“It’s password protected,” Jóel Ingi offered.
“Yeah. That’s crackable for someone who knows what he’s doing. But it’s not easy, unless your password’s ‘password’ or ‘admin’ or something obvious like your wife’s name.”
“Oh …”
“Shit, you didn’t?” Már said, watching Jóel Ingi’s face fall.
The phone rang cheerfully and Svava Gunnarsdóttir answered equally cheerfully.
“Hello! Svava.”
“Good day,” a gruff man’s voice offered. “I’m looking for Haraldur Samúelsson. Do I have the right number?” he asked politely.
“Yes, you’ve come to the right place, but I’m afraid he’s at work at the moment. Can I take a message or do you want to call his mobile?”
There was a pause.
“It’s all right. I’ll call back later. It’s nothing urgent.”
“Can I tell him who called?” she asked and there was a second pause.
“Could you just tell him that Jón called and it’s about his stay at the Harbourside Hotel recently? Thanks,” the voice said, and Svava found herself listening to a dial tone as the call was terminated.
The sound of air bubbling through water confused her for a moment until Gunna remembered the new text message alert that Laufey had programmed into her phone.
Bingo, Eiríkur’s message read.
Full house? She thumbed back, walking through the angrily sleeting rain toward the car parked on the street outside the Harbourside Hotel.
Got one for you. Want the juicy details?
OK. Back at H-Gata in 10, she texted back, getting into the car and noticing with dismay the stack of printouts on the passenger seat that she still hadn’t found time to read. She remembered with a stab of discomfort that Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson’s file was there and that as the name had cropped up linked to the hotel case, she should have read it by now.
She fished out her phone and scrolled down to reply to Eiríkur’s last message.
Make that 20, she thumbed in as a second reply and started the engine, switching on the heater to clear the windscreen and start warming her feet as she skimmed his file.
Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson, born in Reykjavík in 1972, known as Baddó or Bigfoot, she read. Average height, weight and looks, no distinguishing marks. She read through a list of misdemeanors from extracting money with menaces and assault, along with several stretches in prison that included fights with other prisoners and on one occasion an extension of his sentence for knocking a warder’s front teeth out.
In 1996 he had been involved with a shipment of ecstasy that had been intercepted on the basis of information received, questioned, and then released when there was insufficient evidence to link him to the goods. But some weeks later a man had been badly beaten and Gunna’s heavy eyebrows knitted in a frown when she saw the name. According to the file, Baddó had been identified as the attacker, but with no firm evidence, no prosecution had resulted. A few months later, Baddó disappeared from Iceland and the file was empty until a request from police in Lithuania for information had been logged. Baddó, it seemed, had been involved in an operation that shipped cars stolen in Denmark and Sweden through the Baltic States to destinations in the Middle East.
As a footnote, someone had added that Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson had attended the police college in 1993-94 and had graduated with good marks, but had never applied for a position with the force, presumably having decided that the other side of law and order was more his style. Gunna noticed that prior to 1994, the man had a clean sheet; she wondered what had sent him down that particular path.
There was just one recent photograph, supplied by police in Lithuania. Gunna found herself looking into the deep, truculent eyes of a man with a bull neck and heavy shoulders, who was clearly having his picture taken against his will. His head was pitched slightly forward, showing an expanse of wide forehead and close-cropped hair, black eyes looking up at her from under heavy brows.
Gunna wondered if the Lithuanian police had methods that were less proscriptive, as a charge was made to stick and Baddó spent eight years in prison before being released and immediately arrested as an undesirable alien and flown home.
“At taxpayer’s expense and in club class, I expect,” Gunna grumbled to herself guiltily, knowing that the turmoil at home over the last few days had sapped her energy and stopped her from reading the files when she should have.
“I’m really sorry, but I have to take this,” he apologized, snatching up his phone and hurrying out into the street as he saw the number Hinrik used appear on the screen.
“Any progress?” Jóel Ingi asked as soon as the door had shut behind him, leaving Már bemused at the coffee shop table behind his tall latte.
“Hey, Jóel Ingi. How goes it? Not disturbing you, am I?”
“It’s not exactly convenient, so I’ll have to be quick. Any news?”
“Progress, but not enough to tell you much. My guy is definitely getting there, though.”
“And?”
“That’s the good news. He’s on the trail.”
“And there’s some bad news?”
Hinrik chuckled. “Funds. My guy needs another payment to continue his work.”
“So soon? But you’ve already had …”
“I told you at the start this wouldn’t be cheap,” Hinrik told him abruptly. “You want quality, you have to pay for it. Try someone else if you like, but they’ll have the same costs as we do.”
“Okay, all right. How much?”
“One will do.”
“One hundred thousand?”
“Don’t play games. One million.”
Jóel Ingi stifled a groan.
“Still there, are you?” Hinrik asked.
“Yeah. Give me your account details and I’ll transfer it across.”
“Come on. You think I pay tax? We deal in cash. Krónur, euros, or dollars. Let me know when it’s ready and I’ll tell my guy he can keep up the good work.”
“What do we have, young man?” Gunna asked, knowing that Eiríkur intensely disliked being addressed as “young man.”
“Arctic Hotel, and about three weeks ago. The manager didn’t like it one bit, but I said the alternative was that there would be a heavy investigation that would mean lots of guests and staff being interviewed, so he caved in and found some scared receptionist who had gone up to a room and untied a fat guy who’d been trussed up like chicken and blindfolded.”
“Excellent, Eiríkur. Good stuff. It’s a step up from teenagers stealing mobile phones, isn’t it? What’s the guy’s name?”
“Hermann Finnsson. He lives in Mosfellsbær and his phone number’s here,” he said, pointing as Gunna copied the details. “Oh, by the way, the transactions on Jóhannes Karlsson’s debit card are here.”
He passed Gunna a printout of an online bank statement.
“You got this from his son, right?”
“Yup. Seems he had access to one of his dad’s accounts and this one has a transaction on it right around the time the old fellow was found. The son’s pretty upset from what I can gather and is trying to shield his mother from the truth.”
“What? That his dad paid a hooker to tie him up?”
“Exactly. He’s trying to get access to the rest of his father’s accounts and he said he’d pass the details on as soon as he has them.”
“Odd shopping habits for a shipowner in his sixties, wouldn’t you say?” Gunna asked, her finger running down the list of transactions. “Plenty of cash withdrawn as well, I see. Looks like there’s more to this than meets the eye.”
“That’s a jeweler,” Eiríkur said, looking over her shoulder. “And that’s a clothes shop.”
“Something for you to investigate, Eiríkur, first thing tomorrow before they get busy. Now, where’s Helgi? Leave Hermann Finnsson to me and you get yourself off home.”