Part 22 (1/2)

'Around sixteen, I'd say.'

'Tall? What sort of height? Fair hair, dark hair? Long? Short?'

'They were both wearing hooded sweaters and I didn't see their faces properly. It all happened so fast.'

Gunna sat back and looked disapproving.

'Officer, do you expect that these two boys can be found?' Mar Einarsson asked in a tone that was an attempt to defuse the tension.

'I'm sure they can, if we had the time and manpower to do it. But you're not giving me a great deal to work on.'

'Joel Ingi, is there anything more you can recall?' Mar asked.

'No. It was dark. It was all over in a few seconds.'

Gunna sat back and cracked her knuckles. 'I can't help feeling that we're wasting our time here.'

'You think so?' Mar asked, a worried expression on his pleasant face.

'Two boys steal a laptop and run off. You've given me practically nothing to work on other than the serial numbers of the laptop. We have to look for two lads who may or may not be around sixteen, without knowing what they look like except that they wear hoodies, like every other teenager, and one of them rides a bike.'

'I see what you mean,' Mar agreed.

'I'd say your best option would be to go through the small ads in the papers. If this laptop is going to surface, that's where it's most likely to turn up. On the other hand, it may well be under some teenager's bed by now, or it may have been reformatted, so anything on it will have been erased.'

'That's what we need to know,' Joel Ingi broke in.

'So just what is it that's so sensitive? It would certainly give me something to work on if I had an idea of just why this four-year-old laptop is so important,' Gunna said, and the two young men looked at her in silence.

ivar Laxdal sighed audibly. 'Let's not even go there, Gunnhildur,' he rumbled, the irritation plain in his voice. 'They won't tell me, let alone you.'

The two police officers left the building together and Joel Ingi breathed a sigh of relief, winding his scarf around his neck.

'Why didn't you tell me they were going to be here today?' he asked as Mar waited for him.

'I didn't know. That ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.d, ivar, called me about four minutes before they came through the door. I didn't have a chance to put him off.'

'And who was that terrible woman who asked all those stupid questions?'

'It seems she's a detective, and a very good one, or so ivar said. He reckons that if anyone's going to find your laptop, then she's the most likely candidate.'

They stood in silence in the lift as it descended, checked out at the security gate and emerged into the street.

'Your friend,' Mar said, 'the one you said your brother had lined up. Any progress?'

'I'm going to see him right now.'

Mar nodded as they set off along the street towards the corner where their paths would diverge.

'You know . . .' Mar began, hesitating, 'what you told the police about those two boys?'

'What about it?'

'Was that the truth? Was that what really happened?'

Joel Ingi stopped at the corner and squared up to face Mar, his face flushed in anger and frustration. 'Are you saying you don't believe me?'

'It's not that,' Mar mumbled, stepping back to allow a young woman with a pushchair to pa.s.s between them. The blonde girl stood on the corner, waiting for the lights to change, but still looking to her left for a break in the traffic that would let her hurry across before they did so.

Mar spoke as quietly as he could. 'You just weren't convincing. I'm not saying I disbelieve you. But I don't suppose that fat policewoman believed you.'

The lights bleeped and the young woman strode over the crossing, the pushchair swis.h.i.+ng through the puddles that had collected in the melting snow.

'I don't care what the f.u.c.k they believe,' Joel Ingi said furiously.

Mar watched as the young woman with the pushchair disappeared into a shop on the other side of the road and was shocked when he looked back at Joel Ingi and saw a twitch under his left eye.

'Listen. Calm down, will you? If that laptop was stolen by some kids, as you say, it's probably been wiped and used as a games machine by now. Don't worry so much,' he said.

'It's dynamite,' Joel Ingi retorted. 'It doesn't matter if it turns up next week or in ten years. What's on there is going to destroy my career, and it's going to screw the minister. In fact, it's going to screw both of them.'

'Both of them? What do you mean?'

's.h.i.+t, where have you been? You know what was in that information that came from the Brits. Those guys arrived here right after the election, or don't you remember? One minister in and one out, both of them were in the hot seat.'

'But neither of them had anything to do with this, did they?'

'Of course not. But the buck stops somewhere. If this comes out and they try and blame me, then I'll blow the whistle on both of them.'

Mar looked shocked. 'The minister wouldn't try to make you a scapegoat, surely?'

'Maybe not. But AEgir would, and he'd do it in a heartbeat.' Joel Ingi said, turning to walk uphill. Mar frowned to himself and opened his mouth to call after him, but thought better of it and remained silent, watching Joel Ingi trudge up the slope with his shoulders hunched against the cold wind as if the weight of the world were on them, while the young woman emerged from the shop opposite with a carrier bag slung over one of the handles of the pushchair in front of her.

ivar Laxdal drove back to the station at Hverfisgata and Gunna let herself sit back and be enveloped in the softness of the leather seats of his car, which purred effortlessly between sets of traffic lights.

'So what did you make of that?'

'Joel Ingi Bragason? Bulls.h.i.+t from start to finish.'

'You think so?'

Gunna looked over at ivar Laxdal in surprise. 'Didn't you? You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. That stuff about the two kids was something he made up beforehand and just spieled off. The rest of it was made up on the fly.'

ivar Laxdal nodded. 'I'm glad you thought so as well,' he confirmed.

'It was like watching a schoolboy caught with a bag of goodies. I'm really wondering what this lad's done wrong.'

At the next corner, Joel Ingi took an unexpected turn, went through an alley between two old houses and made his way almost back the way he had come, this time heading downhill, walking fast towards the centre of town.

The woman with the pram stopped, thought quickly, folded the pushchair into a compact flat arrangement and placed it behind some dustbins at the side of a shop. She quickly unrolled a thick quilted anorak from where the pushchair would normally have accommodated a child, shrugged it on and set off behind Joel Ingi. She pulled a ski hat low over her eyes, keeping him in sight, but only just. She allowed him to go out of view as he rounded a street corner before increasing her speed to catch up and keep him in sight.