Free Winterlude by Quentin Bates Page A

hide your stash all that carefully, have you?’
    Bjarni quailed and hauled the duvet up to his chin.
    ‘Where were you on Sunday?’
    ‘Er . . . out.’
    ‘I can figure that out for myself. Where were you and who were you with? What time did you leave here and when did you return?’
    ‘I went out about two with Elmar and we just mooched around a bit downtown, went to a mate’s place and then came back here and did some PlayStation.’
    ‘Until when?’
    ‘I don’t know. Some time in the night.’
    ‘Who’s this mate and where’s his place?’
    ‘Jóhann Eggertsson, his name is, lives in Lyngrími. I don’t know what number.’
    ‘In Grafarvogur, yes? Did you go anywhere near Hafnarfjördur on Sunday?’
    ‘No, not on Sunday.’
    ‘You were out with Elmar Kjartansson in that blue van he drives, were you?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘When you said you weren’t anywhere near Hafnarfjördur on Sunday, what does that mean? That you had been there with him some other time?’ Gunna asked, extracting a picture from her folder.
    ‘He wanted to go there a few times last week. I don’t know why. He’d go round town, see a few people and then he’d go round this industrial place, round and round these garages and stuff. I don’t know why.’
    ‘Anything in particular he was looking out for?’
    ‘He said he was looking for someone for his brother, but him and Einar don’t get on,’ Bjarni said in a petulant tone. ‘Look, can you leave the room so I can get up?’
    ‘I’m not finished with you yet,’ Gunna snapped, holding up the picture printed onto an A4 sheet showing a grainy version of what Borgar Jónsson had looked like a decade previously. ‘Seen this man?’
    Bjarni peered briefly. ‘Never seen the guy.’
    ‘Look again, Bjarni, and don’t play games. Reykjavík’s full of CCTV cameras and whatever Elmar’s been up to, you can bet your life you can be implicated.’
    The boy flinched at the thought, swept a lock of greasy hair out of his eyes and looked again. ‘Yeah,’ he said sulkily. ‘I think that’s the guy he was looking for. We saw him in town one time.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Outside some Bónus shop. Don’t know which one.’
    ‘Where else?’
    ‘Near that industrial place near Hafnarfjördur.’
    ‘Both times you were out in that blue van Elmar drives?’
    ‘Yeah. The blue van he got from someone he works for.’
    ‘Elmar doesn’t work, though, does he? Yet he always has plenty of cash. How come? What’s he doing – dealing? Are you involved in this as well?’ Gunna said, rattling out questions faster than the bewildered young man could cope with them. ‘You know how many years you’d be looking at for possession with intent to supply?’
    ‘No! It’s not me! I just hang around with Elmar.’
    ‘So where’s his money coming from?’
    ‘Ask him, why don’t you?’
    ‘Because,’ Gunna said, relishing the boy’s befuddled expression, ‘your mate Elmar is in the National Hospital with his arms and legs in plaster and morphined to the eyeballs. That’s why.’
    She watched his eyes widen in fright.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘You can ask him yourself when he’s out of hospital. Now, where’s all that cash coming from? Don’t try and tell me he’s running a car and having a good time on dole money that wouldn’t cover petrol to get to town and back every day of the week.’
    Bjarni’s eyes glazed over as he shifted in bed and pulled the duvet tight to his chin where it met the fringe of hair that was plastered over the side of his head he had lain on.
    ‘He delivers stuff. Those big bottles they put onto water coolers in offices. That’s what he does.’
    Sunshine broke through a ragged gap in the clouds and gleamed on the white hillside behind Tunga. The farm was far from being isolated, only twenty kilometres from the hotel where Helgi had spent an eventful night, but it lay at the end of a dog-leg track and in the lee of a hillside topped by a rocky escarpment that