‘Go on, Bjarni.’
‘This ship needs to leave on Friday without anything untoward happening. No customs, no inspections, nobody looking too closely at the crew. You understand?’
‘Not entirely, but I assume you’ll explain soon enough.’
‘When the ship’s gone, I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Just whisper in the right ears.’
‘I’m intrigued.’
‘Just do it, Larus.’
‘But you give me your word you’ll tell me what this is all about?’
‘I’ll tell you what I know. You’re in Parliament on Saturday?’
‘I’ll be in my Parliamentary office until twelve. Come and see me before that.’
‘Right. See you then,’ Bjarni Jon said, and the phone went dead.
It was still blowing gusts heavy with the tang of seaweed, but the rain had stopped and sunshine was making valiant attempts to break through broken banks of grey and black cloud scudding across from the west.
The lunchtime rush hour was at its peak and the anonymous grey Toyota sat forlornly in the car park, surrounded by the comings and goings of shoppers looking for places to park. A stream of curious onlookers were delighted to have something to watch as they waited in the burger van’s queue as the furore around the little car grew.
Helga Karen Finnsdottir was still bewildered by the storm she had unleashed by reporting the little grey Toyota. First the pleasant young policeman who said his name was Snorri had asked her some questions and then asked her not to go further than the coffee shop in the precinct as his sergeant would want to talk to her as well.
Then all hell was let loose. A van full of people in white overalls had arrived, and a mechanic with Toyota emblazoned on his overalls who had opened the car for them. Then a policeman came with a dog on a lead that sniffed the car and then appeared to go around in circles before snuffling back to a spot away over on the far side of the car park, almost as far as you could get from the grey Toyota.
Finally the rude policewoman had appeared, fired off a dozen questions and then joined the dog handler before coming back.
‘Right, what time was it when you booked the car?’ Gunna asked abruptly.
‘I already told your colleague, it was five minutes to twelve.’
‘And how long had the car been here?’
‘I took a note of its number about nine thirty.’
‘So it had been here almost three hours when you gave it a ticket?’
‘Well, yes,’ Helga Karen admitted.
‘What’s the time limit here?’
‘Well, it’s supposed to be two hours, but I don’t like to issue a ticket right on the two hours. I normally give people a few minutes. It’s easy enough to get held up.’
‘That makes you a very generous warden,’ Gunna observed, warming to the woman. ‘How long have you been doing this job?’
‘About a year. Just over.’
‘How often are you supposed to check each car?’
Helga Karen thought for a moment, huddled deep in her bright yellow waterproof uniform coat, a size or two too large for her.
‘It’s supposed to be around every hour or so,’ she said.
‘And in practice?’
‘There’s just too much to get round in an hour,’ she said helplessly. ‘We have targets and they’re quite hard to reach. I suppose normally I can get around everything in an hour and a half. But I’m on my own today as Joga who works the shift with me is off as her little boy’s ill and she couldn’t get anyone to sit with him.’
Gunna was beginning to get impatient. ‘All right, tell me exactly how long this car could have been parked here.’
‘It was there just before ten when I did my first round, but it wasn’t there when I finished at four yesterday.’
‘So it was parked here between four yesterday afternoon and around ten this morning? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Thank you. That’s what I was after,’ Gunna said, turning and striding away.
34
Thursday, 2 October
Harde parked the grey Mercedes a street away and walked up the hill with his bag over his shoulder. The car’s owner, who had made the mistake of driving down the rutted track to check on his summer house, was now lying in a heap in his own garden shed and would have no further need of either car or summer house.
From old force of habit, he had cleared up behind him, washed the dishes he had used and even hung the wet dishcloths on a rail behind the kitchen door. The magazines he had read went back to the rack next to the bed and the remote back to the plastic holder on the TV set. His brief sojourn in the shuttered summer house next to its own black-sand beach had been restful and had given him a chance to sleep, stretch and catch up on the news. There had been nothing on local TV about the hunt for him, and he assumed that this either wasn’t news any more, or else the gathering financial storm was overshadowing everything else. A computer and an internet link would have made things even better, but live football on satellite TV almost made up for it.
Letting himself in through the back door of Erna’s darkened house, he wondered just how soon the Mercedes’ owner would be missed. The elderly man who had spluttered with fury when he found Harde watching his TV wore a wedding ring, so presumably his wife would raise the alarm sooner or later. Presumably finding the white truck parked behind the summer house would put the police on to the trail of the Mercedes, but that couldn’t be helped. The system alarm bleeped its warning and Harde quickly punched in the number to disarm it. Without turning on any lights, he made his way through the house, taking in the aroma of Erna that he could smell everywhere.
The spacious bathroom sat at the middle of the house, the only room with no outside windows. Harde clicked on the light and shut the door before turning on the hot water and opening one of the cabinets to survey the rows of jars and bottles jumbled on to the shelves.
Late in the afternoon and everyone was tired. The search was in progress for Agust Vilmundsson’s scruffy pickup. The reported sightings of Harde had slowed to a trickle. Snorri was back at the airport checking flights and working with the airport police on monitoring the hundreds of people passing through the departure lounge.
Bara yawned to herself, aching to sign off and sleep for a few hours.
‘All the prints match up,’ she told Gunna. ‘All the fingerprints from the guesthouse in Mjosundsvegur, the flat in Hverfisgata and the Toyota rental car. All the same person.’
‘The cheeky, impudent bastard.’
Vilhjalmur Traustason appeared silently, accompanied again by Ivar Laxdal, hugging a slim briefcase to his chest and sporting a military-style black beret instead of his usual uniform cap.
‘Progress, Gunnhildur?’
‘Ach, our man pops up and then he’s gone by the time we get anywhere near him. The phone he was using is dead, I reckon, so no chance of tracking him through that. He had a rental car that he ditched in Hafnarfjordur and we’re as sure as we can be that he stole a white pickup and drove off in that. The search is on for that, but he may have switched cars twice more since then, for all we know.’
Gunna ran a hand through her hair, leaving it sticking up at angles. ‘I’m telling you, Vilhjalmur, this is one sly bastard. We’ve never had to deal with anyone like this before. He’s a real artist.’
‘What do you think your chances of apprehending this character are?’ Ivar Laxdal asked quietly, and Gunna
