Read Online Thin Ice: An Inspector Gunna Mystery (Gunnhildur Mystery Book 5) by Quentin Bates - Free Book Online

just a minute.’
    By the time Inga Jóna led him to the canteen there were tears streaking her makeup. The manager looked up at her with questions all over his round face.
    ‘Good morning. My name’s Eiríkur Thór Jónsson and I’m a police officer. I’m sorry for the interruption but I need to speak to this lady in private. Can we use this room?’
    ‘Er . . . yes, of course,’ the manager squeaked as he saw Eiríkur’s card. He hastily gathered together the paperwork he’d been studying and made for the door.
    ‘There’s a long queue waiting for you at till three,’ Eiríkur added as the man vanished through the door.
    ‘What’s happened to my Árni?’
    ‘Sit down, please,’ Eiríkur said and pulled out a chair for her.
    ‘So what’s all this then? Is he badly hurt?’
    ‘I’m sorry to tell you that Árni Sigurvinsson is dead. There was a fire in his flat early this morning and we believe that the body of a middle-aged man firefighters found in the apartment is probably his.’
    ‘Christ . . .’
    ‘And the body will have to be identified.’
    ‘God . . .’
    ‘I’d like to offer my sympathy for your loss, and I understand completely that this must be a terribly difficult time for you. But there are questions we really need to have answered as quickly as possible.’
    Inga Jóna sniffed. ‘Yeah, of course. Go ahead.’
    ‘Where had Árni been working? I mean, had he been working?’
    ‘He’d been doing taxi shifts a few nights a week. That’s all.’
    ‘And had he been doing any other work? Anything that might not have been strictly legal?’
    ‘Why? What makes you think he’d been up to anything?’
    Eiríkur sighed, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I know you both have criminal records, so I have to ask, and the circumstances of the fire are suspicious.’
    ‘That was years ago! And what are you saying? That someone murdered my Árni?’
    ‘I’m sorry, but we have to look at every angle,’ Eiríkur said. ‘And yes, I’m sorry to say so, but it seems that someone may have helped him on his way. We can’t tell yet for certain, but it seems the fire may have been started deliberately.’
    ‘Christ,’ she muttered and buried her face in her hands and then lifted her head, clear-eyed. ‘I should have known. I should have fucking known.’
    ‘Known what?’
    ‘Those friends of his, nothing but trouble the lot of them. It’s why I moved out.’
    ‘You weren’t living together?’
    ‘We haven’t . . .’ she said, then gulped and corrected herself. ‘We hadn’t for a few months. All right, Árni was doing taxi work, but he was also doing something that stinks, and I never really found out what. He was out most nights and he had more money than usual, so I knew he had to be doing something a bit more than just driving drunks around.’
    ‘So what do you think he was doing?’
    ‘My daughter told me he was delivering stuff.’
    ‘What sort of stuff?’
    ‘You know. Stuff. Snort.’
    ‘Ah, who for? Or was this on his own account?’
    Inga Jóna laughed mirthlessly. ‘On his own account? Hell, no. Árni didn’t do anything on his own account. He did what other people asked him to do.’
    ‘Go on. Like what?’
    ‘Like what I said. He was delivering snort to people who ordered it from somewhere. I don’t know where, and from what Bogga told me, he was delivering girls as well.’
    ‘Girls? Prostitutes?’
    ‘Call it what you like, but yeah, something like that.’
    ‘Sounds like I need to talk to your daughter.’
    ‘Go ahead. She lives at the end of Strandvangur. Number nineteen. Second floor. Borghildur Sævarsdóttir her name is.’
    ‘Who had Árni been working with, or going around with, who was enough to make you move out?’
    ‘His miserable pals. The worst one’s a guy called Össi. I could never stand him. Anyway, it seems that Össi was bringing Árni the work, and that’s all I know.’
    ‘You know Össi’s proper name?’
    Inga Jóna