Gunna nodded. ‘You’re quite right, although I can’t see our boy checking in there somehow. But it fits. The man does have a certain style,’ she admitted.
Gunna ground her half-smoked Prince beneath a heel and they walked back towards the incident room where Snorri was watching his computer screen while carrying on a conversation through the headset clamped to one ear.
‘Thank you, yes. We’ll follow that up. Goodbye,’ he said, hanging up.
‘Anything useful?’ Gunna demanded.
‘Petrol station attendant on Hringbraut. Reckon he sold Harde a hot dog and a bottle of mineral water last night. Worth a visit, d’you reckon?’
‘Definitely. You’d best get on with that right now and check on that report from the girl in Hafnarfjordur who saw him this morning while you’re at it. But first, Snorri, tell me something.’
‘Chief?’
‘If you were on the run and wanted to keep a low profile, what would you do? Come on, let’s think about what one of us might do in Harde’s position.’
‘Me?’ Snorri said slowly. ‘I’d just live in the car for a couple of days, park up here and there, keep moving around. Maybe find a shed or something to lie low in, or maybe a boat somewhere. There’s plenty of decommissioned boats around that aren’t going anywhere. It depends how long,’ he finished.
‘That’s just it. It depends how long for,’ Gunna mused. ‘People get noticed around harbours now that they’re so quiet. I’m inclined to go along with what you said, Bara.’
‘Which was what?’ Snorri asked.
‘Do it in style. Check into the priciest hotel in town. Bara, as it was your idea, you’d better see to this. Go round all the hotels within spitting distance, do all of them.’
Bara nodded and went to her desk to pick up the phone as Snorri pulled his jacket and squared his cap on his head.
‘Bara, you can ask S?valdur — sorry,
‘Yup,’ Bara said, looking up as Snorri stepped out of the room, holding the door wide for Vilhjalmur Traustason accompanied by the brooding form of Ivar Laxdal.
‘Progress, Gunnhildur?’ Vilhjalmur asked gently, while the National Commissioner’s deputy cast his eyes around the room.
‘Bugger all, actually. Harde’s been seen in practically every part of Iceland in the last twenty-four hours, and most of them we can discount entirely once we’ve spoken to the person calling in. A couple of sightings in Reykjavik and Hafnarfjordur, one from a petrol station on Hringbraut that sounds convincing, and then there’s a girl who works in a coffee shop in Hafnarfjordur who says she sold him a couple of Danish pastries. That’s convincing as the girl’s from Estonia and said the way the man spoke sounded familiar. Snorri’s on his way to interview her and see if there’s any relevant CCTV footage anywhere. That’s it for now. We’re organizing a sweep of hotels this evening in case he’s booked himself in somewhere.’
‘You think that’s likely?’ Ivar Laxdal asked forbiddingly.
‘I’m not convinced,’ Gunna admitted. ‘But I think we have to check. I feel it fits in with the man’s character. He does things in style.’
‘Up to you. But I’ve read the file from Sweden as well. He’s a military man and used to roughing it. Don’t rule that out.’
‘Point taken,’ Gunna agreed. ‘But I’m following Bara’s idea of the hotels in the first instance. I have the feeling that this might be a way of wrong-footing us as something we wouldn’t expect, so it’s worth a look. If nothing comes of it this evening, we’ll think again.’
Gunna pursed her lips in irritation. ‘The problem is,’ she went on, ‘we don’t know what he’s waiting for. Does he have a deadline? We don’t know if he’s waiting for anything in particular other than a chance to get the hell off this island. We don’t know if he’s on his own or if he has friends helping him out. I’d really like to haul Sigurjona over the coals one more time on this. If she’s not helping Harde, she’d have a damn good idea who might be.’
Vilhjalmur Traustason looked worried. ‘She is a minister’s wife,’ he reminded her.
‘A bent minister,’ Gunna retorted.
Ivar Laxdal opened his mouth to speak when Bara interrupted. ‘Gunna! Chief!’ she squawked, hand over the phone.
‘What is it?’
‘The car’s been found.’
‘The rental car?’
‘Yup. It’s in Hafnarfjordur. A traffic warden saw it had been there past the time limit, wrote out a ticket, then she checked the number and it flashed up as missing. No doubt about it.’
‘Right. Snorri’s on his way, right? Tell Reykjavik to get a technical team and a dog on to it right this minute, and I don’t give a stuff if they say they’re busy.’
‘Larus Johann.’
‘It’s me. I need a favour.’
‘Bjarni Jon. I hardly expected a call from you.’
‘Yeah. I have a lot to deal with right now,’ Bjarni Jon Bjarnason murmured into the phone. He tried to keep his voice as low as possible and was hoping that he could make a few necessary calls without alerting Sigurjona, still sitting blank-eyed in front of the 24/7 News.
‘All right. There’s not much I can do for you, my boy.’
‘Look. This is me doing you a favour as much as the other way around.’
‘One hand scratching the other, you mean?’
‘Yeah. Sort of.’
‘And what do I get out of it, whatever it is?’
‘You get some grateful people who could be in a position to be extremely helpful.’
‘Helpful, how?’
Bjarni Jon took a long breath. ‘You know that things are changing?’
‘Ah, the old man’s not going to let you tough it out?’
Larus Johann chuckled grimly at Bjarni Jon’s silence. ‘Don’t worry, my boy. It’ll all blow over soon enough. Did you think I was born yesterday? Look, there’ll be another scandal along next week, and by the time elections come round again, it’ll all be forgotten. You need a little patience and a thick skin to stay in politics, my boy. Look at Arni Johnsen.’
Bjarni Jon sighed. ‘If it happens, I hear you’re tipped for the treasury, or am I wrong?’
Larus Johann could hardly keep the flush of pride from his voice. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, young man.’
‘Yes, you do, you old fox.’
‘Nobody’s tipped for anything at the moment. My guess is that when the financial situation is announced after the weekend, the old man will want to show a united front, which means nobody will go anywhere — you included.’
‘But . . . ?’
‘When the dust settles, then there’ll be a round of musical chairs. Until then, I suggest you keep your head down and jump when the old man cracks the whip.’
‘In that case, a word to the wise.’
‘What are we talking about?’ Larus Johann asked sharply, and Bjarni Jon knew he had his full attention.
‘If you don’t know, I’m not going to say anything.’
‘Come on, play the game, will you?’
‘Larus, this is just a piece of advice that helps you far more than it helps me. Listen, there’s a ship docked at Skarfanes.’
‘What, at that fishmeal factory?’
‘Yes, Larus, the one your wife owns forty per cent of. That one.’
