The Killing Bay

by Chris Ould

  Hentze sipped his coffee. “Any idea who was collecting the shipment at this end?”

  “Not for certain, no. We think it was two Icelandic boys we’ve had our eye on, which would make sense if they were using us as a waystation before moving it on to Iceland. We needed to have eyes on the consignment to really be sure who collected it, though. But what really pisses me off is that the security services can swan in and cancel a perfectly good operation without having to account to anyone. Just two magic words – national security – and everyone does as they’re told.”

  “That’s true,” Hentze agreed. “So, when you were told that the operation had been scrubbed, who did that come from?”

  “Here? From Remi, but I’d already been told by the squad leader in Copenhagen.”

  “So why was Remi telling you again?”

  Dimon shrugged. “Just confirmation, I suppose: to make sure I didn’t spend hours sitting at the airport for nothing. I should be grateful for that at least, I guess.”

  35

  “JAN? IT’S RICHARD KIRKLAND.” WHICH I KNEW. I TOOK THE fact that he hadn’t said “Superintendent” to be an indicator that now he’d finally got hold of me, he was going to take an I’m-not-just-your-boss-I’m-your-friend approach. Which wouldn’t work.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, because he was never my friend.

  “Where are you?”

  “Still in the Faroes.”

  I was leaning on my car, keys in hand, on the point of driving to Tórshavn.

  “Right. Has— Have you had the funeral yet?”

  I enjoyed the fact that he found it awkward to ask. “Yeah, a few days ago.”

  “Ah. Okay. And how are you feeling – medically, I mean? Are you able to travel now?”

  “I think I probably could if necessary,” I said.

  “Okay, good. Well, the reason I’m ringing is because the DPS has rescheduled your interview for next Tuesday, the first. So if there’s no reason you can’t attend this time – no medical reason – I thought you’d want as much notice as possible to make any arrangements: travel and so on.”

  “I appreciate that, sir.”

  “I imagine flights might be limited from there.”

  I imagined that he probably knew exactly how many flights there were and at what times. He would have looked it up.

  “There are usually two a day to Copenhagen,” I said.

  “Right, good then.” He sounded satisfied to have disposed of the final reason I might find not to show up. “So we can confirm the first?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said and waited to see if he’d say “good” one more time. Some people called him Goody Kirkland, but I wasn’t one of them.

  “Okay, then.”

  I waited again, just because I could.

  “Jan?”

  “Sir?”

  “You might do well to leave yourself some time to prepare.”

  “I’m already prepared,” I told him. “But I’ll bear it in mind.”

  I thought – hoped – there was a trace of uncertainty in the slight pause he left before saying, “Good, well, okay then. The first: nine o’clock. There’ll be an email to confirm. I’ll see you then.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Bye for now.”

  I rang off.

  Goody Kirkland. I was glad I’d taken the call. It had made me realise that I’d already made a decision; I just hadn’t let myself acknowledge it till then.

  * * *

  Tove Hald was about average height, but that was about it as far as average went. When I’d asked her on the phone how I’d recognise her she’d said, “Oh, I’m blonde.” It didn’t strike me as a particularly outstanding feature in a country where every other person was fair-haired, but when I saw her I knew who she was. Her white-blonde hair stood out even here: short-cropped and slightly tousled. She had clear, ice-pale skin, light-blue eyes and her features were as Nordic as it seemed possible to be, even amidst the Scandinavian looks of the other customers in the SMS mall.

  “Tove? I’m Jan.”

  “Hey, nice to meet you,” she said with an easy smile and a good, businesslike handshake.

  I bought us coffees at the Baresso counter and as I followed her to the seating area I saw she had a row of tattooed flowers – daisies, maybe – down her spine: three of them between the base of her skull and the collar of the quilted plaid jacket she was wearing.

  We perched on a pair of high stools at a narrow counter running the length of the back window. “Did Fríða tell you what I needed?” I asked.

  Tove shook her head. “Only that it was family research and translation from the newspapers.”

  “Yeah, sort of,” I said. “I’m trying to find out about a commune at Múli between about 1973 and ’74. All I know is that it was called the Colony and it might have been run by a Danish man called Rasmus Matzen.”

  “Okay, just a second.”

  She dug in a pocket and came up with a pen and a small hardback notebook. I saw it was already half full when she flipped through to a blank page, then started to jot down the key names I’d used in quick, fluid handwriting.

  “Do you know any more?” she asked.

  “Only that the houses and land at Múli are owned by a man called Boas Justesen who lives at Fuglafjørður. He told me yesterday that they’d been in his family for some time, but I don’t know how long. He wasn’t very helpful.”

  The name Boas Justesen went down in the notebook.

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  I thought, then shook my head. “No, that’s about it.”

  “Okay. So why do you think that there would be something in the newspapers about the commune?”

  I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I was being interviewed, but there didn’t seem to be anything behind it except efficiency.

  “Well, I was told that people at the time didn’t approve of the commune, so I thought there might be some coverage. Letters to the editor, that sort of thing.”

  “Okay, I’ll check that. And what’s your objective to the search? It would be helpful to know.”

  I said, “My mother spent some time at the commune, so if possible I’d like to trace anyone who might have been there with her.”

  “And her name?” Pen poised.

  “Lýdia Tove Ravnsfjall. That was her married name. Before that she was Reyná.”

  She wrote it down and when she’d done that it was like a switch had been flicked. “She was Tove, like me,” she said, as if she thought that was a plus to the job. She closed her notebook. “Okay, I’ll see what I can find out for you. The day after tomorrow I’m going back to Denmark, but that should be okay if I start work this afternoon. I don’t think it will take too long. Fríða said you could pay one hundred and twenty krónur an hour.”

  “If that suits you.”

  “Yeah, that’s good, takk.” She knocked back her coffee like a shot of vodka and got off the stool. “Okay, then, I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. Good to meet you, Jan.”

  “You, too,” I said, shaking her hand again. “And thanks.”

  It was only as I watched her walk away, into the central hall of the mall, and then turn towards the exit that I realised she hadn’t asked me a single personal question.

  Then my phone rang. It was Hentze.

  “You remember you volunteered to do something last night?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you still ready?”

  “If that’s what you want. When and where?” I didn’t bother to ask if he was sure. He wouldn’t have rung if he wasn’t.

  “Hoyvík at two thirty. Can you be there?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  “Okay, takk. I think by the harbour would be best, past the museum. You can drive most of the way and then walk.”

  “What about the message?”

  “Do you have a pen?”

  I found one and wrote down the phone number and meeting code he gave me on the back of the receipt f
or the coffees. “I’ll send it now,” I told him. “See you later.”

  “Nei, I hope not.”

  I knew what he meant: if I saw him, so could anyone else.

  I rang off and sent the text he’d dictated. I didn’t expect a reply and I didn’t get one. Still, I gave it five minutes, finishing my coffee, and then I went to look for a jacket in the smart-casual range.

  * * *

  Hentze had offered no explanation when he left the station on Yviri við Strond, but there was no reason he would. Coming and going was part of the job.

  There was a veil of sea mist cutting the visibility on the road to a hundred metres or so and it showed no signs of dispersing as he drove out to Hoyvík, then took the side road to the Hoyvíksgarður museum. It was a winding, single-track road, descending into the small valley beside a mown field where geese foraged in the grass.

  When he got to the collection of buildings that comprised the outdoor museum Hentze parked in a bay by the administrative building. Two lights in a first-floor office and a single car outside were the only indication that anyone was inside. Except for a few hours each Sunday and Thursday the museum was closed for the winter season and the preserved buildings of the old farm were locked up. Unless you worked here there was no reason to come.

  He checked his watch then got out of the car and crossed the tarmac towards the old, stone buildings. There’d be a wait, but that was okay. He’d be in place when Reyná arrived and then things would develop or not.

  Initially he’d had some reservations about involving Reyná in this, despite the fact that it had been his idea. He liked the man in the way of complementary opposites, but he also knew that Reyná was a complex individual: a good copper, yes, but still, complicated and hard to predict, especially his disregard for authority.

  The alternative, though, had been to ask Dánjal or Oddur, which Hentze was unwilling to do. It was one thing to expose himself to possible repercussions, another to entangle them. And if – as he half expected – this vaguely ridiculous subterfuge turned out to be for nothing, then at least it would be a relatively private embarrassment and afterwards he could put it to rest.

  * * *

  The tarmacked track hairpinned back on itself, going downhill. After a minute or so I passed the museum buildings I’d read about while I killed time over lunch – stone walls and grass roofs: a preserved traditional farm. Not that I could see a great deal of it in the mist.

  Past the buildings the track became gravel and there was more winding for a short distance until I saw the roofs of boathouses and pulled in at a wide spot on the corner of the track. I stopped the engine and checked the time. Two twenty-five was about right, so I got out and pulled on my coat, then followed the slope to the quay.

  Heljareyga was a small, natural cove no more than a hundred yards wide at its midpoint. Beyond that I couldn’t see much. The mist hung like a damp dust-sheet over the headlands and above the almost mirror-smooth water it appeared to ebb and flow slightly, gossamer fine. The stillness made you want to hold your breath. Nothing and nobody moved.

  The quay was quite short with half a dozen wooden boathouses in varying states of repair. In a couple of places nets and ropes had been dumped in disorganised piles, as if waiting for collection or disposal. An upturned oil drum rusted gently under the rainwater collected by its rim.

  There was no natural landing place – no beach, just a litter of boulders and rocks – but a concrete slipway ran down to the water. Beside that a narrow jetty stuck out about twenty yards from the shore so I picked my way down to it and then went out along its length, as far as a ladder going down into the clear water. I was as visible as it was possible to be, so now I just had to wait. I leaned on a short rail and looked back at the land.

  I hadn’t seen any sign of Hentze but that didn’t matter. He’d be there somewhere – perhaps near the museum buildings for easy cover. There was only one way in or out of the place, which has advantages and disadvantages depending on whether you’re the watcher or the watched. I was neither. I was just the bait. The only question was whether I was alluring enough.

  Ten minutes. Fifteen.

  I waited, hands in my pockets. The only movement was from a pair of lost gulls, which came in to alight on the sea; the only sounds were vaguely watery and damp. I waited. You get used to just waiting when you’re a copper, sometimes for hours. And then my phone rang, as alien in the stillness as it was possible to be.

  * * *

  Hentze heard the sound of an engine ten minutes after Jan Reyná’s car had gone past. In the stone doorway he was concealed well enough, with a view of the track to the cove and any person or vehicle that went down it.

  He straightened slightly, straining to follow the sound of this second car and judge its approach, which seemed leisurely or cautious, perhaps because of the mist.

  It didn’t come past the corner of the building, and from the sound of gravel under tyres and a few seconds of reversing Hentze concluded that it had turned and backed up in the spot where he’d left his own car. The occupant or occupants might leave their vehicle and walk, so he stayed still, waiting to hear the engine stop.

  But it didn’t. The engine – a diesel – continued to tick over; the sound muted but carried well enough by the damp in the air. There was no sound of doors being opened or closed, either. Just the engine.

  Hentze checked his watch. It was nearly five minutes after the rendezvous time. He wondered how much leeway would have been agreed between Erla Sivertsen and her handler. How long would either of them wait beyond the agreed time before calling it off? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Half an hour?

  But of course, Erla Sivertsen could not make this rendezvous, and if anyone was coming they knew that. So they would come on time or not at all.

  The engine ticked over and Hentze made his decision. He moved out of the doorway and along the side of the building as far as the corner, then stepped out around it. In the parking lot across the way the idling car was an anonymous silver Nissan, medium-sized, with one occupant – a male. It had turned, as Hentze had imagined, and was facing the road from a spot directly in front of Hentze’s own car, blocking it in.

  Hentze crossed the short distance at a businesslike pace, waiting to see if there would be a reaction. He half expected the car to move off, but it didn’t. Instead he heard the whine of the driver’s window being lowered.

  The man in the car’s driving seat was in his mid-thirties, Hentze estimated as he approached. Hard to tell from this angle but he looked fit and well built. Certainly not the man Jákup Homrum had described as meeting Erla Sivertsen at Kaldbak.

  “I’m a police officer,” Hentze said in Danish. “Will you tell me your name and your business here?”

  “You’re requested to return to your office,” the man replied flatly, also in Danish. “Vicekriminalkommissær Syderbø would like to speak to you.”

  “And you are?” Hentze asked, taking his phone from his pocket.

  “I don’t think that’s relevant, do you?” the man said mildly. “And you can tell Mr Reyná to go home also.” He shifted and put the car into gear. “Please, return to your office.”

  Hentze had activated the camera on his phone by now, but even as he brought it up to the level of the car window the driver let out the clutch and started away. There was no squealing of tyres, no apparent hurry, but even so, all Hentze got was a slightly blurred shot of the top of the man’s head, then a second of the car’s rear number plate. It was Faroese and he could remember it anyway.

  He watched the car make the winding ascent up the valley road until it was lost in the mist. Then he called Reyná.

  “You can come in now,” he said.

  36

  REMI SYDERBØ LED THE WAY UP TO THE FIFTH FLOOR, conspicuously keeping a couple of steps ahead of Hentze as they ascended the stairs. They had exchanged fewer than a dozen words since Hentze had returned to the station to be met by Remi at the door to the CID department. Hentze took b
oth the reception and the silence as an indication that Remi was annoyed, but whether that stemmed from what Hentze had just done was harder to tell.

  There were fewer offices on the top floor of the building and they were all large. It was also quite quiet, with none of the coming and going of the lower floors, but more of a studious – perhaps even a library-ish – air.

  Remi knocked on the door of the Commander’s office and went in as if he knew they were expected. Hentze followed.

  The office had a fine view of Nólsoy when the weather was clear, but now the large, sloping windows looked out on the obscuring mist. The Commander, Andrias Berg, had his desk facing the view, but he was sitting with his back to it, swivelled round in his leather chair. He was a stocky man with prematurely white hair and he wore his uniform with evident pride. No matter what the time of day his shirt always looked freshly ironed. By and large, Hentze had no particular opinion of the man. He seemed personable enough, but kept his distance from the lower ranks, which was about as much as you could ask.

  Berg didn’t get up from his chair when Remi and Hentze entered. Neither did the man who sat in an armchair with his back to the wall. He was middle-aged, unremarkable in a slightly bank-clerkish way, tending towards the jowly. A man who looked as if he would wear a raincoat over his suit, Hentze judged. A man not unlike the one Jákup Homrum had seen.

  “Thank you, Remi,” Berg said. A dismissal, but perhaps also an indication that he might be required again.

  Remi left the room, closing the door. Hentze remained standing.

  “Thank you for coming,” Berg said, but only out of convention.

  “It was no problem,” Hentze said.

  “This is Herre Munk,” Berg said, switching to Danish. “He’s with the national security services.”