He reached forward to turn on the engine. The taxi had been still for so long that it was starting to cool and he needed to burn a little diesel to warm up. This wasn’t just for his own sake. Customers like a warm cab as well.
He peered over his shades into the mirror, hoping to see a customer hurrying towards him. At this time on a Tuesday morning a few revellers were still making their way home. Weekday mornings were good with business people hurrying to meetings, but evenings were best when the nightclubs, parties in people’s houses and revellers with a deep need to score could keep a man busy well into the small hours.
Matti peered into the mirror and examined his eyebrows. He took out a comb and swept back his thick black hair before giving each eyebrow a tweak and then clenching his buttocks to lift himself in the seat and bring his moustache into view. This too needed a minor readjustment. In fact, the long-out-of-fashion Zapata tache was Matti’s only remaining gesture towards elegance. A porn star moustache, one very refreshed customer had called it, before being dropped miles from his destination and outrageously overcharged.
For a man who habitually wore jogging bottoms and hadn’t seen his feet for years, Matti was a keen follower of fashion. He thoroughly approved of the new fashions for young women to wear ever tighter clothes and delighted particularly in the warm spring weather that brought the short tops and miniskirts out as sure as the geese started flying north. Not that this applied on the night shift, when all year round skimpy skirts could give him a flash of knicker — or better — as the young things jumped into the big Mercedes to be ferried between bars, nightclubs and parties.
Matti was deep in reverie when a phone rang. He patted his pockets until he found which one was buzzing.
‘Yeah?’
He listened briefly, grinned and ended the call. Matti put the big taxi into gear and pulled out of the taxi rank, switching off the For Hire sign as he did so. Private jobs, paid for in notes, were always worth having.
Gunna spread the newspaper out on her desk and waited for Skúli to turn up. He had spent anything from a day to an hour or two shadowing her doing routine work. She admitted to herself that it was quite enjoyable having someone so young tagging along behind her asking questions — frequently questions so simple that she wondered how someone with a university education could know so little.
She was about to give up trying to work out the newspaper’s recipe for a beef casserole when she heard Skúli greeting Haddi at the front desk.
‘Madame’s in the executive suite,’ Haddi grunted when Skúli asked where she was.
‘He means I’m in here, Skúli,’ Gunna called and Skúli’s windblown face appeared in the doorway, with a young woman half a head taller at his shoulder.
‘Hi,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Er, this is Lára. She’s come to take some pictures today if that’s OK.’
Lára extended a hand and Gunna crunched it in hers.
‘Fine by me. But preferably nothing embarrassing.’
‘Have you heard about the march?’ Skúli asked excitedly.
‘What march?’
‘So you haven’t. Clean Iceland Campaign are organizing a march to protest against the aluminium industry. You must have heard about it. It was on the news this morning.’
Gunna stared. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, this a TV-free zone. The only news here is yesterday’s
‘It’s next weekend, but it starts tomorrow morning.’
‘Skúli, make sense, will you? It’s Wednesday tomorrow, so how can it be happening at the weekend?
‘What he means,’ Lára broke in, ‘is that the march starts outside Parliament tomorrow morning and they plan to be here on Saturday afternoon.’
‘Here?’ Gunna demanded.
‘That’s right,’ Skúli went on breathlessly. ‘They plan to march from Reykjavík to here. It’s a hundred kilometres, so if they cover thirty or so in a day they’ll be here for Saturday and they’re planning a public meeting outside the InterAlu compound on Saturday afternoon.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘They reckon on a thousand people at least taking part,’ Skúli added.
Gunna’s desk phone rang and she picked it up with the frown still on her face. ‘Gunnhildur.’
‘Good morning, Gunnhildur. Vilhjálmur here. I was just wondering if you were aware of the events that are being proposed for next weekend?’
She could feel the distaste in the chief inspector’s voice.
‘Ah, you mean the Clean Iceland Campaign march?’ she asked smoothly, grinning at Skúli. ‘As it happens, yes. But if you want to tell me more, then go ahead.’
Matti only had to drive a few hundred metres and as he pulled up at the lights to wait for the turning on to Sæbraut, the door swung open and his passenger appeared silently in the seat.
‘Where to today, Mr Hardy?’
‘Out of town this time. Borgarnes.’