Cold Steal (42 page)

‘No, looks like they’re round the other side,’ he replied, letting the Golf creep forward. ‘There’s something going on round there. Hang on, he’s moving.’

‘Sunna María isn’t. Surely Orri’s not driving the van if can hardly stand up?’ Gunna said, pointing to the blonde figure in a belted raincoat getting into a black Mercedes four-by-four. ‘So which one do we keep track of now?’ She clicked her communicator. ‘Eiríkur, still there?’

‘Listening, chief.’

‘We have two people to follow, Sunna María in a Mercedes four-by-four,’ she said, reading out the car’s registration. ‘Got that?’

‘Got it.’

‘And Orri in the white Trafic. You have the number, don’t you?’

‘Got that as well.’

The Golf moved off as the van swung out of the car park. Gunna put a hand on Geiri’s elbow. ‘Wait a second. Let the Merc go as well,’ she said. Geiri stopped and the four-by-four sped too fast through some puddles and followed the van. ‘Now go,’ she said, as the Golf was already rolling forward.

‘That’s not our boy driving the van,’ Geiri said. ‘There’s someone else there and it’s not him.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I think so. It’s someone who sits higher than the guy we were tailing before, and whoever’s driving isn’t wearing a high-viz vest like our boy was.’

‘Right, keep in sight,’ Gunna said as they followed the van and the four-by-four along the waterfront and then up the hill. Instead of taking the turnoff to the main road, the van carried on towards the trading estate where Green Bay Dispatch had its depot.

‘Back to the yard, it seems?’

‘I don’t like it. Why’s Sunna María going that way as well?’ Gunna growled, reaching for her mouthpiece. ‘Eiríkur? What’s the situation on backup?’

‘The squad car’s a few minutes behind you.’

Geiri again slowed down as the van took an unexpected turn at the roundabout at the edge of the trading estate. ‘They’re going along the Krýsuvík road.’

‘What the hell?’

‘That means we can’t easily tail them without being seen.’

‘Hang back as far as you can, then,’ Gunna said, and speaking into her mouthpiece. ‘Eiríkur? Is there another squad car available? Or anything?’

‘It doesn’t look like it.’

‘Can you re-route the traffic guys? It looks like we’re tailing them along the Krýsuvík road, and I’m trying to second-guess where the hell they might be going. Can you get the traffic guys to go down the Kaldársels road from Hafnarfjördur?’ she said, thinking fast and trying to remember the lie of the land on these little-used country roads. ‘That way we should be able to head them off if things start to get sticky.’

‘Yep. Will do.’

‘It’s not the same driver,’ Geiri said, shaking his head.

‘Sure? How so?’

‘This guy’s not as cautious as our boy. He’s throwing that van around as if nobody’s going to have to drive it ever again.’

The ink-black rocks with patches of lichen hanging on to them for dear life sped past as Geiri drove faster to keep the two vehicles in sight. Tangles of dormant trees, leaves long fallen and their buds waiting for some spring warmth before breaking into new life, were scattered by the roadsides at intervals, with the occasional forlorn evergreen conifer here and there. Now they were in open country where any kind of traffic was a rarity and the road was rough after a winter of heavy weather. It spat stones and water back at them while the Golf’s wheels struggled to get a grip on the wet road surface. In summer, this was a popular enough place with walkers and cyclists, but on a cold spring day with winter still very much in evidence, the area was deserted.

Unfamiliar with the district, Gunna tried to think where they might be going at such speed.

‘They’re throwing up that much water that they won’t be able to see anyone following,’ Geiri said. ‘Now they’re slowing, and turning again. That’s the road towards Hvaleyrarvatn.’

‘Eiríkur. You can see us on the tracker?’

‘Got you.’

‘They’re turning along the Hvaleyri road. Warn the traffic guys, will you?’

‘We have company,’ Geiri said. ‘Look in the mirror.’

Gunna leaned forward to see that a four-by-four in police colours could be seen in the distance, its headlights dipping and bouncing as it negotiated the pitted road, while Geiri again slowed as the brake lights on Sunna María’s Mercedes glowed bright beneath the layer of grime they’d already picked up along the way.

‘If we can see them,’ Gunna said, pointing back at the police four-by-four and forward to Sunna María’s car. ‘Then they can see us.’

‘If they’re looking, and I don’t imagine they are,’ Geiri said. ‘Another turn. If you want to head them off, now might be the time.’

‘Where are they heading now?’

‘That’s the road that passes south of the lake. There are only a couple of turnoffs to summer chalets and the like.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Sure enough.’

‘Eiríkur, they’re taking the road south of the Hvaleyri lake. Get the traffic guys onto it from the other end, will you? This has gone far enough, I want them stopped.’

‘Will do, chief,’ Eiríkur said and Gunna could hear him relaying instructions on the open channel. ‘Warn them to be careful. This guy may be nasty.’

‘Armed?’

‘I don’t think so, but take care.’

The gravel road began to disintegrate as a burst of rain came down hard. Geiri switched the wipers on and they scraped pathways in the corrosive mix of water and black volcanic dust that coated the windscreen as he leaned forward to peer through the murk. The road could hardly be seen in the sudden downpour that pebbledashed the road ahead and battered the roof of the car.

‘Where the hell . . . ?’ Geiri cursed, and Gunna wound down her window, pushing her face half out to see what was happening.

‘Geiri! Back up!’ she yelled.

‘What?’

Gunna almost bounced up and down in the seat in frustration. ‘Over there, they pulled off the road.’ She pointed towards a narrow track half hidden by a clump of fir trees, meandering away from the main road and down a dip.

The Golf shuddered to a standstill, reversed at top speed, and the four-by-four behind stopped in a flurry of stones and flying water. Geiri put his foot down, spinning the wheels through the lakes forming in the road as he rounded a bend, meeting Sunna María’s jeep coming the other way. Gunna caught a glimpse of Sunna María’s face behind the wheel, white and tense, her mouth open in astonishment. Geiri spun the wheel and hauled at the handbrake, dragging the long-suffering Golf into a screeching turn that left it flat across the road as the four-by-four came to a halt.

As Gunna jumped out of the car, the acrid smell of burning was unmistakeable, and she looked around quickly to see a pall of greasy smoke from behind a low hill. She could hear the agonized rattle of the four-by-four’s gears failing to engage as she ran to Sunna María’s car, where she pulled open the driver’s door, caught a handful of coat and hair and hauled her bodily from the car, dumping her in a puddle. Only then did she look up to see the man with the hook nose and moustache glaring back at her. She sensed rather than saw the blow coming as she reached for the keys. The flat of his hand caught her on the side of the head instead of in the face, making her stagger back and trip over Sunna María lying where she had been dropped.

The man leaped into the driving seat, slammed the door and gunned the Mercedes along the track, the engine whining in complaint as it raced and the wheels spinning in wet gravel before it jumped and was gone in time to meet the police four-by-four coming the other way.

For a moment, Gunna thought the squad car was going to veer and politely let the Mercedes past, but it stopped across the road, lights flickering in the wet gloom, and the two officers in it jumped out, one with his baton already in his hand. A siren could be heard in the distance as the hooknosed man slowly got out of the Mercedes, his hands in front of him but still with a smile on his face, as he realized that the odds were against him.

‘Geiri!’ Gunna called, still dazed from the blow, panting with exertion as she ran towards the pall of black smoke. The Golf coughed and spluttered as it sped past her and around the bend to where the white van was in flames, pulling up with a crunch of tyres. Geiri hauled open the Golf’s boot and pulled out a fire extinguisher.

‘The back of the van! Geiri, open the back,’ Gunna yelled, searching her coat pockets for the gloves she knew should be there and pulling them on as she ran through the puddles. Smoke was pouring from the white van’s cab. Geiri lifted the extinguisher as if it were a toy, smashed the driver’s side window with the base of it and let fly with the contents into the van. Gunna wrenched at the rear doors, pulled one open and coughed as a gout of black smoke erupted from inside. After a few seconds it cleared a little and she jumped inside with her eyes watering and one hand over her mouth.

There was little she could see, but among the boxes that Orri had stacked in the van that morning, a foot could be seen in the gloom. Knowing she had no more than a couple of seconds at most, Gunna grabbed the foot, pulled with all her strength and found herself falling backwards out of the van into Geiri’s bear-like embrace with an unconscious Orri in her grasp.

‘Get him clear, will you?’ she gasped, coughed and doubled over, retching onto the black lava gravel as Geiri swung Orri over his shoulder and laid him on the ground next to the Golf. He came back for Gunna, helping her to her feet and half-carrying her to the car as the flames burned even more fiercely in the van, illuminating the little group in an unearthly light as the gouts of black smoke blotted out weak sunlight that fought manfully to break through the clouds after the downpour.

Gunna still felt dirty and the smell of burning clung to her in spite of a shower and clean clothes. Ívar Laxdal looked at her with respect as she dropped herself gingerly into the visitor’s chair in his office.

‘How’s Orri?’ she asked.

‘Sorry, Gunnhildur.’

‘Shit. You mean I was too late?’

‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’

Gunna scowled and smacked a fist into the palm of her other hand. ‘I knew I should have acted sooner. I should have grabbed the lot of them before they got out of town, before they had a chance to set that van on fire.’

‘Gunnhildur, you couldn’t have known.’

‘I should have known that they weren’t taking Orri somewhere for a sauna and a massage.’

She sighed, suddenly exhausted, and slumped in the chair, while Ívar Laxdal looked brighter and more cheerful than she had seen him for weeks. Gunna realized that the pressure on him had been relieved once Sunna María and the man with the hook nose were in custody. Ívar Laxdal could expect his superiors to be quietly satisfied that a difficult matter had been dealt with, and it occurred to her that she still had no idea of the man’s name.

‘So who is he?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Ívar Laxdal looked uncomfortable. ‘Our mystery man? He says his name’s Bruno Kovalchuk, and what’s interesting is that he claims diplomatic immunity.’

‘What? He’s embassy staff?’

‘It’s a bizarre claim, considering his country has no diplomatic presence in Iceland. He claims to be from Belarus, which doesn’t have an embassy here. But we have no choice but to jump through the hoops, so I’ve happily passed the whole headache over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which can deal with the Belarusian Embassy in London or Helsinki, or work through our consul in Minsk; not that I’m expecting anything to happen fast, and in the meantime he’s already been charged with assaulting a police officer.’

‘Me, once again.’

‘As you say, you. That’s enough to keep him locked away until this mess is sorted out.’

Gunna pursed her lips. ‘You’re not going to let him disappear, like . . .’

‘Absolutely not, and as soon as wherever he comes from gets the idea that he was running a drugs operation, I don’t expect they’ll want to remember who he is. I’m half expecting them to just say his passport’s a forgery so they can forget about him.’

‘It was a speed ring, then? That’s what it was all about?’

Ívar Laxdal sat back, his face relaxed for the first time since Vilhelm Thorleifsson had been gunned down in his summer house.

‘That’s what it seems. According to the dentist’s delightful wife, Bruno was getting rid of members of the group who had doubts about expanding the business or who might have wanted a share of the profits.’

‘You mean they were getting rid of their business partners one at a time? Has she said anything about Elvar Pálsson?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Eiríkur. He’s been in there with her since they were brought in. You want to sit in, or have you had enough?’

Gunna yawned. ‘I’ve had about four hours sleep in two days, so while I’m tempted to lean on Sunna María or Bruno, I’d probably be best off going home and seeing if any of my family actually recognize me. But, Alex? That was this Bruno guy, was it?’

‘So Sunna María says. She believes Bruno and Alex between them murdered Vilhelm Thorleifsson, and she thinks Bruno murdered Alex because he was unreliable. It sounds plausible to me. The question is how much she actually knows and how much she’s guessing.’

‘We know Bruno abducted Jóhann. What about the Latvian business partner, Boris Vadluga?’

Ívar Laxdal smiled humourlessly.

‘As clean as a whistle, ostensibly. Unless Bruno decides to say something and implicate him, then we have only his financial involvement with these people as a business partner and the main investor in the Vison fur farm. So it appears that Bruno Kovalchuk, Sunna María and others were using Boris Vadluga’s businesses as a front for their drug operation. I’ll have to leave it to the financial crime division and the police in Latvia to decide whether or not he was part of all this.’

Gunna stretched. The day’s tension and the tumble from the black four-by-four had left her stiff and aching, although she was delighted that Sunna María had broken her fall. ‘So what’s your plan of action?’

‘We have to establish that Bruno Kovalchuk, whoever he is, really did murder Vilhelm Thorleifsson and Alex Snetzler, what happened to Juris, and if Elvar Pálsson is still alive or if he has been disposed of as well. We have evidence that he abducted Jóhann, so there’s no question of bail.’