Quentin Bates - Cold Steal

‘Hell and damnation.’

‘Want to put out an alert for her?’

‘Not yet. Her car’s there?’

‘There are two cars in the garage, and guess what? One of them’s a dark grey Audi A5, the same as someone saw in Borgarfjördur the night Vilhelm Thorleifsson was shot. It’s registered to Jón Vilberg Voss.’

‘Who has been in Paris for the last three months. Very convenient.’

Gunna felt the car slow down and looked up. The white van with Orri at the wheel had pulled into the exit lane and climbed a slope to the lights at the top, where it waited, eventually hauling itself past the lights and across the intersection bridge to another set of lights.

‘What’s happening, Geiri?’

‘Not sure. Looks like he’s heading into Grafarvogur. Unless he’s figured out he’s being followed and is doubling back on himself. We’ll see when the lights change.’

‘All right,’ Gunna said and went back to her communicator. ‘Eiríkur?’

‘Here.’

‘If there’s nothing happening, then get over to communications. Check the traffic on Orri’s phone, the mysterious one he’s been in touch with, and see if Sunna María’s phone can be tracked as well. I’ve already requested warrants for a bunch of mobile numbers, so check with the Laxdal if they aren’t there yet.’

‘Will do. And you?’

‘We’re tailing Orri in his work van. We’re up near Höfdabakki at the moment and it looks like he’s just driven into that new shopping centre there.’

He had to admit to himself, it didn’t feel bad to be back in the van and back at work. Dóri had been surprised to see him, but refrained from dropping the sarcastic comments the others let fall. The place had changed in the last couple of weeks, but with all the fuss of the police and being arrested a couple of times, he had hardly noticed it.

The old boys had a subdued feel about them now, nervous that their jobs were about to fall through, and while nobody missed Alex and his abrasive manner, the fact that he had died in such circumstances had left a clear mark on the staff.

Dóri had given him a couple of easy collections that would keep him busy for a few hours. He was still undecided about meeting the Voice. He felt he was in enough trouble already and he was nervous that he might not come out of a meeting unscathed, but meeting somewhere public should be safe enough. Of course, it wasn’t his fault that the police had caught up with him like that. Well, he admitted to himself, it had been his fault, but he could hardly be blamed for it.

As the van made its stately way up Vesturlandsvegur to the first pickup of the day, Orri wondered how long it would be before the police came calling again and how soon he would be hauled before a court. The thought had kept him awake last night, along with all the other question marks he felt had dropped into view in the last few days.

He had called Lísa’s phone twice and she hadn’t picked up. Would she come back? Could he persuade her to come back? He certainly missed her presence far more than he could have imagined, even though her pernickety ways sometimes irritated the hell out of him. And what about the Voice? The thought kept coming back to him and he wondered what was going to happen there.

He was already starting to regret having sent the man a message the night before to let him know he was temporarily free. It would have been so much simpler if the police had just shipped him off to Litla Hraun and helped him drop out of circulation for a few weeks; hopefully the whole thing could have blown over while he took it easy behind bars.

The ticket for the first pickup was at the top of the pile of four, the address in the newish shopping centre at Bíldshöfdi. No problem. Orri sat back and turned up the radio, trying to shut out all the unanswered questions he dearly wanted answers to.

There was a prickly feeling in her eyelids and she was certain that her eyes were red-rimmed after not enough hours of sleep. She knew that Geiri must also be close to exhaustion, having watched Orri’s flat all night, but he sat in the driver’s seat and looked over his shoulder at her.

‘What now?’

‘What time is it?’

‘Just before nine.’

Gunna got out of the car. The shock of the cold air made her gasp and she quickly got into the front seat next to Geiri.

‘You’re not tired?’

Geiri shook his head. ‘Yeah. But good for a few hours yet.’

Gunna wondered if she had ever seen him out of uniform before and decided she probably hadn’t. It seemed odd, sitting next to this bear of a man with as much stubble on his face as on his cropped head. Without his uniform, he looked like the kind of thug she would normally be wary of.

‘Our boy knows me, so I need to keep out of sight. How about you go inside and see if you can scrounge two cups of coffee from the bank?’

‘There’s a bank in there?’

‘Yep, opened a few months ago. There’s a coffee pot by the door for customers. I’ll buzz you if our boy shows up.’

Geiri walked towards the shopping centre’s entrance and the doors hissed open for him. Gunna’s heart was in her mouth as Orri came out of the same open doors, pushing a trolley in front of him stacked with a dozen boxes on a wooden pallet.

‘Shit,’ she cursed as Geiri went straight past Orri without looking at him, and made for the glass-sided bank in the bottom corner of the block-like shopping centre, where Gunna saw him chatting and flirting with a woman filling the coffee machine. Gunna ducked down as far out of sight as she dared and watched Orri load the van, stacking the boxes one at a time in the back before going back inside with the trolley and its empty pallet.

A few minutes later Geiri emerged from the building, a plastic coffee cup in each hand, with Orri behind him.

‘Here you are. No sugar,’ he said as he got back in the driver’s seat.

‘You took your time. Didn’t they want to give you any coffee unless you opened an account?’

‘Talked her into it.’ Geiri grinned. His coat was half open, making the police emblem on his T-shirt visible. ‘And the cashier gave me her phone number.’

‘She’s probably looking up your financial records this minute to see if you’re trustworthy,’ Gunna said as Geiri allowed Orri’s van a head start.

Orri took the van back the way he had come. Gunna sipped her coffee and felt herself relax slightly as Geiri dropped back as far as he could without losing sight of the van in the distance. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was approaching ten o’clock. The rush-hour traffic had thinned and the roads were quieter now, but with faster-moving cars throwing up screens of water from the road behind them.

Geiri accelerated to close the gap again as the Reykjanesbraut intersection approached. He stared ahead intently at the white van as it dropped into the slip road.

‘Going back the way he came,’ he grunted, holding his hand out for the cup of coffee that Gunna held for him.

‘A long way to go for a few boxes.’

‘Someone’s paying, I suppose.’

‘Let’s see if he’s going back to the yard,’ Gunna said and spoke into her communicator. ‘Zero-four-fifty-one, ninety-five-fifty.’

‘Ninety-five-fifty, zero-four-fifty-one,’ Eiríkur responded smartly.

‘Still awake, then?’

‘Yeah. But Tinna’s taking a nap. I’m at comms. Nothing to report. No communications with the mystery phone and it seems to have been switched off at around six in the morning downtown. Orri’s phone has been tracked up to Höfdabakki and back towards town. Looks like he’s on Reykjanesbraut now.’

‘I know. We’re right behind him. And Sunna María’s phone?’

‘We don’t have a warrant yet to track it, the Laxdal’s working on it but it might take a while. But I can tell you it’s in Kópavogur.’