Copyright © 2011 by Quentin Bates
All rights reserved.
Author’s Note
The village of Hvalvík is fictional, but not entirely imaginary.
My imagination has placed it on the south-west coast of Iceland, a dozen or so kilometres east of the fishing port of Grindavík, which Hvalvík resembles up to a point. Hvalvík is real enough in that it is a combination of the features of many of the quiet villages dotted around the coast of Iceland, where most people make their living from the land or the sea in one way or another. The place is fictional to avoid giving offence to a real police officer, mayor, taxi driver or petrol pump attendant by choosing a real location. Other locations are genuine, although a few liberties have been taken with place names.
With thanks to everyone who provided help and encouragement — you know who you are. Particular thanks are due to Bylgja for her patience in answering even the most obvious questions.
1
Tuesday, 26 August
Water gurgled between the piles of the dock and the car’s tyres juddered over the heavy timbers. Somewhere a generator puttered on board one of the longliners tied up at the quay.
The driver turned off the engine and killed the lights before stepping out of the car and taking a deep breath of fragrant summer air, still and laden with the tang of seaweed. He looked about him carefully and walked along the quay, watching the boats for any sign of activity.
Satisfied, he opened the passenger door. He lifted the passenger’s legs out and then stooped to drape an arm over his shoulders. Grunting with exertion, he hauled the passenger to his feet.
‘Waas goin’ on?’ the passenger slurred as the driver steadied himself, planting his feet wide. He half supported, half dragged the passenger the few metres towards the gangplank of the nearest boat.
‘Come on. Almost there.’
The passenger staggered against the driver. ‘W-w-where’s this?’
‘Nearly there,’ the driver muttered to himself as much as to his passenger.
He braced one booted foot on the heavy timber parapet running the length of the quay, and quickly straightened his back as he tipped the passenger headlong into the blackness below. The splash competed for a second with the muttering generator on board a nearby boat and the driver stood still, listening intently. Hearing nothing from below, he nodded to himself and padded back to the car.
A moment later the engine whispered into life and the car vanished into the night.
The phone buzzed angrily. Gunna fumbled for the handset in the dark and barked into it.
‘Gunnhildur.’
‘Good morning. Sorry to wake you up. I did wake you up, didn’t I?’ asked a familiar voice as she cast about for the face that went with it.
‘You did,’ she yawned. ‘Who is this?’
‘Albert Jónasson.’
Gunna stretched a hand to the curtain and twitched it aside to let in a glare of early morning sunlight.
‘And what can I do for you at this ungodly hour?’ she asked, knowing that Albert Jónasson was not a man to trouble a police officer without good reason, especially one who had arrested him only a few weeks before.
‘Thought you’d be the best person to talk to. There’s a bloke down by the quay.’
‘You woke me up to tell me there’s a stranger by the dock?’ Gunna growled.
‘Yeah. A stranger who’s dead.’
She snapped awake and swung her feet on to the cold floor. ‘Where?’
‘On the beach by the pontoons. Saw something in the waves and went to have a look.’
‘Right. Stay where you are. I’ll be right there.’
Gunna drove past the half-dozen longline boats tied up at the quay and slowed down as the car rumbled on to the black gravel that made up the track leading to the small boat dock. She could make out a solitary figure standing next to the only boat there, a bearded bear of a man in orange oilskin trousers pacing the pontoon dock next to a spotless fishing boat that puttered with its engine idling.
She parked at the top of the dock among the fishermen’s pickup trucks and Albert Jónasson strode to meet her, pointing at a bundle lying among the waves lapping on the black sand of the beach a few metres away.
‘Down there,’ he said grimly, following behind as Gunna trod gingerly, wary of disturbing anything.
‘Have you been down here, Albert?’ she called over her shoulder.
‘No fear. Leave well alone, I thought.’
‘You haven’t had a look? How did you know it was a body?’
‘I got here a bit late. All the others were away before daybreak. I was just starting up and saw something floating, so I had a look with the binoculars and saw what it was. So I thought I’d better give you a call.’
Gunna ripped a pair of surgical gloves from the pouch on her tool belt and snapped them on before she squatted by the bundle and gently smoothed matted red hair back from a face that looked peaceful but lost. She pressed the button on her Tetra communicator and spoke into the tiny microphone on her collar.
‘Nine eight four one, nine five five zero. Are you there, Haddi?’
She retreated and pulled her phone from her pocket.
‘Albert, are you going to sea today?’ she asked as the dialling tone buzzed.
‘I was going to.’
‘All right. Ah, Haddi, that took a while,’ she said, switching her attention to the phone. ‘Look, shelve everything, we have an unidentified body floating in the small boat dock. You’d better get the cavalry out.’
Albert watched Gunna nodding as she paced back and forth, admiring her solid frame inside the uniform that didn’t do it justice.
‘No,’ she continued. ‘Ambulance and the technical division, discreetly if that’s at all possible. Get Bjössi over from CID in Keflavík if he’s not too busy with the Baltic mafia. OK?’
She ended the call and looked over to where Albert was waiting patiently for her.
‘Am I all right to go to sea today, then?’
‘When will you be back?’
‘Three. Four, maybe.’
‘Go on then. But I’ll need you to make a statement when you’ve finished landing your fish.’
‘No problem,’ Albert said gratefully, already making his way along the pontoon and throwing off the boat’s mooring ropes in the process. ‘See you later, Gunna,’ he called out as the boat surged from the quay.
And I’ll stay here and wait for the professionals to turn up, Gunna thought, opening the squad car’s boot to get out a roll of tape to cordon off the area. She wondered if the tape had ever been used before in Hvalvík, a village where a speeding ticket or an uncooperative drunk were the most serious crimes she or Haddi normally had to deal with.
26-08-2008, 0944
Skandalblogger writes:
You can’t keep a good blog down!
So, we’re back and once again the Icelandic scandal blog has a brand-new home! We’ve been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail one more time, so this time we’re back stronger than ever in a delightful part of the world where they respect the power of Mr Visa to overrule the pathetic attempts of those-who-run-things to silence free speech. Hurrah for the Tiger economies! Free speech is there for those willing to pay for it!
Making friends and influencing people!
But anyway, folks, and we mean that most sincerely, our favourites are still up to their old tricks. Gunni Benedikts at the trade ministry, no doubt after a looong lunch with his old chum Óli at agriculture, has just decided to block imports of New Zealand lamb to our fair country. Now, some of you may find this a bit hard to stomach, what with all the claptrap these guys have been spouting over the years about free market economics, going for the most competitive bid, and all that shit. But let’s remember which party holds trade? And agriculture? Of course, it’s our old friends the Progressives, and we can’t go upsetting the farmers, or at least the half-dozen who are still in business and who vote for them, just by letting them be undercut by cheap foreign imports. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?