Summerchill

by Quentin Bates

  ‘It’s definitely him, is it?’ Helgi asked.

  ‘I reckon so,’ Gunna said. ‘You’d best take a look. You’re the one who’s been looking at his photo. But it’s his car, all right.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The car was parked here late on Thursday night. I reckon it might have stood there for another week or three before anyone paid it any attention. But someone bumped it last night, the alarm started squawking and there was a call this morning. Your boy’s in the boot and there’s a big hole in his head.’

  Helgi went pale. ‘Hell. I hate this kind of stuff.’

  ‘Go on, but be quick.’

  He walked quickly over to the car, which two white-suited technicians were examining in fine detail, and peered into the boot from as far away as he could. Axel Rútur Karlsson’s dead eyes glared back at him from his swollen face.

  ‘That’s not a gunshot, is it?’ Helgi said, hurrying back.

  ‘I don’t imagine so. A gunshot that big would have taken the back of his head right off. Looks like someone’s jabbed him with the end of a broom handle.’

  ‘Pretty damned hard to do that kind of damage with a stick.’

  ‘We’ll have a better idea when the post mortem’s been done.’

  ‘What next, Gunna?’

  ‘Relatives.’

  ‘Shit. I was afraid you were going to say exactly that.’

  ‘That’s it. Everyone’s least favourite job, but it has to be done. Come on, I’ll hold your hand,’ she said, nodding towards a barrel-chested figure approaching across the grass with a seaman’s rolling gait. ‘The Laxdal’s here. I’ll brief him and then we can go and start asking questions.’

  ‘Gunnhildur, g’day,’ Ívar Laxdal said curtly. ‘Helgi,’ he nodded. ‘What’s the situation?’

  ‘Deceased in the back of the Outlander. It’s the deceased’s own vehicle, name of Axel Rútur Karlsson, reported missing on Friday. Helgi’s been investigating. The car was parked here late Thursday night and the alarm went off this morning, so traffic came to see what the problem was. Sigursteinn called me because we had an alert out for the vehicle. That’s about it so far.’

  ‘Violence?’

  ‘No question.’

  Ívar Laxdal made the same journey as Helgi had done a few minutes earlier and came back with his eyebrows clenched into a tight bar across his forehead.

  ‘I’ll bet you anything you like that’s been done with a hammer,’ he said. ‘What do I need to know about this character?’

  ‘We believe he’s been doing some freelance enforcement, debt collecting.’

  ‘A disgruntled punter? Gunnhildur, what’s your next move?’

  ‘We break the news to his grieving girlfriend to start with and find out what we can about the man’s movements.’

  ‘And then we lean on his business partner,’ Helgi broke in. ‘I’m certain the two of them were working together, and if anyone knows where he was going on Thursday night, it’ll be him.’

  ‘Fine. Go. I’ll keep an eye on what’s happening here.’

  They took the Polo Gunna had taken from the car pool that morning to drive through the sunshine along with the hundreds of people out for a Sunday morning drive. The bank holiday weekend was behind them and people were acutely aware that the vagaries of Iceland’s weather meant that any weekend now could be the last one of summer.

  ‘I wonder if Eiríkur’s in this lot somewhere,’ Helgi said. ‘Off for a Sunday drive to Thingvellir with the family.’

  ‘Could be. Mind you, he’s a city boy and sometimes I reckon he thinks there’s a passport control at the Hvalfjördur tunnel.’

  ‘There ought to be. Keep these city types out of the country and on the tarmac where they belong.’

  ‘And keep us country bumpkins away from the bright lights, you mean?’

  ‘Well, there is that,’ Helgi admitted. ‘Could you live in Vestureyri again?’

  ‘Hell, no. There are far too many relatives up there. Hvalvík’s good enough for me, and being a stranger means I don’t have to get involved in anything awkward.’

  ‘And at least you’re only spitting distance from the city.’

  ‘Commuting has its advantages.’

  ‘Come off up here,’ Helgi said, pointing to the approaching turnoff. ‘Go right and then the first left, I think. I keep badgering Halla to move out to somewhere quieter. Selfoss or somewhere, but she won’t have it. Reykjavík born and bred, you see. Can’t imagine life beyond Breidholt.’

  ‘Like Eiríkur,’ Gunna said. ‘Is that the place there?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  Gunna parked and they got out. Helgi led the way, and as the outside door had been hooked back, they went straight up the stairs. Helgi knocked on the door. A plastic sign made to look like brass proclaimed that ‘Aníta Sól and Axel Rútur live here’ below the door peeper, where a blue eye flashed for a moment before the door swung open.

  ‘Good morning,’ Helgi offered and Aníta Sól’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Could we come in? This is my colleague Gunnhildur Gísladóttir.’

  Aníta Sól stood in the hall with her eyes blank. She was wrapped in a pure white dressing gown that was tight to her throat and she looked at Helgi in confusion.

  ‘Could we sit down, Aníta Sól?’

  ‘Axel Rútur?’ she whispered.

  ‘Please, let’s sit down,’ Helgi said gently. He ushered her firmly into her living room and sat next to her while Gunna sat on the edge of a white leather armchair.

  ‘Have you found him? Is he all right?’

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that we have found him and Axel Rútur is dead. I’d like to offer you all our sympathy.’

  Aníta Sól sat and stared into space as the news sank in. Helgi had expected tears but there was no change to her expression.

  ‘What happened? Was he in an accident?’ she asked finally.

  ‘We believe he was murdered.’

  Aníta Sól gulped and Helgi was relieved to see a tear form at last and begin its journey southwards.

  ‘Do you have someone who can be with you?’ Gunna asked gently. ‘A parent or a relative, maybe? Would you like me to call them?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said hesitatingly, and her eyes flashed from side to side before she looked back down at her feet. ‘Do you know . . . why? Why him?’

  Helgi looked at Gunna with questions in his eyes. Gunna looked back at him and shrugged imperceptibly.

  ‘Aníta Sól, I understand that this is painful for you,’ he began, ‘but we have to ask you some difficult questions. It’s vital that we track down the perpetrator as soon as possible, and to do that we need some information from you. Where was Axel Rútur going when he left here on Thursday evening?’

  ‘I told you before. I don’t know. He said he’d be back in an hour.’

  ‘Did he do this frequently?’

  ‘Sometimes. He didn’t often tell me where he was going. He just went out.’

  ‘And he did this regularly in the evenings?’

  ‘He went to the gym three or four evenings a week.’

  ‘All right, what did Axel Rútur do during the day? What was your routine?’

  ‘He’d be late at the gym a few evenings a week, so then he’d sleep the next day. I go to work at ten and I’m back at five-ish, normally. We’d have a meal together or we’d go out if he wasn’t training.’

  ‘It’s mainly Axel Rútur’s acquaintances we’re interested in speaking to, anyone involved with his work. Who would that be?’

  ‘Well, there’s Stebbi,’ she said and thought. Helgi and Gunna exchanged glances. ‘There’s only Stebbi, really. Axel Rútur didn’t have a lot of close friends except Stebbi. Not that I knew, anyway.’

  ‘Have you been in touch with Stefán?’

  ‘Erm . . . No. Not really.’

  Gunna frowned, sensing something wrong, both in the girl’s demeanour and in the atmosphere, as a draught whispered around her ankles. Helgi look
ed up, another question on his face.

  ‘Aníta Sól,’ Gunna said sharply. ‘Is there someone else here?’

  ‘Er, no. Not really.’

  Gunna stood up quickly and looked into the hall. A bulky figure stood by the door, shoes in hands.

  ‘Who are you?’ Gunna demanded, stepping quickly towards the man, who pulled the door open and made to leave, hiding his face with his hand as he slammed the door behind him. ‘Stop right there. Police,’ Gunna said loudly and clearly, jerking the door open and hurrying along the corridor behind him. He was out of the front door and ran across the grass outside, missing the group of children on bikes and skateboards, and vaulting a fence into a neighbour’s garden, where Gunna lost sight of him.

  ‘There he goes,’ Helgi said, shading his eyes with one hand as a black Land Cruiser hurtled along the next street and vanished into the traffic amid a flurry of blaring horns. ‘That was Axel Rútur’s friend Stefán, who is apparently Aníta Sól’s close friend as well. A few questions to be answered there, I think.’

  ‘I feel like shit.’

  Brynja looked like shit, Logi thought, but he didn’t want to say so as she sat at the kitchen table opposite him and held her head in her hands. Her eyes were puffy and her hair hung in lank rats’ tails. He dropped a couple of tablets in a glass of water where they fizzed.

  ‘Good night out?’ he asked, putting the glass in front of her.

  ‘Don’t have a clue,’ Brynja moaned. ‘I don’t remember much, just getting to Highliners, and there was a taxi, wasn’t there? Did you put me to bed?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did you undress me?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Did we . . . ?’

  Logi smiled sorrowfully. ‘You weren’t in any condition to do anything but sleep.’

  One hand on her forehead, she reached forward to trail the fingertips of the other hand down his cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry, lover,’ she whispered, wincing at the pain in her head. ‘I’ll make it up to you.’

  Aníta Sól looked downcast. Gunna gave her the opportunity to howl for a few minutes and made herself some coffee in the flat’s pristine and, she told herself, rarely used kitchen. The cupboards were largely bare of anything other than cereals and bags of pasta, while the freezer was stacked with microwave meals. There was fruit in bowls in the window, and Gunna guessed that this was part of Axel Rútur’s fitness regime as none of it appeared to have been touched for days.

  They held a quick conference while Aníta Sól did her best to repair the damage half an hour of tears had wreaked to her face.

  ‘You’re sure that was Stefán?’

  ‘Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it.’

  ‘How much had he been listening to, I wonder?’

  Gunna sipped the surprisingly good coffee. The kitchen may have been filled with an odd array of things, but it was quality stuff. ‘We have to accept that he listened to the whole conversation, so he knows we suspect him of doing enforcement jobs.’

  ‘That’s one thing,’ Helgi said. ‘But considering he was here, shacked up with his best friend’s wife on a Sunday morning, we can assume that he knew his best friend wasn’t likely to show up at an awkward moment, don’t you think?’

  ‘You think he could have murdered Axel Rútur? Over the girl?’

  Helgi darted a glance into the living room. ‘There’s not much to fight, is there? I’m not sure she’s bright enough to cope with a revolving door on her own.’

  ‘There must be something about her, surely?’

  ‘You mean apart from the hourglass figure?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gunna admitted. ‘I see what you mean. Plastic, I’d guess.’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ Helgi grinned. ‘But you know how superficial we men are when there’s a sniff of minge about.’

  ‘Get an alert put out for Stefán Ingason, black Land Cruiser with tinted windows. Get the registration from traffic and hopefully we’ll be able to pick him up later today. Now, I’d best get back to the princess.’

  ‘You need me?’

  ‘I’d prefer to have you here as well. Why? What are you thinking?’

  ‘Stefán bumped off Axel Rútur so he could have the walking Barbie Doll in there to himself. That’s one possibility. The other one’s that Stefán knows what happened to Axel Rútur, and my guess is it’s to do with their freelance enforcement work.’

  ‘All right. Stefán as Axel Rútur’s murderer is the quick and simple option, and murders normally are quick and simple. I’m not convinced, but you know the case better than I do.’

  ‘There’s no motive to kill Axel Rútur,’ Helgi said, jerking his head towards the living room. ‘Except for . . .’

  ‘But like you just said, men can be terribly superficial creatures when there’s a sniff of minge about,’ Gunna said, and Helgi grinned uncomfortably at hearing his own words, which sounded incongruous coming from Gunna. ‘So what are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking of pushing the girl they intimidated into telling me who’s doing the loan sharking. That way we can apply some real pressure and find out who’s been employing these two to collect black-market debts. What do you think?’

  A door shut down the hall and they could hear a tap run in the kitchen.

  ‘I think the princess has finished her make-up and we need to ask a few more questions before we go any further.’

  He left the policewoman puffing and panting in his wake as he effortlessly vaulted a fence and made off across the gardens. Stefán was confident that she hadn’t seen his face, although Aníta Sól was bound to tell them who he was. It had been a strange night. He hadn’t meant to rekindle the illicit affair that he’d felt so guilty about, but he had gone to see how she was, expecting her mother and a few other friends and relatives to be there. But Aníta Sól had been at home alone in the pristine apartment and she had practically fallen into his arms.

  The Land Cruiser felt like a second home and he relished the understated burst of power as the turbo kicked in. The only worry was that the policewoman might have seen it, but hell, if Aníta Sól had told them who he was, then that would hardly matter anyway.

  He didn’t go far, the gym on Fossháls was only a kilometre away and he pulled up outside Car World. Tossing the keys from hand to hand as he sauntered inside, he looked around.

  ‘Benni!’

  The salesman turned around and grinned.

  ‘Quiet today. Looking for a car, are you?’

  ‘I might be,’ Stefán said. ‘But not in the way you mean.’

  ‘Right . . .’

  He registered Benni’s suspicion. ‘It’s all right. Nothing to worry about. I just need to be a bit discreet, so can you help me out for a day or two?’

  Benni’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Can I park the Land Cruiser near the back somewhere and borrow some old lady car for a day or two?’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘I’ll see my pal in a while. Don’t you worry. I’ll see you all right.’

  Benni sighed, opened a drawer and came up with a set of keys.

  ‘There’s a blue Megane out there. Don’t do any damage and bring it back with a full tank tomorrow after five when the boss has gone home. Nobody’ll be any the wiser.’

  Stefán grinned. ‘You’re a mate. Want me to park the Cruiser?’

  Benni shook his head. ‘Give me the key and I’ll tuck it away out of sight. It’s not as if there’s a lot to do today.’

  Brynja spent a long time in the shower. Her headache had started to lift after a few minutes under the hot water as she shampooed and conditioned, scrubbing herself from top to toe, humming in anticipation as she tidied up down below with a disposable razor and then set the pounding water to run ice cold for as long as she could stand it.

  ‘Logi!’ Hair wrapped in a towel and her body swathed in a thick dressing gown, she emerged from the bathroom fragrant and feeling a million times better than she had half an hour earlier.
‘Sweetheart!’

  She had expected to see him waiting in the bedroom with a lopsided, knowing grin on his face and his clothes scattered on the floor. She went into the kitchen and saw he wasn’t there, frowned and looked in the living room, where he liked to lie flat on his back with his head and feet on the armrests. The flat was a small one and there wasn’t anywhere else to look. Logi’s holdall, which he’d arrived with last night and had left in the hall, had gone as well.

  Brynja sat down heavily on a kitchen chair, overwhelmed with disappointment and cursing for not reining herself in the night before, but the excitement of a rare night out had been too much. She leaned over the table and twitched the curtain aside, knowing without having to look that his pickup was gone from the car park outside.

  Alli looked ill, sicker than he had ever seen him before, and Stefán wondered how much longer he had to go.

  ‘What can I do for you, Stebbi?’

  The razor smile hadn’t been lost in Alli’s illness. He held a mug of something hot that gave off a fruity smell, sipping it at intervals.

  ‘I’ve a problem, Alli.’

  ‘People always bring me their problems. I wish they wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But you’re the only one who might be able to help.’

  Alli acknowledged the compliment with a slow blink and an almost imperceptible nod of his jaw. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s Axel Rútur.’

  ‘Ah. What’s he done now?’

  ‘That’s the problem. He’s dead.’

  ‘Accident?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s been missing since Thursday night. I thought he’d just taken off for a couple of days.’

  That wouldn’t be like him,’ Alli said thoughtfully, his voice hoarse. ‘He’s never had a lot of imagination.’

  ‘That’s as may be. So I’d really like to find out who hurt him before the police get to him.’

  ‘So what do you want from me?’