Frozen Assets

The man just grunted and left the way he had come.

‘That’s Kalle, our chief engineer. Actually, our only engineer. On deck in half an hour. Trude’ll get you some wet weather gear as well. We’ve already eaten, but I expect she’ll find you a bite once we’ve sailed,’ Terje said with finality, indicating that Hårde’s induction into the crew was over as far as he was concerned.

Apart from the buzz of conversation and ringing phones elsewhere in the building that permeated the thin plasterboard walls, the incident room was quiet. Snorri and Bára were at their computer terminals, trying not to disturb Gunna, who growled down every attempt at conversation. The evening before they and officers from the Reykjavík force had been to every hotel in and around Reykjavík and come away with nothing.

‘Come on then. Is there anything?’ she demanded, finally breaking her own silence as the other two almost sighed with relief.

‘Nothing, chief,’ Snorri admitted. ‘No sightings that can’t be accounted for.’

‘It seems the bloody man’s disappeared,’ Gunna grumbled. Her head was aching and she was certain she had the makings of a cold coming on. She wondered idly if Gísli and his girlfriend were still at the house in Hvalvík. This one seems a bit more serious than the others, she thought. Seems a pleasant enough girl, but a redhead? That means temper.

‘Any news?’

‘What?’ She spun her chair around to find Vilhjálmur standing by the door that he had opened silently. ‘Sorry, Vilhjálmur. Didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Just wondering if you have any news?’ he asked softly. ‘The Minister has asked to be kept informed.’

‘No, I’m afraid everything’s gone cold. The truck we’re sure our boy disappeared in has vanished. We haven’t had a sighting anywhere that can’t be explained in two minutes and frankly we have nothing to go on.’

‘That’s unfortunate.’ He cleared his throat softly.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ Snorri said, stepping up to where Vilhjálmur was standing in front of the large whiteboard on the wall. He set to work with a marker, reading information off a sheet of paper in his hand and filling in the gaps.

‘What do you have there?’

‘Shipping movements,’ Snorri replied without stopping.

‘Very good.’

‘That’s about all we have to go on,’ Gunna explained. ‘What is there, Snorri?’

‘There’s Starlight, a freighter sailing from Grundartangi at midnight,’ he read out, still writing. ‘There’s Beinta, a Faroese trawler leaving Hafnarfjördur at ten tonight and a couple of Russian trawlers, also in Hafnarfjördur, which haven’t decided when to leave yet,’ Snorri read off the screen. ‘Then there’s a freighter called Juno Provider docked at Skarfanes last night, no information on when they’re leaving, and a yacht that called at Hvalvík this morning and is still there. There’s a reefer called Wilhelmina due in Grindavík at six tomorrow morning, due out at six in the evening, and there are three cruise liners calling at and sailing from Reykjavík in the next forty-eight hours, the last ones of the year, I reckon. Want me to look any further afield?’

‘All foreign shipping?’ Vilhjálmur asked.

‘There isn’t any Icelandic shipping any more,’ Gunna said, yawning. ‘It’s all flagged out these days. Snorri, how about flights?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as air traffic control is aware. They’ve been asked to alert us as soon as there’s anything other than routine commercial traffic.’

Vilhjálmur coughed again. ‘Without putting pressure on you and your team, Gunnhildur, we will have to scale back soon if there are no results.’

Normally Gunna would have wanted to argue from the sheer force of habit of wanting to hear the chief inspector’s voice go up an octave, but she thought better of it.

‘Probably right, Vilhjálmur. If he doesn’t show up soon, we can be sure he’s slipped past us. I’d like to keep this running to the middle of the week, if that’s OK with you and the accountant? But in the meantime, I really want a word with Sigurjóna Huldudóttir again. I’m convinced she knows how and where to find Hårde.’

‘We’ll look at costs on Monday,’ he said frostily. ‘Are you certain that Sigurjóna can tell you more?’

Gunna fumed inwardly at the man’s trepidation. ‘I’m bloody positive. She’s the kind of woman you’d know was lying even if she only said good morning. Look, if she’s going to put in a formal complaint about harassment, we may as well make it worth her while. She’s the only real link we have to Hårde, apart from her sister, who’s sunning herself somewhere warm.’

‘If you absolutely have to,’ he snapped back, turning to make for the door. ‘But you don’t have my approval. It’s absolutely your responsibility,’ he added as a parting shot.

‘Snorri, can you check on that yacht in Hvalvík harbour?’ Gunna asked.

‘Yup. Will do.’