Frozen Assets

‘Sigmar. That’s Selma,’ the man replied absently, while the woman did not look up.

‘Anything useful?’

‘Not really. He’s not been here long, I’d say. Nothing to indicate any injuries. More than likely a case of falling in the water followed by hypothermia or drowning.’

‘Any identification?’

‘Nothing so far. Nothing in his pockets. No rings, no jewellery. We’ll know more when we’ve had a proper look at him on the slab. If he’s Icelandic, then we’ll probably have an identity in a day or two, sooner if he has a record of any kind. If he’s a foreigner. .’

He shrugged, scratched at the stubble on his chin and yawned.

‘Makes a change to get out into the country once in a while,’ he observed with a thin smile.

‘Taking him away, are you?’

‘Yup. Almost finished, actually. We’ll probably be off in an hour and we should have a report for you in a day or two. There’s no sign of any violence, so how urgent do you want this to be?’

‘Sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day round here.’

‘All right. We’ll do what we can,’ Sigmar said, pulling a mask back up over his mouth and nose.

‘Are you all right, lad?’ Gunna asked Skúli kindly. ‘Not seen a dead person before?’

Skúli’s face had gone from pale to white. He shook his head.

‘It’s all right. You’ll get used to it. But if you’re going to puke up, please don’t do it over anything that might be used as evidence.’

The young man had departed in an ambulance to the National Hospital’s mortuary in Reykjavík before the inshore boats began to appear in the afternoon and the pontoon dock became a hive of activity. Gunna could see plenty of curious faces and knew that Albert Jónasson must have been chatting over the VHF while he steamed out that morning.

‘Nothing to see, people,’ she muttered to herself as she and Skúli were the last to drive away, leaving the beach to be reclaimed by the rising tide.

‘I’d best be getting back to town,’ Skúli said as Gunna parked in the mayor’s space outside the police station.

‘All right. I hope today was useful, but it’s quite unusual to have a body. In fact, it hasn’t happened for years. So that’s a bit of excitement for you.’

‘Do you know who it is?’

‘No idea. Might be a seaman, could be a foreigner. But whoever he was, my guess is he had a bit too much to drink and fell into the water trying to get on board a boat.’

‘When do you think you’ll know?’

Gunna shrugged. ‘Anybody’s guess, I’m afraid. Now, you’re not going to write any of this, are you? There’ll be a statement this afternoon with everything in it that we can say before he’s been identified. Things get a bit delicate with relatives and whatnot. You understand?’

‘No, of course not. I mean, yes. I’ll be back later in the week if that’s all right.’

‘Fine by me. It won’t be so interesting, though. Most of what we do here is traffic. There’s bugger all happens in Hvalvík, so I really don’t know why they wanted to send you here.’

Gunna opened the car door and swung her legs out. ‘Give me a call when you want to come over. Shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘Haddi!’

‘In here.’

Gunna put her head round her own office door to see Haddi in one chair and the morose figure of Bjössi from CID sitting behind her desk with his feet perched on the window sill.

‘Ah, Bjössi. So that’s where you’ve got to. Make yourself comfortable, will you?’

Bjössi languidly put his hands behind his head. ‘Will do, Gunna. Two sugars for me, if you don’t mind, and a few doughnuts wouldn’t do any harm.’

‘Bugger off. I don’t want your clogged-up arteries on my conscience. But I’m sure Haddi has some coffee on the go somewhere?’

‘All right,’ Haddi grumbled, standing up. Gunna waved Bjössi to Haddi’s vacated seat and planted herself behind her desk.

‘Right then. What have we got?’

Bjössi sighed. ‘Dead bloke. Late twenties to mid-thirties by the look of him. Been in the water a few hours, but not long. Not a thing in his pockets. No rings, no watch, nothing round his neck, no piercings that we could see. No visible injuries.’

He took a deep breath and carried on. ‘Clean-shaven probably yesterday, I’d say. Ginger hair, nails clipped, no shoes, black jeans and a black shirt with long sleeves. That’s it, in a nutshell. He’s probably on the slab at the morgue right now being looked at carefully. With any luck we might get something more tomorrow.’

‘He’s not a local, but he must have gone into the water here. The tide wouldn’t have washed him into the harbour from anywhere else, surely?’

‘Nope. Hasn’t been in the drink long enough for that. If he’d been rolling around in the water for long enough to drift along the coast, he wouldn’t be in such good condition.’

Haddi returned with a thermos and mugs.

‘I suppose you want milk, Bjössi?’ he grumbled.

‘Black’s fine with me.’

‘That’s just as well, because we don’t have any milk anyway. Need me, do you?’

‘No, you’d best knock off now, Haddi,’ Gunna replied. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’