“So? Sue me,” Hinrik offered with a lopsided smile. “Go to the police and see what they say.”
“You don’t understand-”
“I reckon I do understand. You get rolled by some tart and you want it sorted out discreetly. But you didn’t tell me you liked rough stuff, did you?”
Hinrik grinned, but his triumph faded at the sight of the fury etched on Jóel Ingi’s face.
“You really don’t understand, do you? You have no idea how deep this goes, you stupid bastard,” he snarled.
“Hey, look. It’s nothing to do with me, man. You asked me to do a job and I’ve done what I can.”
Jóel Ingi’s palm smacked the table with a crack and his lip trembled. Hinrik stopped with the joint halfway to his mouth in surprise. “You idiot,” he whispered. “You don’t understand. If you don’t come up with the name and address you were paid to find, then I’m going to be in the shit up to my neck, and anyone who had anything to do with that computer is going to be right there with me.”
“Ah,” Hinrik said with a slow smile. “So what’s this computer you’re talking about now?”
Jóel Ingi’s stomach lurched as he realized he’d said too much in the heat of the moment. “You fool. You fucking idiot. Forget that stupid laptop. I’ve been tailed and watched for the last month, and do you imagine for a second that you haven’t been as well? This is poisonous, you stupid thug. Anyone who’s had anything to do with me is going to get hauled in and you can take it from me that none of us will get a slap on the wrist and few months in an open prison.”
“Get away, will you? Don’t try and sell me this kind of crap. This is Iceland, not some stupid fucking mafia country.”
Jóel Ingi’s hand, still on the table where it had landed, began to tremble. “You think so? I’m telling you. This goes way beyond anything you might think, and there are people with reputations and influence to protect who aren’t going to let anything stand in their way, least of all a deadbeat pusher who thinks he’s some kind of big shot.” He sneered. “When you wind up dead in a ditch, d’you really think anyone’s going to shed a tear, or even look too hard for whoever did it?”
“Wha-? What’s going on?”
A heavy-faced woman appeared at the kitchen door, her eyes puffy and her hair tousled. Jóel Ingi eyed her with alarm as she shuffled into the kitchen and let water gush from the tap into a grubby glass. As she drank he saw with alarm a lurid home-made tattoo across her shoulder, emerging from the gaping arm hole of the vast sleeveless shirt that was obviously the only thing she was wearing.
“Why don’t you go back to bed, Ragga?” Hinrik suggested.
She belched and sat down on a stool as she rummaged through a drawer. “Pills,” she said. “My head feels like it’s been under a truck.”
Hinrik put his hand up to a shelf and picked up a packet of painkillers, which he tossed to her, his mind ticking over at the possibilities that Jóel Ingi had unwittingly revealed. He had assumed the man had wanted to find someone so he could administer a beating, but it seemed there was more to it, maybe something that could turn out to be profitable. Ragga caught the packet and snapped four pills from it, throwing them down her throat and gulping the glass of water to wash them down.
“Shit,” she moaned, holding her head in her hands. “Must have been a good time last night. I don’t remember a thing.”
“You had a good time, I assure you,” Hinrik said. “Ragga, we’re talking business here.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Leave us to it for a while, will you?”
“I know, I know. I’m going to take myself back to bed like a good girl.”
She hauled herself to her feet and padded out of the room. Jóel Ingi felt a flickering of excitement in spite of himself at the sight of heavy legs and muscular shoulders as Ragga scratched and yawned on her way out. She stopped in the doorway, blew a kiss and belched before vanishing. Jóel Ingi could hear the sofa in the next room creak and a mutter of sound as the TV clicked on.
Ragga’s arrival had broken Jóel Ingi’s concentration. He could feel anger dissipating and being replaced by a wave of fatigue. He dug his fingernails into the palm of his hands and thought of everything he had worked towards; it was all about to be lost because of a stupid indiscretion.
“I want that woman’s address,” he snarled, feeling the anger return. “Otherwise I’ll have some really unpleasant people coming after me, and I’ll make damn sure they come after you as well.”
The bakery was full. Baddó stood in the queue with his parka hood down but with a scarf swathed around as much of his lower face as he could manage. The bakery wasn’t big, but the quality of its Danish pastries and the easy parking outside meant the place did a roaring trade in the mornings.
Not in any hurry, he watched from one of the tall tables at one side, sipping coffee and idly flipping through yesterday’s DV newspaper. He watched people lining up to get to the counter, tracking them as they left their cars outside and made their way in through the doors to buy their lunchtime sandwiches or a mid-morning snack.
It’s just as well Iceland’s such a safe place, Baddó thought. In mainland Europe, or practically anywhere else, people would be careful about the wallets and phones hanging out of their pockets.
He moved into the queue at the counter, one eye on the array of pastries on display but another on a young man in a knitted jacket with gaping pockets. He stood there deciding what to buy, a bunch of keys clearly visible in his cavernous pocket.
An orange-faced girl standing next to him looked blankly at the same display, a handbag slung over her shoulder, popping gum as she waited in the queue. He could sense her impatience growing behind the incongruous midwinter tan as her gum popped rapidly three times.
“In a hurry, are you?” Baddó asked and was rewarded with a blank stare and a nod. The rattle of something cheerful breezed out of the iPod earpieces in sharp contrast to the bored look on her round face as she shuffled past him. Baddó took a short half step to one side, letting her brush against his coat as he smartly dipped into the handbag and came out with a set of keys that vanished into his parka’s sleeve.
He slipped out of the bakery and clicked the fob. Looking around for flashes, he saw the hazard lights of an anonymous mud-brown Hyundai wink as he pressed the button a second time to make sure. As he drove away, Baddó caught a glimpse of the girl emerging from the bakery with a bag of Danish pastries in one hand, rummaging in her capacious handbag for keys that were no longer there.
The old lady had sat stiffly on one of the plastic chairs in reception for half an hour before a uniformed officer showed her into the interview room.
“Have I done something wrong?” she asked as Gunna sat down opposite her. “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time?”
“Not at all. Quite the opposite,” Gunna assured her and turned in her chair to call back the uniformed young man who was just about to close the door behind him.
“Hey, before you go,” she called after him, “since we kept this lady waiting for so long, how about you bring her a cup of coffee?”
“We don’t normally …” he began before Gunna cut him off firmly.
“It’s not every day that someone takes the trouble to come down here and give us information. So two coffees, please,” she instructed. “Milk?” she asked the elderly lady who sat with her handbag clutched in her grasp.
“Yes, please,” she said and finally let slip a glimmer of a nervous smile.
The door shut, although the young officer’s disgruntlement could be felt through it.
“My name’s Gunnhildur Gísladóttir and I’m a CID officer. My colleague has given me the gist of what you came in here to tell us, so now I need you to tell me the story again,” Gunna said. “But first, could you tell me your name?”
“I’m Sigurlín Egilsdóttir but everyone calls me Lína. I live at Háaleitisbraut eighty. It’s a block of flats and I’m on the ground floor on the right.”