Hinrik twisted, forcing his head around. As he saw the livid cut and stitches on Baddó’s face, his eyes bulged. “Shit, man. Who did that to you?”
“You tell me. Or you’re going down there until you think of something.”
Hinrik thrashed as his face was pushed into the toilet bowl. Baddó hauled his face back out after a few seconds and Hinrik gasped for air, retching between each deep lungful, which was cut short as his head was thrust into the bowl again. Hinrik’s free hand stretched out, desperately scrabbling for a hold on anything, while his legs kicked feebly.
Baddó wrenched Hinrik’s head clear of the foul water and gave him a few seconds to haul some air deep into his heaving chest. His sparse locks of dark hair lay over his face and he made to push them away as he spluttered and fought for breath.
“Shit …” he moaned, retching yet again. “Baddó, man. I swear. It was nothing to do with me. Hell,” he moaned, his breathing starting to slow.
“Talk, Hinrik,” Baddó ordered, nodding toward the foul-smelling toilet. “Spill the fucking beans, or you’re going back down there and you’re not coming out.”
Hinrik lay collapsed against the wall, one arm behind him and the other across his chest. He stared into Baddó’s hard, dark eyes and didn’t like what he saw.
“They made a real mess of you, Baddó man,” he said. “Who were they? What did they look like?”
“You tell me.”
“Why would I have you rolled? You’re working for me, remember? Why would I have you turned over before the job’s done? Are you going to let me get up? I reckon you’ve made your point.”
Baddó allowed Hinrik to get shakily to his feet, one hand on the wall as he supported himself. He closed the lid of the toilet and sat down heavily on it, groaning. He took a better look at Baddó’s face and grimaced. “They did a job on you, didn’t they?”
“Who did?”
“Hell, Baddó. I don’t know,” Hinrik snarled. “It’s none of my doing and it’s not as if you’re short of enemies who owe you a bad turn.”
“I need some cash. Right now.”
“You have a fucking weird way of asking to be paid for a job,” Hinrik said, the shadow of a smile appearing at one corner of his thin mouth.
“But it’s more than just money, Hinrik,” Baddó snarled, pointing at his face. “This changes everything. There’s some information I’m after as well.”
Wondering if she was wasting her time, Gunna signed an unmarked car out of the pool and took it through town, pleased for a change to see clear skies after a dark night and more than a week of incessant snow, punctuated by spells of rain every time the temperature hauled itself above zero. Twice Gunna braked and swore as cars pulled across lanes without warning. The mid-morning traffic was fast and too close for comfort, with the road covered by a film of water quickening in the thin sunshine.
Past the half-empty car park at the Korputorg shopping center the traffic thinned to trucks and a few cars heading out of town and by Mosfellsbær the city receded into the distance. Esja’s white slopes gleamed in the sun and the road became a black scar lying across a landscape the color of a grubby bandage at ground level, rising to pristine white pierced with jagged black rock outcrops on the higher slopes.
The warmth of the sunshine was a welcome change, but Gunna wondered what the night would bring. The forecast was for clear weather and a northerly breeze, conditions bound to bring a chill with them, and she remembered how that morning’s sparkling air had nipped at unprotected ears and noses, as if to provide a reminder that winter was still here.
She found herself enjoying the drive through less familiar scenery. The daily commute from Hvalvík into the city had become a routine chore on most days, especially the nighttime drive both ways during the winter months. But driving this way out of town, in the opposite direction to the one that would take her to Hvalvík, was also fraught with memories of travel from her childhood home to Reykjavík in the days when roads were gravel and it was a long day’s travel to the Westfjords. She wondered idly how long it would take for people to miss her if she were to continue to the Hvalfjördur tunnel and keep driving north and then west, when her question was answered by her phone buzzing.
“Gunnhildur,” she answered.
“Driving are you?” Helgi asked.
“Yeah. But it’s all right. There are no cops about here.”
“You know Johnny Depp’s waiting for you in reception?” Helgi asked, and Gunna could hear the grin on his round face. “Refuses to speak to anyone else.”
“Can’t be,” Gunna retorted. “I left him at home, exhausted and strapped to the bed.”
“Like that guy at the Gullfoss?”
Gunna grimaced. “Nice idea, but I’m afraid not. Is there really someone for me in reception?”
“No, just wanted to see what you’d say. But I’m finished with Hólmgeir, and he sang like a bird eventually.”
“Good. Explain, if you would be so kind.”
“Right, the bones of it is that Hólmgeir and Ási were paid a bag of grass and their debts written off to beat someone up, and no, he absolutely won’t say who paid them; says it’s more than his life’s worth. He also swears blind he has no idea who the victim is and that they were just given an address and a picture, which he dropped in a bin afterward.”
“So they beat this person up, or tried to?”
“So Hólmgeir says. But he said their victim lashed out with a broken bottle, which is what gashed Ási’s leg. That’s a fatal wound, so I guess we could be looking at a murder charge there.”
“Not sure the legal eagles would swallow that,” Gunna mused. “Manslaughter, certainly, I’d say. Anything from Eiríkur?”
Helgi laughed. “Yep. The lady in the top flat is María Helga Sturlaugsdóttir. She’s mystified and hadn’t seen her brother for a few days until she came home and found a note saying he’d left town for a bit. She does shift work so it’s not unusual for her not to see him for days at a time, she told Eiríkur.”
“So who’s the brother? Anyone we know?” Gunna asked, slowing down and checking her mirror for the Kjalarnes turnoff. She could hear Helgi’s hollow laugh echo down the phone.
“He’s her younger half-brother and goes by the name of Hróbjartur Bjarnthórsson. So, yes. Our elusive victim who sneaked out of hospital this morning is Bigfoot Baddó, and he’s definitely someone we know.”
“What the hell’s going on, Helgi?” Gunna fumed. “First he’s shadowing us at the Gullfoss and then his description fits the character who was spotted after that car burned out at Grandi. Any news on that yet, by the way? Do we know if it was Magnús’s car?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t had time to pester forensics.”
“Right. Do it now. Kick them, bribe them, buy them doughnuts, whatever. If we can tie this to Bigfoot Baddó we’ll have made real progress. But circulate his description anyway. If Hólmgeir doesn’t fall apart in the witness box, we’ll have the bastard for manslaughter as well as Magnús’s murder.”
Jóel Ingi almost wanted to shed bitter tears of frustration. Agnes hummed in the bathroom, and hadn’t even asked why he was back from work so early. His distress was evident, and she seemed to be ignoring him, acting as if he wasn’t even there, sitting and staring into space as she casually piled clothes into a suitcase on the bed.
He sat on the sofa, his fingers twitching nervously as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Glancing at it, he saw “private number calling” and decided that it was best left unanswered. Hinrik had told him nothing of any use and he had come away from the flat where Hinrik lived with that bruiser of a woman as frustrated as he had been when he’d arrived.
His phone buzzed a second time and he gulped as he saw the text message displayed.