Cold Comfort

Gunna noted the “if” rather than “when” and wondered whether there might be something that she should be aware of.

“Anything else?” he barked.

“Well, yes. I’m still a sergeant. I expected to be made up a grade with this post.”

“Still? Damn. Leave it with me and I’ll see what I can swing, but we’re going through tough times, you know, Gunnhildur. Tough times,” he repeated, marching across the car park towards his own car, which looked suspiciously like this year’s model.

For once there was no wind, and a pall of black smoke hung in the still air. Gunna parked along the street and fought her way through a crowd gathered a respectful distance from the ambulances and fire engines that hid the house, set well back from the road in a well-heeled suburb.

A pale-faced young police officer was slowly unrolling Police-Do Not Cross tape and stringing it between the skinny trees in the front garden.

“You can’t go in there,” he barked as Gunna lifted the tape to step under it.

“Serious Crime Unit,” Gunna barked back, aware once again that being out of uniform was going to take some getting used to.

“In the garage at the side,” the young man advised her. “It’s not pretty,” he added, shaking his head.

“Thanks. Didn’t think it would be, somehow. Who’s here so far?”

“Fire, ambulance.”

“I can see that. Who’s the senior officer?”

“That’s me, I suppose, until Pétur Júlíusson gets here from the station,” he said ruefully. “We’re a bit short on manpower these days.”

Gunna nodded and crunched her way along a gravel path between scrubby lawns by the side of the house. A trampoline that looked as if it had spent all winter outside occupied the middle of one of the lawns in front of a thick hedge at the garden’s boundary.

No view, so no witnesses, I’ll bet, Gunna thought as she reached the double garage, one door closed, the other half open, the white paint on it blistered into bubbles and the ground in front of it scorched black. A paramedic and a fireman she recognized were standing by the garage’s open side door.

“Evening, Röggi,” Gunna offered. “I heard the F2 call on the way home. What do we have?”

“Hæ, Gunna. It’s a bloody mess,” the fireman replied grimly. “Garage went up in a right old fireball. Can’t have lasted more than a minute, but the heat must have been phenomenal.”

“Casualties?”

“One, in the ambulance. Not a happy lady, shock and smoke inhalation. Could have been a lot worse.”

“What happened, d’you reckon?”

Röggi spread his hands. “No idea. Absolutely no idea.”

“A massive fireball like that, could it have been an accident?”

“I’d say not. There’s nothing sensible you can keep in an ordinary garage that will produce that kind of thing.”

“Chemicals?”

“Could be. Or just petrol, a lot of petrol.”

Gunna nodded and thought. “I take it we can reckon this wasn’t an accident, unless it’s proved otherwise?”

“Sounds reasonable,” Röggi admitted. “There’ll be an investigation, and with a casualty involved, they won’t give up until they know what caused it, especially in a posh place like this.”

“Whose house is this?”

“Bjartmar Arnarson. You know, the businessman. I reckon that’s his missus they’re taking off to hospital.”

“Sounds interesting.” Gunna frowned, the name instantly setting off alarm bells in her head.

“You have a suspicious mind, Gunna.”

“It’s in the job description. What are you up to now?”

“We’ll stand one of the appliances down and send it off home. I’ll be here with the other one until the site’s secure and nothing else is likely to go off pop.”

“Good. I’d better marshal my forces, then,” Gunna decided, knowing that there would be no access to the scene itself for some time.

She made her way back to her car, looking carefully at the faces lined up on the other side of the road and noticing lenses already trained on the house. She wondered if the press had been quick off the mark, or if these were more likely neighbours with cameras. When she had been a young police officer, anyone with a long lens would be a press photographer and she would have recognized most of them. But these days enthusiastic amateurs could have newer and more expensive kit than the professionals.

Gunna sat in the driving seat and clicked her Tetra set on. “Zero-two-sixty, Ninety-five-fifty. You there, Helgi?”

She waited for a reply, knowing that Helgi was one of the few CID officers who made a habit of using his communicator. After a minute she gave up, picked her phone up from the seat and dialled Helgi’s number.

“Ah, so you are there,” she said accusingly as he answered.

“Sorry. Been busy this afternoon. Anything serious?”

“Just a bit-and don’t reckon on getting home for a good while yet. House fire, looks mighty like arson to me, one casualty and a burnt-out garage.”

“Shit. And we had a babysitter lined up this evening as well.”

“Sorry. Can’t be helped. This one really stinks,” Gunna said, trying to sound apologetic. “And here’s the fun bit of it: Bjartmar Arnarson’s house. One of Svana Geirs’ little band. Looks like his missus is the casualty.”