Free Black Ice by Colin Dunne Page A

So I told him the whole thing: about  the way the place had been wrecked,  Mr Chamois in the foyer, the crack  over  the  head,  even  the  pan.  The only  thing  I didn't mention  was the photograph- well, that  had gone anyway.
    I   ended   up:   'Do   you   think   Mr   Chamois  bopped   me, Petursson?'
    He rubbed his fingers up the long bones of his jaw. 'No, I do
    not think he did,'  he said, in his roller-coaster accent. 'And now you want  to know why. Many  reasons.  The ones you say, like why would  he come back, and  how did he get the pan, and so on.  But  there  is another reason. It does  not  bother  you if I smoke?'
    He tapped one of his small cigars out of the packet and lit it with  a green  plastic  lighter.  He returned both the packet and the lighter to his pocket  before continuing.
    'He  is a diplomat,' he said.
    'A diplomat? What  sort of diplomat?'
    'Not  the sort  to assault  journalists, I can assure  you.'
    'What nationality is he? What  was he doing?'
    He  rapped the  table  top  twice  to silence  me. 'Listen,   Mr Craven, listen  to me. The  man who hit you with the pan was hiding  in the kitchen.'
    He picked a matchstick out of the ashtray and scraped  the ash off the end of his cigar before it fell in an unauthorised place.
    He wasn't  a man for chances,  Petursson. That was what  made him so good.
    'How  do you know?'
    'Simple.  My men were watching  the flat. They  saw  him go in.
    'So why didn't they arrest  him?'
    'Also simple.  They  didn't see him  leave.  He  got  out  by a service door at the side.'
    'Was  he a diplomat too?'
    He chose to ignore the sardonic inflexion. 'No,  not this man.
    I was hoping you might tell us a little about him, Mr Craven?'  I  pointed  at  the top of my head.  'That's all  I know  about him.'
    He sat  back in his chair  and studied  me with an interested, uncritical air. 'That is my difficulty, you see. Am I telling you things? Or  am I telling you things  you already  know? That is my main worry. That, and how much trouble you can make for my country.'
    He rose clumsily,  heaving  the chair  back with one hand.
    'I'd like you to take a little walk with me, if you would be so kind.'
    'Fine,' I said. 'But  I didn't know anything about  the man in the kitchen, you know. For all I know, he could've been there all night.'
    'Oh,  no, Mr Craven,' he said, checking the angle of his hat in the window. 'If he had been, you would have been dead. By the way, give me your opinion on the two gentlemen by the harbour as we go, will you?'
    He knew how to deliver a line all right, did Petursson, and  I hoped  I looked appropriately shocked:  because  he was monitoring every reaction.  Before I had time to wonder  about the man who might have killed me, Petursson had  ushered  me outside into the soft light of the late evening.  When  he took my sleeve to point out the snow on the mountains, I knew he was giving me time to look at the two men dawdling at the water's edge.
    They  didn't even need to touch  each other. The  effect that Petursson's appearance had  on them  was minute but  un mistakable. One,  who was throwing  stones at a plastic  bottle in  the  water,  glimpsed   us as  he turned. His  eyes flicked like knives  to  his  mate,   who  had  his  back  to  us.  With  a  quick movement of his hand, he tossed the remaining half-dozen or so stones into  the  water   and,   before  the  pitter-patter of  their landing had died,  the two of them were walking off briskly, shoulder to shoulder.
    We watched them go before we, at  a much  more leisurely rate,  followed.
    'Well?  Did anything about them strike  you?'
    'Obviously they're fishermen.' He didn't look too amazed  by that  deduction. Men  in a semi-uniform of roll-neck  sweater, reefer-type jacket,  and  roll-on woollen hats, all dark  blue, seen