Frozen Assets gm-1

by Quentin Bates

  Snorri scrolled back to the point where the man stood by the car door and was preparing to get inside.

  ‘Now, can we see the man there any more clearly?’

  The man’s blocky image filled the screen.

  ‘That’s about the best I can manage. The system’s only really designed to record number plates,’ the manager apologized.

  ‘All right. We’ll just have to live with what you’ve got, if that’s all there is. Was there anyone on duty that night?’

  ‘The whole thing’s automatic. If something goes wrong at night, then it sends a message to one of our phones so we can get down here and sort it out. But that never happens unless the computer crashes, and even then it switches to a backup first.’

  Gunna wished the man would stop sounding so apologetic. It was making her want to snap at him.

  ‘Snorri, do we need to confiscate this computer?’

  A look of abject horror appeared on the manager’s face.

  ‘Or can you copy the files you need?’ Gunna asked, taking pity on the man.

  ‘I’m doing it already, or the screen grabs anyway,’ he said, reaching under the desk to remove a flash stick from the computer. ‘But I’ll come back in the morning with a laptop and download all the surveillance files for those dates.’

  ‘In that case, we can leave you to it. Thanks for your help.’

  Gunna was already outside and getting into the car as Snorri loped down the steps and joined her.

  ‘What was that all about, chief?’

  ‘You mean your suspicious mind hasn’t figured anything out?’

  ‘I don’t have a suspicious mind.’

  Gunna started the engine and the Volvo spat gravel from beneath its wheels as it left the car park.

  ‘Remember months ago there was an alert about a blue car that might have been involved in a fatal hit and run incident?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ Snorri admitted.

  ‘The victim was a man called Egill Grímsson. Helgi Skaftason investigated and came up with absolutely nothing beyond the idea that a blue jeep might have been involved. Hence the alert back in March.’

  ‘I get it. Now you find a blue car?’

  ‘That’s it. A blue car that was stolen very professionally the day before the hit and run, and which looks as if it had been carefully hidden. If it hadn’t been for the earthquake, the dock at Sandeyri might not have been checked for years and that car could have stayed there quietly for, well, anybody’s guess how long before it was found.’

  ‘Very suspicious.’

  ‘It’s beyond suspicious,’ Gunna said grimly. ‘This deserves some looking into, whatever Vilhjálmur Traustason thinks.’

  ‘I see. You’re not going to pass this on to CID?’

  ‘No. Not for the moment. Bjössi doesn’t have any spare time to do anything on top of what he’s already doing and I can’t see Helgi Skaftason welcoming us telling him to dig the case notes out again.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘That we’re going to do a little discreet investigation of our own until there’s more to work on, especially if I tell you that Egill Grímsson was a close friend of Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson.’

  Snorri’s eyebrows knitted together in a frown of concentration. ‘Sounds very suspicious.’

  ‘Doesn’t it just?’

  Snorri admired the scenery as Gunna slowed to take the turnoff for Hvalvík.

  ‘I thought that chap was going to have a heart attack when you said something about confiscating his computer,’ he said with admiration.

  ‘So? You’ve just done your first aid refresher, haven’t you? Now, you’re in tomorrow. Haddi’s off so I’d like you to maintain law and order for an hour or two in the morning while I have another little jaunt to the airport.’

  12

  Monday, 8 September

  What their editor liked to think of as the key elements of Dagurinn’s editorial team crowded, yawning, around Jonni Kristinsson’s laptop as he scrolled through Skandalblogger’s latest page, reading out the choicest nuggets of gossip.

  Dagurinn’s third full-time reporter, a diminutive, rotund and permanently cheerful young woman called Dagga, stretched to look over Jonni’s shoulder while Skúli crouched down to see past the other.

  ‘The host of which television quiz show has a predilection for dirty baby-talk in the sack?’ Jonni asked, reading off the screen in a mock-serious news anchor voice.

  ‘No idea. Does it say which show?’ Dagga asked.

  ‘Nope. That would be taking it a bit far.’

  ‘That looks interesting there.’ Skúli pointed, reading out loud. ‘A political gunslinger and former ‘‘non-paying guest’’ at Kvíabryggja prison has just come home from a three-week stay in California. Friends say that he has come home with a west coast accent, a deep belief in the power of crystal energy, a tan and a suspiciously fuller head of hair than he left with.’

  ‘Only one person that can be!’ Dagga whooped.

  ‘Hell, yeah. Everyone’s favourite.’

  ‘He’ll be furious.’

  ‘He’ll be on the warpath over this one. His lawyers would already be choosing themselves second homes in the Canaries on this one if they knew who to sue,’ Jonni guffawed, reading further as he scrolled down. ‘Friends are concerned and speculation in the Parliamentary canteen is rife. Has he gone for a transplant, or has he just bought a succession of wigs so that he can wear a short one after having a ‘‘haircut’’, then a slightly longer one, then a full-length hairpiece so he can comment loudly that it’s about time for a trim? Bets are being taken on the transplant theory. Click here for the before and after pics. Skandalblogger welcomes inside info — anonymity guaranteed!’

  Jonni clicked the page shut, sensing the approach of the editor without having to look behind him, a skill that Skúli and Dagga had been trying unsuccessfully to cultivate.

  ‘Five minutes!’ Reynir Óli Vilhjálmsson snapped as he swept past and into a vacant meeting room, papers under one arm and a sleek laptop under the other.

  The three looked from one to the other. Jonni raised an eyebrow.

  ‘He looks smart today. Anything special happening?’

  ‘He doesn’t look happy, though, does he?’ Dagga said.

  ‘We’ll see . . .’

  ‘Good morning. Margrét?’ Gunna asked. ‘I spoke to you this morning.’

  ‘Yes.’ The fresh-faced woman behind the desk wore a hoodie sweater and looked as if she would be more at home in a stable than manning a car rental desk at an international airport.

  ‘I’d like a word, if that’s OK,’ Gunna said in a voice that indicated anything else would not be acceptable.

  In the small back office Margrét spread out the rental agreements that Gunna had already asked for. ‘Right, here they are. It was one of our BMW X3s I think you’re asking about. You said the ones you want to know about have JA in the registration and the date was the twenty-fifth of August. Right?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘We have four vehicles that fit the description, they all came together so the numbers are consecutive, but only two of them were in use on that date.’

  ‘Can you account for the other two?’

  ‘Yup,’ she said with confidence, opening a desk diary and pointing out entries. ‘One was returned the previous day and was still being valeted. The other one was being serviced.’

  ‘Right. Carry on.’

  Margrét slid the rental agreements across. ‘This one was rented by an Ian Donegan, arrived on the twenty-fifth of August on an Icelandair flight from Manchester and he returned it on the thirtieth. All the details are there, passport number, credit card number, driving licence, et cetera.’

  ‘And the other one?’

  ‘Rented on the twenty-fourth, returned on the fourth of September, name of Gunnar Ström, arrived from Stockholm with Iceland Express.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘The flight number’s there on the requ
est. We always ask for that so we can match the vehicles to the flights people are arriving on.’

  ‘Of course. OK,’ Gunna said, looking at the photocopied passport page and into the face of the man she had seen on the car park’s CCTV system at the wheel of the blue jeep.

  ‘Well, the same information’s there, name, address, passport and all that stuff. I’ve photocopied it all for you,’ Margrét continued.

  Gunna shook herself back to reality. ‘Thanks. Do you recall either of these people?’

  ‘Maybe. It’s hard to say. We see so many faces, but I might recognize a person if I saw them again.’

  ‘Would you recognize either of them?’ Gunna asked, holdingup one of the passport photocopies with its blurry photograph of the holder.

  ‘Yes,’ Margrét responded instantly. ‘The face rings a bell. Good-looking guy,’ she added appreciatively.

  ‘Which one is it?’

  ‘Ah, not sure.’ Margrét looked through the rental notes. ‘He’s the Swedish guy. The Englishman’s too old. Look, he’s fifty-five,’ she said, finger on the date of birth on the photocopy of the man’s driving licence. ‘The Swede returned the vehicle very clean, it hardly needed valeting. But the English guy we had to bill extra because he’d been smoking a pipe in the car. It stank and there was ash everywhere.’

  ‘Fine. We have a clean Swede and a smoking Englishman. Anything at all you remember about Donegan or Ström? Anything at all? Any details about the rentals? Did either of them mention where they’d be going?’

  Margrét shook her head. ‘I can’t recall anything about him at all. He must have been polite. You tend to remember the rude idiots because we don’t get many of them. Most of our rentals are businessmen who all look the same, sound the same. You know what I mean?’

  ‘Didn’t you see them when the cars were returned?’

  ‘Not that I recall. Normally we just ask people to leave the car in the lot outside and post the keys through the box if there’s nobody here.’

  ‘Do you have a record of the mileages?’

  ‘Yup. Donegan was just over six hundred kilometres, fairly low for a six-day rental. Ström did twenty-two hundred kilometres over eleven days, which is average.’

  ‘Good. Then that’s everything, thank you. My colleague will get a statement from you later. Now, I only need the paperwork for both of them.’

  ‘Take those. I’ve already copied them for you.’

  ‘Thank you. If I ever need to rent a car, I’ll come straight to you.’

  ‘Ideas, please?’

  Reynir Óli had a pad open next to his laptop. Jonni lounged back in his seat, while Dagga and Skúli sat upright and attentive.

  ‘Now,’ Reynir Óli said sharply. ‘Jonni. Politics?’

  ‘Power’s still the big issue that everyone’s trying not to mention by hiding behind the City Council and the opera house rumpus. Maybe we should just short-circuit the whole thing and go for the power issue?’

  Jonni sat back. Reynir Óli rubbed the almost invisible strand of blond fuzz that straggled down his chin. ‘Risky. Is that all?’

  Jonni sighed and pretended to make some notes. Skúli glanced down to see Jonni had written, ‘Look at his chin. Told you so,’ on his pad.

  ‘Bjarni Jón Scumbagson has called a press conference this afternoon. No real idea what it’s about yet, possibly something to do with that Hvalvík smelter project, or it might be about endangered spotted eider ducks for all I know. Could be something for tomorrow,’ Jonni drawled.

  ‘OK. You’d better be there. Do four hundred words for the website straight away and a piece for tomorrow’s edition if it’s any good.’

  ‘I was going to take the lad as well,’ Jonni said, jerking a thumb at Skúli. ‘He hasn’t had the pleasure of a ministerial press call yet.’

  ‘Whatever. What do we know about this Skandalblogger?’ Reynir Óli demanded. ‘He’s upsetting a lot of people. Is this guy a story?’

  ‘Or girl,’ Dagga said. ‘He or she would be a story if we could find him.’

  ‘Or her. Or them,’ Jonni added.

  ‘It’s incredibly popular, but it’s dangerous. There’s so much there that’s libellous. Even if it is true,’ Dagga continued, ignoring him.

  ‘I know that’s not what they teach you at university, but truth and journalism are pretty dangerous bedfellows,’ Jonni sighed as Dagga and Skúli looked pained. ‘No need to let the truth get in the way of a good story.’

  ‘But this blogger,’ Reynir Óli butted in. ‘Like Dagga says, everyone reads the blog and nobody has a clue who writes it. It’s a massive story if we find out who it is.’

  ‘There are plenty of scores waiting to be settled and there are a good few people who would be very pleased if we could track Skandalblogger down. That Spearpoint woman is going completely apeshit over what he’s being saying about her.’

  ‘That’s the obnoxious PR bimbo married to the environment slimeball, right?’ Jonni asked.

  ‘Right,’ Reynir Óli said, ignoring Jonni. ‘So where do we go from here? Skúli, you’ve been trying to dig something out on this, haven’t you? How far have you got in tracing who’s behind it?’

  ‘Nowhere. Now it’s hosted by a service provider in some obscure former Soviet republic where they take the cash and don’t ask questions, or bother answering them.’

  Jonni coughed and scratched his head. ‘Maybe this is the wrong way round. Whoever the Skandalblogger is, and speaking personally I say good luck to them, they’re getting some top-quality information, not just what days the Minister of Health’s secretary wears a pink thong, but real stuff, like all that about Bjarni Jón and the Russian connections. Good stuff, right on the nail.’

  Reynir Óli raised both eyebrows. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘This is a person, or people, on the inside, with access to real government and financial information, not just recycled salacious gossip.’

  ‘So what are we looking for?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Jonni admitted. ‘My guess would be a Parliamentary secretary, a researcher, someone with access to government but not necessarily right at the top. Maybe a party official?’

  ‘Or how about a top political journalist?’ Dagga asked sweetly.

  ‘Don’t talk such rubbish, girl,’ Jonni growled. ‘It’d have to be someone at board level who goes to the right parties, not a grunt like us.’

  Reynir Óli sensed the switch in mood and brusquely changed the subject.

  ‘This week? What do we have? Jonni, you’re working on the finance bill issue, aren’t you? I need that today and I’d like you to do the editorial comments this week as well.’

  Jonni’s eyes rolled up to the heavens, but he kept quiet and Reynir Óli continued.

  ‘Dagga, fashion pages, for the Saturday supplement. Commission freelancers to do some if there are gaps left to fill. The same with the travel pages. Gossip?’

  ‘Get it from Hot Chat and rehash it if that’s OK? The usual agency stuff from London? The Beckhams? Paris Hilton? Madonna?’

  ‘Whatever. Fine by me. The others use it, so we’ll have to do the same. Skúli, crime reports for the Tuesday and Thursday editions, and something a bit meatier for Saturday? How are you getting on with your redneck cop profile?’

  ‘Fine. It’ll be a good series. I’d like it to run over a couple of weeks if that’s OK with you?’

  ‘If it fills up the inches, it can’t be bad,’ Jonni grinned.

  ‘That’ll be fine, Skúli,’ Reynir Óli said primly. ‘I’d like you to keep tabs on this blogger and dig up what you can. Get on to the Ministry of Justice, someone like that. Can you do that? Get an angle on how they’re managing to keep him on the run all the time.’

  All three of them pretended to take notes for the week ahead. Jonni was drawing a series of boxes across the page of his notebook, while Dagga typed straight into her laptop.

  ‘Er, Reynir? A question?’

  ‘Yes, Skúli.’

  ‘I just wondered —
if we track down the blogger, then what do we do?’

  ‘Why do you need to ask?’ Reynir Óli asked in astonishment. ‘We’d splash it across the weekend edition.’

  ‘Well, it’s just that without the Skandalblogger there, we’d struggle a bit for stories. I mean, he’s such a great source of material.’

  Gunna dispatched a relieved Snorri to the InterAlu compound to discuss a wide load that the construction contractor wanted to bring in. Snorri was only too pleased to escape the confines of the station and Gunna reflected that maybe she was asking him to do too much.

  She shrugged and decided that as long as Snorri wasn’t complaining, she wasn’t going to feel sorry for him, knowing that he was relishing the responsibility. With the office to herself, she spread the two rental agreements out on the desk and read carefully through all of the details for both of the men.

  Gunna frowned, pulled the phone across and dialled Stefán Jónsson’s number from memory, peering at the photocopied passport photos as she listened to it ring.

  ‘Hi, Siggi? It’s Gunna the Cop. Is your grandad home?’

  ‘He’s asleep on the sofa,’ the thirteen-year-old replied guardedly.

  ‘Now, young man, I need you to do something for me. All right?’

  ‘Yeah . . . ?’

  ‘I want you to go on the internet and find pictures of BMW X3s. Got that? It’s a big jeep.’

  ‘Duh. I know what an X3 looks like,’ the boy replied with disdain.

  ‘So much the better. I’d like you to find a couple of pictures and show them to your grandad. Then tell him that Gunna wants to know if this is the model of car he saw that night. OK?’

  ‘Yeah. What’s it for?’

  ‘Can’t tell you. But it’s important. Don’t tell anybody else, but I really need you to call me back as soon as you can and tell me what your grandad says. OK?’

  ‘Is it, like, a criminal car?’ There was a new note of excitement in the boy’s voice.

  ‘I’m not sure. It could be. Can you do that for me?’