Frozen Assets - Hardcover

Bates, Quentin

 
9781569478677: Frozen Assets
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1569478678 ISBN 13: 9781569478677
Verlag: Soho Crime, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

A body is found floating in the harbor of a rural Icelandic fishing village. Was it an accident, or something more sinister? It’s up to Officer Gunnhildur, a sardonic female cop, to find out. Her investigation uncovers a web of corruption connected to Iceland’s business and banking communities. Meanwhile, a rookie crime journalist latches onto her, looking for a scoop, and an anonymous blogger is stirring up trouble. The complications increase, as do the stakes, when a second murder is committed. Frozen Assets is a piercing look at the endemic corruption that led to the global financial crisis that bankrupted Iceland’s major banks and sent the country into an economic tailspin from which it has yet to recover.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Quentin Bates lived in Iceland for ten years, during which time he got married, produced a family, and generally went native. He moved back to the UK with his family in 1990 and became a full-time journalist at a commercial fishing magazine. He and his wife frequently return to Iceland, where they have many friends, including several in the Reykjavik police.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Tuesday, 26 August

Water gurgled between the piles of the dock and the car’s tyres
juddered over the heavy timbers. Somewhere a generator puttered on
board one of the longliners tied up at the quay.

The driver turned off the engine and killed the lights before
stepping out of the car and taking a deep breath of fragrant summer
air, still and laden with the tang of seaweed. He looked about him
carefully and walked along the quay, watching the boats for any sign
of activity.

Satisfied, he opened the passenger door. He lifted the passenger’s
legs out and then stooped to drape an arm over his shoulders.
Grunting with exertion, he hauled the passenger to his feet.

‘Waas goin’ on?’ the passenger slurred as the driver steadied himself,
planting his feet wide. He half supported, half dragged the passenger
the few metres towards the gangplank of the nearest boat.

‘Come on. Almost there.’

The passenger staggered against the driver. ‘W-w-where’s this?’

‘Nearly there,’ the driver muttered to himself as much as to his
passenger.

He braced one booted foot on the heavy timber parapet running
the length of the quay, and quickly straightened his back as he
tipped the passenger headlong into the blackness below. The splash
competed for a second with the muttering generator on board a
nearby boat and the driver stood still, listening intently. Hearing
nothing from below, he nodded to himself and padded back to the
car.

A moment later the engine whispered into life and the car vanished
into the night.

The phone buzzed angrily. Gunna fumbled for the handset in the dark
and barked into it.

‘Gunnhildur.’

‘Good morning. Sorry to wake you up. I did wake you up, didn’t
I?’ asked a familiar voice as she cast about for the face that went with it.

‘You did,’ she yawned. ‘Who is this?’

‘Albert Jónasson.’

Gunna stretched a hand to the curtain and twitched it aside to let
in a glare of early morning sunlight.

‘And what can I do for you at this ungodly hour?’ she asked,
knowing that Albert Jónasson was not a man to trouble a police officer
without good reason, especially one who had arrested him only a few
weeks before.

‘Thought you’d be the best person to talk to. There’s a bloke down
by the quay.’

‘You woke me up to tell me there’s a stranger by the dock?’ Gunna
growled.

‘Yeah. A stranger who’s dead.’

She snapped awake and swung her feet on to the cold floor.

‘Where?’

‘On the beach by the pontoons. Saw something in the waves and
went to have a look.’

‘Right. Stay where you are. I’ll be right there.’


Gunna drove past the half-dozen longline boats tied up at the quay
and slowed down as the car rumbled on to the black gravel that made
up the track leading to the small boat dock. She could make out a
solitary figure standing next to the only boat there, a bearded bear of
a man in orange oilskin trousers pacing the pontoon dock next to a
spotless fishing boat that puttered with its engine idling.

She parked at the top of the dock among the fishermen’s pickup
trucks and Albert Jónasson strode to meet her, pointing at a bundle
lying among the waves lapping on the black sand of the beach a few
metres away.

‘Down there,’ he said grimly, following behind as Gunna trod
gingerly, wary of disturbing anything.

‘Have you been down here, Albert?’ she called over her shoulder.
‘No fear. Leave well alone, I thought.’

‘You haven’t had a look? How did you know it was a body?’

‘I got here a bit late. All the others were away before daybreak. I was
just starting up and saw something floating, so I had a look with the
binoculars and saw what it was. So I thought I’d better give you a call.’

Gunna ripped a pair of surgical gloves from the pouch on her tool
belt and snapped them on before she squatted by the bundle and
gently smoothed matted red hair back from a face that looked peaceful
but lost. She pressed the button on her Tetra communicator and spoke
into the tiny microphone on her collar.

‘Nine eight four one, nine five five zero. Are you there, Haddi?’
She retreated and pulled her phone from her pocket.

‘Albert, are you going to sea today?’ she asked as the dialling tone
buzzed.

‘I was going to.’

‘All right. Ah, Haddi, that took a while,’ she said, switching her
attention to the phone. ‘Look, shelve everything, we have an
unidentified body floating in the small boat dock. You’d better get the
cavalry out.’

Albert watched Gunna nodding as she paced back and forth,
admiring her solid frame inside the uniform that didn’t do it justice.

‘No,’ she continued. ‘Ambulance and the technical division,
discreetly if that’s at all possible. Get Bjössi over from CID in Keflavík
if he’s not too busy with the Baltic mafia. OK?’

She ended the call and looked over to where Albert was waiting
patiently for her.

‘Am I all right to go to sea today, then?’

‘When will you be back?’

‘Three. Four, maybe.’

‘Go on then. But I’ll need you to make a statement when you’ve
finished landing your fish.’

‘No problem,’ Albert said gratefully, already making his way along
the pontoon and throwing off the boat’s mooring ropes in the process.
‘See you later, Gunna,’ he called out as the boat surged from the quay.
And I’ll stay here and wait for the professionals to turn up, Gunna
thought, opening the squad car’s boot to get out a roll of tape to
cordon off the area. She wondered if the tape had ever been used
before in Hvalvík, a village where a speeding ticket or an uncooperative
drunk were the most serious crimes she or Haddi normally
had to deal with.


26-08-2008, 0944

Skandalblogger writes:

You can’t keep a good blog down!

So, we’re back and once again the Icelandic scandal blog has a
brand-new home! We’ve been tarred and feathered and run out of
town on a rail one more time, so this time we’re back stronger than
ever in a delightful part of the world where they respect the power of
Mr Visa to overrule the pathetic attempts of those-who-run-things to
silence free speech. Hurrah for the Tiger economies! Free speech is
there for those willing to pay for it!

Making friends and influencing people!

But anyway, folks, and we mean that most sincerely, our favourites
are still up to their old tricks. Gunni Benedikts at the trade ministry, no
doubt after a looong lunch with his old chum Óli at agriculture, has just
decided to block imports of New Zealand lamb to our fair country.
Now, some of you may find this a bit hard to stomach, what with all the
claptrap these guys have been spouting over the years about free
market economics, going for the most competitive bid, and all that
shit. But let’s remember which party holds trade? And agriculture? Of
course, it’s our old friends the Progressives, and we can’t go upsetting
the farmers, or at least the half-dozen who are still in business and
who vote for them, just by letting them be undercut by...

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Verlag
Soho Crime
Erscheinungsdatum
2011
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1569478678
ISBN 13 
9781569478677
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
330
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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