‘What? Thorvaldur? How come?’
Gunna scowled. ‘He says Thorvaldur asked for me to come and see him. It’s at least twenty-five years since we last had a civil word to say to each other, and now he wants to be friends. I don’t get it.’ Gunna corrected herself. ‘That’s not quite right. I get it, I think. But I don’t like it.’
‘Maybe it’s more for Gísli’s sake than for his?’ Steini suggested gently. ‘If he really is on the way out, then perhaps he wants to make some kind of peace after all these years. It won’t do any harm to find out, will it?’
‘We’ll see. Anyway, I have an early start tomorrow. I’m going to Selfoss first thing to interview a witness who phoned in a lead I need to follow up. Then back to town from there, so we’ll see how much energy I have left after all that.’
8
Thursday
Tinna Lind let herself drop forward to fold her hands on Magni’s chest, resting her chin on them.
‘Still excited?’ she asked.
‘You need to ask? Looking forward to being on our own somewhere there’s less chance of getting our collars felt any minute.’
Tinna Lind giggled. ‘That’s part of the fun. Don’t you find it exciting?’
‘It is,’ Magni admitted. ‘What I find less exciting is the prospect of a few years in Litla Hraun.’
‘They allow conjugal visits there, don’t they?’
‘Yeah, I think so. But I think you have to be properly married to get those.’
Magni ran his hands down her back until they cupped Tinna Lind’s buttocks and he rocked her gently back and forward.
‘I’m sure that could be arranged if things come to that,’ she purred. ‘If you’re asking, that is?’
‘That depends if you’re offering, doesn’t it?’
The wind-swept spray from the tops of the waves and the grey water of the harbour had an iron quality in the first of the daylight. Rafn shoved open the door of the harbour café and looked around at the tables occupied by men in blue or grey overalls talking in low voices or flipping through dog-eared newspapers.
He picked up a mug of coffee and a pastry and went over to the far corner, where Jón Egill hunched over the previous day’s paper.
‘G’day,’ he said as Rafn sat down and sipped his coffee. ‘Speak to Össi last night, did you?’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘I offered three passports for a million each. Legal and above board, complete with real names and ID numbers of people living somewhere on the east coast. Össi asked how much for one passport,’ he put down his coffee and cut his pastry into strips.
Jón Egill raised an eyebrow. ‘Meaning?’
Rafn shrugged. ‘Meaning I reckon he’s planning on dumping the other guy and the girl and going his own way.’
Jón Egill nodded and frowned. ‘You wouldn’t expect anything less of Össur Óskarsson, would you? Can we trust him? Should we have anything to do with this business, or would we be better off leaving them to sort out their own shit?’
‘You prefer to keep out of sight on this?’
‘I’ve had the law sniffing around once already and I’d prefer to keep my nose clean, but I can check on them discreetly. I can deal with Össi, although I could do with someone there to do the leg work.’
‘Beggi, I reckon,’ Rafn said. ‘Bergthór Stefánsson. He’s a smart character, and he’s not too young or too keen to show off. We’ll get him to keep a discreet eye on them, just in case.’
‘He’ll do. I’ll have a word. He’s a good guy and he’s clean.’
‘For the moment,’ Rafn grinned, and dropped his voice and his head lower, closer to Jón Egill’s face. ‘Listen. Alli was arrested yesterday, and so was Baldvin.’
‘For Árni Sigurvinsson’s murder?’ Jón Egill grunted. ‘That pair of amateurs should have known better. It stirs up the law and makes life difficult for everyone.’
‘You realize that if Alli goes away for a decent stretch, then the Undertakers have an opportunity to pick up most of his business?’
Jón Egill scratched his chin. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘The thought had occurred to me.’
‘So it seems to me we have a bunch of choices here. We can make a couple of million out of the passports easily enough, but that’s no great shakes.’ He tapped the table with a forefinger. ‘Alli comes to us and says he’s been rolled by Össur. That’s no big surprise. Össur’s practically pond life. It was always going to happen sooner or later.’
‘Go on,’ Jón Egill said, and looked up at a young man in blue overalls who made to sit at the far end of the same table. ‘Seat’s taken, pal,’ he said.
‘But there’s nobody there,’ the man protested.
‘I said, the seat’s taken,’ Jón Egill repeated, and caught the eye of a thickset man with a fluorescent jacket over his overalls, who stood up, patted the young man on the shoulder and pointed to another table. He winked at Jón Egill, who nodded back almost imperceptibly. ‘You were saying?’ he said.
‘Alli told me he’d been rolled for a hundred thousand.’
‘Euros or dollars?’
‘Euros. But if he’s saying a hundred thousand, I’d bet the real figure is at least three times that. You need more than a hundred thousand for white powder business on Alli’s scale. And that cash is out there somewhere.’
‘A hundred thousand Euros is fifteen million krónur, and it’s more than likely in that flat in Gardabær.’
‘Exactly. So we have a choice,’ Rafn mused. ‘We can bump Össi and his pals easily enough, grab the cash and either hang on to it or take a slice before we hand it back to Alli. Then we leave them to either Alli or the law to deal with, and whichever way that goes it’ll be messy. Or . . .’
‘Or, what?’ Jón Egill asked.
‘We have an opportunity to figure out what sort of outcome would suit us best. The other option would be to help them on their way, make sure they leave the country and that headcase Össi isn’t cluttering things up here. We supply three passports at a million each and watch them disappear out of the country with a stack of Alli’s working capital.’
‘Which leaves Alli up to his neck in the shit while we quietly move in and take over where he left off, you mean?’
* * *
‘Still asleep is he?’ Tinna Lind murmured as Magni returned from the shower, towelling his hair and beard dry.
‘Unless he can snore while he’s awake.’
‘When are we going to get rid of him?
Magni looked through the door into the little apartment’s living room, where Össur’s feet in their grey socks protruded from under the duvet.
‘We’re going to have to be very careful,’ he said, slipping back under the bedclothes. ‘I’d bet you anything that he’s thinking how to do just the same to us. But for the moment we’re safe enough.’
‘Because he still needs us?’
Magni snaked an arm under Tinna Lind’s back and gave her a squeeze that made her gasp.
‘Until we have passports, we’re OK. We need him so we can get passports. He needs us to get around, because the police are looking for him and Össi doesn’t drive.’
‘So once we have the passports, we’ll have to watch our step?’
‘That’s the way I see it,’ Magni said. ‘And that loaded pistol in his pocket makes the whole thing a lot more awkward.’
The streets of Selfoss were awash with meltwater as the warm south wind and the constant rain showers it brought with it took off the layers of dirty snow to reveal the hardened older ice beneath, which seemed more reluctant to disappear down the town’s drains and swell the river that was in flood, bloated with milky water from high in the hills.
Gunna checked the address and parked outside the newish wood-framed house on the town’s outskirts. The grass in the garden could be seen peeking out through gaps in the snow cover and the place was littered with the junk left by active children encouraged to play outside, although on
a day like this she had no doubt they would all be indoors.
She was right. Svava Jónasdóttir ushered her into the kitchen, bypassing the living room, where a group of pre-school children were ignoring the television and playing with an excited puppy.
‘Busy day?’
‘Just a bit. If it’s dry, I can send them outside to play for a few hours and that tires them out. But that’s not going to happen today.’
‘I know just how you feel, although that’s something of a distant memory these days,’ Gunna said. ‘I’m Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and I’m with CID in Reykjavík. Lárus Erlendsson said I ought to talk to you.’
Svava pursed her lips and fiddled with a strand of hair. She looked through the door to check on the children, as if hoping to be interrupted.
‘Yeah. It’s about the people you’re searching for from that hotel up near the lake at Apavatn,’ she said in a slow voice, unsure of herself.
Gunna nodded, taking a sheaf of pictures from her folder. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘Well, it was something about the car those people had been travelling in, you see.’
‘This one?’ Gunna said, rooting in her folder and placing a picture on the kitchen worktop showing Erna’s Ford Explorer where it had been found in the church parking lot in Kópavogur.
‘I think so.’
‘You’ve seen the vehicle, or the driver?’
Svava nodded and chewed her lip before she answered. ‘It was either Friday or Saturday, I’m not sure which, but it was in the car park outside Samkaup. I go there a few times a week, and normally I just run round fast and get what I need, but there was someone there I hadn’t seen for a long time and it was such a surprise to see him there, in Samkaup in Selfoss of all places.’
‘And who is this character?’
‘His name’s Magni. Magni Sighvatsson. I saw him drive away in that car, or one just like it,’ she said, pointing a finger at the photograph in Gunna’s hand.
‘You’re certain? You spoke to him?’
‘We had a chat in the shop. Of course I’m certain.’
‘I mean you know this man well enough to be in no doubt about this? That’s what I’m driving at. I need to be sure there’s no mistaken identity here.’
Svava’s head nodded miserably. ‘I wish there could be,’ she said with a long sigh. ‘But it’s definitely him. I’ve known Magni since we were teenagers. Magni’s from the Westmann Islands originally, but we were at school together in Thorlákshöfn after his parents moved to the mainland. I seem to remember that his mother wasn’t from the islands and she never felt at home over there. Anyway, we grew up together. He lived with my sister a long time ago.’
‘Magni has a family?’
‘Not really. That relationship didn’t last, I’m afraid. I get on all right with Hjalti, my ex, and Hjalti’s still good friends with Magni. But it’s a different story with Magni and Ína. I don’t think he sees his kids very often, if at all.’
‘You know where he lives?’
Svava shook her head.
‘What did you talk about?’
‘You know. Ex-partners, children, that kind of stuff.’
‘Did he say anything about where he was going or why he was in Selfoss?’
‘Yeah, sort of. I was surprised to see him because last I heard of him was in the summer and he was working on a factory trawler called Hafthór and earning good money. I didn’t realize the ship had been sold and he’d lost his job. He said he was going east to Vík and had stopped here to get a bunch of groceries for the weekend – I assumed he was planning on staying for a while because his trolley was piled high.’
‘Vík?’ Gunna wondered out loud. ‘As someone who knows him, did that sound convincing to you?’
‘Well,’ Svava said and thought for a moment, ‘I don’t know. I got the impression there was someone waiting for him in Vík for a long weekend on their own, and it wouldn’t be a surprise. Magni’s a really lovely guy and ladies’ clothes tend to fall off when he’s about.’
Baldvin looked even less happy than he had the day before. His face was still a mess, although he’d been escorted to hospital by two uniformed officers where a dentist made a manful attempt at fixing the damage to his remaining teeth. His lawyer, a young woman with severe glasses and an even more severe expression on her face, tapped a pen on a pad and prepared to make notes.
‘Let’s go over it again, shall we?’ Helgi said with patience. ‘We have all the time in the world to get this sorted out, you know.’
‘All right,’ Baldvin said, sucking at his empty tooth sockets and whistling as he spoke.
‘You last saw Árni Sigurvinsson on Thursday last week. We’ve established that he was seen driving down the street towards Alli’s place and that his car was parked outside. People saw it there and we have witness statements to that effect, including one from the person whose space it was parked in.’
Baldvin nodded.
‘Talk me through it again, will you?’
‘They just had a chat. Alli was a bit upset, but I don’t know what it was that had pissed him off.’
‘This is where it gets interesting. Let’s backtrack a little, and you tell me just what Össur Óskarsson was doing at Alli’s place that afternoon, before Árni turned up?’
Baldvin looked pleadingly sideways at the lawyer, who lifted one eyebrow in return.
‘Unfortunately Árni is no longer here to give his side of the story,’ Helgi continued in a patient tone of voice, as if the lawyer wasn’t there. ‘Why did he stay so long? Because he was held there against his will?’
‘All right. Árni came along the street. He stopped outside and just sat in the car like he was waiting for someone. Alli saw him and went berserk. He went outside and hauled Árni out of the car and took him indoors.’
‘And you didn’t take part in this?’
‘No, not me,’ Baldvin whistled.
‘Árni was ten years younger than Alli and a head taller, yet Alli was able to drag him inside? I find that hard to believe? You must have had something to do with it.’
‘My client has already stated that he had nothing to do with this, officer,’ the lawyer broke in. ‘Can we please move on?’
‘Had a gun,’ Baldvin mumbled after a long pause.
‘Össur? A handgun? Or Alli?’
‘Össi.’ Baldvin sighed in despair, giving up to the realization that he was outgunned. ‘Him and the big guy.’
‘That’s who smacked your teeth out?’ Helgi asked. Baldvin nodded again and sighed, and Helgi sensed that he was about to give up. ‘There was an argument, or a fight? Over what?’
‘Cash. A load of cash.’
‘Go on. Tell me more.’
‘Össi knew Alli had cash in the house, so he took it. Him and the big guy, they ran off.’
‘How much cash?’
‘Fucking loads. Foreign money. In a bag.’
‘And then Árni turned up?’
‘Yeah. Looking for Össi.’
Össur’s phone buzzed. Magni looked at it and wondered if he should answer, but instead he picked it up and went into the living room to give Össur a shake.
‘Hey, mate,’ he said, planting the buzzing mobile in Össur’s hand. ‘Phone.’
Magni stayed while Össur answered, knowing that there was probably only one person who could be calling.
‘Yeah?’ Össur answered, stabbing at the green button.
There followed a conversation that Magni was only able to follow half of before Össur killed the connection and dropped the phone on the floor.
‘Well?’
‘Tonight. Rafn says we can have the passports tonight.’
‘Three million krónur?’
Össur’s teeth were exposed in rare triumph.
‘A million each. That makes eight thousand euros each. Just as well I’m travelling alone, I reckon,’ he said and closed his eyes, his hand once again clasping the comforting butt of the Baikal in his pocket.
Gunna took the stairs two at a time. Eiríkur looked up in alarm as Gunna appeared and went straight to her desk and began rattling her keyboard, punching the keys harder than necessary as she muttered to herself.
‘His name’s Magni Sighvatsson,’ she said in answer to Eiríkur’s unasked question. ‘Our mystery man in person,’ she added, sitting back and looking at the driving licence photo on the screen. Eiríkur stood by her shoulder and studied the beefy face that looked as if it were suppressing laughter just as the cheap photo-booth picture had been taken.
‘Magni Klemens Sighvatsson, born twenty-ninth of May 1986 in the Westmann Islands,’ Eiríkur said. ‘That’s our mystery man?’
‘That’s him,’ Gunna said, eyes on the screen as she keyed in the name again. ‘No criminal record, so it’s no surprise his prints didn’t show up anywhere.’
‘He’s a big lad as well,’ Eiríkur said, back at his own desk and tapping at his own computer.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Google. He was a weightlifting champion when he was twenty.’
‘So we might be looking at something of a handful,’ she brooded, looking at the friendly face in the photo, the twinkling eyes topped by a carrot mop and surrounded by ginger stubble. ‘I wonder what’s going on here? Why’s someone of that age with no record getting involved with deadbeats like Össur Óskarsson and Alli the Cornershop. It doesn’t make sense, unless there’s something we’ve missed.’
‘Or something we just don’t know about?’
‘More than likely. At any rate, it seems Magni lost his job not long ago, so maybe he was getting desperate. Eiríkur, find out what you can about this guy while I go and speak to the Laxdal, will you?’ Gunna said, scribbling names and ID numbers on a sheet of paper and passing it across. ‘See if you can find contact details for these people as well while I’m talking to the big man,’ she added, taking a couple of sheets of paper from the printer and sweeping from the room.
* * *
Ívar Laxdal sat with his chin in one hand and the other tapping at a laptop on his desk. Only his eyes moved as Gunna knocked and pushed the door open without waiting for a reply.
Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5) Page 24