Cold Steal

by Quentin Bates

  The day was drawing on and there was no sign of any shelter anywhere in this bleak landscape. He looked up from the fish and saw with surprise that a pair of black eyes were staring curiously back at him before their owner looked quickly to one side and ran.

  Other than an eagle that had circled high in the sky earlier in the day and the malevolent ravens that he felt were dogging his steps, the sheep was the first living thing he had seen. He wanted to despair but made himself stay rational, forcing himself back to his feet to continue.

  Now he was looking for shelter. There were spots of rain falling, pattering on the overcoat wrapped around his shoulders. The landscape stayed blank. The road itself was better, almost wide enough for two vehicles, but not quite, and he listened for the rumble of tyres to tell him that someone was on the move.

  The road that had dipped began to climb upwards again, and with it the temperature fell until he reached the top of a small pass and saw a sight that gave him extra strength. The land dropped away slowly and in the distance he was sure he could see the sea, while the wind blowing off it convinced him.

  Now he was walking faster, his broken shoe flapping loose once again as the track showed signs of recent traffic and the new marks of heavy tyres cut deep into the soft sides of the road. As the road rounded a rocky escarpment, a sight greeted him so welcome that he gasped with relief. A steel hut had been erected on a patch of ground cleared from the rock, its door firmly padlocked, and next to it was a digger and a bulldozer.

  Everything looked as if it had been untouched for days or even weeks, but it was at least a sign of activity and that there had to be a road, a real road, not that far away. Now it was starting to get dim and there was a threat of real cold rain as the drops began to fall with a heavy smack.

  The digger and the bulldozer were both locked. Heavy padlocks swung from hasps on the cabs. He turned his attention to the steel shed, which had a similar lock hanging from a steel loop that held a metal plate flush with the door. He rattled the lock hopelessly and cast around for a tool of some kind, any tool that could help him break in. But the road menders had cleared up well and there was nothing to be found. It was as if they had swept, hoovered and polished everything before leaving, he thought bitterly.

  It had to be a rock. Over by the road he found several that looked suitable, heavy enough to do some damage but light enough to be handled. Repeated blows on the lock began to twist it and the first rock he had brought eventually fell apart in his hand. The second fared better and the padlock began to look decidedly unhealthy by the time the rain started hammering down. Jóhann shivered, pulled the overcoat over his head like a hood and attacked the lock with a frenzy he did not know he had in him, battering it until he had to give up through exhaustion, dropping the rock at his feet.

  As he was ready to give up and crawl under the bulldozer for shelter, the door swung open and he saw that the padlock had survived the onslaught but the hasp itself had been battered clear from the door. Inside the rain beat furiously on the roof as Jóhann curled up in a corner of the dim interior and gnawed on the last rock-hard piece of fish.

  The man was tiny and Gunna felt that she towered over him with the glass door between them. His jet-black hair was shorn in a ragged crew cut under the white hat and his black eyes were impassive.

  ‘We closed,’ he said shortly, hand on the door.

  ‘I’m not looking for lunch. Are you Truc?’

  She saw his eyes flicker left and right. ‘You police, right?’

  ‘I’m from the police, yes,’ Gunna said.

  He opened the door and Gunna had the feeling he wanted to hurry her inside and out of sight.

  ‘Finnbogi along the street said that you saw something unusual on Friday. Is that right?’

  ‘We go out back,’ he said, picking at a pocket inside his white tunic and extracting a cigarette. Outside the back door he patted the pockets of his checked trousers until he found a lighter and clicked it repeatedly. Eventually he exhaled a long stream of blue smoke into the damp air. He pointed at the loading bay.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘This isn’t going to be trouble for me?’

  ‘No trouble,’ Gunna assured him.

  ‘Big car. Van. A man fill it with stuff.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Friday. They were here some time. Two, three hours. Boxes, bags. All kinds of stuff.’

  ‘Can you describe the man?’

  ‘Tall. But everyone is tall in Iceland,’ he said with the first hint of a smile.

  ‘Young? Old?’

  ‘Middle-old. Forty-fifty. Grey, with big nose.’

  Gunna took out the photo of Jóhann Hjálmarsson and Truc peered at it. ‘Is that him?’ she asked, knowing already that the description would not fit.

  ‘No. That’s the drunk man.’

  ‘Drunk?’

  ‘Yeah, There was a drunk guy hanging around. He sat on the wall and talk to the guy with the van.’

  ‘Did you see where he went?’

  ‘No. I come out, smoke, see him. Next time I come out here, he was gone. Didn’t see him again.’

  ‘But this is definitely him?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s him. He was really drunk that day. He could hardly stand up,’ Truc said with disgust. ‘In the middle of the day, and he didn’t look like a loser.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember the van’s registration?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Anything special about it? What make?’

  ‘It was a hired van.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Truc looked at her as if the question was a particularly stupid one. ‘On the side, Borg Vehicle Leasing. Big letters.’

  It was far from warm in the steel hut, but Jóhann reminded himself that it was much warmer and more comfortable that it would have been outside with the rain beating down at intervals. The wind moaned as darkness fell, rattling the roof and occasionally showers lashed the hut with a deafening onslaught, magnified by the bare steel roof. It wasn’t night yet, but the thick black rain clouds had blotted out any sunlight and it felt much later than it probably was. He huddled deeper into the stinking coat that he felt had probably saved his life, and now that he was at least under cover and somewhere within striking distance of civilization, his mind wandered to how he had found himself in this situation.

  He fought to reach elusive scraps of memory that were probably only a few days old but which felt as if they were in the distant past. Jóhann wondered why he had gone out, leaving Sunna María with the blonde security girl with the tight bottom and an air of competent menace about her at the hotel. He was sure of that, and sure that they were thought to be in some kind of danger. He recalled that Vilhelm had been murdered and he shivered, although he had never liked the man much. He had been a friend of Sunna María’s, just like Elvar; boys from some small fishing village who had made a pile of money selling scrap tonnage before they’d made the pile bigger by making the tonnage work instead of scrapping it.

  He felt that Vilhelm had always been a dangerous friend to have, someone with only one real aim: to make money by any means, watchfully sizing up the world around him through those frameless glasses and attaching a mental price tag to everything he saw. Elvar was much the same, he decided, more easy-going on the surface, but with the same ruthless drive for cash underneath.

  He thought fondly of Sunna María and hoped that she was missing him, or at the least, was worried about him. She had been deeply upset by the violent death of her friend and he could tell that she was far from her normal self, preoccupied and her thoughts clearly not on him in the few days between his return to Iceland and his disappearance.

  They needed a holiday. It was time to reconnect, he told himself. There had been lapses on both sides and he assumed Sunna María imagined that he had no idea about her occasional fling with a young man and on one occasion with a brash young woman. He wondered if Sunna María was aware that his own lapses had all been long ago. He f
elt that she distrusted Nina, the German widow he had been doing business with for some years importing dental equipment, and he was sure that Sunna María felt there was something more there than a business relationship.

  Jóhann admitted to himself that a few years earlier he would have jumped on Nina joyfully and added a notch to the respectable number on his bedpost, but he was an older man now and he valued Nina’s friendship as well as her business, and business and pleasure rarely mix, he told himself, his mind straying back to somewhere warm.

  Greece, maybe, he decided. Once he got back to Reykjavík he would book a couple of weeks on some island in the sun where they could sleep and read, drink rough wine, eat simple food and cement their faltering relationship before it was too late. There were more important things in life than business, money and expensive toys, he told himself as he nodded off to sleep under yet another assault on the hut’s tin roof.

  The man looked older than Orri remembered from their only previous meeting. The bushy moustache looked greyer and the artificial light of the shopping centre accentuated the lines on his face.

  He stirred sugar into his coffee and smiled at Orri in a way that made him look sinister rather than friendly.

  ‘Tell me the story, Orri.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘I’m a good listener.’

  ‘The police have been asking me questions. They reckon I sold some stolen jewellery to an antique shop.’

  ‘And did you?’ the man asked, sipping his coffee with his little finger cocked at an absurd angle.

  ‘Well, yeah. I did.’

  ‘I recall advising you to keep out of trouble.’

  ‘This was before. Weeks ago.’

  ‘I see.’

  He sat for a long time holding his coffee cup in front of him, looking past Orri’s shoulder at the window behind him. Orri wondered what he was thinking and what needed so long to consider.

  ‘You know this place better than I do,’ he said suddenly. ‘What do you think? Do you think they may have linked you to anything else? Note that I’m not asking what else you might have on your conscience.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve always been very careful and I don’t take chances unless I have to.’

  ‘But you did that time? Why didn’t you dispose of the jewellery through your usual routes?’

  Orri opened his mouth and closed it again. He thought quickly and wondered if the man would understand that the gold clasp reminded him of the grandmother who had been there for him when his own mother had no time for her children. The thought of something so old and precious being melted down had gone against the grain in a way he couldn’t explain and which had also taken him by surprise. He twisted uncomfortably in his chair and looked behind him, pretending to see if they were overheard.

  ‘Nobody’s eavesdropping on us, Orri.’

  ‘I’m getting paranoid,’ he said with a short laugh, having seen nothing except a man reading a tablet computer on the far side of the otherwise empty café.

  ‘Where do you usually dispose of your merchandise?’

  ‘Through someone reliable.’

  ‘Someone at your workplace?’

  Orri stared, wondering where else this strange man would cheerfully wrongfoot him. ‘Could be.’

  ‘You are aware that Alex works for the owners of Green Bay Dispatch and he does a little freelance work on his own account?’

  ‘What? How do you know?’

  ‘Let’s say that we are aware of Alex and what he does.’

  ‘So you’re from Latvia as well?’

  A smile flickered under the moustache. ‘Very clever, Orri. You’re a smart operator,’ he said and his face returned to its previous stony expression. ‘As I said to you before, don’t ask questions when you’re better off not knowing the answer.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘But now that you’re here, I have another job for you.’ With one gloved finger he pushed a box and an envelope stiff with notes across the table. ‘Take care. Don’t take chances. Withdraw if you feel it’s safer, but send a message to me if you do. Understand?’

  ‘Understood,’ Orri said, in spite of his misgivings eagerly pocketing the cash in a swift movement that didn’t escape notice.

  Ívar Laxdal stopped her outside his office, his brawny arms folded over his chest. ‘I don’t believe in coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.’

  ‘True enough. But people’s paths can cross by chance,’ Gunna said. ‘But I can’t help being worried about all this.’

  Ívar Laxdal looked long, hard and unnervingly into Gunna’s eyes, snapping his fingers in thought and looking away a fraction of a second before she was ready to give in and blink.

  ‘In what way? What worries you more than usual?’

  ‘You know as well as I do that the local criminals sell homegrown dope and home-made booze. The Baltic types deal in speed. They both do burglaries and all kinds of stolen-goods scams.’

  ‘Yes. And?’

  ‘I’m hoping there isn’t some kind of turf war brewing. One crowd or the other looking to steal the other’s business. That’s what’s worrying me.’

  ‘Because it would get nasty?’

  ‘Exactly. I like a quiet life, and if it happens, we’ll be right in the middle.’

  ‘Is there anything you need? Do you want to recall Helgi? I feel that you should.’

  ‘Helgi will be back next week anyway. I could do with a few things that I’m not allowed, but traces on a bunch of phones would be useful. Apart from that, I’d just appreciate it if you could keep Sævaldur out of my hair.’

  ‘I can do that. Give me the names and numbers and I’ll get the warrants as soon as I can.’

  Gunna scribbled in her folder and handed him a slip of paper. ‘I’d love to be able to put a tracker on Orri’s car, but I guess that’s against the rules?’

  Ívar Laxdal allowed himself a wintry smile. ‘I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect too much, Gunnhildur. Don’t expect too much.’

  ‘I’m hoping that this isn’t the start of a feud between the local underworld and the Baltic villains. That really could be a nightmare.’

  Ívar Laxdal nodded sagely. ‘A shame we can’t just sit back and leave them to it, isn’t it?’

  Chapter Eleven

  Orri’s car was nowhere to be seen, but Eiríkur was pleased to see that Lísa’s car was parked outside the brooding block of flats.

  ‘You’re from the police?’ she asked in surprise. ‘Why? What do you want with me?’

  ‘You live here now?’ Eiríkur asked, ignoring her question. ‘I have your address as Stafholt nineteen?’

  ‘Yeah, well. I still live there, but I’m here a lot of the time.’

  ‘You recognize this?’ Eiríkur asked, showing her a picture of the green fleece and its distinctive yellow logo.

  ‘Yeah. I used to have one like that.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘A riding club I used to belong to before I moved to Reykjavík. Kjölur. It’s near Selfoss.’

  ‘And where’s the jacket now?’

  ‘My boyfriend wears it mostly,’ she said with a twitch of her lips. ‘I, er . . . I lost a lot of weight after I moved to Reykjavík and it was just too big for me. You know?’

  ‘So now Orri Björnsson wears it instead?’ Eiríkur asked.

  ‘If you already know, then why are you asking me?’

  ‘How long has he been wearing this fleece, would you say? A couple of weeks? Months?’

  Lísa stared at him in confusion. ‘Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’

  Eiríkur looked at her closely. He could make out the tiny scar on her lip where she had once worn a ring through it.

  ‘It’s been identified in connection with a crime. So how long has Orri had this fleece to wear?’

  ‘I don’t know. A few months. When the weather started getting cold after the summer.’

  ‘September?’

  ‘Some
thing like that.’

  ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘A couple of years. A little longer, maybe. Why are you asking me all this stuff? Is Orri in trouble?’

  ‘What are his movements like? Does he have regular habits? Do you know where he is all the time?’

  Lísa’s lip curled in anger, while inside there was the nagging reminder that no, she frequently had no idea what Orri was doing or where he was, and then there were the mysterious texts and phone calls that Orri carefully kept to himself.

  ‘We lead our own lives. I don’t own him,’ she snapped.

  ‘So he keeps regular hours, does he? Tucked up in bed by midnight every night?’

  ‘If he’s working the next day, yes. He starts at seven, so he has to be gone by six thirty.’

  ‘He drinks? Smokes? Takes drugs?’

  ‘A glass of wine or a beer sometimes. He doesn’t smoke and he certainly doesn’t do any drugs.’

  ‘You’re very sure.’

  ‘I’ve been practically living with him for long enough,’ Lísa said coolly. ‘There’s an old boyfriend of mine who had trouble in that respect, so I think I’d recognize the symptoms.’

  Eiríkur closed his notebook. ‘I’d like to take a look round the basement.’

  Lísa shrugged. ‘The key’s on the hook by the door. Help yourself.’

  ‘You’d better come with me.’

  Jóhann woke with the dawn light creeping through the half-open door. He felt chilled to the marrow and faint with hunger, regretting not having made the effort to carry more of the dried fish with him from the abandoned farmhouse. It took him a while to drag himself to his feet and his legs felt weak.

  Outside the hut the fresh breeze made him shiver. He wondered what the time was, and then wondered what day it might be. The last day he remembered before waking up on a bed of straw had been Friday, but he had no idea how long he had been out cold there. One day, or two? No more than two, he decided, and then tried to work out how many days he had been at the farm before walking away from it.