He fought to reach elusive scraps of memory that were probably only a few days old but which felt as if they were in the distant past. Jóhann wondered why he had gone out, leaving Sunna María with the blonde security girl with the tight bottom and an air of competent menace about her at the hotel. He was sure of that, and sure that they were thought to be in some kind of danger. He recalled that Vilhelm had been murdered and he shivered, although he had never liked the man much. He had been a friend of Sunna María’s, just like Elvar; boys from some small fishing village who had made a pile of money selling scrap tonnage before they’d made the pile bigger by making the tonnage work instead of scrapping it.
He felt that Vilhelm had always been a dangerous friend to have, someone with only one real aim: to make money by any means, watchfully sizing up the world around him through those frameless glasses and attaching a mental price tag to everything he saw. Elvar was much the same, he decided, more easy-going on the surface, but with the same ruthless drive for cash underneath.
He thought fondly of Sunna María and hoped that she was missing him, or at the least, was worried about him. She had been deeply upset by the violent death of her friend and he could tell that she was far from her normal self, preoccupied and her thoughts clearly not on him in the few days between his return to Iceland and his disappearance.
They needed a holiday. It was time to reconnect, he told himself. There had been lapses on both sides and he assumed Sunna María imagined that he had no idea about her occasional fling with a young man and on one occasion with a brash young woman. He wondered if Sunna María was aware that his own lapses had all been long ago. He felt that she distrusted Nina, the German widow he had been doing business with for some years importing dental equipment, and he was sure that Sunna María felt there was something more there than a business relationship.
Jóhann admitted to himself that a few years earlier he would have jumped on Nina joyfully and added a notch to the respectable number on his bedpost, but he was an older man now and he valued Nina’s friendship as well as her business, and business and pleasure rarely mix, he told himself, his mind straying back to somewhere warm.
Greece, maybe, he decided. Once he got back to Reykjavík he would book a couple of weeks on some island in the sun where they could sleep and read, drink rough wine, eat simple food and cement their faltering relationship before it was too late. There were more important things in life than business, money and expensive toys, he told himself as he nodded off to sleep under yet another assault on the hut’s tin roof.
The man looked older than Orri remembered from their only previous meeting. The bushy moustache looked greyer and the artificial light of the shopping centre accentuated the lines on his face.
He stirred sugar into his coffee and smiled at Orri in a way that made him look sinister rather than friendly.
‘Tell me the story, Orri.’
‘All of it?’
‘I’m a good listener.’
‘The police have been asking me questions. They reckon I sold some stolen jewellery to an antique shop.’
‘And did you?’ the man asked, sipping his coffee with his little finger cocked at an absurd angle.
‘Well, yeah. I did.’
‘I recall advising you to keep out of trouble.’
‘This was before. Weeks ago.’
‘I see.’
He sat for a long time holding his coffee cup in front of him, looking past Orri’s shoulder at the window behind him. Orri wondered what he was thinking and what needed so long to consider.
‘You know this place better than I do,’ he said suddenly. ‘What do you think? Do you think they may have linked you to anything else? Note that I’m not asking what else you might have on your conscience.’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve always been very careful and I don’t take chances unless I have to.’
‘But you did that time? Why didn’t you dispose of the jewellery through your usual routes?’
Orri opened his mouth and closed it again. He thought quickly and wondered if the man would understand that the gold clasp reminded him of the grandmother who had been there for him when his own mother had no time for her children. The thought of something so old and precious being melted down had gone against the grain in a way he couldn’t explain and which had also taken him by surprise. He twisted uncomfortably in his chair and looked behind him, pretending to see if they were overheard.
‘Nobody’s eavesdropping on us, Orri.’
‘I’m getting paranoid,’ he said with a short laugh, having seen nothing except a man reading a tablet computer on the far side of the otherwise empty café.
‘Where do you usually dispose of your merchandise?’
‘Through someone reliable.’
‘Someone at your workplace?’
Orri stared, wondering where else this strange man would cheerfully wrongfoot him. ‘Could be.’
‘You are aware that Alex works for the owners of Green Bay Dispatch and he does a little freelance work on his own account?’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘Let’s say that we are aware of Alex and what he does.’
‘So you’re from Latvia as well?’
A smile flickered under the moustache. ‘Very clever, Orri. You’re a smart operator,’ he said and his face returned to its previous stony expression. ‘As I said to you before, don’t ask questions when you’re better off not knowing the answer.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘But now that you’re here, I have another job for you.’ With one gloved finger he pushed a box and an envelope stiff with notes across the table. ‘Take care. Don’t take chances. Withdraw if you feel it’s safer, but send a message to me if you do. Understand?’
‘Understood,’ Orri said, in spite of his misgivings eagerly pocketing the cash in a swift movement that didn’t escape notice.
Ívar Laxdal stopped her outside his office, his brawny arms folded over his chest. ‘I don’t believe in coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.’
‘True enough. But people’s paths can cross by chance,’ Gunna said. ‘But I can’t help being worried about all this.’
Ívar Laxdal looked long, hard and unnervingly into Gunna’s eyes, snapping his fingers in thought and looking away a fraction of a second before she was ready to give in and blink.
‘In what way? What worries you more than usual?’
‘You know as well as I do that the local criminals sell homegrown dope and home-made booze. The Baltic types deal in speed. They both do burglaries and all kinds of stolen-goods scams.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘I’m hoping there isn’t some kind of turf war brewing. One crowd or the other looking to steal the other’s business. That’s what’s worrying me.’
‘Because it would get nasty?’
‘Exactly. I like a quiet life, and if it happens, we’ll be right in the middle.’
‘Is there anything you need? Do you want to recall Helgi? I feel that you should.’
‘Helgi will be back next week anyway. I could do with a few things that I’m not allowed, but traces on a bunch of phones would be useful. Apart from that, I’d just appreciate it if you could keep Sævaldur out of my hair.’
‘I can do that. Give me the names and numbers and I’ll get the warrants as soon as I can.’
Gunna scribbled in her folder and handed him a slip of paper. ‘I’d love to be able to put a tracker on Orri’s car, but I guess that’s against the rules?’
Ívar Laxdal allowed himself a wintry smile. ‘I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect too much, Gunnhildur. Don’t expect too much.’