by Colin Dunne
The muscles moved in his neck and tightened up his face. That was all. Very softly, he said: 'You are her boyfriend?'
'I would be honoured to be called that.'
'It is not such an honour,' he said, with fastidious malice.
'The lovers of Solrun do not make such an exclusive club. They are men like you. Nobodies. Pick-ups. Drunks. Party scrapings. One night stands.' He added the last word in Icelandic - 'Utlendingar' - with more contempt than all the others.
'Foreigners,' he added, for my benefit.
He switched to a grave, impartial manner. It is a shame, of course. Sadly, she represents our country. But I think she will only bring us shame.'
Now, you don't get many puritans in Iceland. That interested me. So I asked him if having a wide and varied social life was illegal these days. 'Not illegal,' he said, in the same tone of controlled menace.
'But it is dangerous. When it is with scum.'
He picked up the documents again, pretended to look at them, and then threw them down with evident disgust. 'Your whole story is a fabrication. It is obvious.'
As he spoke, he pushed himself up on his finger-tips and walked slowly, heavily, around his desk until he was behind me.
'I can see your problem.' I stared at his empty chair, waiting for the blow.
'I don't have a problem. You have a problem. We are not the logga [even I knew the friendly slang word for police] and you should understand this. We are talking about national security. Perhaps you think it is funny that a little island like this should worry about national security? Does that amuse you?'
He didn't wait for an answer. 'It is just as important to us as your Buckingham Palace and Tower of London. Remember that. Remember that before you tell us any more stupid lies. Who are you? Why are you here? Where is Solrun?'
He fired the last three questions into my left ear, so I couldn't help but jump. His face was so close to the side of mine that I had to lean back to get him in focus.
'I've told you. And I don't know where she's gone.'
A pistol shot cracked in my ears and my heart hit the back of my throat. I hung on to the seat of the chair to prevent myself hitting the ceiling. When I opened my screwed-up eyes, he was holding a wide, black plastic ruler he'd slapped on the desk for the sound effect.
'Tell ... me,' he said, spacing the words a second apart, 'tell ... me ... what ... she ... said.'
'Nothing.' By now, my nerves were hopping like fleas. 'I mean, she said all sorts of things but nothing you'd want to know.'
'Everything. I want to know everything. Did she say goodbye? Did she mention any friends? Did she say anything about an American? What were her last words? Tell me the last thing she said to you.'
'It wouldn't help.'
'Tell me! Now! Tell me the last words she said.'
'To me?'
'Of course to you. What did she say?'
Well. He had insisted. I did warn him. So I told him. And if they weren't the very last words she said, at least they were the ones I remembered best.
'She said ... "I don't think I'll ever get my toes uncurled again." I think that was it, more or less word for word.'
His face, open-mouthed, hung in front of me. Slowly, like creeping pain, I watched the understanding rise into his eyes.
'You did ask,' I said, with a winning smile.
Sometimes I do overcook things a bit. Listening to the hot breath whistle through his teeth and seeing the red rage in his face, I thought this could be one of those occasions.
With elaborate care, he raised the black plastic ruler in his bunched fist and brought it down so it tapped me on the shoulder. Once. Twice. He could've been knighting me. I didn't move. Hell, I didn't even breathe. He raised it a third time and held it there above the side of my face. It was only a ruler. In his hand it might as well have been an axe.
The click of a cigarette lighter snapped the tension.
'That will do for now, Magnus. Would you bring some coffee in for myself and Mr Craven. He must be ready for one, and I certainly am. Milk and sugar?'
It was the older man, standing out of sight, just behind me.
'No sugar,' I said. 'Got to watch the old weight. Don't want to die of a fatty heart.'
'I should be very surprised if you live to have the opportunity, Craven,' said the same man, in an even, pleasant voice.
'Two coffees, white, no sugar, please.'
My breath escaped from my body in a flood as the big blond man moved away and placed the ruler carefully on the desk.
'That's better,' I said. 'I don't like talking to the dummy when the ventriloquist is in the room.'
Quite unexpectedly, a neat smile of admiration touched his features and he bowed his head to me in some sort of salute.
10
'Smoke?'
'I gave up.'
'Ah. Iron will. Did you smoke a lot?'
'Sixty a day.'
'That's a lot. Now it doesn't bother you?'
'Only sixty times a day.'
The smoke got mixed up in his rasping laugh and he waved it away from me with his hand. The packet on his desk identified them as small cigars called London Docks: presumably because of the smell.
'Petursson,' he said, extending his hand into the smoke-free zone between us. 'I'm a government official.' As he spoke he removed his expensive continental tweed jacket and put it on a hanger which he then placed with care in a narrow teak cupboard in the corner. He also flicked at the flawless front of his cream shirt in case a speck of ash had dared to settle there. He was that odd combination of big and neat, the sort of hefty men they say make good dancers.
He must've been sixty and you might have taken him for another of those big men who got into police-type work to get shoes the right size, until you saw the intelligence in the hard slits of his eyes.
'That was very clever. The chair squealed under his weight as he sat down. 'Magnus was supposed to make you angry. You turned it around.'
He picked up the plastic ruler and wagged it. The crack had split it down the middle. It is a delicate subject here.' He gave me a sharp look. 'It is a delicate subject anywhere, wouldn't you say- outsiders who come and take the local girls?'
I knew what he was after, and I wasn't going to let him have it. Father unknown. He'd picked up on that all right. I gave him a smile and let it grow into a yawn to remind him of the time. Without speaking, Magnus delivered two coffees, and on the tray he placed in front of his boss I recognised the contents of my pockets.
One by one, Petursson picked up the bits of junk, and put them down again. A sleek Waterman pen I never used. A wrist-watch I got duty-free on a plane before finding they were cheaper on the ground. A red plastic rhino, cunningly concealing a pencil-sharpener, that Sally had given me for my birthday. Two chewed pencils. A parking ticket, still creased from where it had been screwed up in rage, then smoothed out again. Ford Escort keys on a Ferrari key-ring. A bill from Rugantino's commemorating dinner with a girl who'd extolled the wonders of celibacy - over the coffee and Sambucca. My passport. My press card. Come to think of it, my life.
He flicked the press card without picking it up.
'Are you really a journalist?' He had a conversational style, not nearly as pugnacious as his apprentice.
'More or less.'
'A scandal rag, I believe.'
'That sort of thing.'
Suddenly he began to pull hard on the cigar, which was threatening to die on him. When he'd kissed it back into life, he grinned up at me.
'You see, Mr Craven, we have people who come here who are not what they seem. Tourists who are not tourists. Business men who have no business. You understand?'
'I suppose so.'
'You seem a sensible young man. Why on earth do you work for a newspaper like that?'
'That's what people want to read. Who am I to deny the masses? That's democracy, isn't it? Crap for crap-lovers- I just shovel it.' I'd heard Grimm make that speech once, in El Vino's, but I must a
dmit he did it with more conviction.
Petursson's eyes vanished in a silent smile. 'If that is what you say then I must believe you, Mr Craven. Do you- forgive me for asking - do you know a journalist who is also based in London who is called ...' he made a pretence of looking in a file, 'Ivanov. Oleg Ivanov.'
'Old Ivan? Sure.'
'Well, well. Mr Ivanov is also here in Reykjavik. I believe he works for one of the Moscow agencies.'
'That's what he says.'
'And here you are together. Is this a coincidence?'
I was wondering that myself. 'Unless we're both working on the same story.'
'Of course. Solrun. Don't worry.' He began to chuckle and held out both his hands, palm downwards, in a calm-down gesture. 'I am not so excitable as my young colleague. But she is a little wild. Even for us, Solrun is a little wild. But where has she gone? You cannot help us? You don't want to help us? I wonder.'
At that point, a cough started churning in his chest and then caught in his throat. He glared accusingly at the cigar. A few ambling strides took him to the window and he flicked it out.
'London Docks.' Back behind his desk, he looked regretfully at the packet, then sat back in his chair. 'I lived in London. Over a year.' He stifled a small yawn, then continued with his calculated rambling. 'Yes, a most pleasant time for me. I was attached to one of your government departments. I stayed with a family called Shivas. Charming people. They were very kind tome. I was young, and a little lost. We still write. Originally it was a Huguenot name. I could never understand why it was that they were more proud of that than they were of being British. That is the tragedy of your country, I think. People talk of being Welsh or even Yorkshire but they no longer talk of being British. In Scotland, at your rugby matches, they boo the national anthem. That is what happens when a country loses its identity and its pride- the people retreat into tribalism. Or am I being unfair?'
'I don't know. Does it matter?'
'Perhaps not. But don't make that mistake here. We do care.
You saw that in Magnus. We are very close to our history here, and you must remember that.'
'The only bit of history we celebrate is the anniversary of the bloke who tried to blow the whole bloody place up. I've always thought that was a sign of maturity myself. By the way, Mr Petursson, which department were you attached to in London?'
'One of those in Mayfair. I forget the exact title ...' He let the sentence die.
We both knew what he meant. Those buildings without plaques which you find dotted around Mayfair. Everyone knows what they are. The first principle of espionage is to stay near the good restaurants: they'd rather risk their lives than their lunch.
The phone rang and Petursson listened, then spoke briefly.
'A friend, Christopher Bell, is inquiring for you.'
'That's right. I thought I might need an interpreter.'
'You won't have any problems being understood, Mr Craven, providing that you speak the truth, of course.' His eyes vanished again at his own little joke, and he tipped my belongings in the tray towards me. 'You'd better take these. We do know where to find you, I believe. Ah, one moment. What is this?'
He'd picked up the winged badge I'd found in Solrun's photo album, which was now mixed up among my small change. He held it up and turned it around in the light. 'What is it, Mr Craven? Please enlighten me?'
As he placed it in the palm of his wide hand and held it out to me, I mumbled: 'That? Oh, just a bit of junk I picked up somewhere .. .'
It looks like a military badge.' I could feel his eyes drilling into me. 'What are these letters? AC. What do they stand for?'
'Afrika Corps,' I said in a blaze of inspiration. 'Military badges, I pick them up for a friend's little boy.'
'Really.' His eyes didn't leave my face. 'Wouldn't AK be more accurate for Afrika Korps? And why would they want wings? Forgive me, but my memory is that they relied rather more on tanks than on aircraft?'
I made a show of inspecting the badge. Sorry - you're quite right. That's an air-raid warden's badge from the last war. The initials stand for "All Clear". Quite a collector's item.'
With a leisurely movement, he closed his hand over it and put it in his pocket. 'In that case, perhaps it would be wise if I look after it until you are leaving the country.'
What could I do? Nothing except thank him. So I did. And I was still wondering how he'd managed to outflank me like that when I stepped outside.
'Over here.' I heard a whistle, and then saw a taxi parked down the side of the building. Bell's head was poking out of the window. 'Got your message, but they wouldn't let me in, I'm afraid. Whatever was it all about?'
I told him - or at least an outline of what had happened.
'My word! Stirring times, as they say. They are taking you seriously, aren't they?'
'Why?'
'Petursson's the top chap. Chief spy-catcher.'
'What is that place anyway?'
'Rannsoknarlogrella Rikisins. Literally, Investigative Police of the State.'
'Sort of Special Branch and MI whatsit?'
'Yes. With Miss Marple and Odd job thrown in. Did they give you a bad time?'
'Not really. Well, they didn't throw their bowler hats at me, anyway.'
11
Maybe it's because I was brought up in dormitories that I don't like sleeping in modern hotels. I always have the feeling that the bedroom walls will fall down and I'll find myself sleeping in a vast five-star dormitory for lost American Express boys.
That's why I always stayed at Hulda's and not at the Saga. I liked a bit of a clutter around me, and there was no shortage of that at Hulda’s.
She lived in a barujarns hus - one of the lovely old houses clad in corrugated iron - and the whole place was plastered with evidence of her existence for the last seven decades. There wasn't a surface, horizontal or vertical, that wasn't covered in pictures of human beings on their way from cot to coffin: children, grandchildren, and no doubt great grandchildren, in prams, playing, on bikes, in uniforms, on holidays, and then proudly holding produce of their own. And, since they all had Hulda's clear open forehead, it was like looking down a hall of mirrors.
There were other reasons for staying there, too. Hulda, as frail and perky as a sparrow, knew everything and everyone on the island.
The disadvantage was that she still considered it her duty to introduce me to Viking delicacies- and she wouldn't even let me have a blindfold. She sat there, the light from the half shuttered windows glinting on the glass of the photographs, watching every mouthful.
'Delicious,' I lied, gagging on the last bite. I don't know what it was. I would've said it had been kicked out of a badly frightened penguin, but I could be wrong.
And Hulda said what she always says at that point in the conversation. She nodded her lovely old head, the grey hair pinned back in a tight bun: 'It is my pleasure and my duty.'
It was coming up for noon. A few hours' sleep and I was restored, but I had a lot to do. For a start, I wished that Batty had at least given me an emergency number to ring. I'd no idea what to do about a vanishing client. And I wanted to find Ivan and see what he was doing in town. I wouldn't have thought Moscow was interested in Sexy Eskies.
And, now that I'd had more time to think about it, I was comforted by the way Bell had turned out so readily. I couldn't really believe that British intelligence services, inept as they are supposed to be, would send a bumbling amateur like me to do anything more complicated than post a letter. But they might want to use my personal influence- as Batty had said- so long as they had a trade-tested pro keeping an eye on me. As far as I was concerned, they could keep as many eyes on me as they wanted.
'You are seeing Solrun?' Hulda asked, her hawk-eyes searching my plate for signs of leftovers.
'That's the idea.' Even Hulda’s information service couldn't have got hold of Sopron’s disappearance so quickly.
'She is a most lovely girl.' She sighed as though for her own lost youth
. Perhaps it was. Her own beauty was there to see, in the pictures on the walls.
'Is she still single?' I asked, and instantly regretted it. From the look on her face, I knew Hulda had taken it as a reflection on Solrun's desirability, and thus the desirability of all Icelandic women, and by implication the entire nation.
'She could have endless many men,' she said. 'Endless many.'
That was another of her charming idiosyncrasies: endless many.
'Oh, I know, I know.'
'But she has many opportunities for life itself. All the famous magazines wish to take her photograph because she is so beautiful. Yes, that is true. She wishes also to win this title of the most beautiful woman in the world to bring honour on us all. She has men, naturally. Women must have men. But she also has her own life, I think.'
'Quite right too. She's a gorgeous girl.'
'You should know that, Sam.'
'I do, I do. And you're the most gorgeous of them all, Hulda.'
I kissed the top of her head as I passed. 'Don't wait up.'
'And what about you?' she called after me. 'When are you getting married again?'
'The day you say "yow", and not before.'
12
The Vikings fixed on Reykjavik by the traditional, off chance, method of chucking their furniture over the side of the longboat and setting up house where it landed. If you let your dining table do your house-hunting, then I suppose you shouldn't complain too much if you end up in an odd sort of place.
And Iceland is an odd sort of place. For over a thousand years after that, they staggered on through blizzards and Black Death, frozen one minute, roasted by volcanoes the next, scratching out a living on a hot cinder still sizzling among the ice at the edge of the Arctic Circle.
Then, after the last war, they suddenly hit the jackpot with their fishing. By the seventies, when I first went there, it was one of the most prosperous countries on earth.
I walked down through the town to see how much it had changed in the past two years. Quite a bit, as it turned out. The pop-fashion explosion had hit them the same as everyone else. Down Laugavegur, blow-ups of Bogart and Monroe smould erred in the shop windows, and on the walkway at Austurstraeti the pavement was knee-deep in Bowie flooding from the shop doorways.