Quentin Bates - Cold Steal

‘She may have left it behind, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be like her.’

It was another shopping centre. This time Orri parked in Hafnarfjördur and sauntered into the shopping centre, leaving the van in the public car park.

‘What now?’

‘One of us is going to have to keep an eye on him, and it can’t be me,’ Gunna said.

Geiri nodded and pulled on a wool hat that came down to his eyebrows. ‘Let’s just hope I don’t look too much like a copper out of uniform, eh?’

‘Out of uniform, you look nothing like a copper,’ Gunna assured him. ‘Be discreet and let me know what he’s up to.’

She fretted in the car, wondering if Orri had noticed the tail back and forth through Reykjavík, and concerned that Geiri would look suspicious in there. Gunna fidgeted with her phone and checked her text messages, trying to think through what Orri might be doing and why.

Her phone ringing startled her and she answered immediately. ‘Gunnhildur.’

‘Orri’s in the café. With a woman. Tall, blonde,’ she heard Geiri mutter.

‘A woman? It’s not Sunna María, is it?’

‘I don’t know. I can only see the back of her head and I daren’t go any closer.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘In the kiosk opposite, looking through the magazines.’

‘OK, keep an eye on them, but not for too long.’

Orri had expected to see the hook-nosed man. He looked around the café, his phone in his hand, searching for him, but his heart skipped a beat when he saw a blonde woman smile at him. The last time he had seen her was when she had been on the other side of the hall doorway with her legs wrapped around the man he knew as the Voice.

‘It’s Orri, isn’t it?’ she said in a slightly husky voice that was undeniably the same as the one he’d heard that night through the door. ‘Bruno asked me to meet you. I hope you don’t mind? I’m having a latte. What can I get you? The same?’

‘Er. . just a coffee. Where’s. .?’

‘Bruno? He’ll be here shortly. He asked me to meet you as he’s been held up for ten minutes. Would you like something to eat as well?’

Orri sat down, confused. Why was the dentist’s attractive wife here to meet him? ‘Bruno?’ he asked himself as he sat at a table and looked out of the rain-splashed window at the car park where the van was parked, telling himself that he could manage twenty minutes or so before his next collection and then back to the depot. Not seeing the Voice was a surprise and it had shaken him to understand that the dentist’s wife and the Baltic thug were clearly working together rather than straightforward lovers while the dentist was out of the country.

He looked round and saw her at the counter, pouring milk into a mug and dropping a wrapper into the bin next to it. She smiled broadly as she appeared with a tray, placing a mug in front of him and arranging a tall milky concoction for herself and a plate with strips of rich Danish pastry between them.

‘I must say it’s nice to meet you properly,’ Sunna María said, sinking perfect white teeth into a slice of pastry.

‘We haven’t met before, have we?’

‘In a strange kind of way, we have,’ she said and Orri wondered if she knew he had been in her house more than once. The smile became glassy as Orri took a mouthful of coffee and she watched approvingly. ‘Want some?’ she invited, pushing the plate of pastries towards him. ‘I’m terrible. I never have breakfast and then I’m always starving by mid-morning.’

He nibbled a pastry without much appetite. ‘So if we have met, where was that?’

‘You want a refill?’ Sunna María asked, nodding at his mug.

‘All right, then.’

She stood up to return with a second mug of coffee and put in front of him.

‘You didn’t answer my question. Where have I seen you before?’

‘You’ve been to my house, Orri,’ she said sweetly. ‘And to the house I own along the street. I have a few motion sensor cameras here and there, and it wasn’t that hard to figure you out.’

‘Oh,’ Orri sat crestfallen, wondering what to say as she reached out and patted his hand. He tried to draw his hand back but his fingers felt numb.

‘Then you appeared one night and we met in the cellar. I thought Bruno was a little harsh on you, but that’s his business.’

‘That was you?’ Orri wanted to stand up and overturn the table, but found himself welded to his chair, watching Sunna María bite into another slice of pastry.

‘It was, I’m afraid. Are you feeling all right, Orri?’ she said, standing up and dusting crumbs from her fingers with the same enchanting smile. ‘I’ll help you back to the van. You don’t want to embarrass yourself in here, do you?’

Big Geiri hurried out of the shopping centre and sat heavily in the driver’s seat.

‘There’s something odd going on in there. Our boy’s had a funny turn or something, and she’s helping him out,’ he said, switching on the engine and watching over the steering wheel as Orri came out of the shopping centre, unsteady on his feet and with Sunna María, an arm firmly around his waist, propping him up and steering him towards the van.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ Gunna muttered to herself. ‘He looks drunk.’

‘He had two cups of coffee and that’s all.’

‘Zero-four-fifty-one, ninety-five-fifty,’ Gunna called into her communicator. ‘Speak to me, Eiríkur.’

‘Ninety-five-fifty, zero-four-fifty-one. Nothing new here.’

‘There is here. Listen, I want some backup ready in the background and I reckon we’re going to need an ambulance as well. You can follow me on the tracker, so I want them ready when I need them. Got that?’

‘There’s a traffic unit round the corner on the main road and a squad car at the Hafnarfjördur station. I’ll get those ready to go for you. What’s happening?’

‘I have Sunna María and Orri apparently heading towards Green Bay’s van and it looks very strange. I really want to grab the pair of them, but I don’t want to move until our mystery man shows up,’ Gunna replied. ‘If he shows up, that is.’ Gunna impatiently wiped the windscreen with her sleeve. ‘Can you see what’s happening, Geiri?’

‘No, looks like they’re round the other side,’ he replied, letting the Golf creep forward. ‘There’s something going on round there. Hang on, he’s moving.’

‘Sunna María isn’t. Surely Orri’s not driving the van if can hardly stand up?’ Gunna said, pointing to the blonde figure in a belted raincoat getting into a black Mercedes four-by-four. ‘So which one do we keep track of now?’ She clicked her communicator. ‘Eiríkur, still there?’

‘Listening, chief.’

‘We have two people to follow, Sunna María in a Mercedes four-by-four,’ she said, reading out the car’s registration. ‘Got that?’

‘Got it.’

‘And Orri in the white Trafic. You have the number, don’t you?’

‘Got that as well.’

The Golf moved off as the van swung out of the car park. Gunna put a hand on Geiri’s elbow. ‘Wait a second. Let the Merc go as well,’ she said. Geiri stopped and the four-by-four sped too fast through some puddles and followed the van. ‘Now go,’ she said, as the Golf was already rolling forward.

‘That’s not our boy driving the van,’ Geiri said. ‘There’s someone else there and it’s not him.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I think so. It’s someone who sits higher than the guy we were tailing before, and whoever’s driving isn’t wearing a high-viz vest like our boy was.’

‘Right, keep in sight,’ Gunna said as they followed the van and the four-by-four along the waterfront and then up the hill. Instead of taking the turnoff to the main road, the van carried on towards the trading estate where Green Bay Dispatch had its depot.