Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5)

by Quentin Bates

  Inga Jóna Steinsdóttir stood at the till and looked at Eiríkur’s warrant card with confusion.

  ‘My Árni?’ she asked.

  ‘We believe so. Can we talk somewhere private?’ The queue for the till was tapping its impatient collective feet. Eiríkur turned to the line of people. ‘I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but this till is closed,’ he said firmly. ‘Try the next one. The manager will be along in just a minute.’

  By the time Inga Jóna led him to the canteen there were tears streaking her makeup. The manager looked up at her with questions all over his round face.

  ‘Good morning. My name’s Eiríkur Thór Jónsson and I’m a police officer. I’m sorry for the interruption but I need to speak to this lady in private. Can we use this room?’

  ‘Er . . . yes, of course,’ the manager squeaked as he saw Eiríkur’s card. He hastily gathered together the paperwork he’d been studying and made for the door.

  ‘There’s a long queue waiting for you at till three,’ Eiríkur added as the man vanished through the door.

  ‘What’s happened to my Árni?’

  ‘Sit down, please,’ Eiríkur said and pulled out a chair for her.

  ‘So what’s all this then? Is he badly hurt?’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Árni Sigurvinsson is dead. There was a fire in his flat early this morning and we believe that the body of a middle-aged man firefighters found in the apartment is probably his.’

  ‘Christ . . .’

  ‘And the body will have to be identified.’

  ‘God . . .’

  ‘I’d like to offer my sympathy for your loss, and I understand completely that this must be a terribly difficult time for you. But there are questions we really need to have answered as quickly as possible.’

  Inga Jóna sniffed. ‘Yeah, of course. Go ahead.’

  ‘Where had Árni been working? I mean, had he been working?’

  ‘He’d been doing taxi shifts a few nights a week. That’s all.’

  ‘And had he been doing any other work? Anything that might not have been strictly legal?’

  ‘Why? What makes you think he’d been up to anything?’

  Eiríkur sighed, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I know you both have criminal records, so I have to ask, and the circumstances of the fire are suspicious.’

  ‘That was years ago! And what are you saying? That someone murdered my Árni?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but we have to look at every angle,’ Eiríkur said. ‘And yes, I’m sorry to say so, but it seems that someone may have helped him on his way. We can’t tell yet for certain, but it seems the fire may have been started deliberately.’

  ‘Christ,’ she muttered and buried her face in her hands and then lifted her head, clear-eyed. ‘I should have known. I should have fucking known.’

  ‘Known what?’

  ‘Those friends of his, nothing but trouble the lot of them. It’s why I moved out.’

  ‘You weren’t living together?’

  ‘We haven’t . . .’ she said, then gulped and corrected herself. ‘We hadn’t for a few months. All right, Árni was doing taxi work, but he was also doing something that stinks, and I never really found out what. He was out most nights and he had more money than usual, so I knew he had to be doing something a bit more than just driving drunks around.’

  ‘So what do you think he was doing?’

  ‘My daughter told me he was delivering stuff.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘You know. Stuff. Snort.’

  ‘Ah, who for? Or was this on his own account?’

  Inga Jóna laughed mirthlessly. ‘On his own account? Hell, no. Árni didn’t do anything on his own account. He did what other people asked him to do.’

  ‘Go on. Like what?’

  ‘Like what I said. He was delivering snort to people who ordered it from somewhere. I don’t know where, and from what Bogga told me, he was delivering girls as well.’

  ‘Girls? Prostitutes?’

  ‘Call it what you like, but yeah, something like that.’

  ‘Sounds like I need to talk to your daughter.’

  ‘Go ahead. She lives at the end of Strandvangur. Number nineteen. Second floor. Borghildur Sævarsdóttir her name is.’

  ‘Who had Árni been working with, or going around with, who was enough to make you move out?’

  ‘His miserable pals. The worst one’s a guy called Össi. I could never stand him. Anyway, it seems that Össi was bringing Árni the work, and that’s all I know.’

  ‘You know Össi’s proper name?’

  Inga Jóna shrugged. ‘Össur, maybe. I don’t know. A mean little bastard with a sharp nose. I’ll bet anything you like he’s in your files somewhere.’

  ‘You’re prepared to identify him?’

  ‘If it means that little shit gets locked away in Litla Hraun for a few years? Hell, yeah.’

  Magni looked around the kitchen and wondered where he’d left the knife, shrugged and decided to worry about it later.

  ‘Hey!’ he yelled through the kitchen door. ‘Come and get it!’

  He threw cutlery on the table, set the water to run from the cold tap and put a jug next to it as he gave the pot a stir for the last time, letting the fragrant aromas of onions and the few dried herbs he’d been able to find in half-empty jars well up from it. He breathed deep and looked around as Erna came into the kitchen, her eyes red, and sat at the table.

  ‘Smells good,’ Tinna Lind said as she took four plates from the draining board and Magni drained the potatoes over the sink.

  Without a word, Össur planted himself on a chair at the end of the table and wrinkled his nose. ‘It’s not spicy, is it?’

  ‘That’s for you to find out,’ Magni said.

  ‘I don’t do spicy shit.’

  ‘What the fuck do you eat?’ Magni demanded, banging the pot of potatoes on the table harder than he had intended to. ‘You don’t eat vegetables. You don’t eat fish, and now you don’t eat anything spicy either. It’s no surprise you’re as skinny as a starved cat.’

  Össur scowled and ladled stew from the casserole dish onto his plate. He flicked half-moons of onion aside with his fork, leaving meat on one side of his plate, which he scooped up quickly.

  ‘Any bread?’

  ‘Sorry, haven’t had time to get to the shops today,’ Magni snapped back. ‘Of course there’s no fucking bread. There’s no milk either, not many spuds or onions, and there’s only enough chops and fish and stuff in the freezer to keep us going into next week. After tomorrow we’re down to one meal a day.’

  Tinna Lind’s and Erna’s eyes swivelled back and forth between them during the exchange.

  ‘So we find some way to get out of here by next week or we starve?’ Tinna Lind said in a soft voice. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  Össur sat back, the meat on his plate eaten. He lifted the plate and scraped the remainder back into the pot.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he snarled over his shoulder as he stalked from the room. ‘We might just have to eat one of you two bitches if we don’t find a way out of here before the food runs out.’

  Magni speared a potato and started to peel it with his knife, quickly lifting the skin from it and placing it on the edge of his plate. Tinna Lind followed suit, dropping alternate potatoes on her plate and Erna’s.

  ‘You don’t get on very well with your friend, do you?’ Tinna Lind asked.

  ‘He’s no friend of mine,’ Magni said. ‘He’s a proper miserable fucker.’

  Erna quailed at the savagery of his tone and pushed food around her plate.

  ‘Eat, Mum,’ Tinna Lind ordered, and Erna forked up some of the meat nervously, then faster as it turned out to taste better than she’d expected. ‘So why are you hanging around with him?’

  ‘Needed the money, simple as that.’

  ‘Can’t you just get a job, like everyone else?’ Erna said in a tone that was close to hysteria.

  �
�I had a fucking job until it was sold out from under my feet, and a good job it was too.’

  ‘Magni used to work on a trawler and then it was sold,’ Tinna Lind explained.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Erna said. ‘I thought you were . . .’

  ‘Thought I was what?’ Magni asked, mashing potatoes into his gravy.

  ‘I thought you were some kind of scrounger or a criminal.’

  ‘Like him?’ Magni jerked his head to one side, indicating the door Össur had exited through. ‘No chance. Össur’s never had a proper job in his life, and until a month ago I’d never been without one.’

  For the first time, Tinna Lind saw Magni looking frustrated.

  ‘Is he a real criminal?’ Erna asked.

  Magni shrugged. ‘Össi? He’s a chancer. He’s done bits and pieces of work here and there, but he can’t stay off the piss and he’s never held down a job.’

  ‘So how does he live?’ she asked, perplexed, her eyes wide in confusion.

  ‘Össur sells a little dope, does a little enforcement. That keeps him going,’ Magni replied and pushed his practically clean plate aside. ‘I gather he knows enough about a few people to call in a favour when he’s properly in the shit.’

  Magni put his finger to his lips.

  ‘Your old lady’s gone to sleep, hasn’t she?’

  Tinna Lind looked up suspiciously from where she lay on the sofa in the hotel’s lounge, a duvet from the bedroom wrapped around her. She put aside the book she had found in the office and sat up.

  ‘Yeah. Why?

  Magni winked. ‘You look like a girl who appreciates a drink. Or am I wrong?’

  ‘I think you could be right.’

  Magni lifted the hand that had been behind his back.

  ‘How’s this?’

  Tinna Lind’s face broke into a slow grin as he placed the bottle on the table and produced a couple of glasses from behind his back.

  ‘And where did you get that from?’

  ‘The bar’s empty, so I thought I’d have a snoop around. Found this in the manager’s office at the back of the filing cabinet.’

  He glugged two fingers of whisky into each glass and offered her one. Tinna Lind put the glass to her nose and breathed deep.

  ‘A pretty decent single malt,’ she said.

  ‘Yep. Good, isn’t it?’ Magni raised his glass and admired the deep amber tone of the fluid. ‘Cheers.’

  They clinked glasses and settled back on the sofa.

  ‘What do you do when you’re not running round the country with a bunch of criminals?’ he asked.

  Tinna Lind giggled. ‘I don’t make a habit of this.’

  ‘You a student, or what?’

  ‘Do I look like a student?’

  ‘Hell, I don’t know. The combat trousers and the weird hair make you look like a student to me.’

  Tinna Lind sighed. ‘Well, I guess you’re right. I’m a sort of student at the moment.’

  ‘Which means what?’

  She sipped, holding the whisky in her mouth and letting it roll over her tongue.

  ‘It means I’m a student as far as university and my parents are concerned, but in reality I don’t do a lot.’

  ‘No job?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So how do you earn a few shekels to keep yourself in clothes and whatnot?’

  ‘A bit of this and a bit of that.’

  ‘Which means what?’ he asked, topping up both glasses and then reaching behind the sofa to drop the bottle out of sight. He left his arm draped along the back of the sofa.

  ‘Hiding the booze, are you?’

  ‘Fuck, yeah. If Össur knew it was there he’d neck the lot in two seconds flat. Haven’t you seen him start to get the shakes yet?’

  ‘No. Does he get it bad?’

  ‘Yeah. Tomorrow night, I reckon.’

  ‘So, tell me about yourself,’ Tinna Lind said, cradling her glass in her hands and leaning slightly into the arm that had dropped casually off the sofa onto her shoulders.

  ‘Me? You know all about me already.’

  ‘No wife, no family?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  ‘But there was?’

  ‘Two so far,’ Magni said, and looked up at the ceiling. Something creaked overhead. ‘Someone creeping about?’

  ‘Might be the old lady going to the toilet.’

  Tinna Lind leaned into Magni’s side and rested her head on his shoulder.

  ‘So what do you do to keep yourself busy? A lady of leisure?’

  She gurgled with laughter. ‘I worked for a travel agent for a couple of summers while I was a student and now I do some waitressing at Borgarkaffi. That’s about it at the moment.’

  ‘I’ll come and have a meal at Borgarkaffi one day and be waited on hand and foot.’

  ‘Not after some kind of special service are you?’

  ‘Depends what you mean by special service, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Play your cards right, big man, and we’ll see,’ she said in a husky voice and huddled deeper into the crook of Magni’s arm.

  Ívar Laxdal was in the car park about to disappear into the dark recesses of his Volvo when Gunna parked the unmarked Golf next to him.

  ‘Finished for the day?’

  ‘I am, and so should you be,’ he replied. ‘What’s the story with your disappeared women?’

  ‘No sign of them,’ Gunna said, shutting the car door and shivering in the cold wind. ‘I have alerts out all over the country, checked flights, passed the word to the taxi companies for their drivers to look out for Erna Björg Brandsen’s car, and I’ve had patrols scour the roads around Thingvellir and beyond in case they’ve just broken down somewhere or are stuck in a ditch.’

  ‘Everything short of a full-scale search, you mean?’

  ‘Yep, ads on TV and radio, and a missing persons announcement on Facebook.’

  Gunna nodded and zipped up her coat. She looked upwards at the low cloud that appeared to be lurking just beyond rooftop height.

  ‘I’d have an air search if I could.’

  ‘Not in this visibility, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And I’m not convinced by the Thingvellir location,’ she said and watched Ívar Laxdal think over her remark.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s too neat. I get the feeling we might be being lead astray. My feeling is to concentrate on the family for the moment.’

  ‘Something close to home?’ Ívar Laxdal asked. ‘Domestic violence, possibly?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I need to push the husband a little harder, and I’m meeting another of Erna’s acquaintances in the morning, as well as some of the daughter’s friends. I need to get a better picture of them and their relationship. If there’s nothing that rings alarm bells, then I’ll be more inclined to look harder up-country.’

  Ívar Laxdal rolled his shoulders, lifting his collar higher around his neck as he settled deeper into his coat.

  ‘Up to you, Gunnhildur. I’ll leave it to your discretion,’ he said, getting into his car. ‘Let me know tomorrow, will you?’

  She shivered and had to force her teeth to stop chattering with fear. Every step was an ordeal. The floor creaked and she tried to step as slowly and lightly as possible, placing her feet toes first, then heel, then moving her weight forward as gradually as she could. She could hear the indistinct burble of noise from the television in the room and a band of light slashed across the wall at the end of the corridor.

  Erna inched closer, fists clenched, breath held as long as she could as she took each step, exhaling and taking a few deep, slow breaths before taking the next step. The television became louder the closer she got to the half-open door. Finally close enough to peer inside, she fought back the urge to walk smartly back down the corridor to the room she had taken as hers and bury herself under the duvet. Erna told herself that whatever happened, sooner or later she would have to confront these men and make sure that something happened, while Tinna Lind seemed ha
ppy enough to go with the flow, apparently unafraid of the two thugs. The beefy young man with the muscles and the reddish hair was all right, she had decided, probably a decent enough lad and not too proud to make himself busy in the kitchen. But the skinny man with the eyes that never stayed still was another matter. There was something about him that sent shivers of fear coursing up and down her spine every time he opened his mouth. He was a man with no values and no morals other than making a quick buck and unconcerned at whatever the cost might be to anyone else.

  She eased her head around the door frame and looked inside, then breathed a sigh of relief. The television was blaring out some foreign music programme in a language she didn’t recognize, with pneumatic young women bouncing to a band playing some smooth seventies-style rock, punctuated by squealing guitar solos. Össur was spreadeagled across the bed, his chin pointing at the ceiling. She could see the grey stubble sprouting on his chin and the top of an old, blurred tattoo that snaked up past the neckline of his grubby shirt and into the hair behind one ear.

  She stood for a moment, transfixed at the sight of the man, then reached slowly behind to pluck the knife she had lifted from the kitchen from the waistband of her trousers. It scared her. The young man had sharpened it with slow, easy strokes on the steel until it was sharp enough to carve meat with virtually no effort, and she imagined it plunging into the skinny man’s neck.

  Erna leaned forward and lifted the knife, then gasped as one angry eye opened and glared at her. Össur’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. The other hand snatched a handful of hair close to the scalp and hauled her face to within an inch of his, eyes smouldering with fury.

  ‘Going to give me a surprise, were you?’ he hissed, and the stench of his breath made her want to retch. The hand buried deep in her hair held her head secure so that she was unable to move away; she didn’t dare close her eyes. The other hand was firmly around her wrist, keeping it locked as he forced her arm behind her until she could feel the point of the knife pricking her back.

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Please, what, you fucking evil bitch? You were going to stab me, weren’t you?’