Cold Comfort

“I think, under the circumstances, that would be far from wise,” Gunna said quietly. “But certainly for the moment, if you keep this conversation to yourself, I’ll do the same.”

She rose to leave and picked up her unopened folder. Hallur levered himself from his seat behind the desk and made his way around it, extending a hand. “Thank you. It’s much appreciated. Of course my offer still holds good.”

“Offer?” Gunna said blankly.

“Dinner sometime?”

The familiar boyish smile spread across Hallur’s face, and Gunna could see why old ladies voted for him in droves.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said coldly, letting go of his hand and stepping outside.

She took the stairs two at a time and waved to the researcher half hidden behind her computer monitor before taking a breath of fresh, damp air on the steps outside the old building. She looked up and could see Hallur’s tiny office window propped open up in the eaves.

“The cheeky bastard. Dinner? My arse,” she muttered to herself, wondering just why Hallur had avoided mentioning Bjartmar Arnarson’s membership of what she had started to think of as the Svana Syndicate.

“Why are we in this place?” Eiríkur asked, craning his neck to take in his surroundings.

“We’re here because Helgi and I like it,” Gunna replied. “It’s also quiet, and if anyone we know pops in, we’ll see them straight away.”

Gunna had taken a window table at Kænan, the harbour café in Hafnarfjördur, with a view of trucks rumbling steadily along the road outside to and from the dock gate a hundred metres away. With the lunchtime rush over, there was still food on the menu but the place was quiet enough for them to talk.

The remnants of lunch, Gunna’s fried fish, Helgi’s lamb stew and Eiríkur’s burger, had all been taken away. The sallow waitress had hardly even bothered to look at them, but Gunna could tell the woman had sensed that they were police officers. She tried to catch her eye as if to reassure her that she didn’t interest them in the least, but the waitress stared steadfastly over the trolley in front of her.

“Coffee, boys?” Gunna asked brightly.

Helgi grunted what she knew from the tone to be a yes and gazed out of the window at a forklift truck making precarious progress with a pallet of scrap metal on its forks, waiting to see whether the driver would notice if anything fell off.

“Mocha, please,” Eiríkur said, and Gunna chuckled grimly as she went to the counter and poured into three mugs. Helgi took his appreciatively, while Eiríkur looked at his with surprise.

“Sorry,” Gunna apologized. “There’s only two kinds of coffee here-black or white.”

“Come on then, what’s it all about?” Helgi asked. “Either going out for lunch is some bizarre team-building exercise, or you’ve a good reason for taking us somewhere quiet.”

Half an hour earlier the tables had been packed with men in overalls and heavy boots. But as the magic hour of one o’clock approached, Kænan had emptied, the queue at the counter had vanished and the tables were deserted. A knot of smokers gathered outside for a few minutes before the boiler suits and boots disappeared to the workshops and factories around the harbour. Only a group of retired men sat at a table in the far corner of the long room, looking wistfully at the small boats at the quayside over the road and idly flipping through the day’s newspapers as they wished there was still work for them.

“The long and the short of it is that we have something that’s more than a little sensitive on our plates right now,” Gunna explained. “And you’re right. I wanted to get away from flapping ears for an hour or so.”

“Svana Geirs?”

“Got it in one. I had a chat with Ívar Laxdal. I don’t reckon Örlygur’s coming back from sick leave, and we’re reporting direct to Laxdal himself on this.”

Helgi guffawed. “I can just imagine Örlygur nursing his bad back at home, hoping it won’t get better. I’ll bet he’s scared shitless he might have to return to work.”

“Well, Örlygur’s bad back aside, we don’t have a senior officer in charge of this department and we probably won’t for a while.”

“Are you going to put in for it, Gunna?” Eiríkur asked, taking her by surprise with such a direct question.

“No comment’s all I can say. Let’s just say it’s doubtful,” she said finally.

“A bar to a star’s a bit of a jump,” Helgi observed, referring to the one bar of a sergeant and the star a chief inspector would carry on each shoulder.

“Well put, Helgi. Now, Svana Geirs. The word from Ívar Laxdal is that this has to be under wraps, which is why we’re here and not in the canteen at Hverfisgata. No publicity, no leaks, no charging in without some very good reasons. Other stuff has to go on the back burner for a few days.”

“All right. Is it just us, or do we get any help?” Helgi asked doubtfully.