Chilled to the Bone Read Online Free Page B

they’ll enter the room. You understand, there have been cases of people sneaking out without paying, so it’s general policy to keep an eye on these things.”
    “Understood. But surely Jóhannes Karlsson wouldn’t do that?” Gunna said, tapping her teeth with her pen. “Who would normally enter a guest’s room, in that case?”
    Yngvi shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Normally it would be the duty manager or a supervisor.”
    “And in this case it was a chambermaid?”
    “I don’t know what went wrong. I asked Ástrós to check the room at around one as Jóhannes Karlsson was due to check out and, as we’re busy at the moment, the room was needed tonight. Maybe she asked Valeria to knock and check. She’s been here for some time and is very competent and trustworthy. I haven’t yet had a chance to check with Ástrós, but I imagine the management will expect an enquiry into this.”
    “And that’s why you’re so nervous? Because the right procedures weren’t followed?” Gunna asked and was rewarded with a tight-lipped frown.
    “You can draw your own conclusions,” he snapped back and immediately apologized. “Sorry. It’s been a difficult day. Is there anything more I can help you with?”
    H EKLA WALKED SMARTLY past the trendy end of downtown Reykjavík and through the streets of the old western end of town. She had a spring in her step and cash in her pocket, her holdall slung over one shoulder as she enjoyed the crunch of the snow beneath her trainers.
    Her Toyota was parked discreetly in a residential street in front of a rambling old house that had been converted into a warren of tiny apartments. She had reckoned that with so many people living in the house, residents would assume the car belonged to a visitor in one of the other flats. She put a huge carrier bag from one Reykjavík’s more expensive shops in the car’s boot and dropped her holdall next to it; a couple of small gift-wrapped packets nestled reassuringly in her jacket pocket.
    The car started with an effort. Giving it a minute for the engine to warm up and the fan to start circulating some warm air, she hunched low in the seat and looked around quickly. The street was deserted and as far as she could make out, nobody was looking out of the windows of the apartments she had parked outside. The Toyota bumped along the street as Hekla headed through town, taking care not to drive too fast or too slowly but to look as if she were simply going home from the gym. In the queue of waiting traffic at the lights by Lækjargata, she turned the radio on, drumming the steering wheel with her thumbs in time to the music and trying not to peer toward the town center.
    It was with relief that she saw the lights change to green and the traffic begin to move. She decided to go with the flow of traffic and let it take her through the city and out the other side, with a stop at one of the big supermarkets at the busiest time of the day to shop for the week’s groceries.
    She wondered if the two men had been set free yet, and how long it would be before their cards stopped working. The first one would have been found by now, she thought. The older guy would be furious; there had been no mistaking the virulence of the hatred in his stare, which was only magnified by his naked helplessness. But he would just have to lick his wounds and get over it, she decided, certain that the man could easily afford the relatively modest shopping spree he’d unwillingly funded.
    Fortunately she had already been to several cashpoints andhad milked the cards of everything the machines would dispense after she had bought herself some expensive shoes and what she liked to think of as investments against a rainy day. The second guy’s cards had resulted in a good deal of cash and some more of the same expensive, understated gold and silver, which would keep its value in a safe deposit box.
    As the city center disappeared behind her, Hekla relaxed at the wheel,