Quentin Bates - Cold Steal

‘Boris Vadluga? The man you were in partnership with?’

‘That’s him. Well, I was surprised.’

‘You had never met Boris Vadluga?’

‘No, we’d spoken on the phone a few times, but Sunna María saw to all that business with Vilhelm and Elvar. All I did was sign the accounts once a year.’

Gunna took a photo from her folder of notes. ‘This man?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘This is Boris Vadluga.’

‘Definitely not him. This fellow was older, I thought.’

‘This man?’

The driving licence photograph was indistinct, but Jóhann almost jumped from his chair when he saw it. ‘That’s the man! I’d recognize him anywhere,’ he squeaked and calmed down quickly, his breathing laboured. ‘If that’s not Boris, who is it?’

‘That’s just what we’d like to know as well. So what happened?’

‘We chatted, had a coffee. He was clearing stuff out of the office since the company had folded.’

‘Didn’t you find that strange?’ Gunna asked. ‘Wasn’t it odd that he should be doing something like that himself. Wasn’t it odd that he should be in Iceland at all?’

‘I did find it very unusual, but he said something about being here on other business. Then I started to feel very strange, unsteady on my feet. It was as if I knew there was something very wrong but couldn’t do anything about it.’

‘You were doped,’ Gunna said. ‘As soon as you’d drunk that coffee, your friend didn’t need to worry any longer about being convincing. A witness saw a man answering your description leaving the building with this man on Friday afternoon. He thought you were drunk. So you wake up in the wilderness and then what?’

‘I think I’m lucky to be here. I don’t believe I was intended to survive.’

‘Maybe he got the dose wrong,’ Eiríkur suggested.

‘We’ll probably never find out what it was he gave you. Most of these drugs are out of your system after a day or two and this was a week ago. Rohypnol, ketamine, there’s plenty to choose from.’

Jóhann shuddered as he thought back to the moment he woke up in the distant ruined farmhouse.

Gísli fidgeted as the waitress took away the empty plates, casting glances around him.

‘Why this place?’ Gunna asked. ‘Not your usual stamping grounds, surely? I thought you would have preferred the place by the dock.’

‘Actually, I would have. But here there’s less chance of seeing anyone I know.’

‘Don’t want any of the guys to see you out with an old lady?’

‘Come on, Mum. It’s not like that. If we’d gone to Kænan then there’d be someone around I’d sailed with or worked with, or someone who knows Steini. We’d just be talking boats and engines.’

‘Instead of what?’

Gísli sighed and looked up as the waitress brought them fresh cutlery. He stayed silent until she had gone, shredding a piece of bread between his long fingers. A craftsman’s fingers, Gunna thought, like his grandfather’s.

‘I’m not a complete slob, you know, Mum. I do like to go to smart places occasionally. I came here with Soffía once or twice,’ he said wistfully.

‘How is she?’ Gunna asked.

‘Soffía’s fine. For a skinny little thing she’s as tough as old boots.’

‘It’s something that hadn’t escaped my notice,’ Gunna said as the waitress returned with steaming dishes. Pasta with chicken for Gísli, grilled fish for her. ‘Looks good,’ she said as the girl vanished silently into the background.

They were silent for a few minutes as each made inroads on lunch. The restaurant was quiet, with only a few lunchtime customers holding quiet conversations over their meals beneath subtle lights and sprays of dried flowers on the walls between dark abstract oil paintings. The quiet suited her. Conversation at the table had never been encouraged when Gunna had been growing up in a large family where food had to be eaten before it disappeared into two hungry big brothers, and the same custom had been unconsciously carried on in her own household.

‘The pasta’s a bit overdone,’ Gísli said eventually and Gunna stared at him.

‘Overdone? You can overcook pasta?’

‘Sure, mum. Haven’t you seen Steini timing it every time he does pasta?’

‘I suppose so. I hadn’t noticed that.’

‘It should be al dente, so it still has a little texture to it, not boiled to death like. .’

‘Like I do?’

‘I wasn’t going to say that. I meant like a ship’s cook does it.’

‘In that case you can be forgiven.’

Gísli cleared his plate first and fidgeted again while Gunna finished her plaice.

‘Not bad,’ she said, downing her knife and fork. ‘Gísli, what’s bugging you? I know there has to be plenty, but what in particular? Soffía? Drífa? Any decisions? I know I’m only your old mum, so I’m the last one to get any information, but it would be nice to know what’s going on.’

‘I know Soffía would be your choice, wouldn’t she?’

‘I like the girl a lot. There’s bone in that nose.’

‘And Drífa?’

Gunna took a deep breath. ‘She’s lovely, but she’s a child.’

‘She’s growing up fast. I think she needs me more than Soffía does.’

‘You don’t have to tell me. I see more of her than you do.’ The words slipped out and Gísli flushed. ‘I’m sorry, Gísli. I didn’t mean it like that. You have to make your own choices and decisions.’

‘Like you did, you mean?’

Gunna frowned her eyebrows into a dark bar. ‘In what way?’

‘Like when you and my dad. .’

She sat back and looked him in the eye. ‘Your father was a mistake on my part.’

‘So I was a mistake?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

The waitress sensed the tension as she collected their plates. ‘Would you like to see a dessert menu?’ she asked shyly.

Gísli shook his head. ‘Just a coffee for me.’

‘I would, thanks,’ Gunna decided. ‘As I’m being treated.’

‘Sorry, Mum. I didn’t mean to snap at you,’ Gísli mumbled. He reached across the table and placed a hand on hers.

Gunna wanted to snatch her hand away but resisted the temptation.

‘Listen. Your father was five minutes of madness. I should have known better, but I wasn’t much older than your little sister is now. I was sixteen when you were born.’

‘You must have been. .?’ Gísli said and stopped, colouring.

‘You can work it out easily enough,’ Gunna said sharply. ‘A month or so short of my sixteenth birthday if you must know.’

‘You weren’t. . together at all?’

‘Are you joking? Your father was in the process of divorcing his first wife and the last thing he wanted was to be shackled to a wayward teenager. Why? You’ve seen him, haven’t you? What’s your impression?’ Gunna scanned the dessert menu the waitress handed her. ‘The fruit salad, please. And a coffee.’

‘Latte, expresso?’

‘Just ordinary coffee will do nicely.’

‘He’s a charming man,’ Gísli said. ‘In his own strange way.’

‘I wouldn’t say charming,’ Gunna said after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s a fascinating man, and when he was younger he was a remarkable character. But there’s a dark side to everyone and your father’s dark side is very close to the surface. So what did you make of him?’

‘Disappointed,’ Gísli mumbled.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because he wasn’t interested, like I told you before.’

‘He must know when your birthday is but he never sent a present or a card, never tried to maintain any contact. But to his credit, I suppose, he never tried to claim you were nothing to do with him. You thought he’d have been waiting all these years for you to come and find him? Think again. He could have had access when you were a child but he didn’t want to know then. So why would he now? I’m afraid Thorvaldur Hauksson is a rather self-centred character.’