Quentin Bates - Cold Steal

‘Back to the yard, it seems?’

‘I don’t like it. Why’s Sunna María going that way as well?’ Gunna growled, reaching for her mouthpiece. ‘Eiríkur? What’s the situation on backup?’

‘The squad car’s a few minutes behind you.’

Geiri again slowed down as the van took an unexpected turn at the roundabout at the edge of the trading estate. ‘They’re going along the Krýsuvík road.’

‘What the hell?’

‘That means we can’t easily tail them without being seen.’

‘Hang back as far as you can, then,’ Gunna said, and speaking into her mouthpiece. ‘Eiríkur? Is there another squad car available? Or anything?’

‘It doesn’t look like it.’

‘Can you re-route the traffic guys? It looks like we’re tailing them along the Krýsuvík road, and I’m trying to second-guess where the hell they might be going. Can you get the traffic guys to go down the Kaldársels road from Hafnarfjördur?’ she said, thinking fast and trying to remember the lie of the land on these little-used country roads. ‘That way we should be able to head them off if things start to get sticky.’

‘Yep. Will do.’

‘It’s not the same driver,’ Geiri said, shaking his head.

‘Sure? How so?’

‘This guy’s not as cautious as our boy. He’s throwing that van around as if nobody’s going to have to drive it ever again.’

The ink-black rocks with patches of lichen hanging on to them for dear life sped past as Geiri drove faster to keep the two vehicles in sight. Tangles of dormant trees, leaves long fallen and their buds waiting for some spring warmth before breaking into new life, were scattered by the roadsides at intervals, with the occasional forlorn evergreen conifer here and there. Now they were in open country where any kind of traffic was a rarity and the road was rough after a winter of heavy weather. It spat stones and water back at them while the Golf’s wheels struggled to get a grip on the wet road surface. In summer, this was a popular enough place with walkers and cyclists, but on a cold spring day with winter still very much in evidence, the area was deserted.

Unfamiliar with the district, Gunna tried to think where they might be going at such speed.

‘They’re throwing up that much water that they won’t be able to see anyone following,’ Geiri said. ‘Now they’re slowing, and turning again. That’s the road towards Hvaleyrarvatn.’

‘Eiríkur. You can see us on the tracker?’

‘Got you.’

‘They’re turning along the Hvaleyri road. Warn the traffic guys, will you?’

‘We have company,’ Geiri said. ‘Look in the mirror.’

Gunna leaned forward to see that a four-by-four in police colours could be seen in the distance, its headlights dipping and bouncing as it negotiated the pitted road, while Geiri again slowed as the brake lights on Sunna María’s Mercedes glowed bright beneath the layer of grime they’d already picked up along the way.

‘If we can see them,’ Gunna said, pointing back at the police four-by-four and forward to Sunna María’s car. ‘Then they can see us.’

‘If they’re looking, and I don’t imagine they are,’ Geiri said. ‘Another turn. If you want to head them off, now might be the time.’

‘Where are they heading now?’

‘That’s the road that passes south of the lake. There are only a couple of turnoffs to summer chalets and the like.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Sure enough.’

‘Eiríkur, they’re taking the road south of the Hvaleyri lake. Get the traffic guys onto it from the other end, will you? This has gone far enough, I want them stopped.’

‘Will do, chief,’ Eiríkur said and Gunna could hear him relaying instructions on the open channel. ‘Warn them to be careful. This guy may be nasty.’

‘Armed?’

‘I don’t think so, but take care.’

The gravel road began to disintegrate as a burst of rain came down hard. Geiri switched the wipers on and they scraped pathways in the corrosive mix of water and black volcanic dust that coated the windscreen as he leaned forward to peer through the murk. The road could hardly be seen in the sudden downpour that pebbledashed the road ahead and battered the roof of the car.

‘Where the hell. .?’ Geiri cursed, and Gunna wound down her window, pushing her face half out to see what was happening.

‘Geiri! Back up!’ she yelled.

‘What?’

Gunna almost bounced up and down in the seat in frustration. ‘Over there, they pulled off the road.’ She pointed towards a narrow track half hidden by a clump of fir trees, meandering away from the main road and down a dip.

The Golf shuddered to a standstill, reversed at top speed, and the four-by-four behind stopped in a flurry of stones and flying water. Geiri put his foot down, spinning the wheels through the lakes forming in the road as he rounded a bend, meeting Sunna María’s jeep coming the other way. Gunna caught a glimpse of Sunna María’s face behind the wheel, white and tense, her mouth open in astonishment. Geiri spun the wheel and hauled at the handbrake, dragging the long-suffering Golf into a screeching turn that left it flat across the road as the four-by-four came to a halt.

As Gunna jumped out of the car, the acrid smell of burning was unmistakeable, and she looked around quickly to see a pall of greasy smoke from behind a low hill. She could hear the agonized rattle of the four-by-four’s gears failing to engage as she ran to Sunna María’s car, where she pulled open the driver’s door, caught a handful of coat and hair and hauled her bodily from the car, dumping her in a puddle. Only then did she look up to see the man with the hook nose and moustache glaring back at her. She sensed rather than saw the blow coming as she reached for the keys. The flat of his hand caught her on the side of the head instead of in the face, making her stagger back and trip over Sunna María lying where she had been dropped.

The man leaped into the driving seat, slammed the door and gunned the Mercedes along the track, the engine whining in complaint as it raced and the wheels spinning in wet gravel before it jumped and was gone in time to meet the police four-by-four coming the other way.

For a moment, Gunna thought the squad car was going to veer and politely let the Mercedes past, but it stopped across the road, lights flickering in the wet gloom, and the two officers in it jumped out, one with his baton already in his hand. A siren could be heard in the distance as the hooknosed man slowly got out of the Mercedes, his hands in front of him but still with a smile on his face, as he realized that the odds were against him.

‘Geiri!’ Gunna called, still dazed from the blow, panting with exertion as she ran towards the pall of black smoke. The Golf coughed and spluttered as it sped past her and around the bend to where the white van was in flames, pulling up with a crunch of tyres. Geiri hauled open the Golf’s boot and pulled out a fire extinguisher.

‘The back of the van! Geiri, open the back,’ Gunna yelled, searching her coat pockets for the gloves she knew should be there and pulling them on as she ran through the puddles. Smoke was pouring from the white van’s cab. Geiri lifted the extinguisher as if it were a toy, smashed the driver’s side window with the base of it and let fly with the contents into the van. Gunna wrenched at the rear doors, pulled one open and coughed as a gout of black smoke erupted from inside. After a few seconds it cleared a little and she jumped inside with her eyes watering and one hand over her mouth.

There was little she could see, but among the boxes that Orri had stacked in the van that morning, a foot could be seen in the gloom. Knowing she had no more than a couple of seconds at most, Gunna grabbed the foot, pulled with all her strength and found herself falling backwards out of the van into Geiri’s bear-like embrace with an unconscious Orri in her grasp.