Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

I was very tired.

It was late evening when I pulled up in front of the Hotel Saga, although it was still light with the brightness of the northern summer. My eyes were sore because I had been driving right into the western sun and I stayed in the car for a moment to rest them. If I had stayed in the car two minutes more the next fateful thing would not have happened, but I didn’t; I got out and was just extracting the suitcase when a tall man came out of the hotel, paused, and hailed me. ‘Alan Stewart!’

I looked up and cursed under my breath because the man in the uniform of an Icelandair pilot was the last man I wanted to see — Bjarni Ragnarsson. ‘Hello, Bjarni,’ I said.

We shook hands. ‘Elin didn’t tell me you were coming.’

‘She didn’t know,’ I said. ‘It was a last-minute decision; I didn’t even have time to telephone.’

He looked at my suitcase resting on the pavement. ‘You’re not staying at the Saga!’ he said in surprise.

It was a snap judgment and I had to make it fast. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll be going to the apartment.’ I didn’t want to bring Elin into this but now her brother knew I was in Reykjavik he would be sure to tell her and I didn’t want her to be hurt in that way. Elin was very special.

I saw Bjarni looking at the car. ‘I’ll leave it here,’ I said lightly. ‘It’s just a delivery job for a friend. I’ll take a taxi to the apartment.’

He accepted that, and said, ‘Staying long?’

‘For the rest of the summer, as usual,’ I said easily.

‘We must go fishing,’ he said.

I agreed. ‘Have you become a father yet?’

‘Another month,’ he said glumly. ‘I’m dreading it.’

I laughed. ‘I should think that’s Kristin’s worry; you aren’t even in the country half the time. No nappy-changing for you.’

We spent another few minutes in the usual idle-small-talk of old friends just met and then he glanced at his watch. ‘I have a flight to Greenland,’ he said. ‘I must go. I’ll ring you in a couple of days.’

‘Do that.’ I watched him go and then captured a taxi which had just dropped a fare at the hotel and told the driver where to go. Outside the building I paid him off and then stood uncertainly on the pavement wondering whether I was doing the right thing.

Elin Ragnarsdottir was someone very special.

She was a schoolteacher but, like many other Icelanders of her type, she held down two jobs. There are certain factors about Iceland — the smallness of population, the size of the country and its situation in high northern latitudes — which result in a social system which outsiders are apt to find weird. But since the system is designed to suit Icelanders they don’t give a damn what outsiders think, which is just as it should be.

One result of this social system is that all the schools close down for four months in the summer and a lot of them are used as hotels. The teachers thus have a lot of spare time and many of them have quite a different summer occupation. When I first met her three years earlier, Elin had been a courier for Ferdaskrifstofaa Nordri, a travel agency in Reykjavik, and had shown visitors around the country.

A couple of seasons before, I had persuaded her to become my personal courier on a full-time summer basis. I had been afraid that her brother, Bjarni, might have thought that a touch irregular and put in an objection, but he didn’t — presumably he thought his sister to be grown-up enough to handle her own affairs. She was an undemanding person and it was an easy relationship, but obviously it couldn’t go on like that for ever and I intended to do something about it, but I doubted if this was the appropriate time — it takes someone with a stronger stomach than mine to propose marriage on the same day one has dropped a body down a hole.

I went up to the apartment and, although I had a key, I didn’t use it; instead I knocked on the door. Elin opened it and looked at me with an expression of surprise changing to delight, and something in me jumped at the sight of her trim figure and corn-coloured hair. ‘Alan!’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’

‘A quick decision,’ I said, and held up the cased fishing-rod. ‘I’ve got a new one.’

Her lips curved down in mock glumness. ‘That makes six,’ she said severely, and held the door wide. ‘Oh, come in, darling!’

I went in, dropped the suitcase and the rod, and took her in my arms. She held me closely and said, with her head against my chest, ‘You didn’t write, and I thought...’

‘You thought I wasn’t coming.’ The reason I hadn’t written was because of something Slade had said, but I couldn’t tell her that. I said, ‘I’ve been very busy, Elin.’

She drew back her head and looked at me intently. ‘Yes, your face is drawn; you look tired.’

I smiled. ‘But I feel hungry.’

She kissed me. ‘I’ll prepare something.’ She broke away. ‘Don’t worry about unpacking your bag; I’ll do it after supper.’

I thought of the bloody suit. ‘Not to worry,’ I said. ‘I can do it.’ I picked up the suitcase and the rod and took them into my room. I call it my room because it was the place where my gear was stored. Actually, the whole apartment was mine because, although it was in Elin’s name, I paid the rent. Spending one-third of every year in Iceland, it was convenient to have a pied-à-terre .

I put the rod with the others and laid down the suitcase, wondering what to do with the suit. Until that moment I had never had any secrets I wanted to keep from Elin — with the one important exception — and there wasn’t a lockable cupboard or drawer in the place. I opened the wardrobe and surveyed the line of suits and jackets, each on its hanger and neatly encased in its zippered plastic bag. It would be very risky to let the suit take its place in that line; Elin was meticulous in the care of my clothes and would be certain to find it.

In the end I emptied the suitcase of everything but the suit and the weapons, locked it, and heaved it on top of the wardrobe where it usually lived when not in use. It was unlikely that Elin would pull it down and even then it was locked, although that was not usual.

I took off my shirt and examined it closely and discovered a spot of blood on the front so I took it into the bathroom and cleaned it under the cold tap. Then I scrubbed my face in cold water and felt better for it. By the time Elin called that supper was ready I was cleaned up and already in the living-room looking through the window.

I was about to turn away when my attention was caught by a flicker of movement. On the other side of the street there was an alley between two buildings and it had seemed that someone had moved quickly out of sight when I twitched the curtains. I stared across the street but saw nothing more, but when Elin called again I was thoughtful as I turned to her.

Over supper I said, ‘How’s the Land-Rover?’

‘I didn’t know when you were coming but I had a complete overhaul done last week. It’s ready for anything.’

Icelandic roads being what they are, Land-Rovers are as thick as fleas on a dog. The Icelanders prefer the short wheelbase Land-Rover, but ours was the long wheelbase job, fitted out as a camping van. When we travelled we were self-contained and could, and did, spend many weeks away from civilization, only being driven into a town by running out of food. There were worse ways of spending a summer than to be alone for weeks on end with Elin Ragnarsdottir.

In other summers we had left as soon as I arrived in Reykjavik, but this time it had to be different because of Slade’s package, and I wondered how I was to get to Akureyri alone without arousing her suspicions. Slade had said the job was going to be easy but the late Mr Lindholm made all the difference and I didn’t want Elin involved in any part of it. Still, all I had to do was to deliver the package and the job would be over and the summer would be like all the other summers. It didn’t seem too difficult.