‘They could be,’ Helena said. ‘We don’t know if the house is being watched or not. We just have to assume that it is. We haven’t found any cameras or microphones in there, but something, or someone, could be monitoring the house from the outside. There could be a person in a room in some house in the vicinity.’

  ‘The ransom demand threatens to kill Guðrún if Flosi contacts the police,’ Daníel said. ‘More than likely this is an empty threat. If this a relative or an employee of Flosi’s, then it’s not likely that this person has the resources to watch the house. However, if there’s a criminal group or some such organised gang behind this, it’s possible they could be keeping tabs on the house. Until we can be sure, we should assume that’s what the situation is.’

  ‘Knowledge of Flosi’s money,’ Helena said. ‘This person must know that Flosi has money that he can put his hands on quickly.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Daníel said. ‘That’s a key point that will be useful to us. Flosi doesn’t have that much money here in Iceland that he can withdraw quickly. He said to do that he would have to sell property, which could take weeks or months. Also, he’s adamant that two million euros is beyond the credit level his company has access to at the bank, so it’s not as if he could simply borrow that kind of money without an explanation. That means the focus is on Flosi’s overseas money, and according to him, very few people were aware of these offshore accounts. The fact that the ransom demand stipulates euros and not krónur is a clue, to my thinking.’

  Daníel now filled in the top of the final column: OPPORTUNITY.

  ‘Who was where on Monday afternoon and into Monday evening?’ he said. ‘I want to see a detailed schedule for everyone connected to this family, and their alibis. Go through Sunday and Monday with each of them. We need to build up a picture of forty-eight hours before Guðrún’s disappearance, and where every one of them was, hour by hour, for those two days.’

  He filled in the names of everyone connected to Flosi, a row for each. There weren’t many of them and there were plenty of blank rows remaining. Daníel put the board marker down and made to leave the room.

  ‘There’s your list of jobs,’ he said. ‘We need to work on this with care, but as fast as possible. I want names, people. More names!’

  25

  Then there was the other errand Flosi had asked her to run. This was one Áróra should by rights have refused, as she had no desire to get caught up in the man’s personal affairs. But there was nobody else, he said. It wasn’t as if he could ask his daughter to go and talk to his mistress.

  Bergrós wasn’t what Áróra had expected. When she thought it over, she didn’t know exactly what she had expected, but the woman was nothing like Guðrún. She had thought that Flosi would have gone for someone younger and that the woman who opened the door to the apartment on Grettisgata would be blonde and solidly built, just like both of Flosi’s wives, who were to be seen in awkward family pictures on his living-room wall, with Sara Sól at different ages, in various sulks.

  Bergrós was petite, with frizzy dark hair that fell to her shoulders in perfect disarray, and her skin was scattered with dark freckles. Her moss-green eyes flickered like those of a wild animal, and Áróra could see right away that her body was tense, as if ready to react, under the patterned Indian gown that reached all the way to her sandalled, red-lacquered toes.

  ‘I have a message for you from Flosi,’ Áróra said. ‘Could I come in for a moment?’

  Bergrós hesitated and her green eyes narrowed as she looked Áróra up and down.

  ‘What sort of message? And who are you?’

  ‘Flosi is in a difficult situation at the moment and he asked me to tell you that for the next few days he can’t contact you. My name’s Áróra, and I’ll explain. But wouldn’t it be better if we sit down?’

  Bergrós began to fidget, and Áróra wasn’t sure if she had heard more than half of what she’d said to her.

  ‘Difficult situation? How so? And what do you mean by a few days? I’ve tried to call him and he practically hung up on me, and his voice was so strange…’

  Áróra saw that the best option would be to take matters into her own hands. She stepped into the doorway, took hold of Bergrós’ arm and pointed the way into the apartment, speaking in a calm, measured voice.

  ‘Flosi asked me to come and talk to you and he sends you all his love. I’m carrying out a small assignment for him. He asked me to talk to you because he trusts me. Let’s sit down in the kitchen. Do you have any tea?’

  She would have preferred coffee, but judging by the trembling she could feel through Bergrós’ arm, the last thing she needed was anything that might agitate her even more.

  The flat was small but packed with an astonishing amount of furniture, most of it old, made in dark wood, which oddly suited Bergrós’ colouring. There was just about space in the kitchen for two chairs and a little table under the gable window. Áróra half pushed Bergrós into one of them. The spire of Hallgrímskirkja could be seen from the kitchen window, and for a moment Áróra was reminded of the childhood memories connected to this church tower, the sound of the bells in the cold, still air, and a morning throwing snowballs with her sister during some visit to Iceland.

  Áróra picked up the kettle and filled it at the kitchen tap, while Bergrós jumped to her feet, opened a cupboard and took out a couple of packets of tea. Áróra took them, checked the wording, chose the one that seemed to be caffeine-free, dropped them into cups and poured boiling water over them. When she turned round with the two mugs, Bergrós was in tears.

  ‘He’s dumping me, isn’t he?’ she sniffed, her voice an octave higher than before, as if her vocal chords had been stretched. ‘He’s dumping me and he’s sent one of the staff to do his dirty work.’

  Áróra was on edge by the time she left Bergrós’ apartment an hour later. It was as if the tension she had sought to allay in Bergrós had transferred to her. All the same, she felt she had managed to calm the woman down, convincing her that Flosi was experiencing some temporary difficulties and would be in touch as soon as these problems were behind him. Without explaining what these difficulties were, she said that they were connected to Flosi’s wife, Guðrún. She knew that Flosi was hoping to keep Bergrós separate from all this, to shield her from visits from the police, but as Daníel had issued an absolute blanket ban on any mention of the police in connection with Flosi, she had to leave out that part. But it seemed unlikely that Bergrós had anything to do with it. She seemed to be a quivering heap of indecision.

  Áróra started the car and headed for Weights. This was the place she had chosen after trying out every gym in Reykjavík. It wasn’t exactly a gym, more a large garage with some exercise machines and some good weights that the owner allowed selected friends to use. Her father’s name had opened the door for her. He was still famous with a certain group, having been Iceland’s strongest man two years in a row and twice Highland games champion. Áróra opened the boot to find that she had forgotten her bag with her training gear. She had been fool enough to take it inside a couple of days ago to wash her stuff. But now she badly needed a release for the tension, so she took off her trousers and her sweater where she stood by the car, and put her shoes back on. These had soft soles and would be fine for lifting.

  She nodded to two of the guys who were lifting weights and neither of them seemed to notice that she had turned up in her knickers and a singlet. She picked up a rope and began skipping to warm up, immediately feeling the tension slide away.

  She liked this place. Most days there would be two or three guys lifting weights, selling steroids or munching pizza. She knew the type; they reminded her of her father and the men in the group around him. These were musclebound giants with Viking tattoos and plaits in their chest-length beards. She was the only woman who trained at Weights, and didn’t lift the kind of weight the guys did, but heavy enough that they liked watching her take the weight all the same, and they’d nod with the kind of approval that warmed her heart, as if her father was there among them, watching her nurture her strength.

  26

  Helena looked at her list of jobs and decided to start with the task that linked everything together: producing a timeline of the two days in Guðrún’s life before she was kidnapped. Statements had been taken from Flosi and Sara Sól, and she was using the list of transactions from Guðrún’s bank account to fill in the gaps.

  There wasn’t a lot to go through for Sunday. According to Flosi, they had been at home all day. He had made a quick trip to the bakery around midday, they had finished tidying the garage, Guðrún had watered plants and knitted, while he had checked some work files on the computer, and then Guðrún had cooked chops and prepared a salad, before falling asleep in front of the television while Flosi had watched a nature documentary, finally waking her up so they could go to bed. Nobody but Flosi had seen Guðrún that Sunday, but that hardly mattered as plenty of people had seen her on Monday.

  Guðrún had slept late on Monday, as she did every morning, according to Flosi. He had left for work around eight so as to be there for eight-thirty, and he made a habit of taking Guðrún a cup of coffee before leaving the house. She had sat up in bed as he arrived with the coffee, he kissed her goodbye as he left, and he said that he had assumed she had drunk her coffee in bed as usual, before getting up. Before midday a van had arrived to collect the stuff they had cleared out of the garage and took it all to Sara Sól’s home.

  Flosi knew little of Guðrún’s daily routine, but said that he knew she vacuumed the hall every day and most days would put some clothes through the washing machine. There wasn’t a great deal of clothing to wash, and the better garments went to a dry cleaner. Helena saw that there was a card transaction from Monday at the laundry along their street; she would send Kristján to check what time Guðrún had been there. There was also a seven-hundred-krónur transaction at the Vellir gym – one of the places she visited regularly, but hadn’t called in at for a month. Then there was a substantial amount spent at a fish shop. Helena guessed that this had to be the langoustine that Guðrún had been busy preparing when she had been abducted.

  There were regular transactions for groceries, the laundry and the State Alcohol Monopoly; they appeared every week, or more frequently. The transactions Daníel had highlighted were the unusual ones, and the direct transfers.

  These included fifty-two thousand krónur to Icelandair roughly a month ago. Jón Jónsson had twice been sent twenty thousand krónur, four months apart, and the second payment had taken place on Monday, the day Guðrún had disappeared. Karl Leósson had received sixty-five thousand krónur a week before. Helena looked up the ID numbers for both men and checked them against the phone directory, finding out that Jón Jónsson was a delivery driver and Karl Leósson a pest-control specialist.

  Then there was Sigurlaug slf, to which Guðrún had begun to make payments roughly three months ago – these were large amounts, generally more than two hundred thousand krónur each week for several weeks. These were the only transactions in Guðrún’s list that looked genuinely dubious. Helena opened the Tax Authority website and looked the company up. Its listing told her that Sigurlaug was an unlimited liability company in the ‘other education activities’ category and registered to a woman called Sigurlaug Sigtryggsdóttir.

  Helena’s phone rang, and seeing that Daníel was calling, she answered right away. He had only just left, so he could hardly be at Flosi’s house already, especially as he meant to jog half of that distance.

  ‘Another name for you,’ he said, sounding out of breath, and Helena immediately got to her feet and picked up a board marker. ‘Bergrós Skúladóttir. She’s Flosi’s mistress. She has an unregistered mobile so it wasn’t possible to trace her through her call, but Flosi asked Áróra to go and talk to her, to explain that he’s in a spot of bother at the moment.’

  ‘She didn’t mention to her that—’

  ‘Of course not,’ Daníel interrupted sharply. ‘Áróra is no fool.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Helena said, writing the mistress’s name on the board. ‘You want me to go and talk to this Bergrós?’

  ‘Let’s hold back on that,’ Daníel said. ‘Áróra went to see her and said that the woman doesn’t seem to know whether she’s coming or going. She’s tiny and Áróra reckons she’s not in any condition to organise a kidnapping. Besides which, she seems not far off being a nervous wreck. We need to prioritise who we start on, and we need a solid pretext so that we don’t have any leaks. We’ll figure out a reason for you to pay her a visit tomorrow. But now you can go over to Garðvís ehf and fetch the van. And take the opportunity to chat to Flosi’s staff while you’re there.’

  ‘Okey doke,’ Helena said, picking up her keys. She would use her own car to go to Garðvís, and would park somewhere in the vicinity.

  ‘Could you look up Sigurlaug Sigtryggsdóttir – date of birth in seventy-three – and her company, Sigurlaug slf, and see what you can find,’ she said to Kristján as she left, and he nodded. Palli didn’t look up, He sat with his chin resting in his hand, rocking gently to the music he was listening to on his headphones while he watched traffic camera footage and noted down an endless list of car registration numbers.

  27

  Garðvís ehf was a considerably larger company than Helena had expected. The offices were above a warehouse in the Vatnagarðar business area. Inside, once she had climbed a narrow set of spiral stairs, a beautiful view over the sound was presented to her. There were no cruise liners at the quay now that summer was behind them and Iceland’s waters were as foul as the gloomy weather that battered the windows of the office.

  ‘Good morning,’ said an older woman in a business suit who strode towards her with an outstretched hand. ‘Unnur. Flosi said that you were on the way to collect a van.’

  Helena introduced herself as Flosi’s cousin and accepted the set of keys the woman handed her. She was clearly the efficient type who did nothing slowly, as she seemed ready to spin around and go back to her desk before Helena had an opportunity to talk to her.

  ‘I couldn’t sneak a coffee while I’m here, could I?’ she asked quickly, spying a substantial espresso machine at the far end of the open-plan office.

  Unnur lifted a questioning eyebrow and nodded.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, indicating that Helena should come with her to the machine.

  ‘I’ve a terrible chill in me today,’ Helena said apologetically, but her sweetest smile wasn’t enough to elicit the slightest glimmer of one on this efficient woman’s face.

  She took a cup from the shelf next to the machine and placed it under the spout.

  ‘How do you like your coffee?’ she asked, and Helena leaned forward to look at the options the machine offered.

  ‘Just an espresso,’ she said and made another doomed attempt to melt the woman’s frosty exterior. Unnur pressed the right button and the machine began the noisy process of grinding and brewing coffee.

  ‘Is this a big company?’ Helena asked, trying to sound as if she was making conversation while she waited.

  ‘There are ten of us here working full-time. Then there’s Flosi’s daughter Sara Sól, who is becoming more involved.’

  Unnur stared at Helena inquiringly, as if she were having doubts about her reason for being there. Helena pretended not to notice her watchfulness, and continued to chat.

  ‘All ten of you just for this? Importing gardening stuff?’

  The disapproval on Unnur’s face made her want to bite her tongue. More than likely her inquisitive tone had sounded false and condescending.

  ‘People often ask,’ Unnur said patiently, ‘if it’s possible for this many people to work full-time with gardening goods in a country where the summer is only three months. But, of course we do more than just that. We have products that are in demand at different times of the year – snow-clearing equipment, fertiliser, a considerable product line related to animals and farming – and a substantial part of the company’s activities relates to distributing US goods on the UK market. There are two staff handling just that side of things.’

  Helena quickly nodded to indicate that she had taken all this in, and looked around with interest.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t realised that the company was so big.’

  ‘We have two full-time drivers making deliveries here.’

  ‘Ah, OK,’ Helena said, rattling the keys. ‘And I’m taking the van off one of them, right?’

  ‘We actually have three vans. We’ve just acquired an extra one.’ Unnur hesitated, and a courteous note of inquiry appeared in her voice. ‘Flosi said that it’s important,’ she said, and Helena knew that now would be the moment to drop a few words of explanation about her need to borrow the van, to provide a little information about herself, and a word of thanks. But she let the thanks be enough.

  ‘Thank you so much, and apologies for disturbing you. It’ll just be a couple of days.’

  She knocked back her coffee, smiled again, handed the cup to Unnur, and saw that this time, for courtesy’s sake, she forced a tiny sliver of a smile.

  28

  Helena sat at Daníel’s side at the kitchen table, noting down Flosi’s explanations for payments from Guðrún’s account. He seemed to have everything at his fingertips. Jón Jónsson was a van driver they called in whenever something larger than would fit into Flosi’s jeep needed to be moved. They had been clearing out the garage and had got rid of a substantial amount of unwanted stuff. Jón had made one trip to the waste disposal facility and another to Karen and Sara Sól. Most of the stuff had been left over from Sara Sól’s childhood. That had been collected on Monday morning.

  ‘I suppose Karl Leósson must be Kalli the pest control guy,’ Flosi said, pushing his reading glasses higher up his nose and peering at the statement Daníel showed him.