Frozen Assets

In disbelief, Gunna sat back and thought in silence, ignoring the buzzing of the phone in her top pocket. She stood up suddenly, decision made, pulling the phone from her pocket to see who had called.

‘Edda! Olli! Here, now.’

The two young officers tumbled into the room from the kitchen.

‘Any luck?’ Gunna asked Olli.

‘Not yet. They’re on to it and are calling me back. They want to verify my status as well.’

‘You can do that at the station. This lady is going to Hverfisgata with you, right now.’

Sigurjóna half rose to her feet and began to protest. ‘Why? What is this for? I want my lawyer here right now, this instant-’ she crowed before Gunna cut her off.

‘You are going to Hverfisgata to be questioned properly about your role in assisting a wanted felon in evading custody, to begin with. Then there’s your role in the deaths of Egill Grímsson and Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson, and I’m sure there’re a few things to be found out there.’

‘I knew nothing about that,’ Sigurjóna snarled.

‘And then we can move on to the fact that you’ve knowingly hindered an investigation. From there we can go on to possession of a proscribed substance with intent to supply. How’s that?’

‘You fucking evil fat lesbian bitch,’ Sigurjóna hissed. ‘Arresting me, you’ll fucking suffer for this. You know who my husband is.’

‘Yeah. A soon-to-be ex-Minister. You’re not being arrested. You’re being taken into custody for your own protection. You’ve five minutes to put some clothes on.’

Edda and Olli took unsure steps forward.

‘Take her to Hverfisgata and let her sober up a bit before we start talking to her. Her lawyer can be called, but don’t hurry any more than you have to. If she kicks up, cuffs. All right? Get a move on then,’ she ordered, as Edda stepped forward and gripped Sigurjóna’s upper arm to bring her to her feet.

Erna decided that she had time for an hour at the gym and a visit to the salon before her flight. As she stopped at the junction to turn left, a police car came fast along the main road, slowed sharply and turned into her street. She wondered what it was doing in such a quiet neighbourhood and decided they would probably be looking for one of the neighbours’ teenage kids. She’d find out when she got back, she thought, grinned to herself and patted the shoulder bag on the seat beside her.

Erna had packed no more than a change of underwear, shorts, a couple of T-shirts and a minimum of toiletries, as well as her laptop and an old address book. Hand baggage only this trip. If she needed anything else, hell, there were shops in Morocco as well, she decided, not that she was planning on wearing too many clothes. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation of seven days at the secluded villa in M’diq, a sleepy resort an hour’s drive east of Tangier still known only to a discerning few.

She had booked the flights and the hire care online, and called to let Hardy know to meet her in the departure lounge. She listened to his deep chuckle with a pleasure that bordered on the sensual, recalling listening to that rumbling laugh through his chest.

Hårde’s rented car rolled out through the compound gate and along the road back to Hvalvík. At the crossroads outside the town, he turned away from the main road and took the old unmade track that he knew would be noisy and uncomfortable, but would take him unobtrusively to Keflavík and the airport where Erna would be expecting to meet him in a few hours.

Outside the town and on a curve that was out of sight of prying eyes, Hårde pulled off the road. There were several hours to wait since his work at the compound had been simpler than expected. He had decided not to tell the site manager about InterAlu’s decision — they’d find out soon enough.

Hårde closed his eyes and kicked off his shoes. He drew his feet up into the closest approximation he could manage of a lotus position and concentrated on each breath, forcing himself to be calm.

Bjarni Jón Bjarnason fretted in club class. With the aircraft in flight, he was cut off from phone, email and the exchange rate, and hated it.

He hailed a passing stewardess, asked for a brandy and admired the woman’s muscular bottom as she bustled away to fetch it.

The meeting with Horst had left him numb. He could see little more than the whole edifice crashing about his ears. Spearpoint would be left high and dry by the bank with crippling commitments and no customer to buy the power it was due to start producing at the end of the year — if they were even to get that far.

Maybe he could pull strings and get the National Power Authority to absorb the project — in return for a quiet payoff of some kind that would settle outstanding debts. Nationalizing it could be the answer. ESC could become public property, with Spearpoint’s holding quietly transferred somehow, which would look good at any rate, he thought idly, and caught himself as his thoughts drifted back to Sigurjóna.