Frozen Assets

‘I assume you must have a record of when Hardy has been in Iceland, in which case I must ask you to let me have a full list of his stays here.’

‘I’m not sure we would have that.’ Sigurjóna yawned again. ‘You could ask Ósk. She might know.’

‘You’re paying for this guy’s services and you don’t have a record of the work he has done for you? That hardly sounds plausible.’

Sigurjóna’s face frosted over. ‘Are you accusing me of lying, sergeant?’

‘No,’ Gunna replied sharply. ‘Merely a suspicion on my part that you might not be as helpful as you could be. Failure to cooperate with a police investigation is a crime in itself, you know.’

‘I am aware of that. If you want any information, you’d better call Ósk. Now, if that’s all, I have calls to make this morning, including one to my lawyer.’

Gunna stifled the smile that leapt to her lips.

‘Give him my kindest regards, would you? We’ll leave you to catch up on your sleep,’ she said, noticing the bedroom door open a crack. She stood up and handed the keys of the Volvo to Snorri.

‘You drive this time,’ she said to him and turned back to Sigurjóna. ‘Thank you for your time, and apologies for disturbing you at such an early hour of the morning.’

‘What do you think, chief?’ Snorri asked as the lift swooped groundwards.

‘Bullshit from start to finish, I reckon.’

‘She knows where Hårde is and how to contact him. Body language. Every time she tells a lie, her face goes blank for a fraction of a second and then relaxes,’ Bára said. ‘What next?’

‘Hell, I don’t know. It’s getting on for midday, so I’ll buy you both lunch at the bus station. Then we’d better get back and see what’s happening at the nerve centre. Then someone had better call that bloody woman again.’

‘The one who said not to call her if we needed to know anything?’

‘That’s the one. And if she doesn’t answer the phone, send someone to bang on her front door. But first we’d better find the manager of this place.’

Bára nodded to herself while it took Snorri a moment to catch on. Gunna extracted the Swedish police’s photo of Hårde from the file and put it in Snorri’s outstretched hand.

‘I’d like you two to go and chat to a few of the staff. Show them the pic and ask if they’ve seen him about. He could be under our noses in a suite of his own right here.’

‘Gotcha, chief,’ Snorri grinned.

‘I’ll go and do the same with the manager. Then it might be lunchtime.’

Sigurjóna cursed. She paced back and forth across the thick carpet of the suite with her phone at her ear. She swore again as the voicemail kicked in.

‘Hi, this is Erna’s phone, I can’t take your call right now, so just talk after the squawk. Bye!’

Sigurjóna stabbed her phone’s red button to end the call and hit redial.

‘Jón Oddur!’ she yelled as it began to ring, and his head appeared round the bedroom door. He stood expectantly as Sigurjóna listened to Erna’s voicemail message again.

‘Hi. It’s me. Hope you had a good time last night. Call me. OK? Bye,’ she intoned into the handset and clicked it shut.

‘What is it?’ Jón Oddur asked from the door.

Sigurjóna stepped towards him, opening the dressing gown.

‘I need a shower. Order breakfast from room service, will you?’ she snapped as she strode to the bathroom, shrugging the dressing gown from her shoulders and draping it over his outstretched arm as she swept past.

Her fingers caressed the hard whorl of scar tissue that ran diagonally across his shoulder.

‘I’m sure there’s a story behind this,’ Erna whispered huskily.

Hardy gently rolled on to his back and the scar disappeared from view. ‘Yeah. Not a nice story, though.’

‘Tell me one day.’

‘Maybe I will. Why do you have different names?’ Hardy asked.

Erna settled herself across the bed with her head resting on Hardy’s chest and one ankle hooked over the opposite knee. Hardy lay back with one hand behind his head and the other across Erna.

This time her fingertip traced the outline of a blurred fouled anchor tattooed beneath the coarse hair of the forearm lying on her chest. ‘What do you mean?

‘You and your sister. You’re Daníelsdóttir and she’s Huldudóttir. So why don’t you have the same surname?’

‘It’s not a surname. We don’t have surnames in Iceland.’

‘Some people do.’

‘Yeah, a few people do. It’s a bit stuck-up. Here everyone takes their father’s name. Dad’s Daníel Jónsson — that’s Daníel the son of Jón — and I’m Erna Daníelsdóttir, Erna the daughter of Daníel. My son’s called Jón, after my dad, but he’s Jón Bergsson, because my ex-husband’s name is Bergur. See?’

‘I figured that out. But why aren’t you and Sigurjóna both Daníelsdóttir? Are you half-sisters?’

Erna untangled her legs and rolled over on to her side to look along Hardy’s torso at his chin. He pulled a pillow under his head to look down his chest at her and extended a hand to stroke her side with his fingertips.

‘It’s complicated,’ Erna began.

‘How complicated?’

‘Well, not really. Our father’s name is Daníel and our mother’s is Hulda.’

‘Go on.’