Read Cold Comfort for Free Online

been.
    “We’ll divvy that up between ourselves,” Gunna decided. “Now, Long Ommi. Any sightings of our errant convict, Helgi?”
    “Excuse me, chief, do you still need me?” Eiríkur asked.
    “Not on this, but you might as well listen in, just in case Helgi decides to go on holiday and you have to take over. Go on, Helgi.”
    “Not a bloody thing,” Helgi said morosely. “But a prizewinning idiot called Kristbjörn Hrafnsson, otherwise known as Daft Diddi, was admitted to casualty at the National Hospital on Thursday morning with a fat lip, various bruises, cuts and scrapes. What with Óskar Óskarsson in hospital in Keflavík, that pretty much gives us two definite sightings. The bastard might as well have just written ‘Ommi was here’ on the pavement and have done with it.”
    “All right. I’ve been fortunate enough never to have encountered this particular ray of sunshine, although I’ve met his mother. Now I’ve also spoken to both Skari and Skari’s mum. The old lady loathes Ommi with a passion and Skari says nothing. So where does that leave us?”
    Helgi lifted his hands up, palms in the air. “If he wants to keep his mouth shut, that’s his prerogative. But with that sort of injury, there has to be a damned good reason …”
    “Which is what we need to winkle out of someone,” Gunna finished for him. “Right, guys. I have an appointment at Svana Geirs’ flat in ten minutes, so I’ll see you two in the canteen at lunchtime.”
    T HE WOMAN HE had lived with for fifteen years looked blank-eyed at him from the doorway of her parents’ house. Jón wanted desperately to sweep her into his arms and take her with him, not that he had anywhere much to go. Their own house had become a shell of the home they had both worked hard to make it. Practically everything that could be sold had gone. Even the living-room carpet had been exchanged for a couple of tanks of diesel.
    “Have her back by eight, can you?” Linda said in the most neutral voice she could manage, although to Jón it sounded edged with barbed wire. He just nodded as his daughter skipped down the steps and put her hand in his. Didn’t the bloody woman understand that every hard word was like a smack in the face?
    Linda watched with folded arms as Jón carefully strapped Ragna Gústa into the front seat and the little girl waved happily to her mother, who found suddenly that while she could wave back, finding a smile was more of a problem.
    “Where are we going, Daddy? To our house?”
    “I don’t know yet, darling. I thought maybe we’d go to Grandma’s place for a change. How does that sound?”
    “Good,” she replied after thinking carefully for a moment. Jón spun the wheel to take the van out on to the main road, and the tools in the back rattled.
    “I like this.”
    “What’s that, love?”
    “I like being in your work van. It’s funner than your big car.”
    “Not funner. More fun…”
    “You know what I mean. This car’s bigger and it smells different.” The only car now, Jón thought but didn’t say out loud. He didn’t know how to explain to her that the jeep had gone more than a month ago.
    T HE EXISTENCE OF a canteen was something Gunna was becoming accustomed to. In her years on the city force before leaving Reykjavík for the quiet of a post at the fishing village Hvalvík, the canteen had been a fixture where practically every officer met every other one.
    She loaded two lamb cutlets on to her plate, added a single potato, some salad, decided to forgo gravy and carried lunch to where Eiríkur was sipping coffee over his empty plate.
    “That’s what comes of being late,” she said, cutting into the cold potato and discarding it.
    “There’s no phone in Svana Geirs’ flat, is there, chief?” Eiríkur asked. “No, don’t think so.”
    “That’s what’s missing. No phone. Somebody like Svana Geirs must have had an iPhone or a BlackBerry. There’s no way round it—everyone has a mobile these