Frozen Assets

He drove away unobtrusively, taking the westbound road out of Hvalvík. He was relieved that he had not been interrupted in the fat policewoman’s house and pleased that he had not needed to make certain of the young couple’s silence, but annoyed with himself for giving in to curiosity and taking a chance of being seen without good reason.

33

Wednesday, 1 October

Gunna surfaced from sleep unwillingly. Something behind her eyeballs throbbed and told her not to open them. She forced her eyelids apart and the light immediately stabbed deep.

‘Morning,’ Bjössi called cheerfully. ‘Wakey, wakey, sweetheart.’

‘Belt up, will you?’ Gunna snapped back before the thought occurred to her that maybe Bjössi wasn’t going out of his way to be unpleasant.

He sat down on the bed in the station’s cellar in a room that was halfway between a cell and a storeroom and patted Gunna’s thigh under the heavy duvet that was wrapped around her.

‘Y’know, Gunna, my love? If that’s the way you are in the mornings, I can only say I don’t regret never having got you into the sack.’

‘Sorry, Bjössi. Didn’t mean to be short with you. What’s the time?’

‘Almost six.’

He held out a mug of coffee and Gunna took it with both hands as she sat up, Bjössi shielding his eyes in mock horror.

‘It’s all right. I’m decent enough,’ she growled. ‘I don’t suppose I’ve got anything you haven’t seen before.’

‘Possibly. But not as big,’ Bjössi answered seriously, ducking a swipe from the hand not clasped around the mug.

‘What’s been going on?’ Gunna asked with the first mouthful of coffee helping parts of her mind recall what had happened before she had closed her eyes a few short hours before.

‘Looks like we’ve pretty much traced our man’s movements up to when he left the airport. He’s in a hire car on our Danish guy’s credit card.’

‘I suppose Torbensen isn’t anything to do with Hårde?’

‘Nope. Like you said, he’s a red herring. The man’s a salesman for an agricultural equipment manufacturer in some backwater in Jutland. Spoke to his managing director and he’s worked there for twelve years. The local company they supply confirmed who he is and that he’s been with them pretty much all the time he’s been in Iceland, all three days of it.’

‘So that’s him ruled out.’

‘Plenty of people think they might have seen Hårde at the airport, most of them aren’t sure though. Apart from the girl behind the bar who thinks he might have spoken to a fair-haired woman who was sitting there, but again, isn’t sure. The woman at the car hire desk reckons she’d recognize him if she saw him, but Ib Torbensen’s credit card and driving licence pretty much nail him down there anyway.’

‘And his phone?’

‘Still switched off.’

‘The man knows what he’s doing. I’ll bet you anything you like he’s ditched that phone and he’s using another one by now. Right, Bjössi, my man. Are you going to get out and let a lady dress in peace and quiet?’

She gestured towards her shirt and uniform trousers folded over the back of the cell’s only chair.

‘I suppose so,’ Bjössi sighed. ‘Of course, if I’d known you were scantily clad under that duvet, I’d have crawled in before I woke you up.’

‘Get away, you randy old goat,’ Gunna retorted. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d think your Dóra wasn’t giving you any.’

Ten minutes later they met again in the incident room. Vilhjálmur Traustason put his head around the door and withdrew quickly.

‘What do we know?’ Gunna asked, yawning.

‘Last sighting of our man prior to the airport yesterday was at the InterAlu compound in Hvalvík. The operations manager there said he left before eleven. Maybe he went there yesterday to deliver the bad news.’

‘Bad news?’

Bjössi put morning newspapers on the table and spread them out in a fan. Each one had a picture of Bjarni Jón Bjarnason on the cover, except for Dagurinn, which carried a picture of a tearful Sigurjóna shielding her face from the camera, with the police station on Hverfisgata in the background.

‘Has that bloody woman been let out?’ Gunna demanded.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Bjössi confirmed tentatively. ‘Orders from high up, or so we’re told. It’s handy to have friends in high places.’

‘Shit,’ Gunna cursed as the door opened and Vilhjálmur Traustason came in soundlessly. ‘Vilhjálmur, those idiots in Reykjavík have let that bloody woman out.’

It wasn’t a question and Gunna’s tone made it into an accusation.

‘No choice in the matter. She’s not to leave Reykjavík, though.’

‘Lárus Jóhann?’

Vilhjálmur Traustason allowed himself the thinnest of smiles.

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I have a feeling that Bjarni Jón Bjarnason’s influence isn’t quite as strong as it was a few days ago. Sigurjóna Huldudóttir’s lawyers made a case for release that we couldn’t give a good reason for opposing. However, I have passed on your information to the narcotics squad and it’s being investigated. That’s all I know right now.’

‘I hope they hang the bloody woman out to dry,’ Gunna grated.