Chilled to the Bone Read Online Free Page A

few years,” she replied in passable Icelandic, but with a distinct accent. “My husband’s Icelandic.”
    “Been working here long?”
    “Two years,” she said, her eyes flickering toward Yngvi again.
    “All right, I’d like you simply to take me through what happened today. No pressure, I just want you to describe what you did and what you saw, that’s all.”
    Valeria took a deep breath and collected her thoughts. “I knocked and there was no answer. So I knocked again. Still no answer, so I call out, ‘Chambermaid,’ and open the door. I go into the corridor and the light is off, so I go into the room and the man is there on the bed,” she explained with a curl of her lip.
    “Did you touch anything?”
    “Just the light switch in the hall, I think.”
    “The lights were on in the room itself, but not in the hallway, you mean?”
    Valeria nodded.
    “You touched the body?”
    “I touch here,” Valeria said with a shudder and put a hand to her neck. “Check for heart. Nothing, then call for help.”
    “Who did you call?”
    “Ástrós, the supervisor. She was in the linen cupboard down the hall and came straight away. She saw the guy on the bed and called Yngvi,” she said, nodding at Yngvi as he sat gloomily twisting his fingers in knots.
    Gunna nodded. “Apart from the man on the bed, was there anything that you noticed was out of place?”
    “No, I don’t think so,” she said with a shrug. “I was only in there a few moments.”
    “All right, then. Thank you, Valeria, that’ll do. My colleague will scan your fingerprints before you leave so that we can identify which are your prints in the room.”
    “Then I can go now?” Valeria asked, relieved.
    “Yes, thank you. Just speak to my colleague, the tall youngish guy, and he’ll do the fingerprint scan for you.” Gunna turned to Yngvi as Valeria left the room. “Is Ástrós about anywhere?”
    “I’ll get her,” Yngvi said, half-standing until Gunna waved him to sit down.
    “No big hurry; I need a statement from you as well. I take it Ástrós alerted you?”
    “She did. We have these bleep machines so the managers and supervisors can be located. Ástrós bleeped me and I was there a minute later.”
    “And you saw …?”
    He shrugged. “Just the same as Valeria described. The man was lying on the bed. I didn’t really take much notice other than to do the same as she did and check for a pulse. I couldn’t find one, so I made the one-one-two call from the front desk and noticed that Sveinn Ófeigsson was in the restaurant. So I asked him to come with me.”
    “Why didn’t you call one-one-two from the room itself?”
    “I, er,” Yngvi floundered. “I, er, just didn’t think of it. The man was dead, no doubt. I didn’t think a few seconds would make a difference.”
    Alerted by Yngvi’s obvious nervousness, Gunna instinctively pushed him harder. “This was at what time?”
    “I don’t remember. Around one, I think.”
    “The one-one-two call was made at 13:12,” Gunna said, consulting her notes. “How long was it after finding the body before you called one-one-two? Was it before or after Sveinn Ófeigsson went up to the room with you?”
    “Er, before.”
    “I take it Jóhannes Karlsson was overdue checking out of his room?”
    “He was. I had expected him to leave by twelve, as usual. He’s a regular guest so it wasn’t a problem that he was a little late. We try to be helpful here, you know,” he said, bridling in defense.
    “It’s all right, I’m just trying to build up a picture of what went on here. He was supposed to check out around twelve. He didn’t show up, so what’s the normal procedure?”
    “Reception would call the room’s phone and ask if the guest has been delayed. If there’s no reply, they call again ten minutes later—in case the guest is, er, indisposed.”
    “Yup, in the shower or taking a dump, you mean? Then what?”
    “Then someone will knock and, if there’s no reply,