“Absolutely.”
“Once we are alone, I’m at work. I expect you to address me as ‘mistress’ at all times. If at any time you want to stop, all you have to do is say ‘terminate’ and we stop immediately. You’re happy with that?”
“Understood.”
“What could you tell me about forklift trucks, then?” she asked, her voice silky, and deliberately uncrossed her legs as slowly as she dared.
“Well, they come in all sizes. Depends what you need to …”
His voice faltered as Hekla re-crossed her legs the other way, hiding the reason for Haraldur’s sudden loss of speech. She poured fragrant tea into her cup and sipped, looking over the rim at him and wanting to laugh as he quickly gulped his drink. “You were saying?”
Jóel Ingi Bragason shrugged on his jacket and picked his way through the toys that his wife’s nieces and nephews had left littering the hall to the door of the flat.
“See you at six,” he called out, waiting for a second for a reply that didn’t come from his wife before closing the front door and cursing the realization that she must have gone back to sleep.
It was cold and damp outside, as well as dark, and Jóel Ingi found it difficult to reconcile himself to Icelandic winters, even in Reykjavík where heavy snow was a rarity. The years of study in America and a delightful sojourn at the Sorbonne had spoiled him, he reflected as he took short steps along the icebound but gradually thawing pavement, scared that overconfidence in unsuitable shoes would send him flying. Once in the car, he felt better. It became a bubble around him, safe and warm, its airbags and discreet steel pillars protecting him from the cruel world outside.
He could have walked to work in roughly the same time as it took to walk to the car and drive it to the underground car park beneath the ministry.
Coffee arrived halfway through the morning and it was a relief. A couple of glasses of wine the night before had left him heavier than he should have felt and Jóel Ingi wondered if this was the onset of middle age. In spite of two strong cups of coffee, he struggled to stay awake during a meeting later in the morning, and had to force himself to pay attention to the minutiae of European Union proceedings.
Checking his phone discreetly during the meeting, there were no messages from Agnes, which was a relief, as she had taken to shooting him sideways glances, and he was beginning to get the feeling that she was checking up on him. Shrugging off his misgivings, he steered his thoughts back to the fine detail of the proposed policy, but not before noticing with pleasure that the most junior person in the room, a newly appointed secretary, had slipped off her shoes under the table opposite him and that she had delightfully shapely calves. The voice of the meeting’s chairman became little more than a distant drone as Jóel Ingi’s thoughts drifted increasingly toward how those legs might shape up above the knee.
As his thoughts slipped in another direction, he scowled to himself, unconsciously chewing his lip as memories of that damned woman came back to him again, and he wondered if that afternoon would come back to haunt him. He started as he looked up and saw with discomfort that the girl with the delightful calves was looking right at him with concern in her eyes. Jóel Ingi smiled as broadly as he could and hoped that he hadn’t looked too bored or stupid.
The city felt different. There was a cautious, watchful feel to Reykjavík, as if the place were waiting for another kicking. Baddó hadn’t spent many of his years away following events in Iceland, but the news of the financial crash and then the volcano erupting and stopping air traffic had been the basis of a few ribald comments from prisoners who hadn’t got to know him or his reputation, resulting in more than one sore head.
When Baddó had left Iceland for somewhere a man could have space to flex his muscles, it still felt like a quiet backwater, a place where not much happened and, when it did, it wasn’t going to happen in too much of a hurry, regardless of how much fuss people made. The occasional visit during the good years before he had fallen foul of the wrong people and found himself behind bars, when it seemed that business had discovered some hidden philosopher’s stone had left a sour taste behind. All the same, it had been like a rest cure to come back and see the place once in a while. Although most of his family hadn’t wanted a great deal to do with him, there were a few friends who respected a man who could stand his corner and keep his mouth shut.
Now it was different. Baddó had to admit even to himself that he was tired. He had been ready to explode with fury at any moment during the flight over the Baltic with a mustachioed policeman on either side of him, and while they sat and wolfed down pizzas and beer at Kåstrup, their eyes never strayed far from him. The two hulking giants didn’t take their eyes off him until the stewardess had closed and locked the pressure-tight door of the aircraft that would take him back to Iceland for the first time in almost a decade.
He unfolded the newspaper he had put under his arm without thinking in the shop at the corner, and was surprised to see that it was in English. He threw it in the bin, lay down on the wine-red sofa, tucking a cushion under his head, and tried to sleep. Ten minutes later he gave up and stood to gaze out at the grey roofs opposite the little flat’s bathroom window, watching flakes of snow spiral down and settle. It was going to be a cold day, he thought, wondering when María would be home.
“His name’s Jóhannes Karlsson,” Helgi said. “Shipowner from Húsavík, retired. Lives in Copenhagen part of the year. Rolling in dosh, if I recall correctly. Used to be in politics years ago, MP for a term or two in the seventies, until he decided business was more important, or lucrative, than politics. Does that tell you what you want to know?”
Gunna and Helgi had retired to a corner of the hotel’s bar to confer while the forensic team and the police pathologist examined the room where they had left the late Jóhannes Karlsson still strapped to the bed he had died on.
“Independence or Progressive?”
“Independence Party, I think. I wouldn’t want to think that he was one of us,” Helgi said in a severe tone.
“One of you, you mean. I’d prefer it if you didn’t take me for a Progressive Party supporter, thank you very much.”
“Sorry. I never saw you as anything but a bleeding heart liberal, Gunna.”
“Cause of death?” she asked.
“You’re asking me?”
“Sorry, Helgi. No, just thinking out loud. I’m wondering if this was murder or accidental? What do you reckon?”
Helgi snorted. “Doesn’t look in the least bit intentional to me. I reckon there was some fun and games going on, our boy got his first stiffy in years and keeled over under the strain. The girlfriend-or boyfriend, or paid companion, or whatever-ran for it. That’s what tells me that whoever was with him probably decided he or she wasn’t being paid enough to deal with this kind of stuff.”
“You know, Helgi, with brains like yours you’re wasted on the police. I reckon you’ve pretty much summed it up. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I get to go home.”
“And do some knitting?” Helgi asked innocently.
“Don’t push it,” Gunna growled, signalling to Yngvi, hovering by the bar with a cup-to-the-lips gesture. “How long has he been staying here? This place must cost a fortune,” she said as a waiter approached with a tray of cups and a flask of coffee.
“He’s been here for two weeks. His wife was here for the first week, apparently, and went home while Jóhannes was dealing with some business in Reykjavík. He was due to check out at twelve today. When he hadn’t shown up at two, the chambermaid knocked, as they always do, to see if he’d already gone, and found him spark out on the bed. She screamed, called the housekeeping manager, and she called us and the doctor who was at the bar.”