‘Stop fussing, darling,’ she said. ‘I just need a nap and a shower. Then I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’m going to get my first-aid box and fix up that cut on your cheekbone. You can take a shower while I fetch it. But not too hot. That’ll make the cut bleed more.’

  He jogged through the garden and glanced at the rocks and the unkempt patch around them.

  ‘Shouldn’t you keep a better eye on your own people?’ he snapped at the rock as he passed. If something supernatural really lived there, then it would understand what he meant. Lady Gúgúlú was a stalwart guardian of the rock and the area around it, but this obliging attitude didn’t appear to work both ways. The old tales about the helpfulness of the hidden people didn’t seem to have much basis in reality.

  He put cheese and ham between slices of bread from the freezer and put the sandwich in the grill. As soon as it was ready he put it on a plate and picked up the first-aid box and a bag of frozen peas before making his way back out to the garage. Lady Gúgúlú appeared from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, swathed in a towel and minus the wig, making the injuries to her face even more stark.

  ‘You’ll have to help me get the false eyelash out of my left eye,’ she said. ‘It’s caught up in the swelling.’

  She sat in the chair.

  A yelp of pain escaped her as his fingers pushed through the swollen area around the eye to take hold of the eyelash.

  Daníel shushed her. ‘Shall I just pull it?’ he asked.

  ‘No, just draw it towards you steadily and the glue will dissolve.’

  He managed to remove the false eyelash and wrapped an antiseptic wipe around the tip of a finger, eased it back into the swelling and applied it to what he hoped was the eyelid. The wipe came out black with mascara.

  ‘A&E would have done a neater job,’ he said, holding the bag of frozen peas to the eye. ‘Keep that there,’ he said, and moved on to apply wound closures to the cut on her cheekbone.

  ‘I always thought my left side was my better one,’ Lady Gúgúlú said, and Daníel couldn’t help smiling. She clearly hadn’t had her sense of humour knocked out of her.

  ‘Do you know that guy?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘He was at my show last night. I mean yesterday evening. We went to a party together afterwards, and then he desperately wanted to come home with me. He whispered in the taxi that he was going to fuck me senseless. But when it came to getting down to it, he turned crazy and violent.’

  ‘You ought to have him charged,’ Daníel said. ‘That’s assault.’

  ‘Ach, no. He’ll figure things out for himself, poor lad,’ Lady Gúgúlú said, ‘I could feel his boner as he was punching me.’

  Daníel got to his feet and handed her a couple of painkillers.

  ‘Eat the sandwich and drink two glasses of water,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better when you wake up.’

  68

  The pain in Áróra’s back was finally dispelled by a hot bath, so she decided that it had been nothing more serious than a few muscles overstretched by the previous day’s altercation. She would have to get herself back to fighting fitness by starting kickboxing again, which she had trained in for much of her life. It would be useful if she was going to concentrate on investigating money laundering. In that line of business watchdogs like the sulky guy would occasionally show themselves, and it would boost her self-confidence to know that she was fit enough to take his kind of aggression.

  After the depressing visit to Flosi earlier in the day she had spent most of the morning tracking and then figuring out an overview of the flow of money in and out of his offshore accounts. The turmoil of transfers, payments and invoices in every direction was intended to complicate matters, thus concealing the flow of finance, which would attract attention if the payments were fewer and larger. In the last few years she had become increasingly aware that when this kind of obfuscation was generated, very few of those involved had the full picture of what was actually going on. Each of them looked after their own part of the game, either for profit or because they’d been intimidated into doing so.

  But once you looked beyond the tangle, there was generally a fairly straightforward pattern behind it all. If she were to make a guess at what lay behind this confusion that Flosi was involved with, her impression was that this horde of small companies – clubs, health spas, massage parlours, laundries and more – could easily be used to pass on the proceeds of crime, which were then paid into Flosi’s offshore account and from there went into Tækjakistan.

  This company, with its cubbyhole of an office and a single salaried employee who spent every day playing computer games and taking long lunch breaks, when he wasn’t rounding aggressively on anyone he thought was being too nosy, was clearly a front company with no other purpose than to be a conduit for the proceeds of crime. Garðvís, which was a genuine company, issued hefty invoices and Tækjakistan then paid them, which was how the cash was put into legal circulation, mixed up with the money Flosi’s company earned from its usual activities. Overall, this was a largely standard money-laundering operation.

  The question was whether the flow of cash ended with Garðvís, meaning this was Flosi’s criminal operation, or if his company was a link in the chain that passed the money on. If that was the case, then there was every likelihood that Flosi was involved with people who would have no scruples about abducting his wife – and even murder her if he didn’t do as he was told.

  Áróra had dried her hair, applied moisturiser all over, lacquered her nails and put on discreet make-up and mascara. She wondered about lipstick as well, but decided that was taking things too far. She was only calling in on Daníel to tell him what she had discovered about Flosi’s finances, and somewhere inside it felt a little wrong to be working on her appearance in the shadow of Guðrún’s death. While Áróra hadn’t known her, she could sympathise with Flosi’s loss, and knew how heavily Guðrún’s murder must be affecting Daníel.

  The brook flowing through Hafnarfjörður was calm and the honks of the geese echoed over the water. They were noisy these days, gathering together to prepare for the long trek south for the winter.

  Daníel opened the door and seemed genuinely surprised to see her. Áróra pointed to the first-aid box in his hand.

  ‘You’re certainly well prepared,’ she said and smiled.

  Daníel looked slightly abashed and quickly put the box aside as he showed her in.

  ‘Well, yes. I was helping my neighbour,’ he muttered, taking her coat and hanging it up.

  Áróra took off her shoes and felt a wave of nostalgia. His home had the particular Icelandic smell, the origin of which she had never been able to pin down. Maybe it was these buildings with their thick concrete walls that made the air inside so dry. Daníel slipped past her into the living room and she sensed another aroma that sparked new life in the butterflies that fluttered inside. The smell of him. She would have no objection to burying her face in his neck and breathing in his scent.

  ‘I know you suspect Flosi of abducting and murdering his wife, but I have some information about another aspect that is worth looking into.’

  ‘Really?’ Daníel turned, a questioning look on his face.

  ‘Yes,’ Áróra said. ‘I think Flosi is laundering money for the Russian mafia.’

  69

  Helena listened as Daníel’s phone rang. He didn’t answer. She considered knocking at his door on the way to fetch Flosi but decided against it. When he had called to ask her to check with forensics on Flosi’s work van, she had the feeling from his voice that he had female company. There was a hurried tone to his words that she hadn’t heard before, as if he wanted to get her off the line as soon as possible, and he spoke so quietly it was obvious he was making an effort not to be overheard. She hoped it was the case he was with someone. A shag would do him good. She had long been perplexed at how he seemed completely unaware of his female colleagues’ glances and flirting. She envied him this attention; she would have made full use of it to get to know these women better, but in this respect, at least, Daníel seemed to have fallen to earth from some other planet. Such a sweet, handsome guy should have no problem picking up overnight company.

  Helena parked by the driveway leading to Flosi’s house and waited. She had already called for support and now she just needed Daníel’s confirmation to go ahead. She sent him a text message so urgent that he would have no choice but to call as soon as he saw it.

  Do you want to arrest Flosi this evening or tomorrow? Call me.

  It worked. And he must have heard his phone ringing before, because he called back right away. Again, he spoke hurriedly.

  ‘Hæ, Helena.’

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting,’ she said. ‘I need your go-ahead to arrest Flosi. It’s up to you whether I pick him up now and let him spend the night in a cell, or we fetch him in the morning and go straight into an interrogation. It’s all ready to go, but if you think it’s too harsh to have a man who’s mourning spend the night behind bars then we’ll wait. Just in case he turns out to be innocent, I mean.’

  ‘Considering you want to arrest him, I assume forensics came up with something interesting?’

  ‘They did,’ Helena said. ‘Blood traces in Flosi’s van. Splashes and a small puddle that had been wiped up.’

  There was silence for a moment, and Helena could imagine Daníel’s expression; the look of disappointment that so often made an appearance just as they were about to crack an investigation. It was as if he always hoped that everyone involved with a case would be innocent. Then Helena heard him draw a deep breath.

  ‘OK,’ Daníel said. ‘Call Oddsteinn and let him know that we’re bringing Flosi in now.’

  70

  It came as no surprise to Flosi when the police came to arrest him. He had already noticed the blue lights before the ring at the doorbell, so he had taken off his gold watch and belt, placing both on the hall sideboard with his phone and keys. Judging by the movies he had seen, he would need none of these things, as anything loose would be taken from him at the station. Then he called out to Sara Sól and told her to call Unnur and ask her to find him a lawyer specialising in defending criminal cases.

  Sara Sól was struck dumb. She hurtled down the stairs and threw herself into her father’s arms, her eyes awash with tears as she asked again and again what was going on. He held her tight, then at arm’s length, his hands on her shoulders as he looked deep into her eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry, my love,’ he said. ‘You know perfectly well that I would never do Guðrún any harm, so we’ll let the police do their work and trust them to come to the right conclusions.’

  Sara Sól showered him with one question after another, but he was unable to focus on what she was saying. Then the doorbell rang, seeming louder and more piercing than ever before.

  ‘Deep breaths,’ he said to Sara Sól, who was more collected now, and she did as he asked. They both took two deep breaths and then he opened the door.

  He was relieved that he had given himself enough time to calm Sara Sól down, because if she had lost control then he would also have been overwhelmed. He would not have been able to bear his concern for her wellbeing on top of the fear and humiliation that snatched at him as Helena informed him that he was under arrest on suspicion of involvement in Guðrún’s death.

  ‘You do not need to say anything unless you wish to,’ Helena said, and moved to one side, as if to ensure that she had eye contact with him, to be certain that he heard what she had to say and understood it. ‘You have the right to a defence of your choice. If you have no preference, then a lawyer will be allocated to you.’

  ‘Sara Sól will sort that out for me,’ Flosi muttered.

  ‘Fine,’ Helena said. ‘When we get to the station you will be given a fuller explanation of your rights under the law as a suspect.’

  She nodded to one of the uniformed officers who had accompanied her, and he stepped forward holding a set of handcuffs.

  ‘Is this really necessary?’ Sara Sól wailed, and Flosi could feel the tears well up inside him at the sound of her anguish.

  ‘It’s all right, my love,’ he whispered. ‘It’s all perfectly all right.’

  Once he had been handcuffed, he was led out of the house by policemen holding him by each arm, and down the drive to the police car. He was relieved that it was evening, the darkness shielded him to some extent from the gaze of his neighbours, but when he thought it over, he decided that he really didn’t care.

  His humiliation was total. It would hardly have made any difference if there had been a crowd of a hundred onlookers to witness his martyrdom. There would be whispers of his arrest soon, and the police would hardly be able to keep the news of the body’s discovery quiet for long. Before long people would put two and two together – and many of those people would firmly believe that he really had murdered Guðrún.

  MONDAY

  71

  Daníel stood with a cup of coffee in his hands and stared wordlessly out into the garden. The overgrown patch he had fought with for years had been mown smooth, so that his lawn now looked overgrown in comparison. At midnight, when he had gone out to check on Lady Gúgúlú, he hadn’t noticed the patch being anything other than its usual unkempt self, and he hadn’t been aware of any noise from the garden during the evening or the night either. But then he had been so completely absorbed in Áróra that his senses had been overwhelmed; the scent of her, her softness, the pulsing heartbeat he had felt with his cheek as they climaxed and he sank down onto her breast.

  He knocked gently at the garage door before going in with the coffee, imagining that he was waking Lady Gúgúlú up, but she was sitting up in bed, and gave him a knowing glance as she checked her phone with her good eye. Daníel took the pack of painkillers from the table and handed it to her, with the cup.

  ‘Did you, ummm, cut the grass on that untidy patch yesterday or last night?’ Daníel asked hesitantly, shaking his head at such a ridiculous question.

  Lady Gúgúlú looked at him with her one good eye.

  ‘No. I haven’t exactly been in any condition for gardening,’ she said, and her tone underscored how outlandish an idea this was.

  Daníel laughed apologetically.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘It’s just that someone has mowed that lousy patch of weeds up by the rock and I just wanted to say thanks. I’ve been struggling with that part of the garden for years.’

  ‘Ach, darling. You’re so blinkered. You always think in two dimensions, in terms of what is visible. When all the while the electromagnetic spectrum of the world is in reality a rainbow.’ Lady Gúgúlú swallowed the painkillers with a gulp of coffee.

  Daníel had no idea what that meant. He rarely understood more than half of what Lady Gúgúlú talked about, but that didn’t matter. He heard in her voice that her comment was well intended, even though it indicated clearly, as so often before, that his senses were nothing to be proud of.

  He tilted her head back and examined her. The bruise had formed and the whole left side of her face was black, blue and swollen, and it didn’t help matters that grey stubble had begun to sprout, making her appearance even more gruesome.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Daníel asked.

  ‘The face is the window to the spirit right now, so you can see for yourself,’ she said, taking Daníel by surprise. He had expected her to tell him that she was fine, to tough it out, pretend nothing was wrong, shrug it off as she had the night before.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ Daníel said. ‘You can call me if you need to.’

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ Lady Gúgúlú said.

  Daníel paused in the doorway. He wasn’t quite sure how to put his feelings into words.

  ‘Listen, I just wanted to let you know that I’m here for you if you need anything,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, darling. That’s what you said.’

  ‘No. I mean, y’know…’ he began and hesitated. ‘I can listen as well. I can listen to all sorts of problems if there’s anything troubling you. Maybe I’ve made you listen a few too many times to me going on about my messed-up love life. In comparison, I know very little about you.’

  ‘Everyone wants a gay best friend,’ Lady Gúgúlú said, and Daníel felt there was a note of sarcasm in her tone.

  ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘Take it easy today.’

  ‘I’m just going to watch a series on TV and smoke a little grass,’ she said, and then seemed to regret it. ‘Oops! I didn’t mean to tell you that, darling.’

  ‘I didn’t hear it,’ Daníel said, relieved that the awkward moment between them had passed. ‘I’m far too busy dealing with a murder case.’

  72

  Áróra looked out of Daníel’s kitchen window and saw the geese practising formation take-offs and landings on the brook, with all the honking that went with it. She filled her coffee cup and sat by the round kitchen table, and was suddenly reminded that this was precisely where she had sat the first time they had met since she was a child. When her mother had sent her to Iceland to check up on Ísafold she had recommended that she should speak to Daníel. That had been no more than a few months ago, but it seemed as if years had passed. There had been nothing normal about the passage of time since her arrival in Iceland.

  She heard Daníel’s voice approach from the garden, and he appeared in the kitchen with his phone to his ear, but his eyes instantly fastened themselves on her and a smile flashed across his face, which she instinctively returned. He ended the call, dropped the phone into his pocket, smiled again as he caught her eye.

  She laughed.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s just so good to look at you.’