Chilled to the Bone by Quentin Bates

him. Már looked in on him a couple of times without saying anything and carried on toward the printer.
    In the middle of the day his mobile hummed discreetly and he squinted at the picture on the screen, where an image of Agnes looked back at him with that stern expression he rather liked.
    “
Hæ
, darling.”
    “What time will you be home? You’re not working late again, are you?”
    It was an instruction rather than a question.
    “No. I’m not feeling great. I’ll do another hour or so and then I’ll be home. Do you need the car?”
    “No. Why?”
    “I thought I’d walk home if you don’t need it.”
    “All right then.” She sounded dubious. “I’m going to my sister’s for an hour. Text me when you leave work and I’ll behome at the same time as you. All right?” Agnes asked, sounding brighter.
    “No problem, darling. Will do.”
    He did nothing but sit at his computer for the following hour, and at the end of it he stood up, knotted his white scarf around his neck and pulled on his coat.
    “Not feeling well. Not sure I’ll be in tomorrow,” he said to the girl at reception and was gone before she could reply.
    Outside on the street he looked around him, watching out for the parka and baseball cap. Neither could be seen so he set off uphill, slowly, stretching his legs with each step after his day in the cramped office. With the car left behind he hoped to have thrown off his pursuer, but it also mean that he would have to forgo his visit to the gym in the morning. Maybe a workout at lunchtime would be in order? His head was roaring and he felt slightly faint, but he carried on all the same, glancing to the left and right, occasionally stopping to look in the window of a shop so he had an opportunity to look behind him.
    A blonde woman with a small backpack and a purposeful look about her strode smartly past him, stepping with one booted foot into the slush of the gutter as she passed. Once she had gone, Jóel Ingi seemed to have the street to himself. Relieved, he pushed open the door of the smart block of flats, where his apartment occupied the top floor, and waited for the lift to arrive, just as the woman with the backpack peered around the corner, nodded to herself and quickly thumbed a text message into her phone.
    E IRÍKUR WROTE DOWN instructions as Gunna barked them out, head down over his pad.
    “Any questions?” she asked once Helgi and Eiríkur had been given their orders.
    “Straight away?” Eiríkur asked.
    “Straight away. You’re on shift until tonight, so you can start with the hotels this afternoon. This isn’t serious enough to warrant any overtime, so just do what you can. All right?”
    “Do you think it could get that way?” Helgi asked.
    Gunna ran her fingers through her hair and sat back. “You know, I’m really not sure. I’m trying to decide whether this is a bizarre one-off of the kind that we won’t see again for twenty years, or if there’s something bigger going on that we haven’t had a sniff of until now. That’s why I want a few questions asked, quietly. I really don’t want to ring any alarm bells.”
    “You mean you don’t want to get hauled over the coals again for upsetting people with important friends?”
    “It’s not so much that. I don’t want to get a roasting for something you two reprobates have done. Right. Tomorrow. Helgi and I are on an early shift, Eiríkur. If you’re starting at twelve, I suggest we meet at the bus station for lunch, compare notes and move on from there. Show of hands?”
    Helgi and Gunna put their hands up. Eiríkur sat on his. “Why do you two always want to meet up at places full of old people?”
    “Because they serve sheep heads and mashed swede at the bus station,” Helgi said, almost salivating at the thought. “Proper old-fashioned food. The kind I don’t get at home any more.”
    “Plus you can park at the bus station. It’s not far from here and it’s not full of yuppies and terrible music. So,