Part 1 (2/2)

'And I'll have some tea, please. Camomile if you have it.'

The barman almost bowed as he backed away.

'So, Haraldur. Are you in Reykjavik on business?'

'Yup. Here for two days, then back home.'

'You're in the seafood business?'

'Actually, no. Transport and storage equipment. There isn't much I couldn't tell you about forklift trucks,' he said with a sharp bark of humourless laughter.

Hekla could see that he was becoming increasingly nervous; perhaps he was worried that someone would see him with an unfamiliar young woman. The hand that lifted the gla.s.s the barman brought him trembled slightly.

The barman placed a small teapot and a delicate china cup in front of her.

'Thank you. Charge to room 406, please,' Hekla said to the youth, and smiled warmly at him as he backed away again.

'No offence, but I'd just like to lay down a few ground rules before we go any further,' Hekla said, flas.h.i.+ng a smile.

'Yeah. Of course.'

'I see myself as a professional and I expect to be treated as one. There has to be respect on both sides. I take pride in my work and aim to do a good job, the same as I'm sure you do in your professional life,' she said smoothly.

'Absolutely.'

'Once we are alone, I'm at work. I expect you to address me as ”mistress” at all times. If at any time you want to stop, all you have to do is say ”terminate” and we stop immediately. You're happy with that?'

'Understood.'

'What could you tell me about forklift trucks, then?' she asked, her voice silky, and deliberately uncrossed her legs as slowly as she dared.

'Well, they come in all sizes. Depends what you need to . . .'

His voice faltered as Hekla recrossed her legs the other way, hiding the reason for Haraldur's sudden loss of speech. She poured fragrant tea into her cup and sipped, looking over the rim at him and wanting to laugh as he quickly gulped his drink. 'You were saying?'

Joel Ingi Bragason shrugged on his jacket and picked his way through the toys that his wife's nieces and nephews had left littering the hall to the door of the flat.

'See you at six,' he called out, waiting for a second for a reply that didn't come from his wife before closing the front door and cursing the realization that she must have gone back to sleep.

It was cold and damp outside, as well as dark, and Joel Ingi found it difficult to reconcile himself to Icelandic winters, even in Reykjavik where heavy snow was a rarity. The years of study in America and a delightful sojourn at the Sorbonne had spoiled him, he reflected as he took short steps along the ice-bound but gradually thawing pavement, scared that overconfidence in unsuitable shoes would send him flying. Once in the car, he felt better. It became a bubble around him, safe and warm, its airbags and discreet steel pillars protecting him from the cruel world outside.

He could have walked to work in roughly the same time as it took to walk to the car and drive it to the underground car park beneath the ministry.

Coffee arrived halfway through the morning and it was a relief. A couple of gla.s.ses of wine the night before had left him heavier than he should have felt and Joel Ingi wondered if this was the onset of middle age. In spite of two strong cups of coffee, he struggled to stay awake during a meeting later in the morning, and had to force himself to pay attention to the minutiae of European Union proceedings.

Checking his phone discreetly during the meeting, he saw there were no messages from Agnes, which was a relief as she had taken to shooting him sideways glances and he was beginning to get the feeling that she was checking up on him. Shrugging off his misgivings, he steered his thoughts back to the fine detail of the proposed policy, but not before noticing with pleasure that the most junior person in the room, a newly appointed secretary, had slipped off her shoes under the table opposite him and that she had delightfully shapely calves. The voice of the meeting's chairman became little more than a distant drone as Joel Ingi's thoughts drifted increasingly towards how those legs might shape up above the knee.

As his thoughts slipped in another direction, he scowled to himself, unconsciously chewing his lip as memories of that d.a.m.ned woman came back to him again, and he wondered if that afternoon would come back to haunt him. He started as he looked up and saw with discomfort that the girl with the delightful calves was looking right at him with concern in her eyes. Joel Ingi smiled as broadly as he could and hoped that he hadn't looked too bored or stupid.

The city felt different. There was a cautious, watchful feel to Reykjavik, as if the place were waiting for another kicking. Baddo hadn't spent many of his years away following events in Iceland, but the news of the financial crash and then the volcano erupting and stopping air traffic had been the basis of a few ribald comments from prisoners who hadn't got to know him or his reputation, resulting in more that one sore head.

When Baddo had left Iceland for somewhere a man could have s.p.a.ce to flex his muscles, it still felt like a quiet backwater, a place where not much happened and, when it did, it wasn't going to happen in too much of a hurry, regardless of how much fuss people made. The occasional visit during the good years before he had fallen foul of the wrong people and found himself behind bars, when it seemed that business had discovered some hidden philosopher's stone had left a sour taste behind. All the same, it had been like a rest cure to come back and see the place once in a while. Although most of his family hadn't wanted a great deal to do with him, there were a few friends who respected a man who could stand his corner and keep his mouth shut.

Now it was different. Baddo had to admit even to himself that he was tired. He had been ready to explode with fury at any moment during the flight over the Baltic with a mustachioed policeman on either side of him, and while they sat and wolfed down pizzas and beer at Kstrup, their eyes never strayed far from him. The two hulking giants didn't take their eyes off him until the stewardess had closed and locked the pressure-tight door of the aircraft that would take him back to Iceland for the first time in almost a decade.

He unfolded the newspaper he had put under his arm without thinking in the shop at the corner, and was surprised to see that it was in English. He threw it in the bin, lay down on the wine-red sofa, tucking a cus.h.i.+on under his head, and tried to sleep. Ten minutes later he gave up and stood to gaze out at the grey roofs opposite the little flat's bathroom window, watching flakes of snow spiral down and settle. It was going to be a cold day, he thought, wondering when Maria would be home.

'His name's Johannes Karlsson,' Helgi said. 's.h.i.+powner from Husavik, retired. Lives in Copenhagen part of the year. Rolling in dosh, if I recall correctly. Used to be in politics years ago, MP for a term or two in the seventies, until he decided business was more important, or lucrative, than politics. Does that tell you what you want to know?'

Gunna and Helgi had retired to a corner of the hotel's bar to confer while the forensic team and the police pathologist examined the room where they had left the late Johannes Karlsson still strapped to the bed he had died on.

'Independence or Progressive?'

'Independence Party, I think. I wouldn't want to think that he was one of us,' Helgi said in a severe tone.

'One of you, you mean. I'd prefer it if you didn't take me for a Progressive Party supporter, thank you very much.'

'Sorry. I never saw you as anything but a bleeding heart liberal, Gunna.'

'Cause of death?' she asked.

'You're asking me?'

'Sorry, Helgi. No, just thinking out loud. I'm wondering if this was murder or accidental? What do you reckon?'

Helgi snorted. 'Doesn't look in the least bit intentional to me. I reckon there was some fun and games going on, our boy got his first stiffy for years and keeled over under the strain. The girlfriend or boyfriend, or paid companion, or whatever ran for it. That's what tells me that whoever was with him probably decided he or she wasn't being paid enough to deal with this kind of stuff.'

'You know, Helgi, with brains like yours you're wasted on the police. I reckon you've pretty much summed it up. But, unfortunately, that doesn't mean I get to go home.'

'And do some knitting?' Helgi asked innocently.

'Don't push it,' Gunna growled, signalling to Yngvi, hovering by the bar, with a cup-to-the-lips gesture. 'How long has he been staying here? This place must cost a fortune,' she said as a waiter approached with a tray of cups and a flask of coffee.

'He's been here for two weeks. His wife was here for the first week, apparently, and went home while Johannes was dealing with some business in Reykjavik. He was due to check out at twelve today. When he hadn't showed up at one, the chambermaid knocked, as they always do, to see if he'd already gone, and found him spark out on the bed. She screamed, called the housekeeping manager, and she called us. I called the doctor who was at the bar.'

'Fair enough,' Gunna said. 'Where's Eirikur?'

'On his way. Won't be long.'

'Good,' Gunna said, sipping daintily at the coffee the tall, dark-haired young man placed wordlessly on the table. 'When he gets here, start him off checking the pa.s.senger lists to see when our boy was due to travel and then get him to see if he can track down the man's wife. If she's still in Husavik, he'd best get the police there to speak to her and break the bad news that she's a widow.'

'Right, will do. And me?'

'Talk to the staff, and see what you can find by way of CCTV. We need to speak to whoever tied Johannes Karlsson to the bed, even though it looks like he'd probably paid whoever it was handsomely to do just that.'

<script>