‘Thank you for not giving up,’ she said, turning towards him.

  His eyes left the road for a moment as he glanced at her, and he was relieved to be behind the wheel. It gave him a pretext to look away again. Otherwise he would have stared at her and given himself away. This weird eagerness, this longing, that sometimes took hold of him in her presence made him shiver.

  ‘No thanks needed,’ he said. ‘I’m just sorry that there’s nothing that can tell us more about what happened to your sister, or where that bastard Björn is hiding.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I know the investigation has hit a dead end. I’m just so grateful that you haven’t given up on it. I saw the paperwork at your place when I went to fetch your stuff.’

  ‘She’s in my thoughts every night,’ he said, and immediately regretted the sincerity in his voice. He quickly switched to a tone that was more neutral, more ‘police’. ‘It’s difficult to accept when there’s no conclusion to a disappearance.’

  Áróra hummed something in reply and they sat in silence, the only sound the rattle of the studded tyres of Flosi’s car, which Daníel had borrowed to fetch Áróra from the airport. He’d have to remember to tell the man off for switching to winter tyres so early in the autumn. It wasn’t as if he lived in some remote wilderness.

  Unusually, he was the one who finally gave up and broke the silence between them; normally he used it to make people talk. Few people could stand to be quiet for long around others.

  ‘We’re starting to get some kind of an overview of this case concerning Flosi,’ he said. ‘It’s not certain that Flosi’s going to need all the cash that’s in that case.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Guðrún has been spotted on traffic CCTV around dinner time on the evening she disappeared, walking along the street away from the house, alone.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Daníel said. ‘She’s walking up to Reykjavíkurvegur, and that’s where she disappears from sight. She could have got in a car anywhere, at any point, along that stretch of road between Álftanesvegur and Fjarðarkaup supermarket.’

  ‘So this is just a family affair?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daníel sighed, either from relief or disappointment, he wasn’t sure which. ‘It looks like that. It’s going to be the divorce from hell.’

  45

  Michael had called Flosi and given him the code to unlock the case from Áróra’s wrist and open it. When Flosi had finished stacking the bundles of notes in the safe in his bedroom, he signed a receipt for the cash, and Áróra could breathe more easily. It was always a relief when the cash she carried had been delivered into the right hands.

  But her relief wasn’t just that she had handed over the money. It was also positive that Guðrún had been spotted walking nearby. That meant she didn’t need to tell Daníel about the mysterious financial traffic through Flosi’s account. Since the abduction was clearly a family affair that looked to be about to be resolved, there was no need to get the police involved in Flosi’s financial affairs. This wouldn’t stop her conducting her own investigations, but they would have to wait, because for now it was important to update Flosi on the latest developments. She meant to be there to provide him with moral support, but when they were back in the kitchen she could sense Daníel’s hesitation, how his eyes flicked at intervals in her direction as he explained the situation, and she felt that she was there no less to support him than Flosi.

  ‘We’ve finished examining all the CCTV footage from the district on the evening Guðrún disappeared,’ Daníel began, and glanced quickly in Áróra’s direction, as if he were seeking backup – as if hoping that she might provide some input that would make things easier for him.

  But Flosi spoke first.

  ‘And?’ he demanded. ‘What’s on there?’

  Daníel hesitated again.

  ‘There’s a … Well … Guðrún can be seen walking along Hraunbrún and onto Reykjavíkurvegur. She was alone.’

  ‘What … how?’ Flosi began, and the expected flood of questions dried up for a moment, before he groaned and started again. ‘And the kidnappers? Can’t they be seen?’

  ‘No. She was alone, and then she disappears out of shot and could have got in a car somewhere. That’s assuming someone had come to collect her.’

  ‘Abduct her, you mean? So why was this place a shambles? I thought she had been kidnapped from here,’ Flosi said, pointing at the kitchen floor, staring for a long moment from beneath frowning brows, clearly thinking back to that fateful Monday evening and the puddle of white wine, the burned bread, the broken glass.

  ‘You and Guðrún have a pre-nuptial agreement,’ Daníel said, ‘that sets out that in the event of a divorce, Guðrún would leave the marriage with practically nothing.’

  ‘Of course I would never leave Guðrún penniless. What are you insinuating? And what does our pre-nuptial agreement have to do with all this?’

  Flosi’s voice rose in volume, but he seemed confused rather than angered.

  ‘Perhaps Guðrún had become concerned about her situation – maybe she had found out about your mistress.’

  ‘I’ve told you already that Guðrún knew nothing about Bergrós. It’s just not possible. And I don’t see why you’re so interested in her. She has nothing to do with all this, nothing at all.’

  Áróra again noticed the enquiring look in Daníel’s eyes and put a hand on Flosi’s arm, and with that he became a little calmer.

  ‘It seems,’ Daníel said in a low, mild tone. ‘It seems that Guðrún abducted herself.’

  This seemed to take some time to filter through to Flosi’s consciousness. The wrinkle in his forehead deepened while he fought to gain control of his thoughts, and then his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘So, taking this new information into consideration,’ Daníel said. ‘Do you have any idea where she might have gone?’

  Flosi ripped a sheet from a roll of kitchen paper and dabbed at his eyes. Then the skin of his forehead became smooth again and his mouth opened as if he had something to say, and then closed again as his expression hardened.

  ‘No,’ he said in a firm voice, getting smartly to his feet and leaving the kitchen.

  Áróra watched him go along the corridor and turn to take the stairs, and a moment later the bedroom door upstairs could be heard banging shut.

  FRIDAY

  46

  Áróra stood and stared out of the window at the street lights across the road shivering in the wind so that the cones of light they cast moved across the pavement like lapping waves. It was getting on for three in the morning. She had slept for an hour, but once she was wide awake had been unable to stop thinking about her sister, Ísafold. There was a gnawing guilt that came with these thoughts. If only she had responded the last time that Ísafold had asked for help. If only she had been a better sister. She tried to dampen down the negative emotions by thinking of Daníel, the documents she had seen on his desk and the prospect that he would find a lead that would tell them something about Ísafold’s disappearance. But it was hopeless. She knew from experience that there was no point lying awake in bed, as the longer she lay there, the more her negative thoughts would pursue her. It was better to get up, get herself a snack and study the maps. The map of the Reykjanes area had been very much on her mind ever since she had started to search early in the summer.

  Now it was three o’clock and she had eaten two slices of toast spread with cheese, drunk a foul-tasting mug of herbal tea that was supposed to have a relaxing effect, and had spent a good while poring over the map. Seeing all the crosses on the roads and the tracks she had already checked with the drone gave her the feeling of having made some progress, so she tried to concentrate on the thought of how much of Reykjanes she had in fact already covered, because looking at the tracks she still had left to search filled her with impatient trepidation. Supposing Ísafold was there, at the next one? She could be alone there now, abandoned to the most miserable conditions death can offer, the autumn storms battering her body and washing away evidence.

  The tea did nothing to take the edge off her nerves. The impatience inside her demanded activity, movement, focus. She could sit over the map until morning and check the weather forecast in the hope that the wind would be light enough in the next few days to fly the drone. Or she could use the inspection access Michael had given her to take a look at Flosi’s offshore account. Although his financial affairs weren’t directly connected to the abduction, it could still be interesting. Maybe she would find herself something to work on. Maybe she’d be able to re-awaken her delight in being a financial bloodhound and again enjoy rolling in cash.

  She went to the bathroom and took a lukewarm shower, dried her hair, pulled on a singlet and tracksuit trousers, and went back to the kitchen to put more water in the kettle. She put five spoonfuls of coffee in the cafetière and decided that working from home would call for a decent espresso machine. That made her smile for a moment. This was the first time that she had envisaged some kind of everyday life in this flat, unconnected to Ísafold. Up to now she had looked on it as a temporary place to live until her sister were found. But maybe the idea of settling in Iceland wasn’t so crazy after all. Here she was, halfway between Europe and the States, and Iceland’s business regulations weren’t as strict as those in the EU, so this could be a good place to be based.

  47

  The rest of the world was shut out completely – that was until Áróra heard the first sounds of a neighbour’s car starting up, presumably to go to work, as she saw it was now seven-thirty. She had been so engrossed in her work that she hadn’t noticed time passing. She stood up, stretched her arms high over her head and reached forward, hands on the floor to stretch her back, and followed that with forty knee bends, then stretched again and did another forty. She wanted coffee, but the cafetière was empty even though she had no recollection of having refilled her mug. Her concentration on Flosi’s offshore account had given her a fairly clear picture of what seemed to be going on there.

  The bulk of the traffic that had filled the account was payments from all kinds of smaller businesses that were mostly registered in Britain, plus some in the Nordic region. She had traced some of them and found out that they included night clubs, health resorts, massage parlours, laundries, garages and restaurants. Altogether, there were 193 such companies. The amounts varied, but a large number of payments from each company across every month meant that each month’s total was a healthy figure. The commissions earned, and which Flosi had allowed to build up over a long period, were still just a fraction of what was now in the account.

  But there were also outgoings. The largest amounts went to a company called INExport Inc, registered in the US, which meant its annual accounts weren’t available to Áróra. So she concentrated on the other two; these were registered in Iceland: Tækjakistan ehf and Garðlager ehf, both of which appeared to be well managed and respectably profitable. None of the names of the directors listed in the company registry were familiar to her, and searches for those names revealed nothing of interest. She looked up the companies on the internet, and saw that both were registered as having phone numbers and email addresses.

  Áróra picked up her spare phone – the one she kept taped to the back of her bedside table, and which she hadn’t used since arriving in Iceland. She had to think for a moment before she remembered the PIN. When it was finally live, she used it to connect to the internet, hiding her IP address, and emailed both Tækjakistan ehf and Garðlager ehf with an enquiry about buying a robot lawn mower. It maybe wasn’t the ideal time of year to be pretending to be looking for garden implements, but she couldn’t think of any other pretext for contacting these companies. Now she just had to hope that whoever read the emails would click the image she had embedded of a robot lawn mower, which would activate software that would give her a back door into the user’s computer.

  48

  Helena stood at the whiteboard, making efforts to keep her handwriting legible as she noted down the points that Daníel, Kristján, Palli and the commissioner came up with. Oddsteinn from the prosecutor’s office sat in one corner and seemed more absorbed in his phone than what was going on in the room. Helena always felt nervous around the commissioner, even though she had never been anything but friendly towards her. There was just something about her rank that made Helena nervous. All the same, the commissioner would be the last person to pull rank. She was lively and approachable, and always wore a black uniform shirt, the same as any other police officer. Helena’s hand shook a little as she rubbed out with her thumb and replaced a badly formed A in the words offshore account on the board.

  ‘Guðrún was one of only a very few people who knew about Flosi’s offshore savings,’ Daníel said. ‘It’s no coincidence that the ransom demand is in euros.’

  Helena wrote Guðrún knew about the euros on the board, and realised that she would have to write in smaller letters if everything relevant to the case were to fit on the board.

  ‘Flosi was tired of the marriage,’ Daníel said. ‘And he had been having an affair for some time.’

  Helena wrote affair on the board.

  ‘And the man’s mistress is pregnant,’ the commissioner added, and Helena wrote Bergrós pregnant.

  ‘Flosi had long wanted more children,’ Daníel said. ‘So this must have been exciting news for him, making it tempting to divorce Guðrún and take up with the mother of his child instead.’

  ‘It’s not certain that Guðrún was aware of Bergrós and the child,’ the commissioner said thoughtfully.

  ‘My impression is that it’s highly likely,’ Daníel said. ‘I thought that her friend Sigurlaug insinuated it when she and Flosi met.’

  ‘Is there any way of being sure?’ asked Oddsteinn, who up to now had sat in silence.

  Helena shook her head.

  ‘It’s something that Sigurlaug could be able to confirm. But Sigurlaug doesn’t know that Flosi has involved the police in this, and it’s best to keep it that way, as, if our thinking is correct, they’re definitely in touch.’

  The commissioner nodded her agreement, and Helena breathed more easily.

  ‘Flosi and Guðrún had a pre-nuptial agreement to the effect that he would keep any assets he brought to the marriage,’ Daníel said. ‘That includes the company and the house. Guðrún brought no assets to the relationship and they have not acquired any significant assets or property jointly, so there’s a financial incentive for her.’

  Helena wrote Pre-Nup on the board.

  ‘According to what’s been filed on LÖKE, she wanted her own flower shop,’ Palli said, and although his remark felt slightly off-topic, this was a valid point and Helena picked it up.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Flosi and his daughter Sara Sól were both against the flower shop dream, so we could say that even though Guðrún may not have been aware of the infidelity and the child, she must have been frustrated that her ambition had come to nothing.’

  ‘It supports her motives,’ the commissioner said, nodding.

  Helena felt a warm wave of gratitude, similar to when she had been a child and the teacher had praised her for working so hard.

  ‘Then there’s the CCTV footage,’ Palli said. ‘She’s seen walking alone and uncoerced away from her home.’

  Helena had just finished writing left home on the board when Kristján spoke for the first time.

  ‘Considering she left the house of her own volition that evening, there’s the question of why the kitchen was such a shambles,’ he said, and Helena wrote staged abduction on the board, adding a question mark to it.

  ‘All of the indications concern personal aspects of Flosi’s life,’ Daníel said. ‘There’s nothing at all from either the analysis unit here or from colleagues in other Nordic countries to suggest that organised crime gangs are involved in anything of this nature.’

  The commissioner stood up and made for the door.

  ‘Fine. Good work. Please keep me informed,’ she said as she left the room and shut the door behind her.

  Helena could sense her shoulders relaxing. Daníel stood up and went to the board. He took down the picture of Guðrún that had been at the top, and replaced her with Flosi.

  ‘I think we should now work on the basis that Guðrún staged her own abduction as a way of extorting money from her husband prior to an impending divorce. So the real victim in this case is Flosi.’

  49

  It was just before ten when Áróra arrived outside the premises of Tækjakistan ehf, having driven around in circles in Grafarholt, which was where Garðlager ehf was supposed to be located. The site turned out to be not even at the weathertight stage of construction yet – just concrete walls with boarded-up gaps that would become windows. Áróra put her foot down and headed for the next company on her list.

  Nobody seemed to have yet turned up for work at Tækjakistan. From the outside, it looked very small, just part of one of the long buildings in the Smiðja commercial district, like an afterthought tacked onto a garage that occupied most of the place.

  Áróra got out of the car and walked over to the door, only to find it was locked and there were no lights on inside. She took a quick look through a window and saw that the interior was in keeping with the outside: just an office chair and a counter on which stood two computer screens. Áróra went back to the car, started the engine and drove a circuit around the district, returning to park on the far side of the street between two cars that looked to be waiting to be fixed.

  She didn’t have to wait long for a sign of life at Tækjakistan. A gleaming black Range Rover drove up to the building and pulled up right in front of the window, and out got a young man who loped to the door and opened it with a key. He was tall and burly, and his clothes were in a style that didn’t match the car – his tattered jeans flapped around his legs and he wore a black T-shirt with a band logo under a baggy hoodie. Áróra started the engine, inched the car forward so that the Range Rover no longer interrupted her view, and she watched closely through the window.