering how far she should go, Gunna looked around the workshop with interest. 'What do you make here?'

'These,' Petur said, tossing up and catching a wooden bowl from the top of a stack. 'I'm disabled and can't work a full day any more, so I make these for a tourist shop. They sell pretty well once they've been polished up.'

'Who lives here?'

'Me. My wife. Three children.'

'I know your name already. What's your wife's name?'

'Hekla. Hekla Elin Hauksdottir. Why?'

'Just wondering who lives here.'

Petur shifted his weight uncomfortably, leaning on a stick. 'We're renting this place month by month. We thought we were only going to be here for a few months, but now it looks like we might all be here for a while.'

'All?

'There's me and Hekla. My daughter Sif, and mine and Hekla's children, Albert and Alda. You still haven't told me what this is about.'