Part 23 (1/2)

'You're insane. I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Yeah. That's not what your detective said.'

Agnes picked up the joint and relit it from a candle without taking her eyes off him. She took a long pull at it and moved across the room, keeping the white sofa between them.

'What detective? Joel Ingi, I really don't know what the h.e.l.l's got into you,' she said in an ice-cold tone. 'But I think I'm the one who's owed an explanation.'

She lifted a hand to her red cheek. Joel Ingi's stomach lurched and he felt sick seeing the outline of his hand etched in red on her cheek.

She still had her phone. They hadn't taken anything off her, not that there was a great deal to take as she'd been careful to leave anything important in the car. She adjusted the mirror and looked at the damage to her face. She would have a black eye in the morning, she thought, though she was more worried about the tooth that she sucked at and rolled her tongue around, wondering if it was likely to come out.

The nondescript Renault that had once been dark blue rolled out into the road. It was time to go home. Checking the mirrors carefully for anyone who might be following her, and taking a couple of false turns that would take even a vigilant pursuer by surprise, she drove through the city, wondering if she really ought to tell Joel Ingi's wife where he had been, and consoling herself with the thought of the domestic strife she had probably caused.

The weeks of tailing Joel Ingi Bragason had finally been worth it. The confirmation of seeing him white with anger in the background while that oaf Hinrik and the bald barman went through their tough guy act with a woman who didn't even come up to their shoulders was something that would be worth pa.s.sing on.

Gunna's phone buzzed; it was back to the usual ringtone after she had managed to persuade Laufey to remove the sound of bubbling water.

'Gunnhildur.'

'Hae. Siggi. Busy?'

Gunna laughed. 'Next question, please.'

'That phone you wanted tracked, with the number ending 017. You remember?'

'Yes. The unregistered number. Any sign of it?'

'Half an hour ago it was switched on for a couple of minutes and there was a ninety-second phone call. Then it was switched off again.'

'Right. Where? And do you have the number called?'

She could hear the clicking of a keyboard on the other end of the phone as Siggi in the communications division went through his records.

'Sure it's him?'

'Yup. No doubt about it.'

'OK, and the number called? Another unregistered mobile, I expect?'

Siggi laughed. 'Just to make your day, it's a landline and it's in the phone book, and there's a mobile number registered to the same user. Ready with a pencil are you?'

Gunna wrote down the number quickly. 'Thanks, Siggi. Can you keep an eye on this one for me? Call my mobile as soon as you have anything.'

'Yep. Will do,' Siggi agreed and rang off.

Eirikur found her a few minutes later with a pencil between her lips and a frown on her face as she hunched over her computer.

'Chief?'

'Yeah?'

Eirikur said nothing, knowing that the expression on Gunna's face meant she wasn't listening; he waited patiently.

'Where's Helgi?' she asked after a few minutes. 'Been sitting there long, have you?'

'An old p.i.s.shead called Egill Skafta down at Grandi, lives in the hostel there and is supposed to be drying out, reckons he saw a man walking quickly just after that car burst into flames.'

'OK, any more details?'

'I asked him if he was sure it wasn't just kids larking about, and he looked at me like I had two heads, told me that kids these days stay indoors and shoot each other on computer games but don't get up to stunts like that any more. He's something of a character and he's no fool when he's sober, anyway. He reckons that car went up like a Roman candle, so it was more than just someone setting light to a bundle of rags.'

Gunna nodded. 'Promising. Go on.'

'I bought him a coffee and a sandwich, and he opened up a bit more. Valdi reckons he saw a thickset man with a beard walking away quickly. He couldn't swear this guy had anything to do with the car, but it's a coincidence.'

'Good. Excellent. I have a candidate in mind.'

'You do?' Eirikur asked, startled.

'I do. I have a few things to do for ten minutes, so I'd like you to check with forensics and see if there's anything on that car. If it's Magnus Sigmarsson's car, I want to know, and preferably yesterday. Think you can manage that?'

'Yeah, of course.'

Gunna rummaged through a tray of papers on her desk and handed Eirikur a file.

'Once you've done that, get yourself back down to Grandi, find Egill Skafta, and show him that picture.'

Eirikur looked at the photo of Hrobjartur Bjarnthorsson, looking into the lens as if the man behind the camera were beneath contempt. 'You reckon this is him?'

'As usual, Eirikur, I have no idea. But if it's not him, then we need to start looking for someone else.'

'An old friend of the police?'

'You can read it later. But he's more than an old friend of ours. He's one of us, sort of.'

'How come?' Eirikur asked, perplexed.

'He was almost a police officer once, back in the nineties. What went wrong, I don't know, but he completed police college and then decided he didn't want to join the force after all.'

'The phone's registered to Petur Steinar Albertsson,' Gunna told ivar Laxdal without any explanation.

'Something to do with Magnus Sigmarsson, is it?' he asked in a grumpier tone than usual. 'I have a press conference in half an hour and by rights you should be there as well, Gunnhildur. I've already had calls from two newspapers and TV today asking if there's any progress, and I'm going to have to give them something.'

'I'm concerned about this character who's been shadowing everything we do.'

'You have a stalker?'

'Someone who has an interest in Johannes Karlsson's death pumped some of the Gullfoss Hotel staff for information.'

ivar Laxdal's single thick eyebrow that stretched across his face thickened as he frowned. 'Why didn't you tell me this before?'