A Place To Bury Strangers, page 3
CHAPTER FIVE
Thursday 29th January
Halldór Valdimarsson took another sip of his coffee but it was still a bit hot to really throw it back as he would have liked. He’d just pulled another all-nighter trying to get his speech ready but it probably still needed some work if he was to be honest. He wanted another coffee because he was going to have to be as alert as possible for the impending visit of Auður Jökulsdóttir. She was his contact on the inside of one of the country’s biggest newspapers and he liked to be at his best whenever she paid him a visit. He had invited her today to have a chat and drop a few hints that he would have something big for her soon. She would have plenty of questions as per usual. It was in her nature to be nosy. It was what made her such a good journalist but he would have to watch his answers and measure them in such a way that he didn’t give the game away. Not yet anyway. There would be time for that soon enough. For now she was to be baited and teased but nothing more.
An attractive blonde head stuck itself around the corner of the door to his office and smiled. Right on time as always. He liked that about her. Auður’s face hung in the doorway for a few more seconds before she swung herself into the room and closed the door behind her. He had never figured out how she managed to be so chirpy no matter what the hour was be it last thing in the evening or first thing in the morning.
‘Good morning,’ she spouted and pulled up a seat opposite him with the casual air of someone who was quite at home in the office of the Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs. ‘It’s good to see you. I must admit that I’m a little curious as to why we’re here so early. I could have really done with another hour in bed. You look like you could do with catching up on some sleep yourself.’
Auður and Halldór had attended high school together at Menntaskólinn við Hamrahlíð where they had embarked on an enjoyable but short relationship which had ended when Auður had disappeared to Copenhagen where she stayed with relatives and worked in a café while deciding what to do with her life. Halldór had followed his dream to work in politics by signing on as an intern with Iceland’s foremost right-wing political party which he saw as the way forward for himself and the country. Auður had returned eventually and embarked upon her own career with a large national newspaper.
They had both succeeded in chasing their goals. Auður was now the political editor for the newspaper and Halldór had worked his way in to the position of Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs as well as that of Deputy Prime Minister. They had done exceptionally well for themselves but one suspected that they both still held ambitions to climb that one step higher at some point. Neither of them would be satisfied until they had reached the very top of their respective trees.
‘Coffee?’ Halldór asked.
Auður nodded and poured herself a cup.
‘So what is it that has me called to your office at this early hour? I’m thinking it’s so no one would see me coming or going. That wouldn’t be the case would it?’ she asked as she added some milk and a spoonful of sugar to her coffee.
Halldór couldn’t help but smile. That was exactly why he had insisted on such an early meeting although he would never admit it out loud.
‘Of course not. I just thought this would be a good opportunity for the two of us to touch base. You always see ulterior motives whether there’s one present or not. Your profession has made you unnaturally suspicious of even your oldest and dearest friends,’ he grinned broadly as he said the last part and almost got a chuckle out of the steely-eyed journalist.
‘That’s because there’s always one there if you’re willing to look hard enough. With politicians it’s always the subtext you have to concern yourself with never what is actually being said. If I’ve become overly suspicious in the last few years it’s only because you and your parliamentary companions have become overly devious. If this had been something innocent you would have invited me down here for lunch or met me in a bar later this evening. Where people could see us together,’ she grinned.
It was the same insightful logic he had been so attracted to all those years ago. There hadn’t been any fooling her then and nothing had changed in the interim. She was as sharp as a tack and never missed a thing no matter how hard you tried to hide it from her.
‘Okay, you’ve got me. I arranged this clandestine get together because I wanted an element of secrecy to be involved. In the next couple of weeks I’m going to have something for you that will be an unprecedented scoop for you and the newspaper. There are going to be some big changes around here and you’re going to be first in line when they happen.’
Auður drank some of her coffee and leant back in her chair. She was appraising Halldór with what could only be described as a suspicious eye.
‘How can you be so sure I’m going to be first in line for the story? If you’re not going to give it to me today, and it doesn’t look like you are, what’s to stop someone else beating me to it?’
Halldór beamed across the desk at her and held his arms out wide as if he were about to embrace her.
‘Because my dear, you aren’t just going to break the story, you’re going to be the story. When the time is right I’m not just going to feed you a lead. What I’m going to do is give you the tools to uncover the biggest by-line of your career to date.’
‘Sounds exciting,’ she said with a world-weary and sceptical tone.
‘It will be, you’ll see.’
‘Why the prior warning then? Were you just keen to get me out of bed early this morning or is there another reason I’m here right now?’
‘I just wanted to give you a little advance warning that something big is brewing. When this is all over things are going to be very different for both of us. I just want to make sure that you know that. This is going to make you a star.’
‘I can hardly wait,’ she said.
CHAPTER SIX
Friday 30th January
As Knut’s plane touched down at Keflavík he turned his phone on and stared at the picture of Lise that he had on it. She was the reason he was in Iceland. The only reason. He hated the place with a passion and wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of a visit if it wasn’t an emergency. Even though most of the country’s visitors adored the place he simply didn’t share their sense of awe. Despite its natural wonders, incredible scenery and gorgeous women he had always loathed the isolated little pile of rocks. And yet again here he was and, as it always seemed to be, he was here on business. And Knut’s business was killing.
Two weeks ago Lise had sent a distressed and confusing message. She had got herself into a spot of bother and had asked for his help. Again. During their brief time together in Oslo Lise had developed a heroin habit that had tested the limits of her physical endurance as well as the absolute boundaries of Knut’s patience. It was an ugly stupid drug that stripped people of their charm and left them graceless and spiritually barren. Despite her assertions that she had everything under control it quickly became obvious that she didn’t have anything under control and the addictive white powder soon had her under its thumb. It was a position she had been powerless to get herself out of.
The idea behind her move to Reykjavík had been to start over and get away from the circle of friends that did nothing but drive her addiction forward and supply her with drugs. In hindsight it had been an idealistic and rather naïve plan and no one should have been surprised when it had failed miserably. As soon as she’d arrived in the Icelandic capital she had sought out and found a dealer and a group of like-minded users to shoot up with. One thing led to another and she soon had the same old set of problems all over again.
Before long she had moved in with them and was in debt to the tune of several hundred thousand krónur. With no way to earn the money legitimately due to her continuously wasted state she had turned to other foreign girls for help. The ones who had found themselves in a similar predicament but had worked out ways to pay their debts off. Most of their debts anyway. Enough to keep their dealers off their backs and heroin in their veins. And if they were lucky a roof over their heads. That was what mattered. Somewhere warm and dry to inject when the night’s work was done. A mattress with a kettle next to it. A needle, a spoon and her phone charged and with a little credit on it. That was what made a house a home.
She had sent a selfie along with her plea for help and Knut still wasn’t sure if it had been meant to make him want her back or pity her. She had asked him for money. Of course. She was looking pale and tired. Long haul tired like she hadn’t slept in weeks and had been up ‘dancing’ to earn her keep every single one of those nights. He knew all too well what ‘dancing’ meant. She’d left one city for another but the problems people have they take with them wherever they go. Baggage. Weighing her down like a load of bricks.
He’d decided not to send her the cash she’d asked for but to visit her instead to see what could be done to get her back on the straight and narrow. Dragging her back to Oslo to check her into a rehab centre sounded like the best option but before he’d even arrived something had gone wrong. She’d stopped replying to his texts and wouldn’t answer his calls. After four days of calling her phone it was finally answered. Someone in the house had got sick and tired of listening to it ring probably and had pulled it out from underneath her mattress. Whoever the girl who’d answered was she hadn’t seen or heard from Lise either. That was when he’d booked his tickets and headed for his least favourite island destination. He had better things to be doing with his time and a host of responsibilities that he would be walking away from in Oslo but he felt he owed it to her to at least try. She had done all this to herself but he still felt sorry for her and he’d seen it happen to much stronger people than her.
Walking through the airport he briefly thought about smiling at the passport checkpoint but they rarely even looked at you let alone smiled back so he didn’t bother. Either they were going to let him through or they weren’t. There weren’t too many other options. A few of his associates had been denied access to the country over the last year because of some petty crackdown on Norwegian gang members. This time Knut had swapped his leather jacket for a suit which he’d disliked at first but was beginning to grow on him. He thought it made him look more dangerous than ever. Like someone who should be respected as well as feared. He liked the idea of the façade of respectability. The solemn-faced police officer slid his passport back through the glass divider to him and waved him on. As expected he didn’t get a smile. It was time to forget about smiles and get down to business.
Two hours later he was staring at an inexplicably self-confident idiot smoking a cigarette while trying to look tough at the same time. And failing. The young man leaning against the door frame flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and coughed.
‘Didn’t you hear me? She’s not here,’ he rasped.
‘I didn’t ask you whether she was here or not. I asked you when you last saw her,’ Knut said.
He was losing what little patience he had with this stoned moron. The guy was doing his utmost to be unhelpful while trying to come across as aloof. Knut was puzzled as to what sort of message this was supposed to be sending but he had reached the end of his tether with the guy. Whatever the message was, he was about to have it shoved back down his scrawny little neck. This was one time when the suit had conveyed the wrong tone altogether. He had probably been mistaken for a social worker or a lawyer. And now was the time to dispel any such illusions. As the little nincompoop reached for another cigarette Knut swung hard and low at the guy’s solar plexus. It was a target he could hit with his eyes closed. The blow doubled the smoker up and he dropped to the ground holding his midriff and gasping for air.
Knut stepped over him as if someone had just puked on the doorstep. As he walked into the fetid air of the squat he screwed up his nose and turned back to where the guy still lay curled up in a ball.
‘If I find her in here you’re going to want to make yourself pretty scarce. And if I don’t find her in here I’m going to have some more questions for you to try to answer and this time you’re going to try much harder.’
Inside the house the walls were soft with damp as if someone had spent hours pouring water down them. He touched one of the radiators in the hallway. It was ice cold. If he hadn’t already double-checked the address she’d given him he would have sworn he had the wrong place. Then again he should have known better than to expect anything else. When things started to go wrong they usually went wrong all the way. With temperatures in Reykjavík at this time of year consistently around freezing it would be a very unpleasant place to live. He pushed open the first door he came to but the room was empty apart from a mattress on the floor and a pile of dirty clothes next to it. He bent down and looked through them but he didn’t recognise anything he could remember Lise having ever worn. He wiped his hands on his suit pants when he put the clothes back down again.
The next room contained another two mattresses and yet more clothes. These were in a more orderly state than the first lot but in much the same condition. No one had been to the laundry in a while. There were plastic bags full of stale kleinur in one corner of the room and half-finished bottles of cola all over the floor. They hadn’t exactly been living high on the hog. It was the diet of the destitute and sugar-needy. It was cheap and would keep you going but nothing else. Knut had an image of Lise asking strangers for money outside the Hlemmur bus station and then buying herself these treats in the convenience store where all the late night trade was either from tourists or alcoholics. He was angry at so many people but mainly at himself. When she’d suggested a move away from Oslo and the scene she’d got herself caught up in it had seemed like a good idea. Anything had to be better than what she was doing to herself there or at least that was what he’d thought. It now appeared he had been wrong. Very wrong. As he walked through what was supposed to be the kitchen and into the living room he shook his head at the smell of the place and swore. Someone had definitely been to the toilet in one of those two rooms although he couldn’t tell which one. There were bags of rubbish lying all about the place that had been torn open by desperate animals or even more desperate humans. He resisted the urge to cover his nose with his hand but only just. His tour of the decrepit hovel was soon over and he headed back to the front door which was still lying wide open. There was a packet of cigarettes and a lighter on the ground outside but his obstinate little friend had gone. Knut cursed again as he regretted not keeping hold of the guy so he could follow up on his threat to question the idiot some more.
Knut looked up and down the street but there was no sign of the escapee anywhere. In his rush to get as far away from Knut as possible he’d dropped the cigarettes and his lighter. Even if he’d noticed them fall it was doubtful he would have hung around long enough to pick them up again. The punch had been designed to lay him low for a few minutes but he’d recuperated quickly and made good his escape. Knut kicked the cigarettes into the gutter and bent down to pick up the lighter. It was a cheap plastic disposable one with a tacky logo printed on it. The kind of thing someone had spent at least twenty minutes designing or picking out of a Google Images search. It was a girl sitting in a champagne glass kicking her heels up in a sea of bubbles. He would have laughed at it if he wasn’t so sure that it had to have come from the club Lise had ended up in. Next to it was an address on Lækjargata but apparently the establishment was so fancy that it didn’t have a name. The image told you everything about the place you needed to know. The street was definitely the one where she’d said she worked. It was too much of a coincidence to not be the same place.
Ten hours later Knut leaned against the bar in the club on Lækjargata and signalled to the pretty Polish barmaid for another beer. His second of the night. She poured him another Einstök White Ale but this time didn’t bother with the slice of orange. After the fuss he’d made about having fruit in his beer the first time she wasn’t about to make that mistake again. He thanked her and cast his eyes around the place. The decor was as tacky as the lighter had led him to expect. Anywhere that was going to put a champagne glass with a girl sitting in it on its cigarette lighters was unlikely to be a high-class establishment but this place didn’t even try. He guessed that the array of reasonable-looking women there, who all seemed to be foreign, were on the clock. He couldn’t think of any other reason they would have assembled there. Apart from them the place was quiet and it seemed unlikely that the clients would outnumber the staff at any point as the night dragged on. In short it was just the sort of place he would have expected Lise to end up once she had run out of money. Part of him hated himself for not sending her the cash but he knew that it would have only gone up her arm and she would have wound up here sooner or later anyway. He had learned the hard way that giving hard-earned cash to a junkie was one of the more stupid pastimes a human being could find. Time and time again he’d been burned by a girl he thought loved him and while that may have been the case it was also true that she loved drugs. He liked to learn things the hard way.
After removing your clothes in order to make money had been made illegal in 2009 someone had come up with the ‘champagne club’ idea instead of the old-fashioned strip clubs and they were proving harder to close down than the police had anticipated. For a set price, somewhere in the region of between 20,000 and 60,000 krónur, you got fifteen minutes to an hour with the girl of your choice. Behind a velveteen curtain. The idea was that all you did was talk with her as you shared some champagne together but it was widely accepted that you got to do pretty much anything you wanted to with her for the top-end price.
