Cold Comfort

“Ah! Got it,” Albert said in triumph. “The phone’s charging and I can open a link to download the call log data, but I’ll need a code to get into it.”

He ran a hand over the top of his bald head and tapped at the keyboard with the other. The computer beeped back and Albert’s mouth turned into the downward bow of a petulant frown. He rapidly tried another combination, with the same result, and reached for the desk phone, cradling the receiver on his shoulder as he jabbed at the keypad, hardly taking his eyes off the laptop screen.

Gunna felt entirely excluded from Albert’s world as he grunted into the phone still jammed between a shoulder and the side of his head.

“Hey, mate. Yeah. Got a D700i. Yup,” he mumbled as Gunna tried to make sense of the one-sided conversation. “Two of them, yeah. No, can’t see it. It’s the new one with the expanded memory. Got an unlock?”

He grunted monosyllabic responses into the phone and tapped at the keyboard, which refused to accept the code with an imperious alert tone.

“No, didn’t do it.”

He tapped again, and this time there was no answering beep from the laptop.

“Gotcha. Yup, thanks,” Albert grunted into the phone. “We’re in,” he announced, looking up at Gunna as if returning to the real world and flourishing an outstretched palm to show the data marching across the screen.

Gunna shifted her stool closer to the high workbench and peered at the laptop.

“I had complete faith in you, Albert. OK, what do we have?”

“Everything. There’s a trace of every piece of data that has ever gone through this phone. What are you looking for?”

“Calls to and from, especially over the last ten days or so. SMS messages, stored numbers.”

“No problem. D’you want me to email it all to you?”

“Can do. How long will that take?” Gunna asked dubiously. “Not sure. Where’s your office?”

“At the end.”

“In that case, I reckon I can get it to your computer quicker than you can get there.”

“In that case, I won’t hurry.” Gunna smiled. “I’ll need the phone as well. Evidence.”

Albert nodded. “It’s a nice one. Quite a new model that came in at the end of last year. It’s had a lot of use, I reckon. The keypad’s quite worn and you can see it’s been in someone’s pocket a lot from the way the lacquer’s gone off the corners. Where did it come from?”

“Murder victim.”

“Svana Geirs?”

“That’s the one.”

“You’d better take the charger with you as well and charge the battery right up,” Albert said, squinting at the screen and scribbling on a scrap of paper. “I’ve reset the security code to 4321, just in case,” he added.

“Thanks, Albert. Much appreciated,” Gunna said, unplugging Svana Geirs’ phone and weighing it in her hand. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Albert was already deep in his laptop as she swung open the door, and she was startled when he called out with the door closing behind her. She poked her head back in the room.

“Yes?”

“The leather mini, I reckon,” Albert grinned.

Gunna regretted the decision to print out the document that was waiting on her PC when she reached her desk after hurrying from Albert’s workshop downstairs. Pages spewed unrelentingly from the printer, crammed with lines of numbers, times and dates.

Scanning the list of logged calls, she saw that at the top was a withheld number from that morning and guessed that this was Helgi’s call that had helped her locate the phone under the dishwasher. Below it were a dozen more calls from withheld numbers over the past few days, as well as from mobile and landline numbers that Gunna marked with a highlighter.

The last call that had been answered was on the same day that Svana Geirs had been found with the side of her head crushed on the kitchen floor, the call timed at 13.53 and lasting less than three minutes.

“So she was still alive at five to two,” Gunna mused.

“Say something, chief?” Helgi enquired.

“Albert got all the data out of Svana Geirs’ phone. The last call that was answered was at 13.53 on the day she died, so she was alive then. Narrows things down a bit, I suppose. Her cleaner turned up just before five, by which time Svana had already been dead for a while.”

“We showed up just after five, and Miss Cruz said that Svana could have been murdered between midday and three, so that fits. But 13.53 is only an indicator if we assume that Svana answered her own phone.”

“Don’t make things complicated yet,” Gunna admonished. “Although you’re right. We have to take into account that someone else could have answered it.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Under the dishwasher. Got you to call the number and listened out until it rang. Remind me to let you hear her tasteful ringtone properly sometime.” Gunna riffled through the top sheets of the printout. “That’s it. That’s the last activity on the phone, except for a load of missed calls from mostly withheld numbers.”