Frozen Assets

‘Don’t push it, Gústi. We can always do you for indecent exposure, just like last time. Remember?’ Gunna asked sweetly.

‘How do you know? That was years ago. .’ he protested as Gunna stepped out of the flat without waiting for Sævaldur to follow.

6

Monday, 1 September

Gunna took advantage of Snorri and Haddi being out of the station to shove open the long lower panel of the office window and light a furtive Prince, in defiance of state policy on smoking throughout government buildings. Without feeling even slightly guilty, she leaned back in her chair and read through her interim report on Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson’s miserable death.

Nobody appeared to have seen Einar Eyjólfur, 178cm tall, short fair hair, dressed in a pair of jeans and a black shirt, leaving the Emperor sometime in the early hours of 26 August.

With no more evidence to work on and nothing to indicate violence, the case would probably be shelved indefinitely, an unsolved case to haunt her on sleepless nights. Gústi the Gob was not a realistic suspect and the news that Sævaldur had brought him in for questioning was disturbing. She hoped it was for no good reason other than for Sævaldur to vent his spleen on someone.

‘But why Hvalvík?’ Gunna muttered to herself.

‘Chief?’

A door banged and Gunna dropped the butt of her cigarette out of the window before closing it. ‘In here, Haddi.’

She decided to end her interim report and hit Save before standing up. There were other matters that needed to be attended to as well as Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson’s case.

‘All right?’ Haddi asked, sniffing the air accusingly.

‘Yup. Fine. I’m going to lunch if you’ll be so good as to man the barricades.’

Outside Hafnarkaffi, Gunna debated whether to have lunch there or go home for a sandwich. She weighed the idea of a hot meal, heavy on the potatoes and swimming in thick sauce in a noisy cafeteria, against tuna and tomato sandwiches washed down with fruit juice while skimming yesterday’s papers.

Hot and noisy won. Inside, she picked up a tray and filled it with a dish of cauliflower soup and a plate of fried fish and boiled potatoes. Looking around for a seat, she noticed an arm waving to her.

‘Gunna. Here.’

‘Hey. Stefán, when did you get in?’

‘Just now. The missus is at work, so I thought I’d drop in here and catch up on the news.’

A cousin of Gunna’s husband, Stefán Jónsson had gone out of his way to take her son Gísli under his wing after Raggi’s death. There had long been an unspoken bond between her and Stefán built on deep respect, but which had never become an outright friendship. Gísli had followed Stefán to sea on one of the trawlers owned by the village’s only large fishing company after Stefán had gone out of his way to put a word in on his behalf.

‘Good trip?’ Gunna asked, starting with the soup, contrary to local custom.

‘Not bad. A hundred and twenty tonnes. Blowing a bastard all the way home, though.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Deep off the west.’

‘So, will my Gísli be going there this year as well?’

‘No. It’s the Barents Sea for them. We took their quota as well as ours last year. This year they can have ours. I’m getting too old for these long trips.’

‘Get away, Stefán. There’re years left in a young man like you.’

Stefán impatiently drummed his fingers on the table.

‘What’s on your mind?’ Gunna asked, recognizing the symptoms, in particular the heavy grey eyebrows swooping down over a frown as he tried to understand something he hadn’t fully got to grips with.

‘I was coming to see you later today anyway. About this chap.’

‘Which chap?’

‘The one you found out there down at the dock.’

Gunna looked up from her meal. ‘And? What about him?’

‘I’m damned sure I saw him, or his car, or something.’

‘Tell me more,’ she said softly, knowing that there would be little need to ask many questions.

‘It was the night we sailed, Monday-Tuesday. I was up very early and went up the valley to have a look at my stables and had a drive round the dock too. You know, like you do.’

‘I know.’

‘The boys look after the horses for me. But it’s in the blood. We were sailing at five that morning and I don’t like to go without seeing them off.’

Gunna nodded, lunch forgotten in front of her.

‘Well, it was still dark, of course. Anyway, someone was there on the quay, which is a bit odd, but I thought nothing of it at the time. Who was the dead man, anyway?’

‘A kind of yuppie type who worked for a PR company in Reykjavík.’

Stefán sniffed. ‘Then what the bloody hell’s someone like that doing out here in the middle of the night?’

Gunna thought carefully while Stefán looked expectantly at her. It was unfortunate that the only potential eyewitness to what had happened up there had spent the last week at sea, but if this unidentified vehicle had anything to do with Einar Eyjólfur’s disappearance, then it pinpointed the time and date of the crime.

‘Anything else, Stefán? Make, model, number, anything like that?’