Quentin Bates - Chilled to the Bone

“Sorry, boys,” she crowed, looking over her shoulder as she strode toward the bedroom. “I was caught short. Couldn’t wait a second longer. You know how it is.”

Two of the drug squad officers set about searching the living room, while one of them sat with Ragga and Hinrik, who feigned nonchalance as he stared from under his heavy eyelids at Eiríkur, who watched the professionals make a thorough job of it, even though they already knew there was nothing to be found.

“Clean as you like,” one of them grudgingly admitted once the search was complete. “Right, then, Ragga, my darling,” the senior man decided. “You can come with us while we take a look around the bedroom and my colleague can search your knicker drawer. You’d best stay here, Hinrik, so my friend here can have a quiet word with you.”

Hinrik looked taken aback, confused at the change of direction.

“What’s going on …?” he asked, surprised at the departure from the usual routine as the drug squad officers left the room and closed the door behind them.

“Where’s Baddó, Hinrik?” Eiríkur asked without any preamble.

“Hey, mate. I don’t know anyone called Baddó,” he protested.

Eiríkur took out his phone and punched in a number. “It’s ringing,” he said, leaving the phone on the table with the loudspeaker on.

“Where’s your phone, Hinrik?” Eiríkur asked.

“I don’t know. It’s somewhere.”

“It’s somewhere here, but where?”

Hinrik shrugged and spread his arms wide, as if to demonstrate his innocence, until the door creaked open and one of the searchers came in with a grin on his face. A cheap mobile phone buzzed and flashed in his gloved hand. “Is that one of you sneaky bastards calling our boy’s phone?”

“Could be,” Eiríkur said, taking the vibrating phone and dropping it in an evidence bag before placing it on the table, where it continued to demand attention until he ended the call on his own phone. A “missed call” message and a sad-faced smiley icon appeared on the phone in the bag.

“That must be Ragga’s phone. She’s a sloppy cow and she was looking for it last night.”

“That’s your phone. It’s going from here to the lab and don’t think for a second that your dabs aren’t all over it. Now, back to business. Where’s Baddó?”

“Honestly, mate,” Hinrik said. “I don’t know any Baddó.”

“Firstly, I’m not your mate. Secondly, Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson. He used to go by the name of Bigfoot, and you know him well enough. He’s called that phone of yours half a dozen times in the last week. So don’t give me bullshit, Hinrik, and don’t imagine that this is about a few bags of grass. Baddó’s facing a murder charge when we catch up with him and you’ve a good chance of winding up in the next cell.”

Any remaining color drained from Hinrik’s face, which his nocturnal lifestyle had already endowed with a pasty pallor.

“What’s he done?” Hinrik croaked, his throat left dry by the rapidly rising stakes.

“All in good time, Hinrik. All in good time,” Eiríkur assured him. “I think you’ll be safe cancelling all your appointments for the rest of the day. You and Ragga are both going to Hverfisgata with us for a very detailed chat. But first you’d best tell us where your old pal Baddó has got to.”

“I don’t know,” Hinrik said miserably and Eiríkur could see that for once Hinrik would be happy to talk. “I reckon he’s been living with his sister these last few months, since he turned up all of a sudden from the Baltic. But he’s been keeping his head down. There are people who have unfinished business with Baddó and he doesn’t have too many friends.”

“Like Ási Ásu?”

“Don’t make me laugh. Ási’s a brain-dead dopehead who was still in short trousers when Baddó left the country. There are bigger fish who want to see Baddó’s knees broken.”

“Such as?”

“Mundi.”

“Mundi Grétars, you mean?”

“Among others. Mundi has a long memory.”

“Go on,” Eiríkur prompted. “A quick history lesson.”

Hinrik sighed and grimaced, glancing toward the door. “Mundi had a big deal going on. This was years ago, you remember. You lot busted Mundi’s courier. Mundi lost a ton of cash that went up in smoke and he reckoned Baddó had grassed. Like I said, Mundi never forgets.”

“So where is he now?”

“Mundi?” Hinrik cackled. “Mundi’s somewhere warm, I reckon. He doesn’t get his hands dirty.”

“No. Where’s Baddó?”

“I guess you’ve been to María’s place. If he’s not there, then don’t ask me. He’s been seeing a woman these last few days, so maybe he’s with her? I don’t know.”

“Name?”

“She’s called Ebba. Lives somewhere up the top end of Kleppsvegur. That’s all I know.”

Eiríkur picked up the phone in its bag from the table and scrolled through the memory.

“Not clever, Hinrik. Just as well you didn’t erase the call log,” she told him. “Not that it matters much. Ah, here it is. Ten thirty-six yesterday morning you had a call that lasted just over four minutes. What did you and Baddó have to talk about?”

“Don’t know, mate.”

“If you call me ‘mate’ one more time, I’m going to ram this phone so far up your arse, sideways, that your eyes will light up every time it rings. Now stop giving me this bullshit and come clean, unless you want an extra five years on your sentence for obstructing a murder investigation.”

Baddó had stopped at Kjalarnes the night before for a quick look around and knew where the house was. This time he stopped at the shop, filled the mud-colored Hyundai’s tank and drank a paper cupful of bitter liquid that tried unconvincingly to pass for coffee. Refreshed by the caffeine and the cold, still morning air, he rolled slowly through the little settlement at Kjalarnes, past the rows of ordered houses to the single old wooden house beyond. An old farm building, he guessed, which had probably been there for years before the rows of silver-grey concrete terraced houses and the new school were built.

Baddó stopped the Hyundai behind a grey 4×4 that looked as if it had been there for a while, using it as a shield while he checked his phone for missed calls.

He punched in Jóel Ingi’s number, but ended the call as the voicemail message began. Any message to that miserable young fool would be delivered in person, he decided.

The thought gave him a warm feeling, so much so that he found himself dreaming and almost missed the thickset man emerging from the house. Baddó sat up and paid attention, watching the place keenly. The man limped over to an old blue Land Rover by the door and started it with a cloud of white smoke before making his way back indoors. A minute later the man reemerged, shepherding two small children into the back of the car, strapping them in carefully and putting a crutch inside with them.

Baddó hunched forward, pretending to be engrossed in his phone as the Land Rover chugged up the slope past him and into the distance.

“I’ve had the ministry on the phone twice already, and the National Commissioner wanting to know what the hell’s going on,” he said, making his way across the car park as Gunna strode along at his side, trying to match his pace. She had left Eiríkur with Hinrik in an interview room, with instructions to be as tough on him as the law would allow.

“I have the closest links I’ve been able to find to Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson so far being booked in right now. Either that skinny deadbeat knows where he is, or else he knows someone who does, and we need to beat it out of him,” Gunna said. “Is the ministry getting its knickers in a twist over Jóel Ingi Bragason?”