Summerchill (18 page)

‘He could have met Axel Rútur after midnight, surely?’

‘He could have done, but there was no communication between them, according to the phone records. Unless he knew where to find him, it doesn’t fit, and I still don’t buy the motive. Apart from Aníta Sól, who says that her initial relationship with Stefán had ended some time previously, neither of them had anything to gain by squabbling and there’s no evidence of a dispute between them, no arguments, no fisticuffs.’

Ívar Laxdal smacked one fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Hell. Blast that narcotics woman. We’ve lost the bastard now.’

‘What happened?’

‘They expected Logi to make a pickup and fly back to Iceland this morning.’

‘And?’

‘He managed to lose his tail yesterday,’ Ívar Laxdal growled. ‘That wasn’t a problem, supposedly, as the European end of the operation thought they knew where he was making the pickup, and if he didn’t show up there, at least they’d be able to tail him from his hotel and through the airport.’

‘But?’ Gunna prompted when he’d been sitting in angry silence for a few moments.

‘No sign of him at the pickup, no sign of him at the hotel and he didn’t show up for his flight to Iceland. All we have is an almost empty suitcase containing the tracker that was slipped into it after it was checked in. That’s it. Vanished.’

‘So now what? I take it his description’s gone to Interpol and if he gets a speeding ticket somewhere then we’ll get him sent back with a stamp on his arse?’

‘Precisely,’ Ívar Laxdal said. ‘That’s the operative word: if. He might keep his nose clean indefinitely and never show up at all.’

‘We’ll see. Maybe he’ll get homesick one day for scoured sheep’s head and decide to come back. You know what Icelanders are like.’

Logi was awake long before the train pulled in. He emerged from the station blinking in the bright sunlight and bemused by the traffic and trams on the street outside. The faces and snatches of conversation he heard around him were familiar from the months spent working with Pétur’s Polish boys, and it felt comforting to be among such recognizable sounds.

It took a while to find a place to change some of his euros into a handful of zloty and then to find a café with a telephone that he could use. He made his call, in which he described as best he could where he was and gave the name of the café to the woman on the other end of the phone, who spoke clear but heavily accented English, making it plain that he would have to wait for a few hours.

Logi had a leisurely breakfast, and afterwards an even more leisurely beer before taking a walk around the station to clear his head. It was a busy place and he stepped smartly as the trams swished past. A couple of hours later he returned to the café and sat with a snack and a coffee as he stared out of the window at the street outside, wondering if he should call again, whether anyone was going to meet him, or if he should attempt to find a place to stay the night.

He was trying to make up his mind whether or not he ought to get back on the train when a broad-hipped woman with a wolf-grey ponytail over one shoulder pushed open the door and looked at him dubiously with her head on one side.

‘Logg-ee?’ she asked.

‘Almost,’ he said as he extended a hand to shake. ‘Logi.’

‘Veronika. Tadeusz says hello,’ she said, a smile spreading across her sun-browned face. ‘Welcome.’

‘Thank you,’ Logi said. ‘I’m happy to be here.’