Cold Breath

Book 6: Gunnhildur Mystery

by Quentin Bates

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Gunnhildur reluctantly allows herself to be taken off police duties to act as bodyguard to a man with a price on his head . . . Hidden away in a secure house outside Reykjavík, Gunna and the high-profile stranger, a guest of the interiors minister, are thrown together - too close for comfort. They soon find they are neither as safe nor as carefully hidden as Gunna and her boss had thought. Conflicting glimpses of the man's past start to emerge as the press begin to sniff him out, as does another group with their own reasons for locating him. Gunna struggles to come to terms with protecting the life of a man who may have the lives of many on his conscience - or indeed may be the philanthropist he claims to be. Isolated together, the friction grows between Gunna and the foreign visitor, and she realises they are out of their depth as the trails lead from the house outside Reykjavík to Brussels, Russia and the Middle East.

Release date: October 11, 2018

Publisher: Constable

Print pages: 320

Sample

No jokes, she decided, at least not at the boss’s expense.

‘Coffee, Gunnhildur?’

The circle of a brand-new, carefully trimmed goatee gave Ívar Laxdal’s face a malevolent look. Gunna thought the grey-shot black beard suited him and longed to ask the reason for it, but decided that regardless of how close their working relationship had become, it still wasn’t the kind of question she could ask.

She lifted her feet from the desk and nodded towards the coffee room in the corner.

‘Help yourself.’

The beard turned his smile into something sinister.

‘No, I thought I’d invite you out. Just for once. You’re not busy, are you?’

‘We’re always busy. You know that better than anyone. I’m forever bitching to you about how short of everything we are.’

Ívar Laxdal nodded. ‘I know, and I assure you that your observations don’t pass unnoticed. But you’re not overrun with work right now, this minute, are you?’

Gunna shrugged her coat over her shoulders.

‘Hold the fort, would you, Helgi?’ she said to her colleague at the desk opposite hers. ‘Duty calls.’

‘Go for a walk,’ the pale man suggested. ‘Don’t go far. Don’t go out of sight.’

The plump man opened his mouth to speak and then quickly shut it. It had been an instruction, not a suggestion.

‘How long?’ he asked, his voice quivering. Next to him his wife could not hide the helpless hatred in her eyes.

‘Twenty minutes,’ the dark man said, pointing to the wavelets being whipped up on the surface of the lake by a bitter wind. ‘Leave your phones on the table. Go that way and walk around the lake. Be where we can see you.’

‘You . . . ?’ the woman began.

‘Come on, Hanne. We don’t have a choice,’ the man muttered to his wife, taking her arm. He stared steadfastly ahead as they walked away, while she shot a single furious glance over her shoulder towards the two men.

It was supposed to be the holiday they had been looking forward to. For the first time there was no need to hurry. There were no longer projects to manage, classes to teach, meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, or jobs waiting for them to return to. Retirement meant they could spend as long as they wanted touring this rocky island they had long wanted to visit, arriving before the tourist season got underway and taking things slowly, dawdling around the northern coastline as they made their way to Reykjavík, stopping whenever and wherever they saw fit.

That had been the plan, she reflected bitterly, until the unwelcome visitors had arrived one night before they had got as far as the ferry, with an offer they dared not refuse.

‘How long should this take?’ the pale man asked, watching as the tubby man and his stick-thin wife walked stiffly, arm-in-arm, around the shore of the lake.

‘Not long. Under the driver’s side bunk. Tools?’

They disappeared into the camper van, and the dark man opened a compact tool box on the table as he looked around.

‘Nice truck,’ he said. ‘House-proud people. Very tidy.’

‘Maybe they wanted the place to look its best for their visitors.’

The elderly couple, still arm-in-arm, returned windblown after a slow walk around the grey waters of the lake where the wind filled the air with spray.

‘We’re finished. Thanks for your co-operation,’ one of the men said, standing up from his seat in the camper van’s back door as the couple approached.

‘It’s not as if we had a choice in the matter,’ the woman snapped at him, her voice loaded with helpless anger.

He shrugged. ‘It’s not our choice either, I’m afraid. Now we’d like you to go away and enjoy the rest of your holiday. Forget you ever saw us. It goes without saying that you won’t say a word to anyone, ever. In which case you’ll never hear from us again.’

The pale man dipped a hand into his pocket and took out a sheet of paper folded into four. He held it up and handed it to the woman.

‘What’s this?’

‘Take a look.’

She unfolded it carefully and stiffened as she saw it. Her husband’s face sagged as she showed it to him.

‘Your house. Your daughter’s house,’ the pale man said, his finger sliding over each of the four pictures. ‘Your son-in-law’s business.’ His finger moved across the paper. ‘And this is where your mother lives. Just so you know. Not one single word.’

Gunna wondered what was going on as they crossed the road and skirted the Hlemmur bus station, leaving the Hverfisgata police headquarters behind. In the years they had worked together Ívar Laxdal had kept his officers at arm’s length, not the length of an unfriendly arm, but at a definite distance. All the same, Gunna knew that she was different, as far as he was concerned. Ívar Laxdal had been to sea with both of the men in her life, and she quickly directed her thoughts away from Ragnar Sæmundsson, knowing it would bring a familiar stab of pain deep in her chest and that her eyes would prick with tears demanding to be shed.

He pushed open the door of Café Roma, a coffee house around the corner from the police station. Early in the mornings police officers snatching a quick coffee was a frequent sight, but by mid-morning the place was quiet.

‘Coffee? Ordinary or something fancy?’

‘Ordinary will do for me, thanks,’ Gunna replied as he went to the counter, leaving her to take a seat by the window overlooking the windblown street outside, where bags and wrappers were swept along by the stiff breeze off the sea.

‘To what do I owe the honour?’ she asked as Ívar Laxdal sat down, removed his coat and poured a precise amount of milk into his coffee.

‘Biscuit?’ He snapped a saucer-sized pastry in two and passed the larger segment to her. ‘How’s the family?’

‘The usual. Steini tinkers with anything mechanical. Gísli’s longlining and doesn’t like it much, but it gives him time at home with Drífa and Kjartan. Laufey is . . .’ She paused.

‘Laufey is . . . ?’ Ívar Laxdal asked with immediate concern.

‘Let’s say she’s going through a turbulent patch. When she started university in Reykjavík she lost touch with her old group of friends and has fallen in with a very different crowd.’

‘A bad crowd?’

‘No. Just different, new friends and a new environment. I think she’s struggling a little to fit in.’

‘She will. She wouldn’t be Ragnar Sæmundsson’s daughter if she weren’t resourceful.’

‘That’s true. But it’s taking her a while to find her feet.’

‘And how’s Serious Crime?’

‘Busy, as always,’ Gunna said, wondering when Ívar Laxdal was going to get to the point. ‘Helgi’s chasing witnesses for the assault case we’ve been working on, the guy who lost an eye.’

‘And you?’

‘The Sugarberries rape case. Eiríkur’s working on that with me. It’s delicate, and I’m not convinced we’ll get a conviction.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s too woolly. There’s no forensic evidence and she didn’t do herself any favours by coming forward more than a month after the event. Plus both parties were extremely drunk, by all accounts.’

Ívar Laxdal broke off a chunk of his biscuit and chewed it, nodding sagely.

‘Can they get by without you for a week or two?’

‘Eiríkur and Helgi? Why, what do you have in mind?’

He scowled and glanced around. It was done so theatrically that Gunna wanted to laugh, but resisted the temptation.

‘I have a particular assignment to take care of, and I’ve been asked to recommend a suitable officer.’

‘Not cloak-and-dagger stuff, surely?’ Gunna grinned, but her smile disappeared as Ívar Laxdal’s face remained stony.

‘Yes, pretty much.’

She cupped her chin in one hand as she wondered what to say, while Ívar Laxdal’s expression remained impassive.

‘I’m intrigued,’ she said at last. ‘But you know spies are normally younger and slimmer than I am, and male.’

‘This comes from high up. I didn’t want to accept it. But for good reason I decided we were better off doing as we’re asked on this. It’s sensitive. I need someone competent and reliable who can be discreet, while keeping their eyes and ears wide open,’ he said as he sipped his coffee. ‘So I thought of you.’

‘Tell me more.’

He shrugged. ‘There’s not a great deal I can tell. Essentially, you’d be a bodyguard with a few additional duties thrown in.’

‘A bodyguard who reports back to you, you mean?’

A trace of a smile appeared from within Ívar Laxdal’s sinister goatee.

‘Something like that. You understood exactly why I thought of you rather than . . .’

‘Sævaldur?’

‘Forget Sævaldur. This requires tact and a delicate touch, and while Sævaldur has talents, he doesn’t possess either of those qualities.’

‘Starting when?’

‘As soon as you’ve completed the firearms refresher.’

‘Firearms?’ Gunna’s jaw dropped. ‘I did one a while ago, yes. But come on . . .’

‘So that would mean you could start on Friday.’

‘Friday? This Friday? There isn’t a firearms course for weeks.’

Ívar Laxdal’s sinister smile returned.

‘There’s a refresher especially for you tomorrow. Half-day intensive,’ he said and hesitated. ‘Assuming you’re up for it.’

‘It looks like you’ve already decided I am,’ Gunna said, trying not to sound hurt. ‘Do I get to know who I’m looking after, where, how and all that stuff?’

‘Excellent.’ Ívar Laxdal finished his coffee and ignored the question. ‘Hand your casework over to the boys and I’ll make sure they manage without you. The firearms refresher starts at eight tomorrow. Once you’re finished I’ll fill you in on the details.’

Gunna shivered, trying to work her neck a little deeper into her scarf to keep out the biting wind and the rain it was hurling at her. She wondered why she had been pulled off normal duties and instructed to be at Reykjavík’s little domestic airport on a cold, wet weekday evening when the city was as quiet as it was ever likely to be.

Ívar Laxdal appeared silently at her side. Muffled in a thick coat, which she decided had to be warmer than hers, he grunted a wordless greeting.

They stood in the scant shelter the control tower offered and she wondered what they were waiting for. She opened her mouth to ask, but he beat her to it.

‘There,’ Ívar Laxdal said.

Points of light approached and the sound of the aircraft could be heard over the wind only when it was making its approach to touch down. It landed smartly, and once its wheels were on the ground its wings trembled in the wind. Three cars appeared from the gloom.

‘Pay attention, Gunnhildur,’ Ívar Laxdal told her needlessly.

There was no need to check luggage or passport. The aircraft came to rest at the edge of the apron and the sole passenger eyed the dark Patrol that pulled up next to it, watching as a young man with raindrops on his glasses and wearing an old-fashioned belted raincoat that flapped in the wind got out and stood waiting.

The co-pilot looked back into the cabin and gestured to indicate that it was safe to disembark. The passenger nodded and put on his long overcoat, first winding a pale grey scarf around his neck.

At the bottom of the steps, the young man in the raincoat extended an arm, contriving at the same time to take the visitor’s bag.

‘Welcome to Iceland, sir,’ he said. ‘My name is Valgeir Bragason. Mrs Strand asked me to meet you.’

The passenger muttered a gracious reply in a deep voice, noticing that the young man could hardly see for the raindrops on his glasses.

The Patrol sped away through the gate, with a wave to the guard, and into the night. The passenger felt a nagging uncertainty, but reassured himself. This country was supposed to be safe, wasn’t it?

‘What do you have planned, Mr Bragason?’ he asked as the lights of the city flashed past.

‘We have secure accommodation ready for you tomorrow. Tonight you are Mrs Strand’s guest.’

Ívar Laxdal looked to one side and allowed himself a smile as the cars disappeared back the way they had come, into the evening gloom.

‘That was exciting, wasn’t it?’ he asked. They had worked together for five years and she still couldn’t figure out when he was joking, so she took the default position that her senior officer was always deadly serious unless there was a good reason to assume otherwise.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Excellent. Let’s warm ourselves up, shall we?’

Once the smartest the city could offer, the hotel that overlooked the airport now looked tired, she felt. All the same, in response to a nod from Ívar Laxdal, a uniformed receptionist scuttled away and returned with mugs and a flask of coffee.

‘Unless you’d prefer something stronger?’ Ívar Laxdal asked.

‘A double cognac would go down well. But we’re here on business, aren’t we?’

He grunted and poured coffee, handing her a cup.

‘So, are you going to tell me why we’re at the city airport watching a private jet land and one passenger be whisked away, no customs?’

Ívar Laxdal sank into one of the lobby chairs and Gunna perched on the edge of another as he looked around.

‘The man’s name is Osman. He’s here at Steinunn Strand’s invitation.’

‘Which is why it wasn’t easy to say no?’

‘On the contrary. It wouldn’t have been difficult to tell her this kind of thing isn’t part of our remit. He’s not an official visitor to Iceland, more a personal guest of Steinunn’s. If he’d come here on an official visit, then we’d know where we stand.’

‘Security, and all the usual stuff?’

‘Exactly. He’d be in a hotel in the city, with a security detail to keep an eye on him.’

‘So, can I ask why . . . ?’

‘His presence is to be kept as low-key as possible. From what I’ve been able to find out from Steinunn’s department, he heads some kind of charity outfit that supports refugees. I had never heard of this person before, but it seems he’s a controversial figure and hasn’t been shy of pointing the finger when he feels not enough is being done about refugees arriving in Europe, which is pretty much all the time. He has some influential friends and it seems he’s made a few enemies as well.’

‘And the security aspect and the Glock?’

‘Just in case, Gunnhildur. Just in case,’ he assured her. ‘Let’s say you’re the close range security, as well as the eyes and ears. There’s a heavy squad just out of sight who’ll be keeping an eye on the rest of us.’

‘Where?’

‘Einholt. It’s on the coast near Gufunes. Not exactly isolated, but still pleasantly secluded.’

‘I don’t get the feeling you’re entirely happy with this,’ Gunna said, watching Ívar Laxdal frown.

‘There’s too much I don’t know, and that’s what concerns me. I don’t know if this man is what he says he is, and Steinunn’s people haven’t been able to come up with much, which is hardly a surprise as this is all very short-notice. I was only handed this yesterday morning, and I was pretty much told that the guy was arriving tonight and it’s our job to look after him and keep him sweet. From the few crumbs of information I have from Steinunn, he’s here partly to negotiate with a couple of Icelandic charity organizations, as well as to have a little rest and recuperation at her invitation.’

‘Well, I’m not entirely happy either,’ Gunna said. ‘It takes me away from my family, which isn’t ideal. Steini never complains about anything I do, but we were going to take Gísli’s boat over the bay at the weekend if the weather’s reasonable. And I don’t want to be away from Laufey for long at the moment either as she’s having a tricky time.’

‘How’s the lad?’

‘He’s fine. They’ve managed to find a place to buy and he’s on one of the Grindavík longliners. It’s decent money and he gets regular trips off.’

‘That’s good. You shouldn’t be away too long when you have youngsters,’ he said absently. ‘You haven’t complained about the lack of promotion for a while, have you?’ he added in a throwaway tone.

‘Well, no, I haven’t. But I can if you’ve been missing it.’

Ívar Laxdal stroked his unfamiliar beard.

‘Let’s say that if you carry out this assignment successfully then I can assure you there’ll be no obstacles to promotion.’ He jerked his chin upwards. ‘As I said, this comes from upstairs. They want to be sure this person remains safe and sound, and I’ll make damned sure a good job done doesn’t escape their notice.’

The Glock was an uncomfortable lump under her armpit. Gunna shifted awkwardly, telling herself to get used to it, then a moment later reminding herself that this operation would only take a few days, so there would be no need, or even opportunity, to become accustomed to carrying a firearm.

The weapon made her nervous, even though the pistol was empty and the clip was in her pocket. She wondered how to tell Helgi and Eiríkur that she was going to be away for a few days as she elbowed the door open and looked inside. Eiríkur waved from his desk where he sat with the phone to his ear and held up one finger.

Gunna went to the coffee room and poured herself a mug of dark brown liquid, which she sipped absently, looking at the cartoons pinned to the walls, most of them clipped from newspapers, and most of them poking fun at the upper echelons of the police force or the various ministers of justice who had been the force’s overlord at one time or another.

‘Leaving us for pastures new?’ Eiríkur asked with a grin.

‘Why? What did the Laxdal tell you?’

Eiríkur poured himself a mug of hot water from a Thermos, sat down and dunked a teabag in it.

‘He didn’t say a lot. Just that you’re off normal duties for a while. You haven’t upset someone, have you?’

‘Not yet, Eiríkur. Well, no more than usual.’

He squeezed the teabag and sipped. Gunna could sense the host of unasked questions he wanted to put to her, and realized that he and Helgi had probably been told to not ask too much.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you will soon enough.’

‘You cheeky . . .’ Gunna began and returned the grin to let him know the rebuke wasn’t to be taken seriously.

She and the middle-aged Helgi had clicked from the first day they’d worked together. Much the same age and both of them from coastal regions, they had a great deal in common, while the younger Eiríkur, a city child born and brought up in Reykjavík, had taken longer to become part of the team. It was only in the last year or so that he had started to give rein to an irreverent sense of humour. Gunna had taken a while to get to know him properly, and had wondered if he would remain with the force, or if the church would one day reclaim him.

‘I’ll be off for a day or two. To be honest, I can’t tell you what it’s all about because I don’t know myself yet.’

‘But you’ll have something to tell us when you’re back, I hope?’

Gunna drained her mug and put it in the sink.

‘I would hope so. Unless I completely screw things up and get demoted to running the canteen.’

‘Somehow I don’t think so,’ he said slowly, looking at her with one eye half closed, and Gunna felt a surge of discomfort when she realized that in spite of the loose-fitting fleece she’d kept zipped up, Eiríkur had still detected, with obvious alarm, the bulge under her left arm.

‘All on one level. No basement. Garages there; keep your car in the one on the right,’ Ívar Laxdal instructed, striding from his black Volvo towards the house while Gunna levered herself out of the car-pool Daihatsu.

The house was a long, low building, its walls the pale blue of duck eggs and the high roof set with a shallow pitch and tiled in matt-red shingles.

She surveyed the low-slung house, its barren garden and the view of the shoreline and the deserted promontory of Geldinganes lurking on the far side of a few hundred metres of white-capped waves.

‘Is the causeway passable?’ she asked, jerking a thumb at the long hump of Geldinganes.

‘At low tide and with a four-wheel drive it might be. At this time of year, don’t even think about it.’

‘Is there anything over there?’

‘Nothing. There’s an old shelter that goes back years, but otherwise it’s deserted, and it’s likely to stay that way until the developers finally move in,’ he said. ‘That’s if they ever get permission to build there. There are plans for houses eventually, but it’s a few years away yet.’

‘And this place,’ Gunna said, nodding towards the house. ‘Lonely, isn’t it?’

‘I know,’ Ívar Laxdal replied. ‘Perfect, isn’t it? It’s called Einholt. Or the farm that used to be here was called Einholt, until the farmhouse was pulled down and this place was built. Shall we continue?’

He opened the door and handed Gunna the key as the alarm system chirped.

‘Seven-two-seven-six,’ he said, punching in the code so the sound died away. ‘The alarm goes on at night, please. All the windows and doors are linked to it, so if you get a visitor, you’ll know about it. So will the emergency line, and they’ll treat it as an absolute priority, so no false alarms, please.’

‘The garage doors are on the same circuit?’

‘I’m not sure. Check,’ he said, striding through the living room on two levels that seemed to disappear into the distance.

‘Four bedrooms, all of them en suite. You use the one at the end, closest to the front door. Our friend gets the master bedroom. Kitchen’s there,’ he indicated with a wave of his hand. ‘Stores will be delivered as required. Let us know what you need.’

Gunna stopped in her tracks.

‘Hold on a moment. How many people are going to be in this place, and for how long?’

‘Two of you. Our friend and you.’

‘So I’m a cook and housekeeper, as well as a bodyguard?’

Ívar Laxdal scratched his beard and a sly smile appeared behind it.

‘That’s for you and our guest to work out between you, isn’t it? If you want takeaways for every meal, then that’s fine by me.’

‘Who’s doing the deliveries?’

‘Over here, Gunnhildur.’ He walked to the end of the long living room and took the two steps to the higher end of the split-level living room in one bound. The long wall of the living room was taken up with a picture window that almost filled it, providing a view across the sound. The lights of Akranes on the far side of Faxaflói Bay could be seen between the Geldinganes promontory and the island of Viðey. There was a single window in the end wall and Ívar Laxdal tapped the glass with his finger. ‘Up there, you see the first house on the end? We have that place as well, for a few weeks. The owners were very happy to get an all-expenses paid holiday in Sicily. In the meantime, two officers from the Special Unit are there around the clock. If there’s a panic, that’s what they’re there for.’

‘So to get back to my original question, did you want an officer with ovaries for this role because a suitably domestic type was required, or what?’ Gunna demanded, wondering if she could still turn down the assignment.

‘Far from it, Gunnhildur,’ Ívar Laxdal said. ‘I’m aware that you’re not entirely the domestic type,’ he added, his sly smile returning. ‘I wanted you for this particular job because I can trust you not to fuck things up, because you’re competent without being intimidating, in the way that a six-foot guy with designer stubble might be, and finally, because I felt you deserved the opportunity. I’m not saying it won’t be a challenge, because it will be.’

‘A feminine touch, you mean?’ Gunna growled, mollified but not convinced. ‘So when does he get here?’

‘Ah, I expect the minister will want to bring him here herself.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Very soon.’

Gunna made coffee, while Ívar Laxdal rolled up his sleeves. She watched with amusement and then mounting admiration as he cracked six eggs into a bowl, one-handed and two at a time, chopped onions, added a crushed clove of garlic and sliced a pepper and two tomatoes.

She sat back and watched his concentration on the task in hand until he split the omelette neatly onto two plates.

‘Some fresh bread would have been good, and so would a salad, but we have to make do with what we have,’ he said.

‘It’s good,’ she told him after the first few mouthfuls. ‘You’d better give Steini the recipe.’

‘I assure you Steini knows how to cook an omelette. It’s all in the wrist and the timing.’

‘I hope our friend has an idea of what he’s letting himself in for if I’m supposed to be feeding him as well.’

‘You’ll be fine. Just make a list of what you want.’

Gunna nodded as she wolfed the omelette, surprised at how hungry she had been.

‘It’ll be bog-standard Icelandic food, I reckon.’

‘Meat and potatoes?’

‘That’s about the shape of it.’

‘His diet is the least of my worries.’

‘So what are you worried about?’ Gunna asked. ‘And when are you going to tell me who this character is and why I need to have a Glock stuck in my armpit.’

‘You have your phone with you?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Keep it on silent, and you can log into the wifi network. In any case there’s a jammer in your room that blocks mobile traffic within about ten metres of the house. There’s a landline with an extension in every room. If you need to call, use that. If anything personal crops up, then it’ll have to wait.’

‘Ívar, just how long is this expected to last?’

‘A week, I would imagine. We’ll rotate after a couple of days.’

Gunna sat back, trying to take it all in. ‘And who’s my relief?’

‘I am, probably. We have to keep this discreet, and we achieve discretion by involving as few people as possible,’ Ívar Laxdal said, finishing his omelette. ‘The Special Unit guys up the road only know there’s an VIP here and that they’re to keep watch for intruders; they don’t know who’s going to be here and they aren’t to know unless something crops up.’

The new office was a relief, Skúli Snædal told himself, adding that having an office at all, at long last, was the real relief. He shivered as he waited for the bus that would take him to work, and reminded himself that in spite of the biting spring wind, the sun was appearing earlier with every passing day, winter was almost behind them and he was again working in his chosen profession.

The last couple of years had been difficult ones. He had left a comfortable and secure but low-paid position as a staff journalist on one of Reykjavík’s freesheets to take a precarious but interesting job on an established newspaper that had only a few months later been taken over by new owners. The new proprietors had installed a new manager whose task was to weed out those without a history of toeing the company line, and as one of the last in, and with a known habit of taking little at face value, Skúli had found himself among the first out.

He had even resorted to teaching to make ends meet – he shuddered at the thought. Then the new venture had been nerve-wracking, and he had put everything he had into throwing in his lot with a group of other young journalists in much the same position as himself in setting up a news website. It had been an anxious few months as Reykjavík Pulse had launched with fanfare, immediately becoming popular, only for the readership to gradually fall away in the ensuing months before surging again in the wake of a couple of government scandals that Pulse’s small team had been able to report in a way the established media had failed to do, achieving a vivacious style that bordered on satire.

Pulse was now steadily gaining ground. Its readers seemed to like its lack of political affiliation and its habit of asking embarrassing questions, and the growing readership was bringing in advertisers. In spite of some of them having reservations about Pulse’s frequently irreverent tone, advertisers were aware that the age demographic they were anxious to reach was reading it, without understanding that the abrasive tone was precisely what brought those readers in.

Skúli heard his phone buzz in his pocket as he got on the bus, but waited until he was seated before digging it from his pocket and scrolling through his messages, peering at the screen.

A headshot of a man with curly dark hair, gazing at a point somewhere to one side and far behind the camera, filled his screen. At first glance there was something attractive about the shape of the man’s sculpted chin and elegant, narrow nose, a reassurance about the straightness of the man’s shoulders. But a closer look showed an unsettling hardness behind the deep brown eyes.

He scrolled down to read the message that went with the photo and saw that it had come from a contact in Europe, someone he had worked with in his brief stint on a local newspaper in Jutland who had moved on to work with an NGO in Brussels.

You know who this guy is?

Skúli was perplexed. There was something familiar about the face, although he c. . .