Chilled To The Bone Part 32

'AEi, no, Perla!' Sif screeched, dropping the case and sweeping up the nearest thing she could grab on the bench. Hekla stumbled, steadied herself, and heaved with all her strength just as Baddo let fly with his boot, missing the cat and losing his balance so that he stumbled against the bench.

'You stupid cow,' Baddo snarled, snorting through his half-blocked nose, the laptop case clutched in one fist while he raised the other and moved towards the girl. Sif squealed in fright, flung one arm up to cover her face and lashed out wildly with the other hand as Baddo swung, just as he was shaken by another thunderous sneeze.

In his own rarely used office, ivar Laxdal hunched over a sleek laptop, reading from the screen.

'"According to information that has reached Reykjavik Voice, four asylum seekers who arrived in Iceland in May 2009 promptly disappeared and their whereabouts remained unknown until a Dutch human rights group uncovered evidence that all four were executed in Libya later that same year. Following the Libyan revolution, a great deal of doc.u.mentation from the former regime has come to light, including evidence that the three men and one woman were rendered to Libya in contravention of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees",' he read out.

'What's that about?' Gunna asked, peering at the laptop screen and continuing to read over ivar Laxdal's shoulder. '"Reykjavik Voice has copies of emails purported to have been sent by senior Icelandic officials sanctioning the immediate transfer, without pa.s.sing through formal immigration channels, of four Libyan nationals who arrived on a scheduled flight from Amsterdam to a military aircraft that departed from Keflavik airport later that night to an unknown destination." ivar, is there any truth in this?' Gunna asked. 'Is this anything to do with Joel Ingi and why he's skipped the country?'

'I don't know, Gunnhildur,' he said, his face grey and set like rock. 'If it's true, there'll be h.e.l.l to pay in all kinds of ways.'

'If it's true, then we should be able to find out, surely. Immigration is part of the force, so can't you demand the truth about it from the airport police?'

'I could. But I'm not sure that I should.'

'Come on, surely . . .'

ivar Laxdal's deep-set dark eyes looked back at her with no visible expression, but his face, sagging and exhausted, told her everything.

'I daren't,' he admitted. 'This needs to go upstairs. But in the meantime, I have to deal with the ministry, and there's going to be some serious trouble later today if, or rather when, there are questions in Parliament. I have a feeling that this is what that d.a.m.ned lost laptop is all about.'

'If this is all public, is there any reason to worry about it? It's not as if we've been looking all that hard for it anyway.'

'There hasn't been much to look for,' ivar Laxdal snorted. 'If that pompous fool AEgir Larusson had the sense to tell us the truth at the start, we might have got somewhere. It was always going to be a hopeless task and that's not something I'm going to worry about. The ministry can sort out its own dirty laundry. I'm more interested in you catching up with this hoodlum who's responsible for two murders in our back yard.'

Gunna sat on the bone-hard chair that ivar Laxdal kept in his office, designed to encourage visiting dignitaries not to linger.

'If this is what the droids at the ministry are s.h.i.tting themselves over, then it's out in the open now. Reykjavik Voice is a bit off-centre, and not that many people read it, but all the same, this can't be hushed up now, surely? They even published this on their website in English, so it isn't just a local thing that can be contained.'

'If this is the same thing, then you're quite right,' Ivar Laxdal agreed. 'On the other hand, the ways of civil servants are not to be understood by mere low-grade jobsworths such as ourselves.'

'We're civil servants as well,' Gunna pointed out, amused by his description of himself as 'low grade'.

'We are,' he agreed. 'But we're the kind of civil servants who actually achieve something, as opposed to the type who build themselves little empires and attend conferences while they wait for their pensions to kick in.'

His thumbnail scratched at the stubble under the point of his chin as he thought.

'Leave it with me, will you?' he said finally. 'I need to talk to upstairs. You have a pet journalist at Reykjavik Voice, don't you?'

'I wouldn't call him that, exactly.'

'Maybe not, but if you could sound him out discreetly, it wouldn't go amiss.'

'It'll have to wait. I can't put off a visit to Sonja any longer.'

The place seemed deserted. She watched and waited. The mud-brown Hyundai, its sides caked with snow that the driver had barely bothered to brush from the windows, squatted unhappily a hundred metres from the solitary house.

She patted her pockets for her phone and took a can of pepper spray from the glove compartment before walking cautiously down towards the house. She listened for the slightest sound that would tell her that the man with the scarred face was on the move. She gently eased open the back door, the spray can held out in front of her, then slowly dropped it down as she took in Petur's wrecked workshop.

Sif and Hekla were collapsed against the bench by the wall, while the big man was sitting with his back to the other workbench that filled the middle of the workshop, legs splayed out in front of him and his eyes staring, focused on nothing as a rivulet of saliva leaked down his chin. He was still hugging the laptop case, and it was only when she stepped closer and squatted down in front of him to tug it out of his grasp that she took in the rusty end of the narrow file protruding from the man's temple an inch behind his left eye. A ring of red surrounded it, gradually seeping along the tiny grooves in its surface and staining the metal dull red.

She instinctively put out a hand to touch it, then drew back before looking first from one shocked face to the other, and then to the bench where an a.s.sortment of files and chisels with and without their wooden handles had been scattered as Sif had s.n.a.t.c.hed one up in panic.

'Are either of you hurt?'

'I don't think so,' Hekla said, shakily getting to her feet. 'Sif, are you all right, sweetheart?' she asked, stroking the girl's face.

'Is the man dead?'

'I don't know. Come on, let's get out of here.'

Hekla put out her hands and pulled Sif to her feet, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as she supported her out of the workshop and back into the house. Back in the workshop the woman knelt in front of the man with the cut face and felt for a pulse in his neck. Satisfied, she pulled out her phone and dialled 112.

'Police and ambulance. I'm at Strandargrund 30 in Kjalarnes,' she said in a measured voice. 'It's an old house on its own at the far end of the street. There's one casualty with a serious head injury and two people in shock,' she said, answering the police operator's questions.

'And your name?'

'Bara Kristinsdottir,' she answered and listened to the moment's pause.

'Bara who used to be in the force at Keflavik?'

She smiled grimly. 'Yes, Siggi. That's me.'

'All right. In that case you know what to do, don't you? There's an ambulance on its way, but it'll be a while before it gets there.'

'I reckon you might need to get the air ambulance out for this one. It's not pretty.'

'Fair enough. I'll alert them, but it's the ambulance crew's decision when they get there.'

'OK, thanks. I'd best get back to the casualties. You can reach me on this number if you need to between now and the cavalry getting here.'

'Fine. Thanks, Bara. It's an F2, so fifteen minutes.'

Helgi's communicator buzzed and he looked over at Gunna, his finger on the earpiece.

'You'd better step on it, chief,' he said. 'F2, and guess where?'

'Kjalarnes? h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation. I knew I should have got out there last night.'

'And there's no siren on this thing, is there?'

'Nope,' Gunna said. 'You'd better tell them we'll be there in ten.'

'Control, zero-two-sixty. Heading for Kjalarnes, estimated ten minutes.'

'Thank you, zero-two-sixty. There's a patrol car from the Krokhals station five minutes behind you and the ambulance is right behind that.'

Gunna pushed the pedal to the floor, flashed the headlights on and off high beam and left drivers tapping their heads in disgust as they trailed in her wake. She could sense the tension in Helgi's voice: 'Any idea what the problem is, control?'

'One serious head injury, two in shock. The helicopter's alerted and the local rescue squad should be there ahead of you.'

'Thanks, control. We'll keep you informed,' Helgi said, pretending not to be scared as Gunna slowed hard for the turnoff to Kjalarnes, the car's brakes complaining and its rear wheels struggling to grip the icy road.

They b.u.mped down the road to the solitary house, where they found a diminutive blonde woman speaking to an animated figure next to a blue Land Rover. Gunna walked smartly across just as the wail of sirens on the main road was heard in the distance. A heavy 4 4 was already parked by the door.

'Afternoon, Petur,' Gunna said smartly. 'Looks like the rescue squad's here. Helgi, check inside, would you? Bara, good to see you. You can tell me later just why you're here. What's happened?'

'One man in the workshop with a stab wound to the left side of the head; two women in shock. They're both in the main bedroom. Looks like one of them grabbed a file and lashed out with it.'

'A file?'

'You know. A metalwork file.'

'And n.o.body else has been in or out?'

'No, chief,' Bara said, instinctively falling back on habit.

'Will somebody tell me what the h.e.l.l's been happening?' Petur said, his frustration boiling over. 'I've just come home and been told by this person that I can't go into my own house.'

'Well, you heard what the lady said, didn't you?'

Petur leaned on his crutch and limped towards the door. 'I won't be kept out of my own home, d.a.m.n it,' he roared.

'Gunna, the action's at the back of the place. Just get him to go in through the front door and he'll be clear of the crime scene,' Bara said quickly as Gunna trotted to catch up with Petur, taking his arm to steer him towards the front door.

'We'll go in this way, if you don't mind,' she said.

Petur grunted an answer that was neither one thing nor another and pushed his way through the front door, his crutch clattering to the floor.

'Sif! Hekla! Where are you?' he yelled and there was a call in reply from the bedroom. Gunna followed him and watched as he enveloped the girl in his arms, while the woman who was with her clung to him. The puffy, tear-streaked face was unmistakably that of the woman on the Gullfoss Hotel's CCTV, and Gunna felt a surge of relief at having finally found her.

A patrol car b.u.mped down the road and two officers stepped out. Behind them the blue lights of an ambulance flashed and were reflected from the windows of houses further up as doors began to open and people stared at the sudden flurry of activity in the normally quiet village.

'Chopper job, this is,' the paramedic said, shaking his head as his colleague monitored Baddo's pulse and breathing. 'We need a doctor here before we even try to move this character. What the h.e.l.l happened, anyway? I've never seen an injury like this,' he muttered to Gunna out of the casualty's earshot. 'I'm amazed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's even alive.'

'That's what I'm hoping to find out,' Gunna told him. 'It's a first for me as well.'

The paramedic muttered into his communicator, looking anxiously at Baddo, whose expression had remained unchanged, his unfocused eyes staring into the distance. Gunna took in the livid cut down his cheek, some of the sutures having come adrift, leaving bloodless gaps in the line of ragged skin.

Gunna cornered Bara outside. 'I'm not saying it isn't good to see you, but what the h.e.l.l's happened? You've got quite a bit of explaining to do. Start by telling me how come you're here, will you?'

'I've been working as an investigator since I left the force. Not long before Christmas I had a request to shadow someone and report back. That person had a meeting last night with the man who's in there with a lump of metal in his head. I'm not sure how it works, or who was blackmailing who, but one thing led to another and, as far as I can make out, I turned up here just as this had happened.'

'All right, so who's this mysterious person you've been tailing?'

'I'm not sure I can tell you.'

'Come on. You were in the force for long enough to know that doesn't wash.'

Bara frowned. 'A guy called Joel Ingi Bragason.'

'Who skipped the country last night.'

'That's right. I saw him go through departures at Keflavik last night.'

'Did you? So who are you working for?'

'That's what I don't think I should tell you.'

'Really?'

'Actually I'm not sure who the client is,' Bara said. 'You may not believe it, but we've only spoken on the phone a couple of times. To start with I thought Joel Ingi's wife was behind it and that this was a straightforward divorce thing. The client wanted to know where he went and who he met, times and places. Everything was done by email and text, with a report every few days. It was only this last week that I had a couple of calls from the client and found out it was a man; he wanted a closer tail and reports by text four or five times a day.'

Gunna nodded slowly. 'And where's this famous laptop?'

'Laptop?'

'That's your car there, is it?' Gunna asked, jerking her head towards the Renault. 'You want me to look in the boot?'

'You can't do that.'

'I can, and we'd better be quick about it,' Gunna said, shading her eyes as a black 4 4 with tinted windows sped down the street towards them, sliding to a halt in the snow next to the Land Rover. Two figures in suits tumbled out of it and hurried in through the front door.

Bara clicked the fob of her car key and the lights flashed for a moment. 'Go on, then.'

Gunna had the case tucked under her arm when the two suits reappeared, chased away from the house and the crime scene by a furious Petur shaking his fist. They were ushered discreetly past a line of fluttering tape by one of two uniformed officers, who pointed them towards Gunna and Bara.

'Officer, will you hand over that laptop?' AEgir Larusson demanded, puffing with effort and excitement. 'It's government property,' he added for good measure, and Bara blanched at the expression on Gunna's face.

'I don't think that's going to be possible, AEgir,' she said, keeping her voice calm.

'That laptop is government property,' AEgir repeated, this time spluttering with fury.

'As far as I'm aware, this laptop is the personal property of Joel Ingi Bragason, and right now it's also evidence, so the answer's no. I'm not prepared to hand it over. If you feel it's your department's affair, then you'd best go through the proper channels.'

AEgir's fury boiled over. 'Hand that f.u.c.king thing over, you stupid woman.'

That was rich coming from a man half a head shorter than her, Gunna thought, looking down on AEgir Larusson and wondering if his wife cut his hair especially to emphasize the shining bald spot on top of his head.

Approaching from behind, Mar Einarsson whispered in AEgir's ear.

'That woman there,' he pointed at Bara. 'That woman has been working on the ministry's behalf to recover that laptop, after you and your people couldn't do it.'

'Interesting you should say that, as I was about to formally arrest this person for being in possession of stolen goods, plus a few other things for good measure, and I'll be expecting her to explain all the circ.u.mstances surrounding this case in quite some detail,' Gunna said, pleased to see that Bara looked suitably crestfallen.

AEgir Larusson's face went even redder and Mar muttered in his ear a second time.

'Gentlemen, this is a crime scene,' she reminded them. 'I have a serious a.s.sault to deal with here and every second counts. If you have a problem, I'd appreciate it if you take it up with ivar Laxdal. All right?' she said, taking Bara by the arm. 'And you're coming with me. Behave yourself or you'll be in handcuffs.'