Winterlude

by Quentin Bates

  Quentin Bates escaped suburbia as a teenager and spent a decade in Iceland, before returning to his English roots with an Icelandic family and turning to writing for a living.

  Winterlude is a short story featuring Sergeant Gunnhildur (the three novels so far, Frozen Out, Cold Comfort and Chilled to the Bone, are also published by Constable & Robinson), who emerged from an intimate knowledge of Iceland, as well as a deep affection for and fascination with the country and its people.

  Also by Quentin Bates

  Frozen Out

  Cold Comfort

  Chilled to the Bone

  Winterlude

  Quentin Bates

  Constable & Robinson Ltd.

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by C&R Crime,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2012

  Copyright © Quentin Bates, 2012

  The right of Quentin Bates to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in

  Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-1-47210-848-7 (ebook)

  Monday

  The red of Helgi’s usually healthy complexion had gone, replaced by pallid cheeks.

  ‘It’s not pretty, Chief,’ he said, sucking cold air into his lungs in deep breaths as occasional snowflakes spun through the air. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this part of the job.’

  Gunna steeled herself and stepped past the equally stiff-faced uniformed officer standing guard and stepped through the doorway. One white-suited and masked figure inside was systematically photographing everything, the flash bouncing off walls that had once been white but had turned a shade of nicotine ivory over the years, while the other stooped low over a third figure on the floor. Gunna made out the arms spread wide of a man flat on his ample back. The hands looked huge, pale in the harsh artificial light, flat to the floor as if holding on, with scattered black hairs growing from the knuckles.

  ‘Anything you can tell me, Sigmar?’

  The kneeling figure looked around and shook his head. As he moved, Gunna saw the rest of the body on the floor, a worn leather jacket over a thick chest and a pot-belly. She caught her breath at the sight of the man’s head. There was no face to speak of, its features flattened and broken.

  ‘Stone dead and it’s a damned mess,’ Sigmar said, his voice muffled by the mask across his mouth. ‘That’s all I can tell you right now, Gunna. Sorry.’

  ‘There must have been a weapon involved, surely?’

  He nodded his head slowly. ‘I’d say so. You don’t get that kind of result with bare hands.’

  ‘Any identification?’

  Sigmar unzipped the man’s coat and felt inside, shook his head and leaned back. ‘Nothing there.’

  ‘Back pocket?’

  He felt along the corpse’s side, then leaned over the body to feel the other, before lifting himself upright holding a worn wallet that he placed into Gunna’s hand. ‘Be my guest,’ he said with mock formality.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll leave you to it. But the sooner you can tell us anything more, the better,’ Gunna told him. ‘I can see headlines already.’

  Helgi shivered as Gunna flipped through the man’s wallet with latex-covered fingers.

  ‘How long has this place been empty?’

  ‘A good few years. It went bankrupt right after the crash and it’s been empty since.’

  They stood in the entrance of what had once been a boat-builder’s workshop. Voices echoed under the high ceiling and a layer of grey plastic dust coated every surface in the place.

  ‘Six thousand, five hundred krónur. A video rental card, a debit card that’s ten years out of date,’ she muttered as Helgi leaned over her shoulder. ‘No driving licence. No health insurance card.’

  ‘What’s the name on the debit card? I can’t see it without my glasses.’

  ‘Borgar Jónsson. Does that mean anything to you?’

  Helgi’s forehead puckered with lines as he thought. ‘It does ring a bell somewhere and I’m sure I’ve heard the name recently as well. I just can’t think where,’ he admitted.

  Gunna dropped the wallet into an evidence bag and sealed it before peeling off her gloves.

  ‘Get yourself back to the shop and see what you can dig up,’ she decided. ‘Sigmar will let us know when it’s all over here and I’ll knock on a few doors around this area. Who found him, then?’

  ‘A guy who works down the street. He said he’d driven past and seen the door wide open, so he went to close it and decided to have a quick look inside first. Now he wishes he hadn’t, I guess.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Gunna said. ‘We can talk to him later.’

  ‘When he’s managed to get over the shock. I gather the ambulance took him away.’

  ‘It’s not the kind of sight that’s going to improve your day, is it?’

  The screech of steel being cut greeted Gunna as she stepped inside. It lasted only a few seconds and brought to mind some great animal being painfully slaughtered. A shower of flying sparks subsided and the big man lifted his safety glasses and glowered.

  ‘We’re busy,’ he said, hands on his glasses again. ‘You need to go next door.’

  ‘Police,’ Gunna said, opening her wallet and displaying her ID.

  ‘You’re here about . . . ?’ the man asked with a shrug of one shoulder and a jerk of the head.

  ‘Right first time.’

  He pulled the glasses off, folded them and put them in the pocket of his overall. ‘Then I’ll allow myself a well-deserved unofficial smoking break,’ he decided, heading for the door Gunna had just come in through. Outside the workshop he cupped a hand around a cigarette and lit it with a Zippo, drawing the smoke deep.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Jón Geir Árnason. I sort of run this place, in that my wife runs it from the office upstairs and I do the actual hard work.’

  ‘The place over there, NesPlast. Know anything about it?’ Gunna asked.

  ‘It’s been empty for a while, since before we moved in here three years ago. Any idea who owns it? Business isn’t doing badly and we could do with moving to a bigger place.’

  ‘One of your staff discovered Borgar Jónsson’s body inside. Do you know what he was doing there?’

  ‘Halldór, that’s right,’ Jón Geir said. ‘He’s a bit of an old woman, even though he tries to come across as a tough guy. He told me the door over there was open and I said if he was worried he should go and have a quick look. I thought of going over there myself to check the place out. Like I said, we’re on the lookout for somewhere bigger and that would be perfect. But anyway, Halldór went over there and came back shaking like a leaf five minutes later. I called the police, and I guess you know the rest,’ he said, crushing out his cigarette under one boot.

  ‘Have you noticed any activity there? Anyone coming or going?’

  Jón Geir shook his head and sniffed. ‘No. There’s a guy who comes once a month or so, but we’re used to seeing him now and again.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen him for quite a while and I was hoping to run into him sooner or later and find out if the place might be up for grabs. If anyone’s seen anything, it’d be Lára upstairs or Halldór. She can see the place from her window and Halldór comes and goes a lot more than I do. He does deliveries, so he’s in and out, while I’m stuck on the tools the whole time.’

  ‘And Halldór’s off sick?’

  ‘Yeah. The big pansy. He’ll be back tomorrow, he said.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Hafnarfjördur. Lára can give you his address,’ Jón Geir said firmly, fiddling with the safety glasses he had taken out of his pocket and clearly anxious to get back to work. ‘Go out of this door and in the next one. The office is upstairs.’

  The office upstairs was almost bare and Gunna wished she could keep her own workspace as tidy.

  ‘Lára?’ Gunna asked of the severe-looking woman who sat straight-backed at the computer. ‘Jón Geir downstairs said you might be able to answer a few questions.’

  ‘You’re from the police? About . . . ?’ she asked, nodding towards the window.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You have an address for Halldór? I understand he discovered your neighbour this morning.’

  Lára wrote on a scrap of paper and handed it across.

  ‘Phone number?’ Gunna prompted, handing it back. Lára took it and scribbled a number that she didn’t need to look up.

  ‘He said he’d be back at work tomorrow, so you can find him here if you need to.’

  ‘I’m wondering why he left so quickly?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say. But he’s not the tough character he likes people to think he is, that’s for sure. In fact, Halldór’s a bit of an idiot.’

  ‘So why do you keep him on?’

  Lára took off her glasses and fiddled with them. ‘Let’s say he’s not useless by any means. He works well and pays attention to detail. He’s just an odd character.’

  Gunna walked across to the window and looked out over the road outside and NesPlast beyond it, where blue lights flickered against the NesPlast sign that had once been white.

  ‘You have a view over here. In fact, you’re probably the only person who does have a view of NesPlast, considering it’s the last place in the street. Have you noticed any movement over there? Any lights, anyone who comes and goes?’

  ‘I don’t spend my days looking out of the window, you know.’

  Gunna laughed inwardly at the woman’s spiky retort. ‘Sure, I understand that. But every now and then you must stand up and go for a coffee or a pee or whatever, surely, and that takes you past the window?’

  ‘There’s only the guy who turns up every few weeks. He never stops there long. I know Jón Geir wants to speak to him when he gets a chance but we haven’t seen him for a while. I don’t know who he is, but he has a key to get in.’

  ‘Young? Old? What car does he drive?’

  Lára’s impatience was clear. ‘I don’t know. Middle-aged, I guess. Thirties, maybe. There must have been a car but I didn’t notice one. That’s the kind of thing the boys would notice right away.’

  ‘This must be a quiet place, though – isn’t it?’

  ‘Too damned quiet. That’s one of our problems. This place is practically in the country,’ she said dismissively. ‘We’re at the end of the street at the far end of an industrial estate. There’s nothing that way but lava fields and the main road behind that. We only live over there,’ she said, pointing out of the window at some distant roofs. ‘But I practically have to drive into Hafnarfjördur to get here.’

  Gunna leaned on the window frame and thought how pleasant it must be to work so far from traffic noise and pollution.

  ‘So not many people pass here, then?’

  ‘Hell, no. You see a few people wandering around, but not many.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Kids on bikes and scooters sometimes. Occasionally there’s a drunk who comes by.’

  ‘A drunk? This far out of town?’ Gunna asked, immediately suspicious. ‘That’s unusual. Just the one?’

  ‘I’ve only seen him a few times. Like I said, I don’t spend my time staring out of the window.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to passing tramps,’ she snapped.

  ‘Young? Old?’ Gunna continued, ignoring Lára’s impatience. ‘Short? Tall?’

  ‘A big guy,’ she conceded.

  ‘As big as Jón Geir?’

  ‘Maybe, but tubbier.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Honestly, I couldn’t say. I’ve seen him go past a handful of times in the last few months, that’s all.’

  ‘Hair? Beard? How was he dressed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she floundered. ‘He didn’t have a beard, but he had longish hair,’ she decided, putting the edge of her hand against her own neck as an indicator. ‘Dark clothes, as far as I remember.’

  ‘A shabby leather jacket, maybe?’

  ‘Could be,’ Lára said thoughtfully. ‘That sounds right.’

  Gunna smiled. ‘It’s amazing how much detail people can recall when you push them a little.’

  Gunna cursed, sensing instinctively that Sævaldur was waiting for her. He put out a hand to stop the door closing and she had no choice but to change course and join him in the lift instead of taking the stairs.

  ‘What’s happened up there?’ he asked as the lift started its stately upward progress.

  ‘Straightforward enough at first glance,’ Gunna said, studying the lift’s steel wall. ‘A guy’s had his head beaten in. Not a pretty sight.’

  ‘Nasty?’

  ‘The place looks like a modern art installation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. There’s blood everywhere. Redecoration in red.’

  Sævaldur curled a lip. ‘Messy, then? Who’s the victim?’

  ‘Name of Borgar Jónsson, or so it seems.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah, what? You know something I don’t?’

  Sævaldur radiated satisfaction. ‘I may do. What do you want to know?’

  The lift creaked to a standstill and the doors opened, but Sævaldur stood still, making no move to leave. Gunna pressed the ‘close doors’ button.

  ‘Sævaldur, I’ve no real desire to be stuck in a lift between floors with you. But I have a dead man, a nutcase on the loose somewhere, the chief superintendent wanting to be briefed as soon as possible so he can hold a press conference and I’m a man down with Eiríkur on leave. So if you have anything to tell me, I’d really prefer it if you’d spit it out and not play games.’

  ‘Hell, Gunna,’ Sævaldur said, backing as far away from her as the lift’s steel wall would allow. ‘There’s no need to throw all your toys out of the pram – not this early, anyway. Open the doors, will you?’

  Gunna punched the button and the doors hissed open again. ‘Speak up. I’m listening.’

  ‘Borgar Jónsson was a weird character, and it was me and old Thorfinnur Markússon who arrested him, steaming drunk.’

  ‘What for?’

  Sævaldur’s usually deadpan expression softened. ‘It was really unpleasant. He’d been on an afternoon drinking spree, tried to drive himself home in his monster GMC truck and went through a red light on Sudurlandsbraut. He managed to knock a lad off his bike in the process and drove right over him. Open and shut, all caught on CCTV. I don’t suppose he even knew what he’d done and he didn’t stop. Thorfinnur and I arrested him about an hour after the accident and he couldn’t understand why we were there. It wasn’t until he’d sobered up and seen the CCTV footage that he realized.’

  ‘And he got eight years?’

  ‘That’s it. I didn’t know he was out.’

  ‘He’s been at that hostel near the Grand Hotel for the last month.’

  Sævaldur nodded slowly. ‘The bastard,’ he said with uncharacteristic feeling. ‘If I had my way . . .�
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  ‘I know. You’d throw away the key, but only after you’d taken off his balls with an angle grinder.’

  ‘That hostel’s only a few hundred metres from where the boy was hit. So I hope it might have jogged his memory.’

  ‘We can live in hope. So, plenty of people who might have a grievance?’

  ‘Shit, dozens, I’d say. Borgar Jónsson had pissed off a lot of people in business as well. You know the type, he’d been bankrupt more times than you’ve . . . Well,’ Sævaldur coughed. ‘Let’s not go there. But you know what I mean.’

  ‘I can imagine. Anyway, thanks for the potted digest,’ Gunna said, stepping aside to let Sævaldur escape from the lift.

  ‘News, Gunnhildur?’ Ívar Laxdal asked, appearing suddenly next to her within minutes of taking a seat at her desk.

  ‘Dead man, multiple blows to the head. Looks like his name is Borgar Jónsson, or that’s the name on the out-of-date bank card he had in his pocket, and it seems there’s some history there if this does turn out to be the same guy. Helgi’s chasing the bank to try and find out the man’s identity number.’

  ‘It’s not on the card?’

  ‘It’s a card that was issued a dozen years ago by a savings bank that doesn’t exist any more.’

  ‘Ah. Keep me informed, would you?’ he instructed and left as silently as he had appeared.

  ‘Any joy with the bank, Helgi?’

  Helgi lifted his glasses so that they were jammed firm against his forehead. ‘The savings bank was taken over by another one after the crash,’ he said dolefully. ‘I’m assured they have the details, but it might take an hour to find them. They’ll call back,’ he added in a tone that indicated his lack of faith in that statement.

  ‘Give them ten minutes and chase them again,’ Gunna instructed, her attention on her computer. ‘In any case, I have a feeling I may have found our man already,’ she said slowly, scrolling through the list on her own screen.

  ‘Already?’ he echoed.