Quentin Bates - Chilled to the Bone

“There’s nobody here. Just me.”

“That’s a shame. Are they going to be long, do you know?”

“I dunno.”

“Is that Sif I’m speaking to?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” was the surprised response. “Who are you?”

“I’m Gunnhildur. I really need to speak to your dad or to Hekla. It’s important.”

“I don’t know where they are. Why don’t you call the mobile?”

“I would if I had the number.”

“Wait …”

Gunna drummed the desk with growing impatience as a muffled conversation could be heard in the distance before Sif returned.

“You there?”

“I’m here.”

Sif reeled off seven digits and Gunna wrote them down and repeated them.

“Is that your dad’s phone or Hekla’s number?”

“It’s hers. Dad never goes anywhere, so he says he doesn’t need one.”

“Who’s there with you, Sif? You said you were alone.”

“My friend,” she retorted. “What’s it to do with you, anyway?”

“No reason. Just wondering. Thanks, bye.”

She quickly dialed the number Sif had given her, comparing it to the communications division’s list as it rang, nodding as she recognized it as one of the numbers Baddó had called that afternoon.

“ Hæ . This is Hekla. I can’t take your call right now, so leave a message. Thanks.”

Gunna put the phone down in disgust.

“Helgi, why the hell do people never answer their mobile phones?” she demanded as he backed into the room and sat down at his desk with a mug of coffee, which he wiped the base of carefully on his trousers before putting on the desk.

“Beats me. My kids tried that for a while, not answering when I called.”

“Do they still do it?”

“Nope. I told them that as I was paying for their phones, if they didn’t answer when I called they could pay for their own airtime. Why? Laufey being awkward?”

“Not at all. It’s Hekla Elín that I’m trying to get hold of. No reply, blast her. Are you off?”

“I am, and so should you be, chief. It’s getting late.”

“I’ve a good mind to drive out to Kjalarnes and sit by her front door until she turns up.”

“You should be going home.” Helgi said firmly, snapping his glasses into their case. “It’s late and we’ve been here since we were called to the hospital at some ungodly hour of the morning. Remember?”

“Was that really today? It feels like it was weeks ago.”

“It feels like I’ve spent a week on that idiot Hólmgeir Sigurjónsson’s paperwork, and I have to say I feel I’ve done the community a service having locked that waste of skin up.”

“Yeah. Until a magistrate pats him on the back and tells him not to do it again.”

“Well, there is that, I grant you. But if you’re going out to Kjalarnes, then I’ll go with you.”

Gunna shook her head. “Go home, Helgi. Let’s pack it in for the day. I’ve asked for a uniformed patrol to run out to Kjalarnes a couple of times tonight to check there’s nothing untoward going on there.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to track the bloody woman down all day and haven’t been able to get hold of her, and I can’t help feeling there’s some part of all this that we haven’t figured out yet.”

Helgi pulled on his coat. “Come on then,” he prompted.

“Come on, what?”

“I’m not going home until you’re out of the building, so will you get a move on, please?”

Gunna stood up and stretched, knotting her fingers and cracking her knuckles. “All right. You sound like my dad,” she said. “In at seven?”

“Yeah. That’ll do me.”

“You can be early and go with Eiríkur if you want.”

“Why?”

“He’s tagging along with the drug squad tomorrow for an early start. Rather him than me.”

Jóel Ingi parked the Audi behind Katrín’s Saab and looked across the snow-filled garden at the basement flat’s windows. A dim light was shining from one window and he could see the flickering of a television behind the curtains. Still nervous about being followed, he locked the car and looked about him before making his way past the garden gate, which was permanently open in a drift of snow, and knocking at the door.

He had left his coat in the car and it was cold. He shivered, rubbing his hands to warm them, and was about to go back to the car when the door opened a crack. An indistinct face and some dark hair that didn’t belong to Katrín could be seen in the narrow opening.

“Hello?”

“ Hæ . I’m looking for Katrín. This is her place, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but she’s not here at the moment. I’m not sure when she’ll be back.”

“Her car’s there.”

“She can’t have gone far if she’s not driving. D’you want to give her a call?”

“I don’t have a number. I work with her, I was just wondering if she was going to be long?”

The door opened a little wider. “You’re Jóel Ingi, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

This time the door opened fully and a petite girl with a sharp nose and inquisitive eyes looked him up and down.

“You must be Ursula. I saw you at the sushi place we went to the other day.”

“You’d best come in. It’s freezing out. You want a coffee? Or a beer? You know Katrín talks about you all the time?”

He sat down in the flat’s tiny living room and stretched out his legs while Ursula clattered in the kitchen.

“Lived here long?” he asked.

“No. Katrín split up with her guy about the same time as I did with mine, so we’re renting this place together for the time being. How long have you known Katrín?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been at the ministry since two thousand and eight and she’s been there at least as long. But she’s on another floor so it’s only recently that I’ve got to know her.”

“At the lunch club?”

Jóel Ingi grinned. “Yeah. Már Einarsson’s famous lunch club.”

Ursula looked at her watch. “I called her but she’s not answering. She’ll ring me back when she sees there’s been a missed call. She’s organized, our Katrín.”

The coffee was thick and fragrant, giving him a new rush of alertness.

“Where do you work?”

Ursula looked sour. “I was the accounts manager for a building company until last week.”

“New job?”

“I’ve been made redundant.”

“That’s a shame.”

Ursula shrugged. “That’s the way it goes. Last in, first out. Business hasn’t been great and they were optimistic when they took me on.”

“No other job to go to?”

“Some freelance work, doing people’s tax returns and stuff, but not a lot.”

“That’s a shame,” Jóel Ingi repeated, at a loss for anything else to say.

In spite of the coffee having given him a momentary rush, he felt inexplicably drowsy, blaming the heat of the little flat.

“I’d like to go away for a while. I’ve been in boring jobs for years now and I want to see a little color, so I might go traveling for a few months, and maybe go back to university in the autumn. That’d be nice.” She glanced down to check her phone. “Katrín normally calls back right away.”

“Maybe she’s busy?”

“Could be …”

“Where would you go if you wanted to do some traveling?”

“I don’t know. Spain, maybe. Or France.”

Jóel Ingi smiled broadly. He liked her already, solid arms and legs in spite of her petite figure, nothing like Agnes’s willowy frame.

“Then this could be your lucky day.”

Ursula looked at him sharply. “How so?”

“I’m flying to Paris tonight.” Jóel Ingi pulled a package out of his coat pocket, put it on the table and spread the notes in a fan. “If we don’t go too wild, I reckon that should keep us for at least a year.”