Frozen Assets

Hårde didn’t believe in disguise. A confident approach, preferably with a discreet smile, was his preferred way of staying inconspicuous, although it wasn’t always easy for a man of above average height.

He was unhappy with the airport while being unable to put his finger on precisely what was wrong, apart from Sigurjóna’s having told him that the fat policewoman was looking for him. The check-in queue moved quickly enough and the concourse area was crowded enough for him to meld into the throng. He looked carefully at the queue ahead of him and singled out a couple of possible targets, men of roughly his own age and build, travelling alone.

He knew he would be ahead of Erna and had to admit to himself that he was looking forward to seeing her again, even though they had only parted that morning. He forced himself to think objectively and not to let the thought of her writhing beneath him cloud his judgement. Women come and women go, he reminded himself.

He watched the girl at the check-in desk for reactions that would betray that his name had been flagged up by the computer system, but she was mercifully bland.

‘Have a nice flight, Mr Ström,’ she smiled, passing him his boarding pass.

He passed security painlessly as a bored guard waved him through to pick up his X-rayed hand baggage. Inside the departure lounge, he drank a coffee at the bar and made his decision.

Ib Torbensen was bored and tired. His business trip to Iceland had been successful enough, but the small company representing his employers’ products had exhausted him. The evening before they had taken him to dinner and a few drinks that had become a crawl through some of the noisier parts of downtown Reykjavík, ending in a raucous bar only a few hours before he needed to be awake at a meeting that he had not been able to stop yawning through.

He drank coffee, but didn’t feel well enough to eat. His coat was making him too hot and he regretted not having packed it in his luggage. After three cups of coffee, he stood up, dropped some notes on the bar and wandered idly among the shops until the need to pee became too strong to fight.

He found a toilet on the far side of the concourse. Standing at the urinal and watching the yellow stream hit the bowl, he vaguely registered the door open and someone else enter the toilets.

When Hårde’s right arm snaked around his neck, Ib Torbensen tried to shout. But Hårde’s left arm quickly connected with his right hand, trapping the arm around Ib Torbensen’s neck in the crook of the elbow, while the flat of Hårde’s free hand forced his victim’s head forward. As Ib Torbensen collapsed into unconsciousness, Hårde caught him and hauled the body to a cubicle, shutting the door behind them both.

Five minutes later, Hårde emerged, leaving an unconscious Ib Torbensen on the cubicle floor, having divested him of all his travel documents, passport, money and every piece of identification.

He walked smartly back across the concourse to the bar and saw Erna perched on a barstool. He hesitated for a moment, and made a second decision.

He dropped a hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Don’t say anything, Erna.’

She turned to him in surprise, but kept quiet.

‘You said you thought I was a dangerous man?’

Erna nodded, eyes wide.

‘I’m not coming with you.’

‘What? Why?’ she couldn’t help demanding, eyes wide.

‘Listen. I have to fix something and you haven’t seen me.’

He squeezed her shoulder gently with the hand that had nearly killed lb Torbensen. ‘You haven’t seen me since yesterday. Go to M’diq as planned. I’ll see you in a few days.’

‘How many days?’

‘A few. That’s all I can say.’

He squeezed her shoulder once more as Erna looked at him with a mixture of sorrow and fury. ‘OK, Mr Dangerous. Make it soon.’

‘Soon,’ Hårde said, his eyes wrinkling at the corners with a suppressed smile, and in seconds he had melted back into the crowd around the bar.

He walked purposefully but not too fast towards the long walkway leading to the departure gates and passport control. Halfway along, he spied a noisy group of people coming towards him from an arriving flight, laughing and joking among themselves. Hårde took a step to one side to make way for them and turned to double back, following until they reached the top of the steps for arriving passengers to go down to the baggage reclaim.

He stood behind an elderly couple on the escalator. At the bottom, he took a deep breath and walked past the carousels to the Nothing to Declare channel, where he was waved straight past and out, back on to Icelandic soil.

At the car hire desk, he thought the girl might recognize him, but with a queue to deal with, she simply asked him to sign in the right boxes, photocopied Ib Torbensen’s passport and swiped his credit card before handing over the keys.