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

by Quentin Bates

  * * *

  Erna’s friend Dúa was so different from Sunna that it was difficult to imagine any common ground between them. Gunna’s reception was one of emotion and tears, unlike Sunna’s initially reserved manner the day before.

  A cat was shooed from a chair to make room for Gunna in the cramped kitchen and Dúa clattered cups and plates as she cleared the table and brewed coffee, before disappearing and returning with her greying hair in order and her dressing gown replaced by jogging bottoms and a sweater. She chirruped and clucked, talking almost ceaselessly as she pottered with the coffee pot.

  ‘You take milk, do you, dear?’ she asked, speaking half to herself and half to Gunna, as if she were a child, even though she guessed there could hardly be more than a few years between them.

  ‘A drop of milk, please,’ Gunna confirmed and waited for Dúa to settle.

  ‘Oh, I do hope they come back soon,’ Dúa twittered. ‘I can’t imagine what could have happened to them. I just can’t understand it.’

  ‘You know Erna well?’

  ‘I’ve known Erna since we were at school together.’

  ‘So you’ve known Tinna Lind all her life?’

  ‘Of course. I’m her godmother. Such a sweet girl. Headstrong, but sweet.’

  ‘I gather the two of them don’t get on all that well. Is that right?’

  Dúa poured milk into her coffee, forgetting that she had already done so once.

  ‘Well, they’re so different in so many ways, but then they’re so alike as well, not that either of them would admit it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Erna was just as headstrong and stubborn as Tinna Lind when she was younger, although when Erna was her age, she already had Tinna Lind. She had her at nineteen. Too young, I always thought,’ Dúa said, shaking her head. ‘You have children, do you, dear?’

  ‘And grandchildren,’ Gunna said. ‘So it wouldn’t be usual for them to go somewhere together if they get on each other’s nerves, would it. Or is it just Erna who is easily irritated?’ she asked, anxious to nip giving any personal details in the bud.

  ‘You know what it’s like, surely? Erna can’t understand why Tinna Lind won’t settle into a good job. Because she could, you know,’ she added with emphasis. ‘And Tinna Lind can’t see what all the fuss is about because she’s having a good time, has no ties and is able to travel whenever she can afford it. She’s been all over, you know.’

  ‘So why were they together with you and Sunna on Thursday, if they don’t get on?’

  ‘They bicker but they still get on, and I think Erna wanted to start on some early Christmas shopping. You know, before the rush starts next month.’

  ‘As Tinna Lind travels frequently, would it be out of character for her to disappear with no notice?’

  ‘At short notice, yes. But I don’t believe she’d just go without a word.’

  ‘And Erna?’

  ‘Not at all, never. She’s always been in control, knows where she’s going to be and what she’ll be doing this time next week.’

  ‘And the marriage is stable? As her childhood friend, I guess you’d know if there was anything wrong there? No infidelities?’

  Dúa shook her head vehemently. ‘Absolutely not. Erna and Bogi are a lovely couple, and he’s devoted to her.’

  ‘This is what puzzles me most,’ Gunna admitted. ‘I can understand one of them disappearing for a day or two for whatever reason, a fling or something else. But they’ve gone together. That’s what’s so odd about this, because from what I’ve heard from you and others, I can’t see Erna running away from Bogi, and I can’t see Erna and Tinna Lind wanting to spend so much time together without good reason.’

  Dúa looked blank. ‘I know. We can’t understand it either.’

  ‘Tell me about Tinna Lind. Do you know anything of her private life?’

  This time there was a sly smile. ‘I probably know more than Erna does, or maybe what Erna guesses.’

  ‘Nothing between Tinna Lind and Bogi?’ Gunna asked and Dúa looked shocked, her jaw dropping.

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’

  ‘I have to say things like that. I have to look at every angle, and that means the least palatable options have to be examined as well. Have you noticed anything between Tinna Lind and her stepfather? Domestic violence? Abuse?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’

  ‘And would you know? Would you recognize the signs?’

  ‘I think so! Believe me, Tinna Lind is a very self-possessed young woman, and if there were anything like that going on, she would have shouted from the rooftops.’

  ‘You said she’s headstrong? Likes her own way?’

  Dúa paused with her coffee cup halfway to her lips and nodded slowly. ‘Headstrong’s not the word. She just goes her own way, always has done.’

  Magni coaxed the scratched Explorer along the track towards the main road. He knew the few litres of petrol he had extracted from the lawnmowers and the wrecked quad bike should be enough to take him the thirty kilometres to the nearest filling station, but he still nursed the car as best he could, keeping to a steady fifty with the economy indicator smiling happily at him. It coughed and spluttered a couple of times and he gritted his teeth, wondering if the old fuel he’d had no option but to put in the tank might have gone stale, or if the fuel filters were starting to clog up with whatever muck had been in the quad bike’s tank. He revved the engine hard a few times and was relieved when it settled down, but the car still felt sluggish.

  His real dilemma was the card in his pocket. Erna had been persuaded to part with both her credit card and the PIN to go with it. Tinna Lind had made the case for refuelling the car and stocking up on provisions, arguing that they may as well be comfortable if they had to be prisoners. Magni had promised faithfully to buy nothing more than petrol and food, and he wondered if she expected him to go on some kind of spree in the little town of Selfoss with her credit card. He had his own card in his pocket, but he knew that it was close to its limit and that there was every chance it would be declined. Snowflakes spun away into the darkness as the headlights caught them fleetingly in their beams, and he pondered whether or not to try his own card, but decided that while using Erna’s card might flag up an alert for her, with his own clean record he was reluctant to pin himself down as having bought fuel.

  Magni drove with care. He had no wish to be stuck by the side of the road in this ridiculous girl’s car that drove like it was made of rubber. He even kept the radio and the heater switched off to conserve fuel, keeping the window open a crack as he drove.

  At last the filling station appeared by the crossroads, exactly as the old man had said it would. The windows were in complete darkness but the two pumps under a plastic roof were floodlit, and he guessed they would be covered by security cameras. In any case, he rolled up his collar as far as he could and pulled a wool hat low to his eyebrows before he punched the numbers into the self-service machine.

  ‘Thank fuck,’ he muttered to himself as the pump began to dispense petrol into the Explorer’s tank, and he filled all three of the petrol cans he had found in the sheds behind the hotel.

  He had timed the trip carefully. He wanted to be on the road in the dark when there was little chance of the car being noticed on the quiet country roads, but he wanted to be in Selfoss when the town was at its busiest, as he would less noticeable in a busy shop.

  The branch of Samkaup wasn’t huge, but it would do. It was hot inside and Magni stuffed the wool hat into his pocket as he pushed a trolley around, filling it with everything he had on a list in his head. He took tinned vegetables, bags of frozen chicken and pork, and packets of biscuits. He added catering-sized packets of coffee and tea to the top of the growing pile and wondered what else he would need. Next to the biscuits he took half a dozen loaves of bread, reckoning that he would be able to freeze some of them for later.

  ‘Hæ! Magni? Is that you?’

  He spun round to see a young woma
n with a batch of freckles across her flushed face and a wide smile.

  ‘Svava, my sweetheart! Wow, fancy seeing you here. What brings you to Selfoss?’

  She punched him gently on the arm, her slender fist sinking into the thick padding of his jacket.

  ‘Silly! I moved back here after I split up with Hjalti. Don’t you remember? You said you’d come and see us, didn’t you? And you never did.’

  A mock pout accompanied her words and Magni ruffled the hair of a yawning child in a push chair in front of her.

  ‘He’s growing quickly, isn’t he? Last time I saw him he was only the size of a sixteen-ounce cod fillet.’

  ‘I know.’ Svava sighed. ‘Before I know it he’ll be a sulky teenager wanting tattoos and piercings.’

  ‘Like his dad, you mean?’

  ‘Shit, I hope not. Anyway, what brings you out this way? Last I heard you were on Hafthór?’

  ‘I was until they sold the quota and the ship,’ Magni said. ‘The company made a killing, put the money into property and left forty families without an income. You’ve got to love the quota system, haven’t you?’

  ‘Aw, shit. I’m really sorry to hear it. But what are you doing out here?’

  Magni stopped with his mouth half open, wondering what lie he could tell that might be vaguely convincing. ‘I’m, er. . . I’m helping a guy up-country here for a few days.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Svava grinned at him and winked. ‘Got a special friend around here somewhere, have you? I know what you’re like. And now you’re anxious to get away, aren’t you?’

  Magni nodded, embarrassed but relieved all the same. ‘I’m really sorry, Svava, but I’m in a proper hurry and I’ve a long way to go yet tonight. Heading eastwards.’

  ‘Oh, right. Thorlákshöfn?’

  ‘No, Vík.’

  ‘Vík? Hell, you’d best be on your way. That’s going to take you a couple of hours on a night like this.’ She winked again. ‘And I guess there’s a lucky lady waiting for you at the other end?’

  * * *

  A clock on the shelf ticked so loudly that Gunna wondered if it could be heard in the street outside or if it was just because the house seemed deserted. Bogi Sveinsson seemed to have shrunk since the day before.

  ‘No news?’ Gunna asked.

  He looked at her in belligerent surprise. ‘You think I wouldn’t have told you?’

  ‘You’d be amazed the number of people who report someone missing, they turn up and nobody bothers to say anything to the police.’

  ‘What have you found out? Anything?’

  ‘Yes, but I obviously can’t say too much until things are confirmed. What types of phones do Erna and Tinna Lind use?’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘It does, believe me.’

  ‘All right. Tinna Lind has my old iPhone 4. Erna has a Samsung.’

  ‘You know what model?’

  ‘No idea. She bought it herself and I know for a fact that the box was thrown away, so I can’t tell you offhand.’

  ‘You know where she bought it?’

  ‘Smáralind, I expect. She seems to spend half her life in there.’

  ‘We tracked both phones and the last communications were on yesterday around midday. That would have been you?’

  ‘Probably. I spoke to her at some time during the day, but I couldn’t tell you when. I can check my phone if you like.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I have the phone records on my desk at Hverfisgata. I’m more interested right now in bank records. We have already checked with the bank to see if there’s any movement on Erna’s account and we’ll get an alert as soon as one of her cards is used.’

  ‘I checked the account online a couple of hours ago and her debit cards haven’t been used. I can’t tell if she’s used her Visa but I can call the bank on Monday.’

  ‘I can get someone to badger the bank. Don’t worry, we’ll get a notification as soon as her card is used.’

  Bogi Sveinsson sat in his own living room as if lost, not knowing what to do with himself in the echoing house decorated with too many ornaments and statues. His fingers moved constantly in his lap, fidgeting as he gazed around the room as though he were taking a good look at it for the first time.

  ‘We’ve already been through security tapes at Smáralind, and Erna’s Ford Explorer was there earlier in the day on Thursday,’ Gunna said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  ‘And they were all right then?’

  ‘So it seems. We’re still looking through more footage to check if we can see where they went inside the shopping centre. There’s plenty to search through.’

  ‘I see.’ Bogi Sveinsson’s fingers twined together, untangled themselves again and then he placed his hands flat on his thighs, as if irritated by his own impatient fidgeting. ‘Do you know if Tinna Lind was with her?’

  ‘So it seems. There’s an image of a girl who resembles your stepdaughter by the vehicle at Smáralind, so we’re working on the assumption that the two of them are together,’ Gunna said. ‘Bogi, do you have any connections with the region around Thingvellir, or Grímsnes? Hrunamannahreppur, maybe?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘You don’t have a summer house out that way or anything like that?’

  ‘We have a flat in Tenerife that we share with another couple. We’re golfers, you see. We go there to play a couple of times a year.’

  ‘But nothing in this country? No connections with that district? No family farm or anything like that?’

  ‘I was brought up in Kópavogur and both my parents were from around there. Erna’s a hundred and five per cent Reykjavík, never goes further than Mosfellsbær. She was brought up in the city and her family’s all from Reykjavík.’

  ‘So no rural connections at all? How about Tinna Lind? She’s not your biological daughter, is she? What about her natural father’s family?’

  Bogi’s face twisted into a scowl of discomfort. ‘It’s sensitive,’ he said, and looked at the floor.

  ‘Maybe so,’ Gunna said gently, ‘but any piece of background information could lead us to them. And I can assure you that anything you say is confidential.’

  ‘Erna never told me who Tinna Lind’s real father is,’ he said and sighed, looking at the overstuffed room as if it might give him inspiration. ‘Erna was a pretty wild youngster by all accounts. Look, you’re sure this won’t go any further?’

  ‘Between you and me. Unless it becomes essential as evidence, in which case it would have to come out.’

  ‘All right, it’s not going to be relevant to the investigation. When Erna was a teenager she had an affair with her older sister’s husband, who was six or seven years older than she was. I know because Agla, that’s her sister, told me herself; said she’d caught them at it. There was a huge row and the family smoothed it all over so there was no gossip. I’m certain that he’s Tinna Lind’s natural father. You understand that this all happened before I appeared on the scene? Anyway, Tinna Lind was registered at birth as having no known father, and when Erna and I got together and had been married a few years, I adopted her formally, so she’s Tinna Lind Bogadóttir,’ he said in a rush and took a deep breath. ‘And that’s the first time I’ve ever told anyone about that or mentioned it outside Erna’s immediate family. I’m not even sure Tinna Lind knows. It’s not something any of us have ever talked about.’

  The clock seemed to tick even more loudly once Bogi stopped speaking.

  ‘I see,’ Gunna said, impressed by the effort he had made to tell her the family secret. A tiny bead of perspiration had rolled down his forehead and his fingers were again twisted together in a knot. ‘In that case, do Erna and her sister get on today? How about the brother-in-law?’

  ‘He died two years ago. Erna and Agla had a difficult relationship for a long time, but since Gautur died they have been a lot closer.’

  ‘Is there any enmity there?’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Agla might have an axe to grind? Come on,
this was all put to bed years ago. In any case, Agla’s not well herself these days.’

  ‘Friends, acquaintances? Who does Erna associate with?’

  ‘Women who shop and do lunch, mostly.’

  * * *

  Magni pushed his trolley to the checkout and stacked everything on the conveyor. A girl who bounced a wad of gum from cheek to cheek scanned everything and the total appeared on the screen as Magni put the goods in two cardboard boxes.

  ‘Cash or card?’

  ‘Card.’

  He swiped the card through the machine and prayed. The card machine chattered and the girl looked at the strip of paper it ejected.

  ‘It’s refused.’

  ‘What? Try it again, can you?’ Magni said, hoping that the girl didn’t take it into her head to look at the name on the card or the photo of Erna on the back of it.

  The girl sighed, rubbed the card energetically against her sleeve and ran it through the machine a second time. This time it chattered again but Magni breathed as the girl spun a receipt towards him.

  ‘Sign here.’

  He took the offered ballpoint and scribbled an indecipherable scrawl instead of a signature on the slip, then looked up to see the girl looking at him strangely.

  ‘Erna Björg Brandsen?’ she said, a plucked eyebrow lifted in question at the beefy ginger-haired man standing in front of boxes stacked with groceries.

  ‘What?’ Magni asked, trying to be convincing and taking the card. He looked at it and shook his head with what he hoped was an engaging grin. ‘Shit, I picked up my wife’s card by mistake. Ah, what the hell, nobody’ll notice,’ he said lightly, pocketing the card and picking up a freesheet newspaper from the rack and dropping into the box.

  The girl opened her mouth to say something.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart. It’s my mistake. Happens all the time. She’s probably at the hairdresser’s with my card in her handbag,’ he said and placed his hands on the trolley. The girl looked at the queue snaking back into the shop, shrugged and started scanning the next customer’s items.

  Two places along the queue, Svava looked at Magni and caught his eye.