by Cameron Bell
To the left of him standing behind the RAV is a squat female cop, in her late twenties with thick blonde hair tied in ponytail. She is looking at the registration plate and is speaking Icelandic on the radio. She then says something in Icelandic to Sigurdsson. Sigurdsson nods and says,
“Mr. Cutter did you hire this car?”
“No Toni did.”
“Toni?” his top lip wrinkling and head askew, “Not Tonya?”
“There is no Tonya, there is Toni with an I, and she is a woman.”
Third parties, radio communications, different language, there had been errors passing information.
“Okay, who is Toni?”
That is a good question I thought.
“Toni is a woman I met last night at the Gaukurinn bar in Reykjavik. She is an American, a tattooist, and she is here on vacation. We hit it off and I stayed the night with her at her hotel. She told me she was taking a trip around the island and I asked to go with her. I'm afraid I don't even know her last name.”
Sigurdsson frowned and said,
“I see … What happened?”
“Well, her ex-boyfriend Marcus and his friend Adam ran us off the road. Marcus chased Toni over to the waterfall, and Adam attacked me with a baseball bat. I got the better of Adam and went after Marcus and Toni. Marcus caught Toni, and we fought with baseball bats and I lost. He knocked me over the cliff and when I came around they were gone. They are in a green Land Rover Defender and I think they are taking her to Isafjordur,” I explain mangling the place name.
“Mmmm why do you say that?” he said quietly with a hint of incredulity.
“Because she told me they would.”
“When?”
“Just after we were bumped off the road. She said they're going to take me to Isafjordur, find Ron Somethingsson. Obviously not Somethingsson … a name ending in son.”
“That is of little help, nearly all Icelandic men are a son - Magnússon, Björnsson, Njálsson, he replies with a polite dismissiveness.
My headache is bothering me, it has sharpened, and I am feeling a little dizzy. I'd been amped up, battered and frozen and now I am beginning to crash with fatigue.
Sigurdsson gently nodded, which most people would see as a sign of encouragement, but I perceive it to be an indication of scepticism. I might be wrong, though I had done the same.
“When this happened were you driving?”
“No Toni was.”
“Have you drunk alcohol today?”
“No.”
This is starting to veer off course. The female cop is receiving and transmitting information on her personal radio. She then relays something to Sigurdsson who says to me,
“Mr. Cutter we've had a report of a Toyota driving ...”
He pauses thinking of the word and does a slithering gesture with his hand mimicking the movement of a snake. The word seemed to escape him, and he settles for,
“All over the road. We've then had another report that a rented Toyota RAV4 has been stolen from here by a man named, William.”
Sigurdsson held my eyes for a reaction.
“Really! No … no.”
I shake my head and point to my pregnant forehead.
“This was caused by a baseball bat.”
I feel a bit light headed and lean against the side of the RAV.
“That could have been caused by the accident, maybe you don't wear a seatbelt and bang your head.”
Sigurdsson tilted his head again.
“I'm going to ask that you take a breath test and drug saliva test to see if you are drink or drug driving. Follow Constable Grimsdottir’s instructions.”
Constable Grimsdottir assembled the breathalyser and explained the procedure asking when I last had a drink or a cigarette. I tell her last night and never. Then she presents the device for me to blow into. I seal my lips around the tube and blow steady and hard as if I'm inflating a balloon. The device beeps when it has enough air and Grimsdottir watches for the reading. After about twenty seconds she says with a curt smile,
“You have passed.”
Grimsdottir tucks the breathalyser away inside her jacket and pulls out from another pocket a drug saliva kit. She opens the sealed packet and places the test tube on the roof. She then tears free from a clear plastic packet a short rod with a spongy swab at the end. I open my mouth in readiness.
“I swab for saliva, this takes a short time,” she explains crisply.
She intrusively dabs and rubs for a period shorter than it feels. The rod is then screwed into the tube and a strip around the centre peeled off to reveal six spaced bands.
“We test for six drugs, it takes some minutes.”
There is no idle talk, Grimsdottir makes notes and glances at the tube every so often. She finally inspects it with Sigurdsson looking over her shoulder and says,
“You are clear.”
“Glad to hear it. Look there's damage to back of the car where we were rammed. They knocked us off the road and kidnapped Toni,” I point out trying to steer the situation back on track.
I hold onto the side of the RAV and shuffle to the rear. Sigurdsson puts a hand out to stop me.
“I think you had better sit down Mr. Cutter.”
I slump into the front passenger seat feeling dog-tired, and I hear myself mumbling the words,
“Do what you like, I'm past caring.”
I close my eyes, wishing that I had just lied down and succumbed to the cold.
“Mr. Cutter are you all right?” says Sigurdsson.
“As good as someone can be who has been smacked around the head with a baseball bat, fallen off a cliff and is hypothermic,” I complain sarcastically.
“The Rescue Team will be here in a few minutes and they have a medic,” reassures Sigurdsson.
I exaggerate discomfort to buy time and close my eyes again. I hear them confer in Icelandic interspersed with occasional squawks from the radios. A few minutes elapse during which I am checked and roused by Sigurdsson. In between I attempt to corral my thoughts. Sigurdsson is working off bogus information supplied by? but like a gunshot spooking horses the pain scatters my thoughts decapitating any constructive thinking – I need direct answers.
I hear additional voices and turn in the seat flopping my feet out of the footwell onto the grass. Three men and a woman in bright red overalls with blue segments on the shoulders and knees traipse down the slope exchanging greetings with the police. There are now two four by four vehicles on the verge where the Defender had been. Both are white and have a blue emergency light rack, though one has jacked up tyres like a monster truck and has red livery instead of blue.
There is more talking that I am not privy to, which for a man prone to suspicion is an itch that cries to be scratched. One of the men carrying a heavy kit bag over his shoulder separates from the group and sits on his haunches in front of me. He is a strapping, young guy with a black bushy beard and shovels for hands.
“Hello, I am Kristofer and I am a medic from the Search and Rescue Team. I have been told that you have been hit in the head with a bat, and you have fallen some height. Is that correct?”
I nod my head, his English is superb, his accent mellifluous.
“How far did you fall?”
“About fifteen feet onto soggy grass.”
“Good. What part of your body did you fall on?”
“My front I think. I don't remember.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“Yes, I was stunned from getting hit by the bat, and I fell, then blacked out.”
“Where do you hurt?”
“Head, I've a headache and I'm feeling very tired and dizzy some of the time.”
He stretched a pair of latex gloves over his enormous hands and began to examine me. He looks into my ears for cranial leaking, feels for soft spots in my skull and checks my eyes with a pen light for non-reacting pupils.
“Do you feel pressure in your head?”
“No, just a headache.”
“This is good. I don't think there is a problem, you may have a small concussion. I will give you some paracetamol for the pain. The cuts ... probably you don’t need stitches,” he says rocking his head side to side in indecision.
He produces a blister pack and a bottle of water from pockets in his kit bag and pops out two tablets. I take and swallow them with a gulp of water, and he gestures for me to keep the bottle.
Kristofer confers with Sigurdsson and I see Grimsdottir and the rest of the Search and Rescue Team trudge up the hill to the big wheeled SUV. They get into the raised cab and the vehicle trundles down the hill and towards the waterfall; the throaty engine and massive tyres making light work of the obstinate ground.
Sigurdsson seems like he is churning thoughts. To him this incident probably looks a lot like a spider diagram, at least that is how as a fellow stripey I would be looking at it in his position. At the centre there is what is alleged and branching out are the possibilities, lines of enquiry, procedures and evidence. In this case I would be working two spiders: one for the kidnap allegation and the other for the crock of shit car theft. The lines had to be followed and bottomed out: they led to dead ends, further lines of enquiry and conclusions. For instance, intoxicated driving was a possibility and had been tested and ruled out, however speeding or being rammed off the road are still viable explanations and had not been eliminated as a cause for the off-roaded RAV.
I wait for eye contact with Sigurdsson and then probe him for information,
“Sergeant Sigurdsson, Toni told me she rented this car, and she has been kidnapped; so, who is saying I stole it?”
“The person who it is hired to, Antonia Brookes. Mr. Cutter I'm going to have to ask you to accompany us to Borgarnes, so that we can investigate this report further; also, there is a hospital in Borgarnes we can take you to where you can be treated if you wish.”
I understood the implication and didn't protest - it is better to cooperate than be arrested.
Antonia Brookes is that Toni's real name. Toni - An..toni..a; of course, it is just an abbreviation.
“Mr. Cutter, I'm going take some photographs of the scene and some will be of you to evidence how you look.”
“They won't be flattering photographs then.”
Sigurdsson grins,
“No, they won't.”
He uses a small camera and takes around a dozen shots of the RAV and its path. He then asks me to stand and angling around me takes several more shots of my face, hands and person.
“Thank you Mr. Cutter I have enough now, you can sit back down.”
The rescue vehicle returns, and Grimsdottir jumps out of the back seat. She is carrying a large clear plastic evidence bag with the baseball bat inside, the tip of the handle protruding from the top. She confers with Sigurdsson who stands wide with one arm across his belly, and the other propped upwards against it; the hand fidgeting with his chin and mouth.
The paracetamol is beginning to blunt the pain, and I'm feeling a little better from sipping the water which is now almost gone. Sigurdsson strides over and says with an open palm pointing to the verge,
“Okay Mr. Cutter we are leaving now I will carry your case. Do have any identification with you?
I unzip my travel bag and hand over my passport. He flicks through it and says,
“I'm going to keep this until we get to the police station. I will make a copy. I must also ask you for your safety and mine to empty your pockets.”
I comply thinking that a search is something that I would have done from the get-go. I put my belongings on the bonnet of the RAV and lace my fingers around the back of my head in readiness for a frisk. Sigurdsson follows the cue and from behind methodically pats me over. He then has a cursory look at my things before saying,
“Okay you can keep these.”
We trudge up the slope leaving Grimsdottir searching inside the RAV. Sigurdsson opens a rear door of the Nissan Pathfinder and I squeeze in behind a pushed back front driver's seat. Sigurdsson doesn't get in, instead he examines the road presumably for skid marks and collision debris. He takes some more snaps and uses the flash in the fading light. I watch him squat and pick up a large section of brake light casing and place it in an evidence bag. He strolls back to the police vehicle, and with phone in hand dawdles outside. A couple of minutes later Grimsdottir lugging a bag with my dirty clothes and looking a little out of puff appears. The cops exchange a few words, put the evidence bags and my case in the boot, and we set off for Borgarnes.
Chapter 11
The car is comfortable after Sigurdsson pulls the seat forward, and the warmth and motion soon send me to a welcome sleep. The car turns, and my head lolls to one side and I jerk awake.
We have entered a car park of a long two story white building with a brown sloped, corrugated roof that comes over the front like a fringe. The building is a modern design with indented windows. It resembles a set of three incomplete eights with a set back windowless block at the end. We slot into a space and my seized-up muscles ache as I get out. The day is closing, and the temperature has dropped, and I feel the chill breeze before going through the double doors of the station.
I'm led along a corridor to a toilet. Sigurdsson holds the door open and says,
“Perhaps you'd like to wash your face ... and use.”
I badly need the urinal and I am there for nearly a minute. Following this I clean myself up the best I can in the wash basin. Then with dripping wet hair I am escorted further along the corridor to an interview room, which is plain, functional and windowless like they all are. It has a table with two chairs either side and on the table there is a double decked DVD recording device. Sigurdsson sits down and directs me to take a seat on the opposite side. I consider telling Sigurdsson I am Police Sergeant; it would probably help with my credibility; however, I have purposely left my warrant card at home. He could only count on my word for it unless he contacted my Force for verification, and I don't want them to have additional dirt to use on me. I decide to keep stumm and only pull it out of the bag if the situation continued to go sideways.
Grimsdottir brings in two Styrofoam cups of coffee and sets them on the table along with some packets of sugar and a plastic spoon. Sigurdsson leaves the sugar and hinging the cup between thumb and forefinger stands up. He blows into his coffee and I wait for him to speak, but he rocks on his heels and blows into his coffee. He finally takes a sip and says with a slow measured delivery,
“Thank you for helping us with our investigation. We have different stories and we need to find out which one is the truth. We are waiting for Antonia Brookes to come to the police station so we can ask her questions about the vehicle theft she reported.”
I take a sip of coffee and pose a question I know the answer to,
“So, she didn't wait around for officers from where she made the report then?”
There is a pause and a reluctant,
“No.”
“And she won't turn up here either, because she is in the boot of a car being taken to Isafjordur. You've bet on the wrong horse Sergeant,” I remark in an authoritative tone.
Sigurdsson looks perplexed and I figure the idiom maybe lost on him. He responds,
“I am taking what you say seriously Mr. Cutter and there is evidence …. to back up your story. The police from the Western and Westfjord districts are looking out for the Land Rover. This is why you have not been arrested.”
I sit back in the chair and relax. The bleach haired twat has succeeded in muddying the waters and dividing the police's attention - he must have forced her to make the call. It is a clever ruse creating a smokescreen for their escape, but when Antonia fails to show and her phone is off, the smoke will clear – no Toni equals no theft. I tap my Fitbit and the display reads 5:12 - they could have covered a lot of ground by this time.
My phone is on critical and I ask Sigurdsson if I can charge it. He agrees and I hook it up and I belatedly text Annabel to let her know I'm alright. I kill the
minutes by reading the news and browsing a shooting forum I belong to. Sigurdsson is in and out of the room, and I frequently see him checking the chunky explorer type watch he wears. Time is the heel of a boot, incrementally crushing possibility – squashing the spider.
◆◆◆
It is just after six o'clock when a plain clothes detective enters the room. In one hand he holds two coffees between splayed fingers and in the other a hard-backed A4 sized notebook. He sits down opposite me and precisely lowers the coffees to the table without any spillage. He is the wrong side of forty-five and has a haggard, bloated look to go with it. The split veins around his nose tell me he lives hard and is probably a closet drinker. He has neatly combed sandy coloured hair, is clean shaven and sports a smart, well-cut navy blue suit. A strong waft of quality aftershave could either mean he is serious about personal grooming, or that he is masking the stale stench of the previous night’s binge.
The notebook has seen some use and he flips it open to near the end, lining it up parallel to the table's edge. A Parker pen is drawn from the handkerchief pocket of the jacket and is placed in the crease of the book, then a pair of stylish glasses are removed from an inside pocket and delicately put on. When he is done he places both palms on the table and in impeccable English introduces himself.
“I am Detective Gudjohnsen. I am here to further investigate the kidnapping of your female companion Antonia Brookes or Toni as you know her. I've been briefed that you met her for the first time last night at the Gaukurinn bar in Reykjavik, and that you have not had previous communications. I want you to start at the beginning; I will take notes and ask questions.”