He knew he could hardly be far from the sea, as a producer somewhere had taken the trouble to fill those racks with fish for drying, so somewhere not that far away had to be a harbour with fishing boats, but how far? Not far for a truck or a car could be an impossible distance for a starving man with leaking shoes. He had no idea how far he had walked the day before, but it felt like a million miles. His legs ached, both from the unaccustomed exercise as well as from malnourishment, and he forced himself to face the fact that if he did not find help today, then his chances of survival were probably as good as zero.
Jóhann wondered briefly what he looked like and ran a finger over the stubble on his face. He tried to remember the last time he had started a day without shaving and smiled as he realized that Sunna María would hardly recognize her husband after only a few days without access to all the usual luxuries they took for granted.
He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He switched it on and watched with excitement as it started up. The screen appeared for a couple of seconds, the phone buzzed, flashed a warning signal and switched itself off, but in that moment he had seen that the time was just after seven and that he was within signal range. He couldn’t be that far from civilization, surely? But which way?
The day was greyer even than the day before with spitting drops of rain from spent clouds that had emptied themselves overnight, leaving the road outside the hut running with red water thick with dust. He turned round slowly, trying to gauge through his cracked glasses where the sun might be behind the grey, and decided that uphill would again be the most likely direction as he set off, his shoes immediately filling with water.
Lísa pulled on a shapeless sweater with baggy sleeves longer than her arms and went down the stairs, her wooden clogs clicking on the concrete. The ground floor flat’s door opened a whisker and an eye peered out as they passed.
‘Nosy old bitch,’ Lísa muttered to Eiríkur, just loud enough for her voice to carry.
In the basement she opened the storeroom and stood in the doorway with her arms folded while Eiríkur went through the drawers of the dresser, examining the old trinkets, worn-out tools, an obsolete computer and even a pile of ancient schoolbooks.
Lísa shuffled her feet after a while. Eiríkur opened all of the cardboard boxes in a stack and found nothing but old clothes and shoes.
‘It’s his mother’s stuff,’ Lísa said. ‘I’ve never understood why he doesn’t throw it all away.’
‘She’s dead, right?’
‘Yeah. A long time ago. He was quite young.’
‘He doesn’t talk about his upbringing?’
‘What are you, a psychologist?’
He stepped out of the storeroom and let Lísa lock it and pocket the key. ‘No, but I’m trying to get a picture of a person who is much more complex than he might appear on the surface. That’s all.’
She went up the stairs, arms still folded and Eiríkur followed behind.
‘Is there anything else?’ Lísa asked as they stood in the lobby by the mailboxes, making it plain that she had no desire to answer any more questions.
‘No, that’s everything for now.’
‘So Orri’s in the clear now, is he?’
The ground floor flat’s door had been left ajar and Eiríkur jerked his head towards it. ‘I’ll be in touch if there are any questions,’ he said and pulled open the heavy outside door just as someone else pushed it from the other side. An elderly man with a stick and a carrier bag came in, rain dripping from the brim of his hat, which he tipped to them both as he passed.
‘G’day.’
‘Morning.’
The man stopped on the third step and turned stiffly. ‘Lísa, my dear, would you ask Orri to come and have a word with me when he’s in from work?’
‘Yeah. No problem. He should be back around four today.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ the old man said, already on the next step up. ‘It’s just that we need to settle up for the store that he rents from me downstairs.’
‘Excuse me, what did you say?’ Eiríkur asked as Lísa’s jaw dropped.
Eiríkur and a uniformed officer stood under a single dim bulb by the storeroom with the elderly gentleman who was still wearing his hat. Lísa stood by the stairs, her arms folded tightly around her and a bewildered frown on her face.
‘You’re telling me you knew nothing about this?’ Eiríkur demanded.
‘Of course not. That’s Orri’s storeroom there,’ she said, pointing with an arm that did not extend beyond the end of her sleeve at the storeroom they had already examined twice.
‘And this one?’
‘Hell, I don’t know. That’s between Orri and . . . ?’
‘Steinar,’ the old man said politely. ‘Steinar Atlason at your service,’ he added with exaggerated old-fashioned courtesy, looking at Lísa with a twinkle in his eye. ‘And you are?’
‘You know who I am,’ she retorted.
‘What’s the story, Eiríkur?’ Gunna asked, appearing in the doorway and not delighted at being called to Orri’s basement storeroom again.
‘It seems that Orri has more than one storeroom down here. This gentleman says that now he’s a little unsteady on his legs, he doesn’t use his storeroom any more and he actually rents it to Orri, which Orri conveniently forgot to tell us about.’
‘Your young man is quite right,’ Steinar chipped in. ‘I can’t get about like I used to, so my son cleared my storeroom out and this young lady’s husband asked if he could use it. For a consideration, of course,’ he added. ‘Now you’re not going to tell the minister of finance about this arrangement are you? To my mind he wastes enough taxpayers’ money as it is and I’ve no intention of giving that young fool any more.’
‘Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with us,’ Gunna assured him. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d open the door.’
‘I can’t. Orri put his own lock on there.’
‘Lísa, do you have the key?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘No key?’ Eiríkur said.
‘If you look carefully, you’ll see that’s a combination lock,’ she said with a sour expression. ‘And no, I don’t have a clue what the combination is. You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves,’ she said over her shoulder as she made for the stairs, her arms still wrapped around her.
‘This is definitely your storeroom?’ Gunna asked old man.
‘It is.’
‘You have any objection if we look inside?’
‘Well . . .’ Steinar Atlason looked uncertain. ‘It’s young Orri’s belongings that are in there, so it would be wrong to open it without his permission as well.’
Gunna scratched her head and wanted to bark at Eiríkur.
‘It’s up to you,’ she said. ‘If this gentleman agrees, then you can get an angle grinder and have that lock off right now.’ She saw the uniformed officer brighten at the chance of doing some damage. ‘Or you can seal the store now, fetch Orri and get him to open it in your presence, which might be a better way of going about things,’ Gunna said, turning to leave them to it.
‘But now I’m going up there for a word with Lísa, and to make it clear to her that calling Orri right now to tell him the law’s on his doorstep isn’t a helpful move. Let me know what you find in there.’
‘I let Bára go,’ Sunna María said. ‘I don’t feel I’m in any danger.’
‘It didn’t occur to you to let us know that you’d dispensed with your protection?’
‘No,’ she replied crisply. ‘I don’t feel there’s any hazard to me. I don’t need protection in my own house, thank you. But what I’d really like to know is what you’re doing to find my husband.’
‘Without knowing where to look, it’s not easy to mount a search,’ Gunna said. ‘And I recall that a few days ago you weren’t worried about your husband and didn’t seem keen on the idea of the police looking for him. Do you maybe know something now that you didn’t yesterday?’
Sunna María stared back at Gunna blankly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said finally. ‘The last few days have been . . .’ she paused as if looking for the right word. ‘Stressful in the extreme. If I gave the wrong impression, then I certainly didn’t mean to.’
Her phone rang and she stalked to the desk below the window of the long living room to snatch it up.
‘Yes,’ Gunna heard her snap. ‘Just get on with it. All right, another four per cent is acceptable, but that’s my last word. You know how far behind schedule all this is already?’
Gunna looked out of the window and watched as a mixer truck pulled up. The driver got out and lit a cigarette. A cloud of cement dust seemed to envelop him as he stood and waited. A man in blue overalls appeared and they both looked through a handful of documents, gesturing and pointing animatedly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sunna María said without any apology in her voice. ‘Things are getting busy and there’s a lot to be doing.’
‘The construction work?’
‘Yes. The house that’s weatherproof is for someone else but I’m acting as the owner’s agent. The other one’s ours. Work stopped last year when it started to get cold, but it’s warmer now so they can get to work on the foundations.’
‘Another one to let?’
‘Or sell. It depends on the market once the roof’s on and the windows are in.’
Beyond the construction site along the street, white horses danced on the sound between Kópavogur and Gardabær.
‘I’m wondering why work is starting just now, with your husband missing.’
Sunna María drew herself up and opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself and thought. ‘It has taken a while,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ve been negotiating with the contractor for weeks. The original construction company went bankrupt at the end of last year, so I had to find a new one, and they finally started on Friday.’
‘And the finance?’
‘I have enough to keep business afloat, thank you.’
‘Who’s this guy?’ Gunna demanded, unfolding a sheet of paper she had taken from her pocket while Sunna María was on the phone and pointing to an indistinct passport photo of a hawk-faced man with swept-back hair looking at the camera with amusement from behind a bristling old-fashioned moustache.
‘I . . .’
Gunna watched Sunna María’s confusion, determined not to miss anything she might let slip in her surprise.
‘I’ve really no idea.’ The moment’s hesitation told Gunna more than Sunna María had wanted to let slip. ‘Why? Who is he?’
‘That’s what I’m wondering. I’d be interested to know how he rented a van for two days last week and paid with a credit card belonging to Sólfell Property. Jóhann Hjálmarsson’s credit card. After all, it’s not as if they look alike or as if the names on the card and this man’s driving licence even match, but as the hire company didn’t look closely, off he went with a van.’
‘I honestly have no idea,’ Sunna María protested weakly. ‘If I could tell you, I would.’
Gunna folded the paper back into her pocket.
‘Intriguing,’ she said, looking out of the window at the occasional drop of rain hurled against the glass by the wind. ‘I feel like a walk, so I might have a look at your construction site.’
He trudged almost in a daze. The hunger cramps had abated, kept at bay with mouthfuls of water from the streams that clattered through the rocks. Jóhann stared at the grass by the track, wondering if grass could be eaten or if it would just make the ache in his belly worse. He remembered hearing somewhere that Iceland was a nightmare country for vegetarians, with a cuisine that consisted largely of lamb and fish. Nothing other than potatoes would grow in Iceland’s short summer, but at least there was enough grass and heather to support all those sheep.
He spied a couple of scruffy ewes watching him with suspicious eyes from far up the slope and he wondered if he could catch one, dismissing the thought immediately. He had no idea how to kill a sheep even if he were to catch one, let alone how to turn a dead sheep into something edible. It was the wrong time of the year for any kind of berries and he guessed it would be too early for the eggs of ground-nesting birds.
The ravens had returned and he was certain it was the same mean-eyed pair that had followed him the day before, always somewhere in the distance as the track had gone up hill and down. Jóhann knew that his strength would not last. Sooner or later he would have no choice but to sit by the side of the track and wait for someone to come to him instead of using up precious energy trying to find help before it was too late. He was uncomfortably aware of a clock ticking in the distant back of his mind.
He thought of Sunna María, imagining her concern, daydreaming of her voice and the throaty laugh he loved to hear as her clothes slipped to the floor. He still liked the idea of a week or three in the Mediterranean sunshine once he had got to safety, but it was now the idea of safety, a square meal and a night’s sleep that was preoccupying him more than the thought of a holiday.
Deep in thought, he hardly noticed the cattle grid until he stumbled and fell, one foot twisting in the process as he cried out in pain and swore to himself.
He sat by the side of the road with his back to a fence post as he massaged his ankle and it was some time before he realized the significance. A fence post meant a wire fence snaking off into the grey distance, and that had to be a sure indication that he had to be somewhere close to human habitation. In spite of the nagging pain in his ankle, which he told himself he could not afford to worry about, Jóhann felt buoyed up by the thought that a fence meant a farm somewhere nearby. Now he felt it was just a matter of time before he found himself sitting in a farmhouse kitchen with breakfast in front of him.
The track went steadily downhill in a gentle gradient, allowing him to see the landscape far ahead when breaks in the weather allowed. Jóhann had never before had to deal with weather. Weather was something that people outside worried about and he was coming to the conclusion that the elements were far more important than he could ever have imagined in his comfortable city cocoon that allowed him to shut out the climate at the touch of a button.
As the track rounded the curve of a hill and there was still no friendly pastel-shaded farmhouse roof anywhere in sight, his euphoria began to ebb as his ankle throbbed. He dared not stop or rest for fear that he would not be able to start off again. The ravens seemed to be there all the time at the edge of his field of vision and he felt they were coming closer, stopping to perch on rocks as he hobbled along the pitted track. He was sure they were waiting for him to falter and he pulled the ragged overcoat tighter around his shoulders, promising himself that if the worst came to the worst he would wrap it around his head to protect his eyes from the razor beaks that would go for the softest target.
‘You can’t come in here without a helmet, sweetheart,’ a man in a yellow vest, his own helmet perched on top of a woollen hat, told her.
‘I think you’ll find that I can,’ Gunna said, showing him her identity card.
‘Oh. In that case I suppose I’d better watch what I say. The lads are all legal,’ he added as Gunna marched past him.
‘How far have you got?’
‘Still doing the footings. The ironwork’s all in place and we’ll start pumping the rest of the concrete in a minute. Then the princess will have her foundations,’ he said with a gaptoothed smile that gaped from ear to ear.
The site stretched away across a patch of ground scraped from the slope. The basement of the house had been dug and shored up with rough plankwork and a lattice of supports ready for the walls to be poured.
‘When was this dug?’ Gunna asked.
‘Last year some time. Gvendur Bjarna started the job, but then he packed it in. Had a heart problem and had to shut up shop, plus I hear there was a liquidity problem somewhere. So in we came.’
‘By princess, I assume you mean Sunna María?’
‘That’s the lady. Th
e fashion icon in person. She’s been keeping us on our toes.’
‘Why haven’t you been here earlier?’
‘We would have been here a month ago, but it’s taken the princess a while to stump up the cash.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Not that I know anything about that. You’d have to talk to the big man about all that stuff.’
He followed as Gunna strode through the mud around the edge of the new building, looking into the trenches with a layer of fresh concrete in the bottom, from which brown iron frames and blue plastic pipes sprouted.
‘When was that done?’
‘Yesterday. That’s just to anchor the metal before we fill in.’
Gunna turned to face him. ‘When’s that supposed to start?’
‘Right now. The mixer truck’s here.’
‘In that case, I’m about to ruin your whole day. Do you want to tell your princess or shall I?’
Everything was wet and as darkness fell, floodlights illuminated everything with a harsh, unearthly brightness. Gunna huddled deep into her parka and felt rain drip from the rim of her helmet onto her shoulders. Sunna María watched from the sidelines on her side of the police cordon, her furious discomfort palpable even from a distance.
‘Gunnhildur.’
Ívar Laxdal’s appearance always caused people to sit up straight and take notice. She had observed the phenomenon many times and the sight of Eiríkur and the others unconsciously straightening their clothes and their backs as Ívar Laxdal entered the room always made her smile. He unfolded a printout and handed it to her.
‘From Riga, with love.’
Boris Vadluga’s slim, crop-headed face stared out at her in the light of her torch. There were intelligent cornflower-blue eyes, the skin crinkled around them as if he had smothered a smile to provide a straight face for the camera.
‘A good-looking man,’ Gunna said appreciatively.
‘That’s as may be. A very smart businessman with fingers in a great many pies. He’s into logistics mainly, trucks, shipping, containers.’
‘Does he have a record?’
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