Quentin Bates - Winterlude

‘Give them ten minutes and chase them again,’ Gunna instructed, her attention on her computer. ‘In any case, I have a feeling I may have found our man already,’ she said slowly, scrolling through the list on her own screen.

‘Already?’ he echoed.

Gunna scribbled on a pad at her side, tore off the series of numbers and passed it over to Helgi.

‘There’s only one Borgar Jónsson in the national registry who could fit our candidate as far as age goes. Call the bank again, would you? Give them that number and date of birth, and just ask them to confirm if it’s the same character.’

Helgi lowered his glasses to look at the note.

‘Will do, Chief,’ he said with a smile, and smacked his hand against his forehead. ‘And now I remember where I’ve heard the name before.’

Gunna shivered in the still wind outside, which cut through her coat. Skies the colour of battleships loomed above the Reykjavík rooftops and that of the hostel she and Helgi quickly walked around to find the director coming towards them, his tie flapping over one shoulder.

‘Egill Bjarnason,’ he said in an anguished voice, thrusting his hand into Helgi’s and ignoring Gunna. ‘Could you come this way, please? There’s a TV camera already outside the front entrance, for some reason. We can get to my office through the rear door.’ He scurried ahead of them without waiting for a response, looking over his shoulder and twitching as he walked quickly through the badly cut grass that was leaving the legs of his smart suit soaked.

He seemed more at home in his office, as if back in his natural environment, ushering Gunna and Helgi to chairs in front of a practically bare desk while he manoeuvred himself behind it.

‘It’s terrible,’ he tutted. ‘Dreadful.’

‘I’m Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and this is my colleague, Helgi Svavarsson. We’re from CID,’ Gunna told him. ‘I see it didn’t take the press long to figure out a connection between Borgar Jónsson and this place. How the hell did that happen?’

‘I have no idea. He’s been missing for a day, so there was an announcement on the news this morning asking for sightings of him.’

‘That’s unusual so soon after a disappearance, isn’t it?’ Helgi asked.

‘Maybe,’ Egill admitted. ‘But we considered Borgar to be somewhat vulnerable.’

‘So tell us about him, will you?’ Gunna instructed.

‘He’s been here for eight weeks and hasn’t been a problem,’ he said, coughing. ‘I have no idea what he was doing where he was found. Our residents are free to come and go during the day as long as they’re back for the evening meal at six.’

‘For which he presumably didn’t show up?’

‘No.’

‘So you informed the police?’

‘The manager did that, or so I’m told. Standard procedure. These people are still effectively convicts, even though they aren’t in prison.’

‘You said Borgar was vulnerable,’ Helgi said. ‘In what way?’

‘He wasn’t a well man. He was diabetic and walked with difficulty sometimes,’ replied Egill, clearing his throat. ‘It seems he hadn’t had an easy time in prison. Because of the nature of his crime, he wasn’t popular, to say the least.’

‘And did that reflect on the fact that he served less than half of his sentence in Litla-Hraun?’

‘I would imagine that would have been taken into account.’

‘How long do your clients normally stay?’ Helgi asked. ‘Is that the right word — clients?’

Egill flapped his hands. ‘Clients. Residents. Whatever,’ he said, looking about him as if the panelled walls would tell him something. ‘These people are all former prisoners and they stay here for a week, two weeks, six months sometimes, while they acclimatize to normal life again. The ones who have served a long sentence tend to take longer to become de-institutionalized, so they stay here longer and find it harder to adjust, as do those who don’t have — how shall I put it? — a criminal career behind them and are used to being in and out of prison.’

‘How much of his sentence was left?’

‘Four years.’

‘Hell,’ Helgi muttered to himself. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we bother catching them,’ he growled. ‘Any visitors? Were you aware of any threats to his safety? Had anyone been in contact with him, do you know?’

‘I don’t know,’ Egill floundered. ‘I don’t have a great deal to do with the day-to-day running of the hostel, you see,’ he said with a thin smile. ‘My role is more an executive one.’

‘Which means what?’ Gunna asked. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but we have a dead man to deal with, and whoever committed the murder running around the city. So if you can’t provide a few answers, maybe you could direct us to someone who can?’

‘Oh.’ Egill scowled, stung by Gunna’s words. ‘Your colleague is, er. . forthright, I think is the word.’ He paused and coughed. ‘Maybe you should speak to Ásrún. She’s the manager here.’

Egill pushed his chair back and stood up. Gunna felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and looked at the screen quickly, dropping the phone back into her coat pocket.

‘Helgi, can you go with this gentleman and get whatever you can out of the manager if she’s likely to be the best-informed person in the building. I need to get back to the shop for half an hour and then back to the scene.’

‘No problem, Chief,’ Helgi said smartly as Egill looked from one to the other of them and it dawned on him that Gunna was the one in charge.

A TV camera had also been set up at the end of the unmade road on the industrial estate leading to the run-down workshop where Borgar Jónsson’s body had been found. Gunna recognized faces among the cluster around the camera but drove past without making eye contact, pulling up outside the building where an unmarked black van she knew belonged to one of the city’s undertakers was parked in front of the entrance with its back doors open.

‘Done?’ Gunna asked Sigmar as he peeled off his white suit, sitting on the tailgate of his 4×4.

‘I’m done here. We’ll have a look at our man later, but there’s no question what the cause of death is. Miss Cruz can give you details later, I expect.’

‘Know any more about this place?’

‘It was a fibreglass workshop. I understand they mostly built boats, until it closed down.’

‘Has the place been swept for prints?’

‘It has, and I have half a dozen items to take away with me. You’re free to poke around to your heart’s content. We’ve managed to get the lights to work, so there’ll be no fumbling around in the dark.’

‘Why? Was the power off?’

‘The circuit breaker for the lights had been tripped. But it could have been like that for years for all I know.’

Gunna snapped on a pair of latex gloves and shivered as she walked around the echoing workshop. It was late in the afternoon and the transparent sections in the high roof that let in light during the day were becoming dark squares. The dust that covered every surface of the place had been disturbed across the floor and she padded cautiously around the area where Borgar Jónsson had been killed. In the shadows at the edges of the workshop were trestles and sheets of timber and plastic, all covered with the same grey dust, all quite obviously untouched for years, Gunna decided as she moved one of the trestles and a miasma of fine dust filled the air.

The iron steps of the spiral staircase creaked and echoed as she placed her feet on them. Each step was a steel grille, so no prints were visible, but at the top of the stairs she clicked on the light to see the open area that had once been the coffee room swept clean and the tables wiped down. Even the calendar on the wall had been folded to the correct month. The sink in the corner was clean and mugs had been washed and placed on the draining board. Even the coffee machine had an inch of black liquid in its glass jug. Gunna flicked the filter drawer open and sniffed. The coffee grounds were still damp.