Frozen Out

by Quentin Bates

  She was startled when the doorbell buzzed. At the door she looked through the frosted glass to see Snorri still in uniform outside, looking a little uncomfortable.

  ‘Come in,’ Gunna said with an unaccustomed cheerfulness, swinging the door aside.

  Snorri grunted a greeting, bent down to pull off his shoes, padded behind her into the kitchen and sat down in the chair against the window without needing to be asked. Scanning the papers scattered across the table, he picked a mug from the window sill and automatically held it out to be filled.

  ‘I stopped off at the station, but Haddi said you’d gone home. So here I am.’

  ‘Laufey’s supposed to be home from her trip today, so I ought to be here for her.

  ‘Another trip?’

  ‘Work experience, which she managed to wangle at a stable near Ólafsvík, the cheeky thing. Her grandmother lives up that way so she’s been there for the weekend and she should be back any minute. Now, young man, there’s something I wanted to talk over with you without any curious ears listening in.’

  ‘You’re not up to anything dodgy, are you?’

  ‘Don’t talk like a daft old woman.’

  ‘All right, I just don’t have long before my lesson.’

  ‘What lesson?’

  ‘Jói Ben’s daughter.’

  ‘Silla Sjöfn or the other one?’

  ‘Silla Sjöfn.’

  ‘And what’s she supposed to be teaching you?’ Gunna asked, mystified for a moment before she remembered that Snorri had begun to supplement his modest police salary by giving driving lessons. The tips of Snorri’s ears glowed pink.

  ‘I’m teaching her,’ he said lamely. ‘To drive.’

  ‘Sorry. Slipped my mind.’

  ‘And you were about to say something unladylike as well.’

  ‘Me? Come on.’

  Snorri slurped coffee and looked at the papers on the table with curiosity. ‘And?’

  Gunna took a deep breath. ‘I’m convinced there’s more to all this than meets the eye.’

  ‘I thought that the moment we saw the film of that bloke stealing the jeep,’ Snorri admitted. ‘Very professional, only took a couple of seconds. But if you’re going to steal a car, why nick an old crate like that?’

  ‘An old heap is unobtrusive. I’m sure there’s a link between the jeep and Egill Grímsson and I wouldn’t be even slightly surprised if our body in the dock wasn’t part of the story as well.’

  ‘I know it’s unusual and suspicious, but what makes you think there’s a connection?’

  ‘What it boils down to is that Egill Grímsson was the motivator behind getting this Clean Iceland Campaign off the ground to start with. Clean Iceland organized that march up at the InterAlu compound. My guess is that Einar Eyjólfur was feeding information to Egill, and Einar Eyjólfur was working for Spearpoint.’

  ‘Which is that bunch who are bringing in all these Poles and Portuguese to work up at the Lagoon?’

  ‘Right first time, young man. There’s certainly a bit more to this can of worms than meets the eye.’

  She decided not to mention that Spearpoint was owned by a minister’s wife, while Snorri rolled the empty mug between his hands.

  ‘So, have you found anything out?’ Gunna asked. But the front door opened before Snorri could answer, banged against the wall and brought a gust of cool air with it before slamming shut again.

  ‘Mum? You home?’

  ‘In here, sweetheart.’

  Laufey swung a backpack on to the floor. Her face was drawn with fatigue, but shone with excitement.

  ‘Have a good time, did you?’

  ‘It was brilliant, Mum, brilliant. We went riding every day. Who’s this?’ she asked, staring straight at Snorri.

  ‘This is Snorri, one of the policemen from the station. Snorri, this is my darling daughter, Laufey Oddbjörg.’

  Laufey wrinkled her nose. ‘Laufey Obba,’ she said with decision. ‘I don’t like Oddbjörg. Mum, can I have a horse?’

  Snorri snorted as he stopped himself from laughing.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Laufey demanded, nose in the air.

  ‘Sorry. Nothing.’

  ‘Laufey, my love,’ Gunna said patiently. ‘Look, I’m a bit busy right now. Can you put all the clothes that need washing in the basket? I’ll get dinner soon.’

  ‘We had great food at the farm, meat soup like Grandma makes only not the same and all sorts, and there were pancakes—’

  ‘Laufey, please. Ten minutes, OK?’

  ‘All right,’ she conceded, dragging her rucksack by the shoulder straps to her room and shutting the door behind her.

  ‘Enough to put you off having kids, isn’t it?’

  ‘She can come out to the stables and ride one of my horses if she wants,’ Snorri said shyly.

  ‘You’re one of these horsey types as well? I’d never have guessed you had a screw loose, young man.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. My brother farms near Eyrarbakki and he keeps some horses. It’s in the blood, I suppose.’

  ‘That would be fun for her and Eyrarbakki’s not that far,’ Gunna mused. ‘Now, what have you found?’

  Snorri grinned. ‘Nothing from traffic. No speeding, no running red lights, nothing at all.’

  ‘Oh well, it was a long shot,’ Gunna conceded.

  ‘Ah, but there’s more. You know the big filling station by the roundabout has CCTV over its forecourt? They even have a webcam outside that shows everything that goes round the roundabout. So I went and asked nicely if they had records of everything, and there it all was. There’s only one road out to Sandeyri, so it had to go past there, and I have to say, you were absolutely right.’

  ‘Of course, young man. You don’t get to be sergeant by being wrong,’ Gunna said warmly. ‘Now, what does this tell us?’

  Snorri scratched his head and thought. ‘Well, not a lot really, nothing that could stand up as evidence. Can’t see any registration numbers or the colour of the jeep, can’t make out the driver. All we can see is that a jeep of that model went out to Sandeyri at 22.18 on the ninth of March and there’s no sign of it coming back.’

  ‘Are there any gaps in this webcam?’

  ‘Only in the winter when it can freeze up, the guy at the filling station said, but there wasn’t a frost then. So it’s all there.’

  ‘So that jeep couldn’t have come back along the same road after the ninth and we wouldn’t know about it?’

  ‘That would mean sitting through hours of recordings to be sure.’

  ‘OK. So what we have here helps, but it’s never going to be evidence. Still, excellent work, young man.’

  ‘But that’s not all.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I watched the whole sequence from that evening. There’s only a few dozen houses at Sandeyri, hardly anyone lives there. There’s practically no traffic at all out there in the evenings. But that night there was this.’

  Snorri dropped another printout on the table. It showed a large car leaving the roundabout along the exit leading to Sandeyri. Gunna picked it up and looked at it carefully.

  ‘Time 22.44. Can’t make out the registration number,’ she said dubiously.

  ‘Have a closer look.’

  ‘At what?’

  Snorri pointed. ‘There. A taxi plate. And there’s this.’

  He placed a second printout on top, showing an identical vehicle entering the roundabout from the same turnoff.

  ‘He comes back at 23.31. That would fit nicely. Our man drives out to Sandeyri when it’s quiet. You can’t see the dock from any of the houses because it’s behind the sea wall, and nobody’s likely to be looking out of the window at that time of night anyway. He rolls his car off the dock, calls a taxi and waits to be picked up.’

  ‘Very neat,’ Gunna decided. ‘Right. Can we trace the taxi?’

  ‘Easy enough. It’s a Mercedes, dark colour, and if you look at that picture of it coming off the roundabout, you’ll see that the front wing i
s dented as well.’

  ‘Snorri, my boy, I think you can imagine what I’m going to ask you to do next.’

  ‘As it happens, I’ve already done it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The taxi is owned by a company called Radio Taxis, which is in turn owned by a gentleman called Jón Gunnsteinn Hannesson.’

  ‘Otherwise known as Nonni the Taxi and old friend of the police, as they say in the cop shows,’ Gunna said grimly. ‘Know him of old, I’m afraid. That’s excellent, Snorri, much more than I’d hoped you’d come up with. But, there’s one thing.’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘I’d prefer this to be kept very discreet.’

  ‘Riiiight?’ he said slowly, both his tone and eyebrows rising as he said it.

  ‘Look, it’s not secret, but I don’t want it all over the place yet. If we dig into the Egill Grímsson case, we’re in danger of stepping on the city force’s toes to begin with, and …’

  ‘And?’

  Gunna felt awkward but steeled herself to admit what she had been hoping was not the case. ‘I get the feeling this is all being sidelined. I’m sure it’s being quietly dropped.’

  ‘Shit. Who?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. I’m being leaned on by Vilhjálmur not to put too much effort into this.’

  ‘What? The Emperor?’

  ‘Excuse me? Why do you call the chief inspector the Emperor?’

  ‘Bára Gunnólfs said it first. Haven’t you noticed he looks like a Roman emperor?’

  ‘You cheeky bastards,’ Gunna guffawed. ‘I’ll bet you youngsters all say rude things about me as well.’

  ‘No. We like you. But we do wonder about your toyboy, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. The one from Dagurinn.’

  ‘Skúli? He’s a good lad, just a bit bewildered at the real world, I reckon. He’s only been out of school a few months.’

  ‘He seems a strange character.’

  ‘That’s what a sheltered upbringing and years of university do for you, I suppose.’

  ‘The opposite of us, then?’

  ‘Yup, I’m afraid so. Anyway, say a word out of turn and I’ll tell Vilhjálmur what you lot call him and you’ll find yourself transferred to Grímsey before you know it.’

  Lára looked up and frowned as she parked outside. She remembered leaving the kitchen window of her flat open so the cat could jump out on to the balcony, but she hadn’t left it that wide open.

  On the stairwell something whispered to her that things weren’t quite right. She wrapped a hand around the rape alarm that nestled in the bottom of her bag, hoping that it would work if she needed it, wondering if any of the mostly immigrant occupants of the other flats in the block would hear it or even take any notice if it were to go off.

  Her key slid into the lock and she swung open the door as quietly as she could, wincing to herself as it creaked. Stepping inside and leaving the door open, she looked carefully around the living room and bedroom, satisfied herself that there was nobody hiding behind the shower curtain in the tiny bathroom and only then noticed that the place had been ransacked.

  Every drawer and cupboard was open, with contents spilled on to the floor. Her underwear was in a heap on the bed, jeans and tops piled on the floor. Books and papers had been hauled from shelves and the kitchen cupboard that contained her cameras had been rifled, but nothing appeared to be missing. Lára sighed with relief that she had taken her laptop with her that morning and finally put down her bags in the remaining clear space in the middle of the living room.

  A sudden rattle in the kitchen made her nerves scream in alarm, until the black and white cat jumped from window sill to kitchen table with an inquiring look on its face.

  ‘Hi, Kisi. What happened here, then?’ she asked it, but the cat only stared back at her.

  Hunched under the sink, she fumbled for the panel under the sagging kitchen unit and triumphantly brought out a handful of disks that she knew contained most of her recent work.

  Relieved, she unclipped the phone from the ragged patch of denim on the waistband of her jeans and dialled 112.

  18

  Tuesday, 16 September

  Gunna felt self-conscious in Reykjavík. The city had changed so much since she had been on the Reykjavík force that she even found herself taking wrong turnings along the new roads that seemed to sprout up every time she ventured into town.

  Radio Taxis had a yard at the back of an industrial area not far from the main road. On an overcast morning Gunna nosed the police Volvo through grey puddles between drab workshops until she found Radio Taxis’ offices, a shed that looked slightly better on the inside than the ramshackle exterior.

  A couple of bare bulbs lit up the yellowing walls. A woman glanced up briefly from her desk as Gunna entered and then looked up a second time with a flash of panic as she noticed the uniform.

  ‘Good morning,’ Gunna offered cheerfully, recognizing the woman’s discomfort.

  ‘Hi. Nonni’s not here at the moment,’ she replied.

  ‘That’s a shame. Know where he is?’

  ‘Playing golf, I expect,’ the woman sniffed. ‘He seems to have better things to do than spend time here these days.’

  ‘Not to worry. It’s just a routine call. I’m Gunnhildur Gísladóttir from Hvalvík police. And you are?’

  ‘I’m Eyrún Jónína. Routine? What about?’ the woman demanded suspiciously.

  ‘Mercedes taxi,’ Gunna said, placing a slip of paper with the registration number on the counter between them.

  ‘Yeah. That’s one of ours. Is there a problem?’

  ‘Nothing special. Our computer flagged up this vehicle’s registration and this is just to tidy up our records,’ Gunna lied. ‘I see this car had a collision on Snorrabraut a few months ago. Has that all been settled with the insurance company now?’

  Eyrún Jónína sat at her desk and leafed through a bulging folder. ‘Yeah. That’s all settled. Some yuppie’s caravan fishtailed across two lanes and bumped the wing. His insurance paid up, no questions.’

  Gunna pretended to make notes. ‘That’s fine. The reason the computer flagged the vehicle up is that there was a road traffic accident in my area last week.’

  ‘That idiot’s not had another dent, has he?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. A witness mentioned that a Mercedes taxi had been in the vicinity at the time and there are only a few cars like this in the country registered as taxis. I’d like to identify the driver as a potential witness.’

  ‘That’s all right. Just as long as he hasn’t screwed up one more time.’ Eyrún hauled another binder from the shelf above her desk. She leafed through it and pulled a sheet of paper from a plastic sleeve in the middle, placing it on the counter.

  Gunna frowned in irritation and surprise as she looked down at a photocopy of the driver’s licence.

  ‘Know him, do you?’ Eyrún Jónína asked with a short laugh. ‘Matti drives that taxi all the time.’

  ‘I know most of the taxi drivers,’ Gunna muttered, scanning through the details even though there was no need to. She wrote down the licence number and shook her head sadly as she peered again at a youthful version of Marteinn Georg Kristjánsson glaring truculently back at her.

  19

  Wednesday, 17 September

  17-09-2008, 0119

  Skandalblogger writes:

  So everyone knows, a memorial service for Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson will be held at the church in Mosfell at 4 on Saturday 27th, so don’t be late. It’s now three weeks Einar disappeared and there’s three weeks’ silence on what happened to him.

  All right, so we know he died incapable, cold and alone. But how come he drowned a hundred kilometres from where he was last seen? It’s not so much a case of did he fall or was he pushed, rather, did he walk, or was he driven? And as it would have taken him a week to walk there, who the hell was driving? Whatever the police may think, this was no accident, so just who did this terrible thing?
>
  Come on, Keflavík police Führer Vilhjálmur Traustason! This is on your patch! When are you going to get to the bottom of this one and let us know what did happen to this young man, who Skandalblogger can now reveal was very much one of us?

  See you all on the day …

  ‘The taxi is used on a permanent basis by a driver called Marteinn Georg Kristjánsson, born in Vestureyri on the eighteenth of September nineteen sixty-seven,’ Gunna announced when Snorri asked if she had found out anything useful.

  ‘He’s from Vestureyri? You know this guy, then?’

  Gunna nodded. ‘Fat Matti, he’s called. He has a record of petty thievery, mostly cars, numerous instances of public drunkenness and the odd punch-up,’ she told Snorri, wondering at the same time whether or not to tell him quite how long she had known Matti. ‘He spent a long time in Canada until they picked him up a few years ago and sent him home by parcel post with a stamp on his arse. Oh, shit.’ Gunna sighed and Snorri looked up from the computer at her in surprise.

  ‘He’s something of a troublemaker?’ he asked, pointing at the screen. ‘I’ve got his record here and it looks that way.’

  ‘Snorri, my boy, you don’t know the half of it. Matti’s one of my many cousins from the west and he’s never forgiven me for joining the force. He’s always made a point of being as awkward as he possibly can without actually being arrested, and I reckon I spent my first few years in uniform hauling the silly bastard out of trouble here and there.’

  She hunched her shoulders wearily. ‘Damn and blast. That’s all we bloody needed, Fat Matti having something to do with all this.’

  ‘Right,’ Snorri said, at a loss for what to say next.

  ‘It’s OK. It might be fun to catch up with the old fool again. He might have found God or something in the meantime.’