The Dead & The Drowning Read online

  “What is your name, I'll phone him and tell him that you're here.”

  I groan inwardly,

  “My name is Will.”

  The cashier pulls a gold iPhone from his back pocket and swipes and taps the screen. He puts the phone to his right ear, and I can just about hear the ringing. The cashier smiles as the phone rings close to a dozen times without answer.

  “He's not answering,” says the Cashier shaking his head and opening his mouth again like a contemplative goldfish. Finally, he says,

  “I would like to help but unfortunately I can't give out employee details.”

  I nod understandingly and take a step out the door before thinking of another tack.

  “I understand you can't tell me where Jon lives, but is there somewhere in town that I might find him?”

  The cashier protrudes his bottom lip and says,

  “Yes … you might see him at Bakarinn. It is a café in Hafnarstraeti. He likes the American woman there.”

  I take heart. I just got to fire enough shots off and I'll eventually hit the target. I ache like I'm ill and I push on into town wanting something to loosen me up. The phone does the head-work and I follow the track on the map to Bakarinn. The town is spacious like they have more space than they know what to do with; and bright, nearly all the hotels and houses are an uplifting white, blue, yellow or red. Back home the houses are packed and stacked into terraces for the working class and increasingly the underclass. Space matters so there isn't any, and in the dingy, choked streets the town closes in to stifle the life out of you.

  I am now partially guilty of a modern ill by referencing my phone while walking, and as I look back up I catch the tail end of a petrol blue SUV rolling by. I hastily read the back and it is a Land Rover Defender. It rounds a corner and I make out at least three heavily clothed occupants that I can't even tell are man or woman. Instinctively, I go after it like a whippet bolts for a rabbit, though at the moment all my old beat up body can manage is a spirited jog.

  Their Defender is green, or is it? It had been a dark, dismal day with a thrashing downpour and in such conditions a dark blue could easily be perceived as a dark green – I had to allow for error.

  Clearing the corner, I see it at about a hundred yards distance turn again. I huff; pissed off from the spurred exertion. My boots pound the pavement and the sour remnants of last night's whisky surface. I am ragged by the time I reach the second corner, the deep, hard breaths rasping my lungs – I am not in the shape I was. Living with the black dog and the wages of whisky, the lethargy of the office, they had all taken their toll on my fitness.

  I direct my eyes to the furthest point of a long street and the Defender is not to be seen. I stride purposely overtaking and side stepping the leisurely Sunday afternoon crowd, scouring back along lines of parked cars and junctions to side streets. In the third side street I see it parked up. Uneasily I approach, my senses all over it scratching for information. It is outside a restaurant and no longer occupied. I pull up the hood of my coat and walk past, furtively inspecting the front for damage. Everything is intact, however there are cattle bars and with those there to protect the front there might not be any. I try and think if the Defender had cattle bars and I don't remember either way.

  I turn and withdraw into an adjacent doorway of a shut store where my brain works overtime. Marcus and Adam couldn't take Toni in for a casual meal. Perhaps at knife point it is possible, but too risky even for a psychopath; though there is always a question mark over what the mentally unhinged will or will not do. I had learned the hard way not to apply your own values to this calculation because for some people two plus two equals five. I stand shrouded in the doorway with wisps of steamy sweat curling out of my hood, mulling over at least half a dozen possibilities. Toni could be trussed up and gagged in the boot, but if that is the case who is the third person – Jon, an unknown accomplice. The other explanation that I had been too carried away with to yet consider is probably the most plausible, that it is a different Defender with different people. Yet, this is an uncommon vehicle in a very small town and in the destination where they were heading. The pendulum swings back and I must rule it out.

  The restaurant is on the ground floor of a beige four story building, that has a peculiar tilted green roof like a cocked hat. It has numerous windows and square wooden pillars supporting a canopy along a glass frontage spanning two sides of the building.

  From what I can deduce Hamraborg is a burger joint loosely modelled on an American diner. I walk to the door and abort entering when I realize that I don't have to go in to survey those inside. The two sided front means I can look fully into the restaurant.

  I start at one corner and walking slowly scan the customers. I draw an apprehensive look off an old man seated drinking coffee when I get up onto the balls of my feet to peer beyond him. I methodically head hunt along the rows of booths eliminating everyone I fix my eyes on. I am near completion when I see two women and a man in their early twenties sitting at a booth. The woman unwinds a scarf and a man across from her shrugs off his coat. The third places a glove on top of another on the edge of the table – they look like they've just sat down, and I peg them for the Land Rover. There are two more booths: one is empty and the other is filled by a family. I puff out through my lips and then grin. I'd struck out, but never mind it was worth a shot, there was no other way to know.

  My map re-routes and in little over a minute I reach a three storey oat coloured building, which has businesses on the ground floor and apartments or offices above. The Bakarinn Café is on the end with a light blue sign above high windows. I hold the door for two women leaving and go in. There is an attractive woman aged around fifty behind the counter. She has braided blonde hair with streaks of red, and a voluptuous figure straining against a fluffy Icelandic cardigan. She is looking down, reading a book through a pair of snazzy glasses.

  “Hello,” I say cheerfully.

  “Hello, what can I get you honey?” she answers in an unmistakable southern drawl.

  “I'd like a strong milky coffee and a salmon bagel with cream cheese thank you.”

  “Okay sweetheart, that's fifteen hundred Krona.”

  I fork out the money still unsure of what coins are worth.

  “Take a load off sugar, and I'll bring it right over.”

  She has the confident ease and sassiness of a woman that has dealt with countless numbers of people from all walks of life. I imagine her to be a worldly veteran of bars, casinos and diners with a trunk load of hard luck stories and heartbreak. What I wonder had caused her to up sticks and set up shop at the edge of the world? A more pertinent question is what am I doing here? I have reasons though I don't know if I trust them. If I'm honest, I don't know right now if I trust myself at all.

  “There you go darlin, enjoy!”

  “Hey doll, could I ask you something?”

  I never spoke like this, it just came out, and sort of felt appropriate.

  “Sure hun.”

  “Do you know Jon Einarsson? I was supposed to meet him this afternoon at the museum where he volunteers, and he hasn’t shown up. I'd phone him but I lost it overboard yesterday whale watching in Reykjavik. Trying to get a better angle on a shot, slipped hit my nut and over it went. Can you believe it?” I laugh self-deprecatingly and point to the prop of my most recent lies.

  “Could you tell me where he lives? I'm meant to be staying with him.”

  I am useless with women; however, I try to swing it with my best puppy dog look.

  “I was expecting him myself today for lunch, but he didn't show. You is friend or something?”

  I had heard and liked this accent on numerous films and television shows, and it is even richer and sexier in person.

  “Yeah, even though I've never met him I'd say we were friends. We are both into Viking history and I met him on an internet forum a year ago. We chat regularly and when I said I was going to tour Iceland he invited me to Isafjordur to stay with him.�
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  I may not like lying, even as it turns out I am not too shabby at it. It seems the more you do the slicker you get.

  “Jon lives at twenty-two Hildevargur, it is sign posted and just off the hook. Tell him Nula don't like being stood up.”

  Nula jots it down on a napkin, and then sways her hips back behind the counter. I knew what she meant by hook, and remembering my lie in time, withdraw an empty hand from my coat pocket where my phone is. I tuck into the bagel and coffee and leave with a new found spring in my step.

  Chapter 13

  It is a small town, and everything isn't far, and Hildevargur is a stone's throw from the café. It is a quiet residential street and I don't see the Defender parked up anywhere, though my heart still beats for a fight. I had just crossed the street when my phone rings. I answer,

  “Hello.”

  “Is that Mr. Cutter?” the voice formal and Icelandic.

  “Yes it is,” I reply thinking it is Gudjohnsen over Sigurdsson though I wouldn't bet money on it.

  “It is Detective Gudjohnsen. How are you today?”

  “Better than I was yesterday thank you for asking.”

  “Good,” he said stiffly. “I've completed your statement and informed the Desk Sergeant that you will be in to sign it.”

  “Yeah no problem I'll call in.”

  “We haven't found Miss Brookes yet, but I'd thought you might want to know that we did find what we believe to be a burnt out Land Rover Defender near Staour.”

  “Is that near Isafjordur?”

  “No, but on the way.”

  So, they had acted smart and ditched the Defender. They would still need wheels though and must have hired or stolen another vehicle. Now one of the things I am looking out for had gone. I would have to rely on the other two. It is a setback, but there are usually setbacks, a smooth ride is a rarity.

  Number twenty-two is a reasonably large white house with green frame windows and door. It is set in a lush garden of leafy trees and bushes that have upon them the yellow wan of Autumn.

  I step forward with trepidation; a familiar sense of dread of discovering death or the wanted in the next room, hanging from the attic or crammed in the wardrobe. I carefully climb the garden steps like they are creaky stairs and it is four o'clock in the morning. I'm assuming the worst that Jon is gone, or in a pool of blood behind the door.

  The curtains are drawn, and I slink around the side of the house, pausing each step to sense for disturbance. I drop to a crouch and peer around the corner to the back. There is a shed close to a border fence and leaning against the shadowed side is a spade. The spade feels like Christmas has come early and I sidle over to fetch it. It is light, flat and narrow bladed, and a hard jab with it will split a nose in two. If I get into it with Marcus again I'm going to have to fight smarter to my advantages and not his, though I guess it will depend on where we fight and with what. I shove thoughts of revenge to the back of my mind and concentrate on the task in hand.

  The blinds are drawn on the back windows, so I have no idea of what is inside. I creep to the side of the back door and listen intently and don't hear anything. I examine the door, it is wood on the bottom and textured glass above and it is shut. There is no blind, though only indistinct shapes and shades of light can be made out. I almost miss it, a small split in the frame level with the lock exposing untreated wood. I look closer and see prize marks in the join of the door, that caused the frame to split and perhaps the door to be breached.

  I run through my options: I could wait outside for an opportunity to ambush, though that had too many variables - foremost being they could have already flown the coop. I could involve the police, but this meant relinquishing control of the situation, and that is drawing a sword that can cut both ways. The third option is the one I know in my gut I'm going to go for.

  I gather myself, spade at the ready and test the door handle with a gloved hand. The lock is bust, and it gives. I step back and nudge the door wide open with the spade. I angle left and right round the doorway spying into the corners. The door has swung right and I'm happy that left is clear. I position myself on the doorstep, and side step in with the spade held as a bayonet to face what might be behind the door. There is nobody; a cluttered open plan kitchen leading to a worn lounge, both with several potted plants of various sizes. There is a pile of dried washing on a dining table, a cat bowl on a mat, papers on a coffee table, an analogue clock that ticks loudly. It is a little untidy though not disturbed.

  Behind me there is a door and I pull it open like a poised Spartan, to find a damp laundry room with mouldy corners and flaking paint. I move through the kitchen into the lounge where on the left I see an open doorway to the hall. The floor is weathered block wood, with a sheepskin rug rumpled against the staircase featured on the opposing wall. The front door is to my right, another open doorway into a room of unknown purpose is directly opposite. Set in the side of the staircase is a closed door.

  I step through and knock the handle of the spade against the frame of the door. The sound amplifies in the hallway and I may as well have rapped the front door like l am delivering a parcel. I curse with my lips that I'm a bungling fucking idiot and drop any further pretence at stealth. I storm through the open doorway ready for mayhem into a library of musty books and wall hung artefacts. As soon as I am in I am out and up the stairs, bounding, senses overloaded, everything at full throttle. I tear through the upstairs rooms with the commitment of a Kamikaze, but death or glory do not befall me. The rooms are absent except for the lingering presence of an old man living on his own.

  Down the stairs at a gallop to the door underneath. It is a cupboard or basement and I hope it is a cupboard. I open the door and to the right stairs descend into darkness. There is a light cord and I pull it. Light floods the stairway holding the black unknown at bay. The stairs creak, give and feel treacherous and I hold onto the rail. Time has now slowed, and the blaze of adrenaline has quelled to sickness. They weren't here, though what they might have disposed of could be. I reach the bottom, the air is stuffy and clinging, the darkness overbearing the pocket of light. There is a tarnished metal light switch on the wall, and I move a hand towards it.

  Suddenly I hear a murmur from the dark depths of the room. I recoil against the wall bracing the spade like a frightened peasant with a pitchfork. No terror emerges from the darkness, though the murmur persists, and I discern it is mechanical – a monotonous humming whirr. I breathe again and hit the switch.

  ◆◆◆

  She is taped to a chair. Shiny grey Duct tape wound around the seat and her thighs, wrapped around her calves and the legs of the chair. Lengths and lengths of tape binding her body and arms to the back of the chair. There is a strip across her mouth and another over the eyes. Her head is slumped into her chest and it is not clear if she is alive or dead. I drop the spade and rush over to her. I say breathily,

  “Toni, it's okay it's me Will.”

  She raises her head and the fear loosens its grip. I shed my gloves and peel back the tape from her eyes and mouth. The fan heater in the corner blows out heat and I feel the sudden break of sweat on my forehead. She looks shocked to see me - shocked full stop.

  “Are you hurt?” I ask.

  “Banged up a bit and hot as hell. Fuck! You came for me. I saw you fall. I thought you were dead.”

  “There's time for that yet,” I joke.

  I begin ripping away the tape, stopping halfway to kill the heater. I bite, peel and pull and soon Toni is free. I help her up and we climb out of the basement.

  In the kitchen Toni takes off her brown leather flight jacket with a sheepskin collar and lapels and pulls up the red micro-fleece underneath. On her stomach a purple black bruise resembling a disfigured flower stands out against the whiteness of her skin.

  “I bet there is a bigger one on my leg; the fucker kicked me like a dog.”

  “He showed me he knows how to use a bat, and he looks to me like he's done a fair bit of karate.” />
  “He has, he’s been state champion a couple of times. His father ran a dojo in Rochester and started instructing him from the age of four,” she says begrudgingly.

  I would adapt. I did it all the time on the street deploying the right tactics for the job. I realized his is a speed game that relied on space and movement. If I could shut that down, get it close and dirty I would murder him. I feel a spark of excitement as I visualize the edge, car, corner I would smother him in.

  I put my gloves back on and close the back door, then from the kitchen tap I pour two tall glasses of water. Toni chugs hers down, droplets of water spilling from the sides of the glass and rolling off her chin. She goes for a refill, finishes half of it and breathes heavily. She wipes her mouth dry and wearily says,

  “I am going to tell you the truth, I owe you that.”

  “I'd be glad to hear it,” I reply.

  “You remember what I told you about my dad being stationed over here with the Navy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like I said in his spare time he used to roam the island treasure hunting with a metal detector. Well he thought he never really found anything of consequence or value … but he had he just didn't know it. It was Jon who found out what he had. Jon has devoted his life to Icelandic history: the first settlers, the sagas, the lore and legends. Early last year Jon was researching the legend of Gorm Longbeard's hidden treasure and he found an obscure reference to a key.”

  “Right!”

  I draw out the word feeling my credulity being stretched - Gorm Longbeard sounded like a Tolkien dwarf; however, crimes were being committed for something, so I knocked it off and listened. Toni shot me a cut it out look, and continued,

  “This Viking wore an ornate brooch on his cloak and Jon believes the design of it is a map. Jon is convinced my father's broach is Longbeard's brooch. The filaments in the centre replicate a feature of land and Jon thinks he has found what it represents. Jon says that the brooch has to be looked through at the correct distance and the lines matched up. When it is aligned the cross in the south east corner is where the treasure is buried.”