Vilhjálmur Traustason looked worried. ‘She is a minister’s wife,’ he reminded her.
‘A bent minister,’ Gunna retorted.
Ívar Laxdal opened his mouth to speak when Bára interrupted. ‘Gunna! Chief!’ she squawked, hand over the phone.
‘What is it?’
‘The car’s been found.’
‘The rental car?’
‘Yup. It’s in Hafnarfjördur. 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 Reykjavík 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.’
‘Lárus Jóhann.’
‘It’s me. I need a favour.’
‘Bjarni Jón. I hardly expected a call from you.’
‘Yeah. I have a lot to deal with right now,’ Bjarni Jón 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 Sigurjóna, 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 Jón took a long breath. ‘You know that things are changing?’
‘Ah, the old man’s not going to let you tough it out?’
Lárus Jóhann chuckled grimly at Bjarni Jón’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 Árni Johnsen.’
Bjarni Jón sighed. ‘If it happens, I hear you’re tipped for the treasury, or am I wrong?’
Lárus Jóhann 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?’ Lárus Jóhann asked sharply, and Bjarni Jón 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?’
‘Lárus, 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, Lárus, the one your wife owns forty per cent of. That one.’
‘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, Lárus.’
‘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 Jón 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 Finnsdóttir 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 Jóga 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
Hårde 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.