“So you came away with some dirt, did you? Excellent. Let’s hear it.”
The bus station was quiet. The early buses were long gone and in the dead of winter, with difficult roads all around the country, only a skeleton service ran. The cafeteria, which buzzed with life during the tourist season, was all theirs as they sat beneath old photographs of buses that traveled the country back when there were no tarmac roads outside Reykjavík and timetables were little more than inspired guesswork.
Eiríkur dissected his pizza while Helgi looked up from his plate to glare at it with distaste. He munched a slice and washed it down with coke.
“Hell, and you dare to lecture me about eating healthy food,” Helgi grumbled.
“Boys,” Gunna said, reining them in. “Eiríkur … hotels. Remember?”
“Yeah. I went around a few of the big ones. The Airline Hotel, Hotel Ocean, Hotel Glacier, and avoided the Harbourside and the Gullfoss like you said. It’s the same story everywhere once you get someone lower down the pecking order talking. At every hotel there’s been at least one instance of this scam. Normally there’s a phone call to reception from an outside number and a request to help a gentleman in a certain room. The gentleman is untied, is deeply embarrassed and disappears. Nobody ever wants to complain, and the reasons are pretty obvious.”
“So each of these hotels has had the same thing happen? That’s half a dozen times to our knowledge, which includes the late Jóhannes Karlsson.”
“Mmmmm, yes,” Eiríkur said, hurriedly swallowing. “The bar manager at one of the hotels said the same thing had happened at Hotel Moon out near Borgarnes at least twice, as far as he knew, and it had happened at that cheap place up on Ármúli, whatever that’s called.”
“A regular epidemic, isn’t it?” Helgi ventured, straightening his shoulders as he pulled a sheep’s head apart, much to Eiríkur’s disgust.
“That’s not all,” Eiríkur said, bubbling with enthusiasm. “I spoke to Jóhannes Karlsson’s son last night, and he said that there were five transactions on one of his debit cards that morning. Details should be on my email when I get back to Hverfisgata.”
Gunna tapped the tabletop with her fingernails, rattling an irregular tattoo that Helgi and Eiríkur both knew and recognized as a signal that ideas were called for on their part.
“So how do we crack this, chief?” Helgi asked, preempting the expected comment.
“Y’know,” Gunna said slowly, “I reckon it’s time to push hard and give someone a fright. Look, there must be a dozen or so men around Reykjavík who have fallen for this scam over how long?”
“About a year, I guess,” Eiríkur said.
“So we have to find at least one of them and pull his fingernails out one by one until he spills the beans.” Gunna smiled grimly. “So I suggest we take one hotel each and give the manager a hard time until they come up with some names. How does that sound, gentlemen?”
Gunna was back at the Harbourside Hotel and this time Símon’s smile had disappeared into the depths of the carefully shaped beard that framed his mouth.
“It’s simple enough,” Gunna told him. “There’s a scam that’s been taking place in hotels all over the city and I’m sure you’re aware of it. A man takes a room and goes up there with a lady. An hour or two later there’s a phone call to the hotel asking for someone in a certain room to be assisted. You get the picture?”
Símon shifted uncomfortably in the chair that fitted snugly into his curved desk. “I’ve heard … rumors that this was more than a one-off,” he admitted finally. “But it’s not something I’ve had to deal with personally.”
“All right, then. Tell me a few of these rumors, would you?”
He scowled and Gunna could see him wondering what to say.
“As you can imagine, this is terribly sensitive,” he said finally, with an effort. “I’m not sure what I can tell you.”
“I would suggest that you tell me everything you know, because if you don’t and it comes out later that you withheld information, then you’ll find yourself in a heap of trouble up to your eyeballs.”
Gunna watched as Símon fought an internal struggle.
“I think you might have to speak to the managing director,” he said finally. “This is something that affects the whole group.”
“Right. So where’s the managing director?”
“Er … she’s in London at the moment but should be back at the weekend.”
“Good grief!” Gunna exploded. “I don’t have the time or patience to wait for someone who’s on a jaunt overseas, especially as this concerns what could conceivably be a murder investigation at the Gullfoss, which is all part of the same group, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry,” Símon replied, a querulous note in his voice. “I’m not sure that I have the authority to disclose this kind of information.”
“Fair enough. If you don’t want to make a decision, then I’ll speak to your managing director and she can make it for you. Whichever way, it looks bad, doesn’t it?”
“There have been …” Símon paused and Gunna waited expectantly. “There have been incidents. We obviously want to keep this as quiet as possible, as you can appreciate,” he gulped. “I don’t have details. We don’t log this kind of thing. Instructions from higher up. It happens. Whoever is on duty deals with it and we don’t encourage staff to tell management about it afterward.”
“So if something does go wrong, you can say, with a grain of truth, that you didn’t know anything about it?”
Símon grimaced again, and while Gunna understood that he was in a difficult position, she found it hard to feel sympathy.
“Look. Nobody wants to make waves. It’s a tough world out there,” he said with a vague jerk of his head toward the window and the street outside. “Jobs don’t grow on trees like they did a few years ago, so we keep quiet and don’t make a fuss. And if the MD knew I’d told you that, I’d be joining the dole queue tomorrow morning,” he said bitterly.
“All right. Let’s make it easy for all concerned, shall we? Tell me what you can and I didn’t hear it from you.”
Símon raised his hands helplessly. “I’ve already told you everything I know. The duty managers deal with these incidents. I only hear about them indirectly later. But I can tell you that Magnús dealt with such an incident recently.”
“And he’s not here?”
“No. Still off sick, apparently.”
“How convenient.”
“Don’t be so idiotic. Who would want to keep tabs on you? Me, I can understand, being the handsome devil I am.” Már Einarsson grinned, hoping to put Jóel Ingi at his ease, but the flinty expression stopped any attempt at humor.
“That fucking computer is dynamite,” he hissed, flicking a glance around the coffee shop that was at the far end of his morning run. “Do they know that?”
“I’m not sure what they know. I don’t think Ægir knows anything, but he suspects everyone of everything. It’s a power game for him. Don’t let him grind you down, because he’ll jump down your neck if he senses weakness.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Jóel Ingi said. “But you remember the Libyans. There were no memos, no notes, nothing.”
“Of course. And that’s only right. No paper trail to follow.”
“Yeah. No paper trail,” Jóel Ingi snapped. “But there’s a fucking electronic trail. It’s in that computer if someone can figure out how to hack their way into it.”
Már stared at Jóel Ingi in disbelief. “You mean you didn’t delete everything?”
“I thought I had,” he said miserably. “I deleted all the incoming mails but not the outgoing ones. I just forgot,” he added bleakly.
“And if that gets into the wrong hands”-Már breathed-“it’ll destroy the man, and he’ll take everyone he can with him, if I know him right. Ægir, you, me. We’re all expendable as far as he’s concerned.”