Summerchill

by Quentin Bates

  The black van arrived as he was ready to leave. Rafn jumped out of one side and a man who looked large enough to be two normal-sized men rolled into one stepped easily out of the passenger side. Rafn’s mirror shades were back in place and the big man crossed massive arms, blue with tattoos blurred by time, over the front of his studded leather waistcoat.

  ‘Hey, Logi. Finished?’

  ‘Yep, I think so. The ceiling’s up, the walls are finished and the electrics all work. The boys have just left.’

  ‘Nice work,’ Rafn said softly. ‘Shall we take a look around?’

  Inside the building and out of the direct sun it was cooler, although the two big showroom windows made the place almost like a greenhouse. Rafn inspected the new walls and the big man stood in the doorway like a rock that had been carefully placed there. He swung the doors and listened to them click shut, then snapped the lights on and off again.

  Finally he nodded approval. ‘Danni paid you, did he?’

  ‘Yep. All up to date, for once.’

  ‘It doesn’t happen every time, I guess?’

  ‘Let’s just say that Danni has his moments.’

  Rafn stood for a moment in thought.

  ‘You know who we are, Logi?’ he asked, looking up.

  Logi looked back at his own reflection. ‘Could be,’ he said, ‘but I’m not the inquisitive type.’

  ‘Good.’ Rafn smiled and took his glasses off. ‘Let’s keep it that way, shall we?’

  ‘Sure,’ Logi agreed. He wasn’t certain who they might be, although he could make some shrewd guesses.

  Rafn gave Logi’s shoulder a friendly slap. ‘Let me have your number, Logi. If we need any more work done, we can come straight to you next time.’

  ‘You need any more done here? Looks finished to me.’

  ‘Maybe. We’ll see. It depends how good business is, doesn’t it? You know what this place is?’

  ‘I didn’t ask Danni what it’s supposed to be, but I’d guess it’s a car showroom.’

  ‘That’s good, Logi,’ Rafn said, taking a card from Logi’s hand. ‘That’s what we want it to be. It goes without saying that you know nothing about this place?’

  ‘That’s fine with me,’ Logi said. ‘As long as the taxman doesn’t hear about the money, then I won’t say a word. I’m working out of town in the next few weeks anyway.’ He fished in the pocket of his overalls and handed Rafn an envelope. ‘Here. Before I forget.’

  ‘What’s this?’ The question was immediately suspicious.

  ‘It’s the keys. Six for each lock.’

  ‘Ah.’ Rafn’s face cleared. ‘Just as well we didn’t forget those. Listen, the other guys, they’ll keep quiet?’

  ‘Yeah. The big guy’s leaving the country tomorrow anyway and Tadeusz is working with me up in Borgarfjördur for the next few weeks.’

  ‘Good.’ Rafn seemed satisfied. ‘Security’s always a headache. Listen, if we need any more work done, we’ll come to you.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s good to know.’

  ‘And if you ever have a problem that needs fixing . . .’ Rafn grinned and nodded towards the big man in the doorway. ‘Toggi solves all kinds of problems.’

  Helgi spent an exhausting afternoon with little reward. The time-frame was exact, as far as he knew, but the problem was that no cameras were located anywhere near where Axel Rútur Karlsson lived, and not knowing where he was headed made things even more difficult. It didn’t help that the police had to rely on private- sector cameras of varying quality, and on a Saturday most of those companies were closed for the weekend.

  Fortunately, an insurance company with offices in the Kringla shopping centre had a webcam that routed a stream of traffic images from the junction of Kringlumýrarbraut and Miklabraut, with a backup of recordings in decent quality. The young man who was working that afternoon ferried Helgi regular cups of coffee as he hunched over the computer at the secretary’s desk.

  The young man smiled and was affable enough, but Helgi discouraged him from asking questions, concentrating instead on the stream of traffic covered by four different cameras. The timing was well after rush hour and the traffic was relatively light, but sightings of silver Outlanders were few and far between, and none of them matched the number of Axel Rútur’s car.

  More than once he had to force himself to concentrate, finding his attention straying, and often it seemed to stray to a mental picture of the blonde young woman he had interviewed that morning. It wasn’t just the pleasingly rounded figure behind the figure-hugging top that he had no trouble imagining, but the nagging feeling that there was something he’d forgotten. He’d taken care not to push her on the identity of the loan shark, as he hadn’t wanted to spook her into a terrified silence, and he admitted to himself that he was looking forward to paying her another visit.

  The traffic footage continued, and it wasn’t until the ticker had rolled over, showing close to eleven in the evening, that he saw another silver Outlander stopped at the lights, with a Volkswagen close behind it. He paused the replay and played it forward slowly, until it moved enough for the number plate to be seen as the lights went to green. He zoomed in and felt a jolt of excitement as he made out the number of the car he was looking for.

  Right, now where are you going? He muttered to himself, frustrated that he wasn’t able to follow the car’s progress any further. The affable young man helped him save the images and made prints of some of them before locking up and following him downstairs. Helgi realized the young man had stayed at work for his benefit alone and he felt guilty at having stolen part of his Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ he said as they got out of the lift in the car park and their ways parted.

  ‘No problem. Any time,’ the young man replied and went on his way, whistling to himself as he clicked the fob of his car keys.

  Helgi’s Skoda didn’t want to start, but eventually it did when threatened with being left in the shopping centre car park for the rest of the weekend. He decided to stop off at the communications centre on the way home and shared a cup of coffee and a handful of doughnuts with the officer on duty.

  ‘No joy with this car, then?’

  ‘No, there’s a picture of him at the lights at Kringlan, which is clear enough, and I can see him going straight ahead in the inside lane. But that’s as far as it goes.’

  ‘There used to be a damned good set of cameras that Channel 2 had up there. It’s a shame they’re not there any more.’

  ‘It’s a shame we don’t have our own traffic cameras. It’s mad, really, having to rely on the Roads Administration’s cameras, or private ones here and there.’

  ‘I know,’ Siggi sympathized. ‘It’s coming though. We’re putting a remote system in so we can have cameras in line of sight with a relay on the Hallgrímskirkja church tower and run the images straight here.’

  ‘Really? When?’

  Siggi splayed his palms. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Budgets?’

  ‘Exactly. Anyway, this fellow must have been heading for somewhere in 101, you think?’

  ‘That’s what I think, otherwise he’d have taken the Keflavík road or he wouldn’t have got as far as the Kringla intersection.’

  ‘So he was going downtown somewhere,’ Siggi mused. ‘What’s this guy done?’

  ‘He’s disappeared.’

  ‘Missing person and a missing car?’

  ‘That’s it. I’ve had enough for today. My eyes are going square from staring at the screen. Can you ask the patrols to keep an eye out for it, just in case it’s a quiet night and one of them notices it somewhere?’

  ‘Since when has it been quiet on a Saturday night?’

  ‘Ach, you know what I mean. I’ll see if I can get a warrant on Monday to track the guy’s phone and that might give us an idea of where he is.’

  Brynja’s flat was too small, as well as being noisy and uncomfortable. But it wasn’t home and that suited Logi perfectly. He had stopped off at his pla
ce briefly, just long enough to pick up a change of clothes and no longer. The place seemed quiet enough and it didn’t look as if anyone had been there, although the locks on the doors were so worn that breaking in would be child’s play.

  He locked his tools in the pickup and hoped they would be safe there, not that he had much choice about it. The holdall containing his clothes and a few other items bumped against his side as he took the stairs, the hard lump in it digging into his ribs reminding him that the revolver in its leather case was in there as well, wrapped in a couple of shirts.

  Brynja was already enjoying herself. A bottle of some almond-flavoured liqueur was open on the kitchen worktop and Logi could hear the babble from the living room as he shouldered the door open.

  ‘Logi! Is that you, lover?’ He heard her shriek, followed by whoops and calls of ‘Loverboy!’

  He blanched and put his head around the doorway. Five women in short skirts and tight tops sat around a living-room table laden with glasses, bottles and ashtrays.

  Brynja stood up and sashayed across, wrapped her arms around him and planted a kiss on the end of his nose.

  ‘Honeybunch, welcome at last,’ she crowed as the other four whooped and twittered. Hair newly styled and highlighted, she smelled of the sticky almond liqueur, acrid perfume and smoke as Logi kissed her back, a hand stretching down to cup and squeeze a buttock as the women on the sofas shrieked.

  ‘Get a room, you two!’ one of them screeched.

  ‘Later . . .’ Brynja said, turning and tapping the side of her nose. Logi saw she was already unsteady on her feet and hoped they would all go out soon. He liked Brynja a lot, far more than he liked his sour-faced ex-wife who, every time he ventured within earshot, nagged about unpaid maintenance, the broken tumble dryer and the car that needed fixing. Brynja liked a good time, though she liked a good time a little more than he was entirely happy with.

  ‘We’re going out for a couple of hours, Logi, sweetheart,’ Brynja cooed, sliding a hand under his T-shirt and pinching a handful of flesh. ‘Now I definitely don’t want you waiting up for me, all right?’

  ‘No, just waiting for her!’ another of the women called out. ‘And make sure you’re standing to attention!’

  ‘No kids?’ Logi asked.

  ‘Gone camping with their dad, so it’s just you and me, honey,’ Brynja said, placing the end of a finger on the tip of his nose. ‘Peace and quiet. Tell me you’re not working tomorrow . . .’

  ‘I’m not working tomorrow,’ Logi said obediently.

  ‘So you can take your time in the morning, lovebirds,’ a voice hooted from the sofa and the four of them descended into giggles and squawks.

  Logi fervently hoped they’d go out soon. He was tired, dusty and he badly wanted a shower and something other than pizza to eat. Brynja and the four women began to make themselves ready to depart, a process that took the best part of an hour as each one visited the bathroom in an open-door sequence that Logi watched with bemusement; one peeing while another fixed her make-up at the big mirror. For a moment he had Brynja to himself in the kitchen. Their on-off relationship had been soured more than once by her weekend antics, when Logi felt like he was watching an overgrown teenager at play.

  ‘Not too drunk, yeah?’ he said, hugging her and feeling her press herself tight against his chest. ‘Stay in bed all day, shall we?’

  ‘If you play your cards right. It might mean breakfast in bed.’ She cocked an ear as a car horn tooted outside. ‘Taxi’s here, I expect.’

  ‘I reckon I can manage that,’ Logi said, hoping that she would be back early enough to escape a serious hangover. ‘Got to help you keep your strength up.’

  ‘Shit, are you two still at it?’ one of the hard-faced women demanded, appearing in the kitchen with lipstick perfect and hair in a tousled arrangement that looked as if she’d spent the day in a high wind, but which Logi guessed had taken a great deal of time and effort to achieve. ‘Come on Brynja. Some of us have work to do and don’t have a stud waiting for us at home, so let’s hit the town, shall we?’

  Sunday

  The silver car seemed lonely in the car park outside Reykjavík’s bus terminal. Sigursteinn, one of the traffic officers, peered in through the window and shook his head.

  ‘Nothing in there,’ he told Gunna as she arrived. ‘Where’s Helgi? It’s his case, isn’t it?’

  ‘Helgi’s off duty today, so the call came through to me instead. No keys anywhere, I take it?’

  ‘No such luck. It’s going to be a struggle to shift this thing, especially now the battery’s flat.’

  ‘In that case, you’d better be patient. I phoned the owner’s girlfriend and she said there’s a spare key, which one of your motorcycle colleagues has gone to collect from her. Give him ten minutes.’

  ‘Go inside for a coffee, shall we?’

  Sigursteinn looked hopeful and Gunna relented. ‘How come you found it here? Did a patrol spot it, or what?’

  ‘No. Someone must have nudged it because the alarm has been howling half the night – we got a call this morning when the bus station opened. It kept on until the battery died, I guess.’

  Inside the bus station Gunna and Sigursteinn spread out and talked to as many of the staff in the shops and kiosks as were awake, trying to work out how long the Outlander had been there.

  ‘It was here Friday morning, that’s all I know,’ the solid middle-aged woman at the restaurant counter said. ‘It was here when I got to work at six.’

  ‘You didn’t see anyone park it there?’

  ‘If I had, I’d have told you, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Right enough,’ Gunna murmured to herself and moved on.

  Outside, with paper cups of coffee, they compared notes. ‘It was parked late Thursday night, after the last bus had gone,’ Sigursteinn said.

  ‘We can be fairly sure that whoever put it there wasn’t a passenger on a bus,’ Gunna said, and looked up as the rumble of a motorcycle told her the keys had arrived. The rider took off his helmet and switched off the engine.

  ‘Nothing like a little jaunt to wake someone up on a Sunday morning, is there?’ he said, handing Sigursteinn the keys.

  He clicked the fob and nothing happened. ‘We’d better get a booster pack down here to get this thing started. Can you ask around inside to see if anyone has one?’ he asked the motorcycle officer, who walked towards the entrance.

  Sigursteinn used the key to open the car’s driver-side door and walked around to do the same with the passenger door. Gunna peered inside the remarkably tidy car, which looked as if it had just been cleaned, wondering if maybe it had. She sniffed, detecting a sour smell, and flipped open the glove compartment to see a handbook and a bundle of paperwork.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ She heard Sigursteinn swear, followed by the sound of him retching as she hurried round to the open boot.

  Gunna clicked her communicator as she groaned at the sight that met her eyes. ‘Control, ninety-five-fifty.’

  ‘Ninety-five-fifty, control. G’day, Gunna.’

  ‘Can I have the cavalry out at BSÍ, if you would be so kind?’

  ‘Which cavalry would that be?’

  ‘I need a scene-of-crime team and enough uniforms to cordon off the bus station car park. There’s a body in the back of a car here.’

  ‘Will do,’ control responded. ‘Ambulance as well?’

  ‘This guy’s going to need a hearse, not an ambulance. There’s a hole in his head the size of a hundred króna coin and, judging by the smell, he’s been here a few days.’

  ‘No ambulance needed. No problem. I’ll get a scene-of-crime team out right away.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Gunna said, pulling out her phone and dialling Helgi’s number as the first patrol car arrived and parked across the entrance to the bus station car park with its lights flashing.

  ‘Hæ, chief,’ Helgi answered groggily after many rings.

  ‘Good morning, young man,’ Gunna greeted him breezily. ‘Sleep well?’


  ‘I was sleeping very well until you called.’

  ‘In that case, sorry to wake you up. Good news or bad?’

  ‘Good,’ Helgi grunted.

  ‘Your missing persons case is no longer a problem.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good. So he turned up?’

  ‘He did,’ Gunna said. ‘The bad news is that he’s not at all well and it’s now a murder inquiry.’

  Logi woke to Brynja’s rasping snore. He thought back to the night before, when she and two of the other women had fallen out of a taxi after the sun had risen in a clear blue sky. He had packed the other two giggling women back in the taxi and told the driver where to take them before more or less carrying Brynja up the stairs. He deposited her in bed, where she passed out, spread-eagled, hair awry and lipstick smeared, while he decamped to the sofa.

  In the kitchen he brewed coffee and then went out to the shop at the end of the street to buy fresh rolls and pastries, returning to find the coffee ready and the snores a note deeper than before. He read the weekend paper, made himself some breakfast and thought about Brynja. He knew she liked him a lot, and when she stayed off the sauce, he liked her well enough. But a woman in her thirties behaving like a teenager once she had a drink inside her was something he struggled to come to terms with. His parents had a problem with the bottle, and as a child he’d dreaded the sight of them getting ready for a dance, knowing that an argument and even a few slaps and thrown plates would be the inevitable outcome. Maybe trying to forge a relationship with Brynja was a lost cause? Perhaps he should cut his losses and run before it got too serious?

  He finished his coffee and closed the paper. Logi sat back and stared out of the window, his thoughts drifting back to the night when the big man had called and the Polish boys had bailed him out. Marek would be on his way home to Poland now, and he imagined Tadeusz would also be snoring somewhere, although maybe not as loud as Brynja.

  Helgi had never been a great one for shaving, and today Gunna saw him look even more unshaven than usual as he ducked under the tape and jogged across the car park. A small crowd had gathered on the other side of the tape, along with a couple of TV cameras, and she had already called Ívar Laxdal to let him know they had something serious to deal with this sunny Sunday morning.