Десмонд Бэгли - Running Blind

Elin laughed, and I said, ‘What the hell’s so funny? Slade has already taken a crack at us, and may do again if Taggart hasn’t pulled him off. Kennikin is sweating blood trying to get at me — and now the Americans have put in their oar. Any minute from now I’m expecting the West Germans to pitch up, or maybe the Chilean Secret Service. I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. But there’s one thing that really worries me.’

‘What?’

I said, ‘Suppose I give this gadget to Case tomorrow night. Kennikin won’t know that, will he? I can’t see Jack Case writing him a letter — “Dear Vaslav, Stewart doesn’t have the football any more; I’ve got it — come and chase me .” I’ll be just as much up the creek as before. Farther, in fact, because if Kennikin catches me and I haven’t got the damned thing then he’ll be even madder than he is now, if that’s possible.’

I wasn’t so sure I was going to give the gadget to Case, after all. If I was going to be up the creek, I’d better retain the paddle.

Laugarvatn is a district educational centre which takes in children from a wide rural area. The country is so big relative to the population, and the population so scattered, that the educational system is rather peculiar. Most of the rural schools are boarding schools and in some of them the pupils spend a fortnight at school and a fortnight at home, turn and turn about, during the winter teaching terms. The children from farther away spend all winter at school. In the summer the schools are turned into hotels for four months.

Because Laugarvatn is conveniently close to Thingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss and other tourist attractions its two large schools come in very useful as summer hotels, and Laugarvatn had become a pony-trekking centre very popular with visitors. Personally, I’ve never cared much for horses, not even the multi-coloured Icelandic variety which is better-looking than most. I think the horse is a stupid animal — any animal which allows another to ride it must be stupid — and I prefer to be bounced by a Land-Rover rather than by a stubborn pony who would rather go home.

Gunnar Arnarsson was a schoolteacher in the winter and in summer ran a pony-trekking operation. Very versatile people, these Icelanders. He was away when we arrived, but his wife, Sigurlin Asgeirsdottir, made us welcome with much clucking at the sight of Elin’s arm in an improvised sling.

One of the problems in Iceland is sorting out the single from the married people, because the woman does not change her name when she gets married. In fact, the whole problem of names is a trap into which foreigners usually fall with a loud thump. The surname just tells everyone who your father was; Sigurlin was the daughter of Asgeir, just as Gunnar was the son of Arnar. If Gunnar had a son and decided to name the boy after his grandfather he’d be called Arnar Gunnarsson. All very difficult and the reason why the Icelandic telephone directory is listed alphabetically under given names. Elin Ragnarsdottir was listed under ‘E’.

Gunnar appeared to have done well for himself because Sigurlin was one of those tall, leggy, svelte, Scandinavian types who go over big when they get to Hollywood, and what the hell has acting got to do with it, anyway? The widespread belief that the Nordic nations are populated exclusively on the distaff side by these tow-headed goddesses is, however, a regrettable illusion.

From the way she welcomed us Sigurlin knew about me, but not all, I hoped. At any rate she knew a lot — enough to hear the distant chime of wedding bells. It’s funny, but as soon as a girl gets married she wants to get all her old girl-friends caught in the same trap. Because of Kennikin there weren’t going to be any immediate wedding bells — the tolling of a single funeral note was more likely — but, disregarding Kennikin, I wasn’t going to be pressured by any busty blonde with a match-making glint in her eye.

I put the Land-Rover into Gunnar’s empty garage with some relief. Now it was safely off the road and under cover I felt much better. I saw that the collection of small arms was decently concealed and then went into the house to find Sigurlin just coming downstairs. She gave me a peculiar look and said abruptly, ‘What did Elin do to her shoulder?’

I said cautiously, ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

‘She said she was climbing and fell against a sharp rock.’

I made an indeterminate noise expressive of agreement, but I could see that Sigurlin was suspicious. A gunshot wound tends to look like nothing else but, even to someone who has never seen one before. I said hastily, ‘It’s very good of you to offer us a bed for the night.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Thank you, I would.’ I followed her into the kitchen. ‘Have you known Elin long?’

‘Since we were children.’ Sigurlin dumped a handful of beans into a coffee grinder. ‘And you?’

‘Three years.’

She filled an electric kettle and plugged it in, then swung around to face me. ‘Elin looks very tired.’

‘We pushed it a bit in the Óbyggdir. ’

That can’t have sounded convincing because Sigurlin said, ‘I wouldn’t want her to come to any harm. That wound...’

‘Well?’

‘She didn’t fall against a rock, did she?’

There was a brain behind those beautiful eyes. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She didn’t.’

‘I thought not,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen wounds like that. Before I married I was a nurse at Keflavik. An American sailor was brought into hospital once — he’d been cleaning his gun and shot himself accidentally. Whose gun was Elin cleaning?’

I sat down at the kitchen table. ‘There’s a certain amount of trouble,’ I said carefully. ‘And it’s best you’re not involved, so I’m not going to tell you anything about it — for your own good. I tried to keep Elin out of it from the beginning, but she’s headstrong.’

Sigurlin nodded. ‘Her family always was stubborn.’

I said, ‘I’m going to Geysir tomorrow evening and I’d like Elin to stay here. I’ll want your co-operation on that.’

Sigurlin regarded me seriously. ‘I don’t like trouble with guns.’

‘Neither do I. I’m not exactly shouting for joy. That’s why I want Elin out of it. Can she stay here for a while?’

‘A gunshot wound should be reported to the police.’

‘I know,’ I said wearily. ‘But I don’t think your police are equipped to cope with this particular situation. It has international ramifications and there is more than one gun involved. Innocent people could get killed if it’s not carefully handled, and with no disrespect to your police, I think they’d be likely to blunder.’

‘This trouble, as you call it — is it criminal?’

‘Not in the normal sense. You might call it an extreme form of political action.’

Sigurlin turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘The only good thing I’ve heard about this is that you want to keep Elin out of it,’ she said waspishly. ‘Tell me, Alan Stewart; are you in love with her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to marry her?’

‘If she’ll have me after all this.’

She offered me a superior smile. ‘Oh, she’ll have you. You’re hooked like a salmon and you won’t get away now.’

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ I said. ‘There are certain things that have come up lately that don’t add to my charms in Elin’s eyes.’

‘Such as guns?’ Sigurlin poured coffee. ‘You don’t need to answer that. I won’t probe.’ She put the cup before me. ‘All right; I’ll keep Elin here.’

‘I don’t know how you’re going to do it,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been able to make her do anything she didn’t want to do.’