Frozen Assets

‘Yup. Found your guy’s credit card under the bathroom sink, receipts in the kitchen bin. It fits.’

‘It doesn’t fit. Einar Eyjólfur disappeared around midnight. We know that Gústi was on the door until after four in the morning.’

‘We can work around that. Gústi has mates.’

‘The barmaids confirmed Gústi was there until they locked up. Even that Thai girl who doesn’t speak Icelandic.’

Sævaldur ground out his cigarette against the wall. ‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to get a result on this? Is this PMS week, or what?’

‘Oh, for crying out loud. .’

‘No, come on, tell me.’

‘Inside. It’s bloody cold out here.’

In the empty cafeteria they sat face to face over a table and Gunna wondered if Sævaldur felt he was back in the interview room. In the far corner of the room a TV set showed a topical news programme with a Member of Parliament being interviewed. Gunna turned the sound down to a murmur.

‘So, what’s the problem?’ Sævaldur asked pugnaciously. ‘Crim. Link. Dead man. It adds up.’

‘It doesn’t add up. You won’t get a conviction without more evidence and I don’t think you’ll find any.’

‘We can make it fit. I can get a confession and a result on this,’ Sævaldur argued and Gunna noticed how ‘we’ had been replaced with ‘I’.

‘And whoever did this gets away while a brainless minor crim with a record of nothing but petty crime is banged up. That leaves someone very dangerous out there.’

‘Upstairs wants this sorted out quickly.’

‘Quickly doesn’t mean hanging a murder on an innocent man.’

‘Gústi the Gob isn’t innocent.’

‘He is of this, whatever else he may have on his conscience.’

‘He’s done plenty. Gústi doesn’t have a conscience.’

‘If you think you can get a confession out of him, good luck to you. There’s no evidence on Einar Eyjólfur’s body, no marks, no bruises, nothing to show any rough handling. I think you’re wasting your time.’

Sævaldur drained his mug and rattled his chair back as he stood up. ‘Well, I’m going to batter it out of him whether he likes it or not.’

‘Sit down, will you? There’s something I want to know about,’ Gunna said sharply and the tone of her voice prompted Sævaldur to do as he was asked.

‘What?’

‘Egill Grímsson. Tell me about him.’

‘Who?’

‘He was run over and killed in Grafarvogur in March.’

‘What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’ Sævaldur demanded, refilling his own mug but forgetting to offer Gunna a refill.

‘They were close friends, Egill Grímsson and Einar Eyjólfur. I’d like to know if there’s a link.’

‘Christ, what are you playing at? It’s staring us in the face. All we have to do is haul it out of Gústi the Gob without having to drag all kinds of other stuff into it,’ Sævaldur fumed.

‘Fair enough. Have you found the car or the driver responsible for Egill Grímsson’s death yet?’

‘Well, no. But whoever it was will show up soon enough.’

‘Have you ruled out a link between them?’

‘Between a schoolteacher in his forties and a nerd in his twenties? Come on, Gunna, talk sense, will you?’

‘There are links and we need to look into them. There’s more here than meets the eye, Sævaldur.’

He shifted back in his chair and swung his feet outwards to cross his ankles, throwing his head back in mock despair. ‘All right. If you want to follow trails that go nowhere, that’s up to you. As far as I’m concerned, we have our culprit right here and he just needs to be cracked.’

Gunna sighed. ‘OK. There’s enough to charge him with theft or fraud for the credit cards. That gives you plenty of time to try and get a confession out of him, but I don’t reckon you will.’

‘Why not?’ Sævaldur demanded with a sneer in his voice.

‘Because Gústi didn’t do it. Even if you charge him, you won’t get a conviction.’

‘You’re wrong. Gústi’s our man.’ Sævaldur levered himself to his feet. ‘What’s the matter with you, Gunna? Don’t you want a result on this? That’s what upstairs wants to see, and that’s what they’re going to get. Come and watch the master at work, you’ll see,’ he said and swaggered from the room, leaving his mug on the table for Gunna to pick up.

She rose to her feet as the door banged behind him and, seething with suppressed anger, rinsed out her own mug and placed it carefully by the sink, ignoring Sævaldur’s.

8

Wednesday, 3 September

03-09-2008, 2315

I’ll be your back door man. .

Maybe the government’s hippest young gunslinger should be paying more attention to his über-fashionable old lady, as rumour has it that she’s already signed up for a week’s conference in Miami next month at the International Federation of Arse-Lickers and Bullshitmongers (known otherwise as the PR Practitioners’ Guild). But is she going alone? Of course not. . And why should she when there’s a whole stableful of eager young hunks manning her office for her to pick from for a little companionship, just in case she needs a little manning herself?