Part 15 (1/2)

'And this guy?'

'I know. It's weird, isn't it? There's nothing to link the two. Elderly man croaks from natural causes under odd circ.u.mstances, while a young man looks like he's been murdered, and if he wasn't, how the h.e.l.l did he get out here?'

'Not related?'

Gunna shrugged her collar higher. 'They shouldn't be related. There's nothing to link the two, but there's so much else happening around these hotels that the whole thing stinks,' she said as Helgi nodded gloomy agreement. 'Now there's a body I reckon we'll be giving this priority and overtime shouldn't be a problem.'

Gunna looked around, as if expecting to see the stocky form of ivar Laxdal looking over her shoulder; she was almost surprised to see he wasn't there.

The problem was transport. Baddo decided that getting rid of the car somewhere out of the way would be no great problem, but there was no way he was going to ask for help from anyone, least of all from that thieving shyster Hinrik. He would have taken the chance of using Magnus's car for a few more days with its carefully switched number plates, but now the police would be looking at murder, driving the Golf was a risk he didn't want to take. Besides, he could hear that a wheel bearing was about to wear itself out, and being stranded somewhere in the broken-down car of a murder victim would be unfortunate, to say the least.

Already nervous about what he had in mind for it, he walked downtown, past the bars and eateries that had sprung up in the city centre during his years away. The Gullfoss Hotel looked inviting and the warmth of the lobby hit him like a fist planted in his chest.

'Good evening,' the odd-looking man behind the desk greeted him.

'Hi,' Baddo responded. 'The bar's open, is it?'

'It is. But it's quiet tonight. It's still early.'

'Quiet will do nicely,' he grinned. 'For the moment.'

The man smiled and gestured with a hand to the hotel's bar with its long window looking out onto city life outside, not that there was much life so early on a weekday evening.

The odd-looking man with the heavy tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses appeared behind the bar just as Baddo placed a hand on it, looking round at the small number of drinkers already sat at tables here and there.

'I didn't think it would be this quiet.'

'It's a Sunday. Not much happens on a Sunday.'

'I'll have a beer to start with,' he said, peering at the man's name badge. 'Gustav.'

'A beer coming up.'

Baddo watched as the receptionist stepped into the barman's role with aplomb. Gustav was in late middle age, he guessed, not your average low-paid hotel droid. He reminded himself not to overdo it. Magnus Sigmarsson's car, parked along with the crossover of Reykjavik's early-evening revellers and late-afternoon shoppers, still needed to be dealt with and a clear head would be needed for that.

The beer appeared in a tall gla.s.s with a flourish. 'Voila.'

'Na zdrowie,' Baddo replied, taking a long pull that half emptied the gla.s.s. 'It's been a while since I was here last,' he said.

'Oh, yes? Years or months?'

'Years. A good few years,' Baddo said, hoping that Gustav hadn't noticed him speaking to that dim-witted Kolbeinn a few days earlier.

'Been abroad, or out in the country, have you?'

'Overseas. Things have changed, and not for the better.'

'You'd have been better off staying somewhere a little more prosperous,' Gustav said with a sad dip at the corners of his mouth and Baddo noticed that the man wore a cravat inside his open-necked s.h.i.+rt instead of the regulation hotel tie that the other staff wore. 'Business abroad, if you don't mind my asking?' he enquired, and Baddo recognized the professional barman's openness to conversation with a punter who wanted to talk.

'I've been in security, the Baltic States,' Baddo answered shortly, reckoning that being too specific would lead to no good.

'An up-and-coming part of the world, I'm led to believe. Half of this place's staff come from that way and, between ourselves, if we could replace the other half with Polish boys and girls, the place would run a lot better.'

'Present company excepted, I presume?' Baddo laughed, emptying his gla.s.s. 'Another of those would go down well.'

Gustav grinned and began pouring a second drink, which arrived with the same flourish. 'Good health.'

'And yours. I'd buy you a beer as well, but I guess that would be out of order in working hours, wouldn't it?'

'Sadly, the unenlightened health and safety fanatics who run Iceland these days have made it impossible for a hard-working man to slake a decent thirst with anything other than coffee while manning the barricades,' he told Baddo, pouring himself a cup from a thermos behind the bar and raising it in a mock toast. 'More's the pity.'

'Things have changed,' Baddo agreed, taking a sip of his second beer and warning himself to keep the pace slow. 'But tell me, where does a man go for a little discreet action these days?' he asked, looking down his nose with the hint of a wink.

'I'm the soul of discretion. There's action to be had, but I'm afraid I prefer to turn a blind eye.'

There was a change in his tone, more guarded, but still with a note of curiosity.

'Even if there might be something of a drink in it for a man forced to stick to coffee?'

'Life is nothing but a series of possibilities and everything has its price.'

Gunna stared gloomily at the screen on Eirikur's computer, replaying the footage from Hotel Gullfoss for the fifth time. She was tired and the early start had left her feeling drained. Eirikur and Helgi were busy interviewing Magnus Sigmarsson's relatives, girlfriend and those of his friends who could be tracked down, while she yawned at her desk at the Hverfisgata station, watching the fas.h.i.+onable blonde woman stride purposefully across the lush carpet of the Gullfoss Hotel, then watching her dark-haired incarnation slouch down a dim corridor in baggy tracksuit bottoms and a hooded sweater.

She played the footage back again, then looked through the stills, including a couple of computer-enhanced versions of the same pictures, which showed what the woman could look like.

The darkness outside filled her with foreboding and she wondered for the first time if she ought to relocate somewhere closer to the city than her quiet village, which could be an hour or more's drive to work if the weather were unkind. Almost without thinking, she dismissed the thought, even with the wind whipping raindrops like bullets against the office windows from the blackness outside.

She stood up and looked along the row of mostly deserted desks, spying a head at the far end.

'Disa, would you come and have a look at this? I could do with a second opinion.'

The woman at the far end nodded, tapped briefly at her computer and stood up. 'What can I do for you, Gunna? You need some help from the drug squad?'

'Just wondering if you recognize this face, that's all,' she said, setting the first sequence to run.

Disa stood with her chin cupped in one hand, nodding as the blonde woman with the dress that showed off long legs took a dozen steps across the Gullfoss Hotel's bar and disappeared through the doorway leading to the lifts.

'Familiar?'

'No. I don't think so,' Disa said slowly. 'Is this someone new?'

'Your guess is as good as mine,' Gunna said. 'You know the old guy who died at the Gullfoss Hotel the other day? This is the woman we think was with him when he blew a gasket.'

'For sale, you reckon?'

'I thought so, but now I'm not so sure. I was wondering if there might be a narcotics angle. Someone you might know, maybe?'

Disa shook her head. 'No, doesn't look like any of the regulars we get to see.'

'Any progress, Gunnhildur?' Ivar Laxdal's voice startled them from behind and Gunna turned to see that his attention was focused on the screen as well.