Frozen Assets

by Quentin Bates

  She thought quickly. The east coast, deep fjords and high mountains, virtually as far away from Hvalvík and Vilhjálmur Traustason as could physically be possible without leaving the country. A pay grade up in salary wouldn’t be unwelcome, though.

  ‘I’m wondering what I’ve done, or haven’t done, to deserve this. To be honest, it’s rather unexpected. Have I upset someone, or what?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he purred. ‘There’s a changing demographic in the east, a large immigrant population, and a major narcotics problem with smuggling that urgently needs to be addressed, so the Egilstadir Sheriff’s Office has put together an action plan with funding for additional officers to bolster their efforts on narcotics in particular.’

  ‘How long do I have to think about it?’

  ‘Not long. There are other candidates in the running.’

  ‘All right. I’ll think it over. Anyway, is that all?’

  The man’s face was grey with fatigue, even under the orange cast of the lights in the interview room at Reykjavík’s Hverfisgata police station. All the pride had disappeared from Gústi the Gob as he leaned forward on the table, stubbled head in his hands.

  ‘Look. I’ve told you. I saw him that night in the bogs, told him and that other bloke to shut it or fuck off out. That’s it. End of story.’

  Sævaldur sat back in his chair as Gunna stood uncomfortably by the door.

  ‘Come on, Gústi,’ Sævaldur said in a patient voice. ‘You’ve got plenty of form. You and your mates turned the guy over and dumped him out of town when it went wrong. Come on, come clean.’

  ‘No. No. No.’

  ‘Gústi, we’ve been here all day yesterday and all day today and we’ve got all night and all day tomorrow. And all day the next day.’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’ A hint of desperation crept into his voice as this time he smacked the table between them with the flat of one vast hand. ‘I’m telling you, it was nothing to do with me.’

  Sævaldur’s voice hardened. ‘So where did the cash come from?’

  ‘Savings,’ Gústi mumbled. ‘I saved it all up.’

  ‘You mean you had a spending spree on Einar Eyjólfur’s credit card? Come on, Gústi. We found the receipts in your flat. We know it was you.’

  ‘’No. It wasn’t me did him in. I want a lawyer, now.’

  Sævaldur tried to outstare him but failed.

  ‘All right,’ he admitted. ‘All right. We’ll get your legal eagle in. But it doesn’t look good for you, Gústi. You could get ten years for this. You did five years before, so you know what it’s like.’

  ‘It wasn’t me. I found the wallet in the bogs after we closed. All right, the old woman bought a few things with the bloke’s card, but that’s all.’

  ‘OK, so that’s your story.’

  Sævaldur stood up, reached for the tape recorder and switched it off.

  ‘Now I’m going outside for a smoke and you’re staying here,’ he sneered, shoving his chair back. ‘D’you want to take over?’

  Gunna shook her head. ‘I’d like a word outside. Can Viggó sit in for ten minutes?’

  Sævaldur knocked on the door and it whispered open.

  ‘Viggó, would you?’ Gunna asked the thickset officer outside as he waddled into the room and sat down with the air of a man ready for the long haul.

  ‘Well, Gústi. Haven’t seen you for a while. How’s tricks, then?’ he asked as Gunna and Sævaldur left the room.

  At the back of the building, Sævaldur and Gunna lit up. Although she had been inside the bowels of the building since the middle of the day, she was still surprised to see that night had fallen. It had started to rain and fat drops pattered around them.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Gunna said. ‘It stinks.’

  ‘Come on. We have a crim with form and a link to the dead guy.’

  ‘Did you search his place yesterday?’

  ‘Yup. Found your guy’s credit card under the bathroom sink, receipts in the kitchen bin. It fits.’

  ‘It doesn’t fit. Einar Eyjólfur disappeared around midnight. We know that Gústi was on the door until after four in the morning.’

  ‘We can work around that. Gústi has mates.’

  ‘The barmaids confirmed Gústi was there until they locked up. Even that Thai girl who doesn’t speak Icelandic.’

  Sævaldur ground out his cigarette against the wall. ‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to get a result on this? Is this PMS week, or what?’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud . . .’

  ‘No, come on, tell me.’

  ‘Inside. It’s bloody cold out here.’

  In the empty cafeteria they sat face to face over a table and Gunna wondered if Sævaldur felt he was back in the interview room. In the far corner of the room a TV set showed a topical news programme with a Member of Parliament being interviewed. Gunna turned the sound down to a murmur.

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’ Sævaldur asked pugnaciously. ‘Crim. Link. Dead man. It adds up.’

  ‘It doesn’t add up. You won’t get a conviction without more evidence and I don’t think you’ll find any.’

  ‘We can make it fit. I can get a confession and a result on this,’ Sævaldur argued and Gunna noticed how ‘we’ had been replaced with ‘I’.

  ‘And whoever did this gets away while a brainless minor crim with a record of nothing but petty crime is banged up. That leaves someone very dangerous out there.’

  ‘Upstairs wants this sorted out quickly.’

  ‘Quickly doesn’t mean hanging a murder on an innocent man.’

  ‘Gústi the Gob isn’t innocent.’

  ‘He is of this, whatever else he may have on his conscience.’

  ‘He’s done plenty. Gústi doesn’t have a conscience.’

  ‘If you think you can get a confession out of him, good luck to you. There’s no evidence on Einar Eyjólfur’s body, no marks, no bruises, nothing to show any rough handling. I think you’re wasting your time.’

  Sævaldur drained his mug and rattled his chair back as he stood up. ‘Well, I’m going to batter it out of him whether he likes it or not.’

  ‘Sit down, will you? There’s something I want to know about,’ Gunna said sharply and the tone of her voice prompted Sævaldur to do as he was asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Egill Grímsson. Tell me about him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He was run over and killed in Grafarvogur in March.’

  ‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’ Sævaldur demanded, refilling his own mug but forgetting to offer Gunna a refill.

  ‘They were close friends, Egill Grímsson and Einar Eyjólfur. I’d like to know if there’s a link.’

  ‘Christ, what are you playing at? It’s staring us in the face. All we have to do is haul it out of Gústi the Gob without having to drag all kinds of other stuff into it,’ Sævaldur fumed.

  ‘Fair enough. Have you found the car or the driver responsible for Egill Grímsson’s death yet?’

  ‘Well, no. But whoever it was will show up soon enough.’

  ‘Have you ruled out a link between them?’

  ‘Between a schoolteacher in his forties and a nerd in his twenties? Come on, Gunna, talk sense, will you?’

  ‘There are links and we need to look into them. There’s more here than meets the eye, Sævaldur.’

  He shifted back in his chair and swung his feet outwards to cross his ankles, throwing his head back in mock despair. ‘All right. If you want to follow trails that go nowhere, that’s up to you. As far as I’m concerned, we have our culprit right here and he just needs to be cracked.’

  Gunna sighed. ‘OK. There’s enough to charge him with theft or fraud for the credit cards. That gives you plenty of time to try and get a confession out of him, but I don’t reckon you will.’

  ‘Why not?’ Sævaldur demanded with a sneer in his voice.

  ‘Because Gústi didn’t do it. Even if you charge him, you won’t get a conv
iction.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Gústi’s our man.’ Sævaldur levered himself to his feet. ‘What’s the matter with you, Gunna? Don’t you want a result on this? That’s what upstairs wants to see, and that’s what they’re going to get. Come and watch the master at work, you’ll see,’ he said and swaggered from the room, leaving his mug on the table for Gunna to pick up.

  She rose to her feet as the door banged behind him and, seething with suppressed anger, rinsed out her own mug and placed it carefully by the sink, ignoring Sævaldur’s.

  8

  Wednesday, 3 September

  03-09-2008, 2315

  I’ll be your back door man . . .

  Maybe the government’s hippest young gunslinger should be paying more attention to his über-fashionable old lady, as rumour has it that she’s already signed up for a week’s conference in Miami next month at the International Federation of Arse-Lickers and Bullshitmongers (known otherwise as the PR Practitioners’ Guild). But is she going alone? Of course not . . . And why should she when there’s a whole stableful of eager young hunks manning her office for her to pick from for a little companionship, just in case she needs a little manning herself?

  So, in case you’ve popped by to read the latest — and we know that you have, guys — this is just to let the lucky stud know that he needs to stock up on some lube at the airport, as we hear the lady has some unusual preferences. Hmmm, tasteful . . .

  Check back soon . . .

  Bæjó!

  9

  Thursday, 4 September

  A burst of sunshine broke through the bank of tattered clouds rolling in from the west and glinted first on the wavelets lapping at the harbour walls, and then on the blackened concrete of the crumbling quayside at the tiny village of Sandeyri.

  Gunna leaned on the breakwater and puffed a Camel as two young officers watched a crane taking up position on the dockside. To her satisfaction, Sævaldur had still failed to extract a confession from Gústi but had charged him with an array of offences relating to Einar Eyjólfur’s credit cards. Added to a morning’s drive out to Sandeyri, this made the day a good one and she basked in the warmth of the autumn sunshine.

  She was grateful for a brief respite in the routine at Hvalvík, where managing heavy traffic and relations with InterAlu were increasingly occupying her working hours even with the addition of Snorri to the station. Construction work continued at the new smelter at the far side of Hvalvík harbour and the long trucks taking earth movers and heavy gear had begun the trek up the Sléttudalur road to the new site that would become the Hvalvík Lagoon power station.

  She looked down at the shimmering water, and what at first appeared to be the slick head of a seal among the miniature waves lifted itself from the water and hauled a mask up its face. The diver hung on to a rusting ladder and called up to one of the officers on the quay.

  ‘Going to be long?’

  ‘Two minutes.’

  The diver nodded and waited patiently while the crane was jacked up on to its lifting plates and the jib lowered out over the water. As heavy canvas slings dropped to the surface, the diver pulled his mask back down and slipped below the surface with hardly a ripple. A minute later he reappeared, dropping his mouthpiece to shout.

  ‘Away you go!’

  Gunna stood up straight, stamped on the cigarette butt and walked smartly to the quayside. The diver sculled gently away from where the crane’s wire disappeared into the water.

  The engine roared. Black smoke belched from the crane’s exhaust and drifted lazily down the quay in the still air. Wire spun on to the drum and scattered shining droplets where it left the water until the slings appeared and finally the roof of a car broke the surface. Clear water sparkled and streamed from its open windows as it was raised high into the air, turning in slow circles.

  The car swung over the dock, was gently lowered on to its wheels and crouched there, a small jeep with paintwork covered in a thin layer of green growth. One of the officers detached the slings that the diver had passed through the car’s windows so it could be lifted by its roof. The diver clambered up the ladder and sat on a bollard to remove some of his equipment. Gunna helped him unhitch the tank from his back and put it down carefully.

  ‘See anything else down there?’

  The diver pulled his hood off to reveal a shock of grey hair and an older face than Gunna had expected to see, adorned with the kind of walrus moustache that had gone out of fashion with bowler hats.

  ‘Not much to be seen down there. The bottom’s all sand — if there was anything big, it would probably show up well enough. The tide’s pretty strong around here, so anything small tends to get swept out anyway. You’re Raggi Sæm’s wife, aren’t you?’

  ‘Was. And you are?’ Gunna responded in surprise.

  ‘Unnsteinn Gestsson. Your Raggi and I sat for our tickets together, bloody years ago it seems now.’

  ‘Unnsteinn? I don’t recall him mentioning you.’

  ‘Steini the diver?’

  ‘Of course. You were on Ægir as well for a while, weren’t you?’

  ‘A good few years, actually. I think Raggi must have been second mate about the time I joined the ship, and then he transferred to Tyr and . . . Bloody shame.’

  Gunna looked down at the cracked concrete at her feet. Raggi was in her thoughts every day, often at the most uncomfortable moments. For the first time in many months she felt the familiar stab of grief behind her breastbone and ruthlessly blocked back tears that threatened to bully their way down her cheeks. ‘So. You left the service, then?’

  ‘Yup. Retired a couple of years ago with twenty-five years’ undetected rule-breaking and skiving behind me. Now I just do a bit of work for the harbour authorities. That’s how we found this old heap. After the earthquake in the spring the town surveyor asked me to have a look at the pilings under all the quays to see if it’s all solid. I’ve only just got round to Sandeyri. Down I went and there it was, sitting on the bottom minding its own business. On its wheels, windows wide open, just as if it had been shoved off the edge and into the water. Very neat.’

  ‘Thank you. That all helps.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, hauling himself to his feet. ‘If there’s anything else, give me a call,’ he added in a tone that indicated a call would be welcome.

  Gunna left him to pull himself out of the old-fashioned wetsuit, sitting in the back of a van that had seen better days. She turned to the forlorn jeep squatting on its wheels on the quayside.

  ‘Good man. That would have been me otherwise,’ she called to the young officer who opened the car’s passenger door to release a flood of water that engulfed his feet. She ran a finger along the bonnet to expose a streak of blue paint under the green algae. As the policeman who had opened the door stood to one side in embarrassment, she peered at the sodden interior, looking carefully at the ignition with the key still in it.

  ‘Right, then. Plain clothes will be here any minute to have a look over this and I’ve already asked for forensics to see what they can find,’ she told the uniformed man.

  Gunna ran practised eyes over the sodden interior of the car. There was nothing to be seen apart from drifts of fine sand in every corner.

  ‘We’ll get the tyres checked and see if there’s anything there that might link it to something useful,’ Gunna muttered to herself. ‘Right then, young man. What can you tell me?’

  ‘I’ve already checked the number through the computer. It belongs to Rögnvaldur Jónsson, address in Akranes.’

  ‘How did you do that so quickly?

  ‘The diver already gave me the registration number, so I checked it.’

  ‘Good lad.’

  ‘And I’ve spoken to the owner. He says he left it at the airport while he went to Tenerife for three weeks in March.’

  ‘March?’

  ‘Yeah. When he came back, it wasn’t there any more.’

  ‘Which is when he reported it stolen?’

  �
��Yup. The guy’s a plumber and he was more upset about losing the tools in the back than the car itself, so he was quite cheerful when he found out he might get his spanners and stuff back.’

  ‘If it’s still there. I don’t want to mess about too much until CID have had a look. I don’t suppose I’ll need to trouble our plumber again if you’ve already got a statement from him,’ Gunna said with her eyes narrowed. She crouched on to her haunches, reached inside the open driver’s door and ran a hand under the seat.

  ‘A plumber who spends three weeks off his face on sangria doesn’t strike me as the bird-watching type,’ she said, lifting out a compact pair of binoculars, light glinting from the lenses. ‘So, what do you suppose these were used for?’

  ‘I’m not buying it. Sorry,’ Gunna said forcefully.

  ‘What else do you have then?’ Sævaldur demanded. ‘Come on, who else could have bumped Einar Eyjólfur off?’

  ‘That’s just what we’re not going to find out if you refuse to investigate anything other than the first thing that pops up in front of your eyes.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Sævaldur sneered. ‘Gústi is as guilty as hell. No doubt.’

  ‘No doubt in your mind, that is. Look, I’ve a witness who saw a car on the dock late that night, quite likely around the time that Einar Eyjólfur landed in the water.’

  ‘So what? Some bloke driving around who might or might not have seen something?’

  ‘It needs to be followed up.’

  Sævaldur looked unconvinced and Vilhjálmur Traustason sighed.

  ‘If you are certain, Sævaldur, that this man is the perpetrator, then I think we should proceed and charge him formally. You don’t agree, Gunnhildur?’ he asked as if calling on deep reserves of patience.

  ‘You know I don’t,’ Gunna snapped. ‘Gústi’s a scumbag but he’s not a killer. He’s a minor villain who’ll grab an opportunity if it presents itself. He doesn’t kill and he certainly doesn’t plan anything to the extent of driving a hundred kilometres to dispose of a body.’