Quentin Bates - Cold Comfort

Freedom tasted good. To Long Ómar Magnússon freedom tasted of hot dogs with ketchup and onions and washed down with a cold can of malt. He thrust out long legs beneath the café’s plastic table and belched luxuriously. A woman with a brood of children at the next table turned her head and frowned, but he met her stare and she thought better of saying anything.

“Where are we going now, Ommi?” asked the tubby girl at his side.

“Town. Your place.”

“We can’t go there,” she wailed. “Mum’ll go mad if she sees you. She knows you’re not out for another year.”

“Good behaviour, Selma. Tell her I’ve been a good boy and now I need some fun.”

He drained the can of malt and stood up, shaking his legs. “Come on. There’s stuff to do.”

Selma hauled herself to her feet and trotted towards the door with Ommi towering beside her. As she squealed in surprise, the woman with the brood of children again turned her head in irritation, in time to see a broad hand stretched down to cup a buttock, half under Selma’s short skirt. The woman opened her mouth to speak, but before she had decided what to say, the pair had gone, with Selma’s squeaks receding into the distance.

“laufey!” Gunna called for the second time. “Laufey Oddbjörg Ragnarsdóttir! School!”

She brushed her teeth hurriedly and examined herself critically in the mirror. Time for a haircut, she thought. Good teeth, strong nose, thick eyebrows … Cupping a hand to lift a mouthful of water, she swirled and spat as Laufey appeared in the mirror behind her.

“Finished, sweetheart. All yours.”

Laufey nodded blearily and said nothing.

Gunna switched on the radio and waited for the kettle to boil while Channel 2’s morning talk show chattered in the background. Laufey shambled back to her room and shut the door behind her.

“If she’s gone back to bed…” Gunna muttered.

The kettle steamed itself to a climax and clicked off as Gunna poured cereal into a bowl.

“Laufey!” she called again. The bedroom door opened and Laufey appeared, dressed and holding her school bag. “You’ll have to be a bit smarter getting up if you’re going to college in Keflavík next year.”

“Reykjanesbær, Mum. You shouldn’t call it Keflavík any more.”

“Keflagrad they call it at the station, there’s so many foreigners there now.”

“Mum, that’s a bit racist, isn’t it?”

Gunna sighed. “Maybe, but it’s too early in the morning to argue about it. D’you want some breakfast? There’s cereal or skyr .”

Suddenly the radio caught her attention and she turned the volume up quickly.

“A prisoner who absconded recently from Kvíabryggja open prison is still at large and is reported to have been seen in the Reykjavík area. Police have issued a description of Ómar Magnússon, thirty-six years old. He’s one-ninety-nine in height, heavily built, with medium-length brown hair. He has heavily tattooed forearms and was last seen dressed in jeans and a dark jacket. People are warned not to approach him, but to report any sighting to the police on …”

Gunna spun the volume dial down to zero.

“Friend of yours, Mum?” Laufey asked slyly.

“Yup, most definitely one of mine right now. Actually, he’s from here.”

“A criminal from Hvalvík? Really?”

“He left Hvalvík before we moved here. Come on, I’ve got to go in ten minutes if you want a lift.”

Laufey yawned. “It’s all right. I’ll walk.”

“It’s raining,” Gunna warned.

“S’ all right. I’m meeting Finnur and we’ll walk together.”

“Fair enough. I should be back at five, unless something crops up. I’ll let you know.”

“I might not go to college in Keflavík,” Laufey said suddenly.

“What?” Gunna said, startled.

“I might go to Hafnarfjördur instead. Their psychology department is better. If you’re driving every day now, you could give me a lift in the mornings, couldn’t you?”

Gunna thought for a moment of how early they would need to leave every morning to take Laufey to Hafnarfjördur and still get herself to work on time.

“Psychology? I thought you wanted to do business studies?”

Laufey frowned. “Business studies is so 2007, just not cool any more.”

“We’ll see, sweetheart. We can talk it over tonight. See you later,” Gunna said, sweeping up car keys and her mobile phone.

“Yah, Diddi. Remember this face, do you?”

A look of alarm spread rapidly across the young man’s heavy features. “Hey, Ommi. Good to see you,” he said, his voice hollow. “Didn’t know you were out yet.”

“I’m not. Not officially,” Ommi leered, dropping a long arm heavily across Diddi’s shoulders and sauntering with him along the deserted street.

“What? Did a runner? So it’s you they’re looking for, is it? Brilliant!”

“Yeah. Where d’you live now, Diddi?”

“Just round there. Not far.”

“Yeah, Diddi, but where?”

Diddi quailed and blanched. “Just up the road.”

Ommi used the hand draped across Diddi’s shoulders to haul him round in a half-circle, slamming him face-first against a raw grey concrete wall, a fist planted squarely over his kidneys. Diddi wanted to yell for help, but knowing that nothing would be forthcoming in a neighbourhood where people avoided involving themselves in other folk’s problems, he steeled himself to stay quiet.

“What’s the matter, Ommi?” he warbled.

Ommi leaned close. “Diddi, you let us down. You owe.”

“Wha-what’s that, Ommi?”

“You know.”

With one hand Ommi gripped a handful of greasy hair, swinging with the other to land a smack to the side of Diddi’s head that raised a whimper and left his victim in a daze. Ommi loved the satisfying smack of fist on flesh, the rush of adrenalin, the flush of power. He’d missed this in prison.

“You know,” he repeated. “You owe. Soon you’ll have to pay up. All debts will be honoured in full. Understood?”

Diddi nodded. Blood was starting to seep from his right ear on to the shoulder of his denim jacket, and his head was buzzing. “Yeah, I get it, whatever.”

“Hope so. You haven’t seen me. Don’t know where I am.”

“I didn’t do it, Ommi.”

“That’s what you say,” Ommi hissed, delivering a punch to the kidneys that left Diddi unable to stand on his own feet.

The whole thing had taken no longer than a minute, and already Ommi was nowhere to be seen. Cross-eyed with pain, Diddi wondered if Long Ómar Magnússon had really appeared and beaten him up in the broad light of morning. The ringing in his ears and the taste of bile convinced him that it had been all too real, as he threw up messily across the pavement. Across the street, an overcoated gentleman in a peaked cap kept his eyes to the front and his chin high, making sure that he saw nothing.

The address was only a few hundred metres from the police station at Hverfisgata and Gunna decided to go on foot. She strode through the encroaching darkness of the windy afternoon with Helgi loping at her side. There was already a patrol car and an ambulance outside with lights flashing as they arrived at the stairwell of the block of modern flats and found a young officer fending off interested people claiming to live there.

“Crime scene. No admittance,” he announced as they pushed through.

“Serious Crime Unit,” Gunna growled, watching the young man take a step back.

“Straight up. Fourth floor. The lift’s not working,” he said.

Helgi eyed the stairs. “Four flights?”