Part 27 (1/2)

Sif turned back. 'Easy. I cracked the pa.s.sword.'

'OK, fine. Well, I want it back now, thanks.'

'You're not using it and I don't know where I put it.'

'It's on your desk. And the case is on the floor.'

'The case, yeah. But the laptop's at Hilmar's house. It's been there for weeks.'

Hekla called on new reserves of patience. 'But it's in there on your desk.'

'That's an old one that belongs to college. What's the problem? It's not as if you were using it,' Sif retorted. 'Or even if you had a pa.s.sword for it.'

Baddo parked the Hyundai out of sight behind a van that had been on blocks for long enough to let a summer's worth of grime acc.u.mulate on it while snow surrounded it in shallow drifts. He preferred to deal with people in comfortable blocks of flats, not in these old houses with cubbyhole apartments and creaky doors that could take a man by surprise.

He switched on his phone and keyed in a number, leaning against the abandoned van, eyes on the house as he listened to the ringing tone.

'Baddo,' Hinrik wheezed, and he could hear the click of his lighter. 'Got something for me?'

'Could be,' he said. Hinrik was no early bird and he hadn't expected him to be awake. 'Let's say we need to do a little negotiation.'

'How come? Negotiate over what? I gave you a job and a good rate. Either you've come up with the goods or you haven't.'

Baddo walked quickly towards the house, looking it over as he spoke. 'I had a rough time last night. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?'

'What the f.u.c.k? Are you playing games, or what?'

Baddo nodded to himself. Thirty-six hours with practically no sleep meant that he was wide awake on energy alone, but he knew that at some point exhaustion would set in, and quickly. He eased open the back door of the old house and stepped inside, letting the hood of the parka drop back.

'Where the h.e.l.l are you, Baddo?' Hinrik demanded. 'And why are you talking in that stupid voice?'

'Never you mind. It's not as if I'm fit to be seen at the moment.'

'What's this c.r.a.p you're talking?'

Baddo heard Hinrik yawn as he spoke and stood still, listening to the creak of old floorboards above his head. He smiled as much as the numbness down one side of his face would allow. He put a cautious foot on the bottom step of the narrow stairs and gingerly made his way up, keeping close to the wall to avoid making the steps creak as loudly as the floorboards above his head.

'All right, you mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d. What's this negotiation bulls.h.i.+t you're talking about?'

Another step, around the corner and the door to Hinrik's flat was in sight. 'Somebody tried to tell me to keep my nose clean last night, and I don't take kindly to a lesson in manners from deadbeats like those two f.u.c.kwits.'

'I'm telling you, man. I don't know what you're talking about. I want you to do the job I gave you.'

Baddo heard shuffling feet. Standing at Hinrik's door, he peered through the single remaining frosted gla.s.s panel next to a broken one that had been badly repaired with tape and cardboard.

'I'm not happy, Hinrik,' he growled, his jaw aching now that the painkillers were starting to wear off.

'What the f.u.c.k happened to you, man?' Hinrik asked and Baddo could hear him yawn just as he could see an indistinct figure shuffle across the hallway and disappear into another room. Hinrik's breathing suddenly magnified in his ear, together with the sound of running water. Baddo pushed though the cardboard taped over the broken window pane, thankful that he wasn't going to have to kick the door down, and eased a hand through it to unclick the catch. He padded down the hall, his phone now in his pocket, and turned to stand behind Hinrik as he urinated carelessly in fits and starts in the flat's tiny toilet.

'You still there, Baddo?' he heard Hinrik say into the phone jammed under his chin.

'Right here,' Baddo snarled, placing a foot in the small of Hinrik's back and pus.h.i.+ng, sending him staggering forward, the yellow stream spattering his feet as he fell and one hand desperately reaching out to stop his face hitting the cistern, while his phone fell with a clatter and a splash into the toilet bowl.

'What . . . ?' He roared. 'Get off me, you mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

'I'm mad, right enough,' Baddo hissed, one hand in Hinrik's lank hair and the other wrenching his arm up high behind his back. 'Who were those two dips.h.i.+ts who tried to turn me over last night?'

Hinrik twisted, forcing his head around. As he saw the livid cut and st.i.tches on Baddo's face, his eyes bulged. 's.h.i.+t, man. Who did that to you?'

'You tell me. Or you're going down there until you think of something.'

Hinrik thrashed as his face was pushed into the toilet bowl. Baddo hauled his face back out after a few seconds and Hinrik gasped for air, retching between each deep lungful, which was cut short as his head was thrust into the bowl again. Hinrik's free hand stretched out, desperately scrabbling for a hold on anything, while his legs kicked feebly.

Baddo wrenched Hinrik's head clear of the foul water and gave him a few seconds to haul some air deep into his heaving chest. His spa.r.s.e locks of dark hair lay over his face and he made to push them away as he spluttered and fought for breath.

's.h.i.+t . . .' he moaned, retching yet again. 'Baddo, man. I swear. It was nothing to do with me. h.e.l.l,' he moaned, his breathing starting to slow.

'Talk, Hinrik,' Baddo ordered, nodding towards the foul-smelling toilet. 'Spill the f.u.c.king beans, or you're going back down there and you're not coming out.'

Hinrik lay collapsed against the wall, one arm behind him and the other across his chest. He stared into Baddo's hard, dark eyes and didn't like what he saw.

'They made a real mess of you, Baddo man,' he said. 'Who were they? What did they look like?'

'You tell me.'

'Why would I have you rolled? You're working for me, remember? Why would I have you turned over before the job's done? Are you going to let me get up? I reckon you've made your point.'

Baddo allowed Hinrik to get shakily to his feet, one hand on the wall as he supported himself. He closed the lid of the toilet and sat down heavily on it, groaning. He took a better look at Baddo's face. 'They did a job on you, didn't they?'

'Who did?'

'h.e.l.l, Baddo. I don't know,' Hinrik snarled. 'It's none of my doing and it's not as if you're short of enemies who owe you a bad turn.'

'I need some cash. Right now.'

'You have a f.u.c.king weird way of asking to be paid for a job,' Hinrik said, the shadow of a smile appearing at one corner of his thin mouth.

'But it's more than just money, Hinrik,' Baddo snarled, pointing at his face. 'This changes everything. There's some information I'm after as well.'

Wondering if she was wasting her time, Gunna signed an unmarked car out of the pool and took it through town, pleased for a change to see clear skies after a dark night and more than a week of incessant snow, punctuated by spells of rain every time the temperature hauled itself above zero. Twice Gunna braked and swore as cars pulled across lanes without warning. The mid-morning traffic was fast and too close for comfort, with the road covered by a film of water quickening in the thin suns.h.i.+ne.

Past the half-empty car park at the Korputorg shopping centre the traffic thinned to trucks and a few cars heading out of town and by Mosfellsbaer the city receded into the distance. Esja's white slopes gleamed in the sun and the road became a black scar lying across a landscape the colour of a grubby bandage at ground level, rising to pristine white pierced with jagged black rock outcrops on the higher slopes.

The warmth of the suns.h.i.+ne was a welcome change, but Gunna wondered what the night would bring. The forecast was for clear weather and a northerly breeze, conditions bound to bring a chill with them, and she remembered how that morning's sparkling air had nipped at unprotected ears and noses, as if to provide a reminder that winter was still here.

She found herself enjoying the drive through less familiar scenery. The daily commute from Hvalvik into the city had become a routine ch.o.r.e on most days, especially the night-time drive both ways during the winter months. But driving this way out of town, in the opposite direction to the one that would take her to Hvalvik, was also fraught with memories of travel from her childhood home to Reykjavik in the days when roads were gravel and it was a long day's travel to the westfjords. She wondered idly how long it would take for people to miss her if she were to continue to the Hvalfjordur tunnel and keep driving north and then west, when her question was answered by her phone buzzing.

'Gunnhildur,' she answered.

'Driving, are you?' Helgi asked.