Free Winterlude by Quentin Bates Page B

sheltered it from the worst of the weather. While there was a dusting of powdery snow on the lower slopes and the rocks at the top showed their teeth through the deeper snow around them, the pastures flanking the track to the farm were merely lightly frosted with a white morning crust that was already melting in the watered-down sunshine.
    A dog barked briefly from the safety of a barn as Helgi parked the Daihatsu outside the farmhouse, in between an ancient Ferguson tractor with a wheel missing and the axle propped up on blocks, and a black Land Cruiser that dwarfed the police Daihatsu.
    Helgi sniffed and frowned to himself at the vaguely sour smell the breeze brought to him as he walked towards the farmhouse and tapped at the door. The distant dog barked a second time, then was silent. The farmhouse door swung open as he tried the handle and he stepped inside to the familiar aromas that brought home to him how much he missed the countryside.
    ‘Hello! Anyone home?’
    Only the clock over the kitchen doorway ticked in response. He closed the door and walked around to the back, to the warmth of the byre and a row of cows contentedly chewing, but there was nobody to be seen and Helgi’s back prickled with the feeling that he was not alone.
    The tracks of a set of tyres could be seen leading out of the yard and along the trail that passed below the farm and its barn towards the shore some distance away, and Helgi tried to remember the outline of the Tunga lands, more than fifteen years after his last visit to the farm.
    The gap in the clouds closed slowly and the glitter on the hillside faded to dull white as Helgi cast about, puzzled that there was nobody to be seen anywhere. He knew that Ingi lived in Blönduós these days, but Össur had stayed at the farm and either he or Reynir should be here somewhere, while the presence of the very new Land Cruiser in the yard indicated that someone was not far away.
    Helgi pulled his phone from his pocket and was relieved to see that a few bars of signal strength remained. He scrolled down to Gunna’s name and listened as it rang.
    ‘Gunnhildur.’
    ‘
Hæ
, it’s Helgi. How goes it?’
    ‘Ach. You know. Just been doing what I do best and practising a little police brutality on the blameless public.’
    ‘Business as usual, then?’
    ‘Yep. Chasing up Elmar Kjartansson’s alibi for Sunday, and he was nowhere near Hafnarfjördur, so he didn’t beat Borgar to death,’ she said. ‘Not that I expected it of him, somehow. And you? What news of the countryside?’
    ‘Nothing yet. I’m at Tunga and the place is deserted. Can you check out a vehicle for me?’
    ‘Sure. Give me the registration.’
    Helgi read the number off the Land Cruiser’s hulking rear end and Gunna repeated it as she wrote it down.
    ‘Got that. Is that a vehicle at this godforsaken farm?’
    ‘It is. It’s a swanky black Land Cruiser and not the kind of thing a poor sheep farmer can afford, so you might want to dig a little deeper than just who it’s registered to. I’d say that if anyone from here was in Reykjavík on Sunday, this is what they would have been driving.’
    Gunna nodded in agreement as she looked up at Bjarni Björgvinsson’s bedroom window where the curtains were still drawn, and imagined the young man having to answer some searching questions after having been visited unexpectedly by a detective. She was fairly sure from the determined expression on the boy’s mother’s face as she left that she had been lurking on the stairs to listen to the exchange going on in her son’s bedroom, and that the end of a long tether had been reached.
    ‘OK, thanks, Helgi. I’ll give you a buzz back as soon as I know something. Good luck with them there yokels,’ she said as she ended the call.
    Helgi started the Daihatsu up again and bumped out of the yard, following the fresh tyre tracks leading seawards, thankful that it was still early and there would be daylight for a few more hours. The