‘You’re one of these horsey types as well? I’d never have guessed you had a screw loose, young man.’
‘I’m afraid so. My brother farms near Eyrarbakki and he keeps some horses. It’s in the blood, I suppose.’
‘That would be fun for her and Eyrarbakki’s not that far,’ Gunna mused. ‘Now, what have you found?’
Snorri grinned. ‘Nothing from traffic. No speeding, no running red lights, nothing at all.’
‘Oh well, it was a long shot,’ Gunna conceded.
‘Ah, but there’s more. You know the big filling station by the roundabout has CCTV over its forecourt? They even have a webcam outside that shows everything that goes round the roundabout. So I went and asked nicely if they had records of everything, and there it all was. There’s only one road out to Sandeyri, so it had to go past there, and I have to say, you were absolutely right.’
‘Of course, young man. You don’t get to be sergeant by being wrong,’ Gunna said warmly. ‘Now, what does this tell us?’
Snorri scratched his head and thought. ‘Well, not a lot really, nothing that could stand up as evidence. Can’t see any registration numbers or the colour of the jeep, can’t make out the driver. All we can see is that a jeep of that model went out to Sandeyri at 22.18 on the ninth of March and there’s no sign of it coming back.’
‘Are there any gaps in this webcam?’
‘Only in the winter when it can freeze up, the guy at the filling station said, but there wasn’t a frost then. So it’s all there.’
‘So that jeep couldn’t have come back along the same road after the ninth and we wouldn’t know about it?’
‘That would mean sitting through hours of recordings to be sure.’
‘OK. So what we have here helps, but it’s never going to be evidence. Still, excellent work, young man.’
‘But that’s not all.’
‘Oh?’
‘I watched the whole sequence from that evening. There’s only a few dozen houses at Sandeyri, hardly anyone lives there. There’s practically no traffic at all out there in the evenings. But that night there was this.’
Snorri dropped another printout on the table. It showed a large car leaving the roundabout along the exit leading to Sandeyri. Gunna picked it up and looked at it carefully.
‘Time 22.44. Can’t make out the registration number,’ she said dubiously.
‘Have a closer look.’
‘At what?’
Snorri pointed. ‘There. A taxi plate. And there’s this.’
He placed a second printout on top, showing an identical vehicle entering the roundabout from the same turnoff.
‘He comes back at 23.31. That would fit nicely. Our man drives out to Sandeyri when it’s quiet. You can’t see the dock from any of the houses because it’s behind the sea wall, and nobody’s likely to be looking out of the window at that time of night anyway. He rolls his car off the dock, calls a taxi and waits to be picked up.’
‘Very neat,’ Gunna decided. ‘Right. Can we trace the taxi?’
‘Easy enough. It’s a Mercedes, dark colour, and if you look at that picture of it coming off the roundabout, you’ll see that the front wing is dented as well.’
‘Snorri, my boy, I think you can imagine what I’m going to ask you to do next.’
‘As it happens, I’ve already done it.’
‘And?’
‘The taxi is owned by a company called Radio Taxis, which is in turn owned by a gentleman called Jon Gunnsteinn Hannesson.’
‘Otherwise known as Nonni the Taxi and old friend of the police, as they say in the cop shows,’ Gunna said grimly. ‘Know him of old, I’m afraid. That’s excellent, Snorri, much more than I’d hoped you’d come up with. But, there’s one thing.’
‘Hm?’
‘I’d prefer this to be kept very discreet.’
‘Riiiight?’ he said slowly, both his tone and eyebrows rising as he said it.
‘Look, it’s not secret, but I don’t want it all over the place yet. If we dig into the Egill Grimsson case, we’re in danger of stepping on the city force’s toes to begin with, and . . .’
‘And?’
Gunna felt awkward but steeled herself to admit what she had been hoping was not the case. ‘I get the feeling this is all being sidelined. I’m sure it’s being quietly dropped.’
‘Shit. Who?’
‘Couldn’t say. I’m being leaned on by Vilhjalmur not to put too much effort into this.’
‘What? The Emperor?’
‘Excuse me? Why do you call the chief inspector the Emperor?’
‘Bara Gunnolfs said it first. Haven’t you noticed he looks like a Roman emperor?’
‘You cheeky bastards,’ Gunna guffawed. ‘I’ll bet you youngsters all say rude things about me as well.’
‘No. We like you. But we do wonder about your toyboy, though.’
‘What?’
‘You know. The one from
‘Skuli? He’s a good lad, just a bit bewildered at the real world, I reckon. He’s only been out of school a few months.’
‘He seems a strange character.’
‘That’s what a sheltered upbringing and years of university do for you, I suppose.’
‘The opposite of us, then?’
‘Yup, I’m afraid so. Anyway, say a word out of turn and I’ll tell Vilhjalmur what you lot call him and you’ll find yourself transferred to Grimsey before you know it.’
Lara looked up and frowned as she parked outside. She remembered leaving the kitchen window of her flat open so the cat could jump out on to the balcony, but she hadn’t left it that wide open.
On the stairwell something whispered to her that things weren’t quite right. She wrapped a hand around the rape alarm that nestled in the bottom of her bag, hoping that it would work if she needed it, wondering if any of the mostly immigrant occupants of the other flats in the block would hear it or even take any notice if it were to go off.
Her key slid into the lock and she swung open the door as quietly as she could, wincing to herself as it creaked. Stepping inside and leaving the door open, she looked carefully around the living room and bedroom, satisfied herself that there was nobody hiding behind the shower curtain in the tiny bathroom and only then noticed that the place had been ransacked.
Every drawer and cupboard was open, with contents spilled on to the floor. Her underwear was in a heap on the bed, jeans and tops piled on the floor. Books and papers had been hauled from shelves and the kitchen cupboard that contained her cameras had been rifled, but nothing appeared to be missing. Lara sighed with relief that she had taken her laptop with her that morning and finally put down her bags in the remaining clear space in the middle of the living room.
A sudden rattle in the kitchen made her nerves scream in alarm, until the black and white cat jumped from window sill to kitchen table with an inquiring look on its face.
‘Hi, Kisi. What happened here, then?’ she asked it, but the cat only stared back at her.
Hunched under the sink, she fumbled for the panel under the sagging kitchen unit and triumphantly brought out a handful of disks that she knew contained most of her recent work.
Relieved, she unclipped the phone from the ragged patch of denim on the waistband of her jeans and dialled 112.
18
