Death in Dalvik

Thirty-Four

Four days later, Tecumseh stood in the doorway of the small office building and watched the house fifty metres down on the opposite side of the street.

This was his second evening in that spot. The day before, the target had come back from the library at dusk and stayed in all night. He needed darkness to do his job, which meant he needed his target to go out after dark.

Krakatoa had been angry that he hadn’t acted the previous night. But the one thing Tecumseh never compromised on was his own security, and he wasn’t prepared to work in daylight. Not in a city.

He was an accountant by training, and that training meant he was careful. He planned everything meticulously, in code on his phone. He had a little spreadsheet app he found perfect for the purpose. With his lack of a relevant background, getting his first assassination gig on the dark web had been difficult. But he had received a good review on that first one, a cheating husband in Düsseldorf, and slowly, slowly business had picked up. The choice of Tecumseh as an online handle had helped, implying stealth and an ability to kill. His online reviews reflected his success: he was efficient, 100 per cent successful and a pleasure to deal with. He drove a hard bargain on the fee but always stuck to the deal once it had been agreed.

He tried to avoid organized crime if he could, although these days it was not always possible to tell the difference between an online drugs or arms market on the dark web and a violent crime gang. Krakatoa was the perfect customer. Internet savvy, concerned about his online reputation, ignorant of the market for killers. The North Carolina job had been satisfactory all round.

Tecumseh was a killer. He had become one at the age of seventeen in Kosovo, a period of his life he had managed to expunge from his memory until fifteen years later when, after moving to Germany, he had lost his wife and his job as an accountant at a plastics factory in Essen and he needed some money.

And, truth be told, some excitement.

He was well hidden in the shadows, away from any illumination of the street lights; nevertheless, he was worried about a passer-by noticing him. The only memorable item of clothing he was wearing was his green woolly hat, which hid his thinning dark hair and could safely be ditched once the job was done. The rest of his clothes were unbranded, nondescript. A dark jacket. Jeans. Brown shoes.

No one would see his face closely; if anyone saw him at all, they would remember him as a guy in a green hat. And glasses: not much he could do about those.

He had ditched the blue hat after the last job.

He hoped to God she appeared this evening. Tecumseh was getting nervous. This island was beginning to feel like a prison. Coronavirus infections were growing all over the world, and it wouldn’t be long before cross-border checks grew with them. He wanted to be safely back in Germany with the minimum of tests and quarantines and the accompanying paperwork.

Do the job, collect the eighty thousand dollars and get out of here, preferably on an early-morning flight to anywhere at all.

The door to the house opened and the target emerged.

She turned towards his doorway and set off at a rapid pace, right past him.

Tecumseh removed his expensive glasses, gripped the cord in his coat pocket and followed her.

Thirty-Five

Magnus had barely got to his desk the following morning when his phone rang.

It was Thelma, summoning him to her office. She didn’t sound happy.

She left him standing, never a good sign.

‘Have you been investigating Thomocoin?’

‘Not really.’

‘Not really?’

‘Just a little tidying up.’

‘I see. Didn’t you interview...’ The half-moon reading glasses came on as she consulted a scrap of paper on her desk. ‘Fjóla Rúnarsdóttir and Skarphédinn Gíslason last Thursday?’

‘Um. Yes.’

‘And hadn’t I told you that very morning to stay well clear of Thomocoin?’

‘You did. I’m sorry,’ Magnus said. He had been rumbled.

‘I did that for a reason. The shit has hit the fan, just like I said it would. Interpol has a red notice out for Skarphédinn. The British police tried to arrest him in London over the weekend but missed him. Did you know that?’

‘I did.’ Magnus had kept in touch with his FBI contact Agent Malley.

‘There is a very aggressive, nasty game of passing the buck going on in the ministries. I thought we were well out of it. Then, when someone from the Financial Services Authority questioned Fjóla Rúnarsdóttir, it turned out you had already been to see her. There are notes of the interview on the system.’

‘In connection with Helga Hafsteinsdóttir’s murder.’

‘That’s what I told them. But when the questions start flying around about who knew what when, I hope it won’t turn out that you knew anything. That we knew anything.’

Magnus found his patience stretched. He knew it was Thelma’s job to deal with this kind of crap, but someone had been murdered and as far as Magnus was concerned it was his job to know everything relevant.

He owed it to Dísa. He owed it to his younger self.

‘Don’t glare at me like that,’ said Thelma. ‘I’m covering your arse.’

‘There is something bad about Thomocoin,’ said Magnus. ‘And that may have been why Helga died.’

‘May have been? So tell me. What did you find? Apart from that Thomocoin was about to blow up.’

‘Taking half of Dalvík with it.’

‘Including Gunnar Snaer Sigmundsson who Ólafur has arrested for the crime.’

‘That’s true.’ Magnus considered passing on Árni’s doubts but decided against it. Not yet, anyway. He didn’t want to harm Árni’s already tarnished credibility with Thelma.

‘So, did you discover any direct involvement by anyone at Thomocoin into Helga’s death?’

‘No,’ said Magnus.

‘Any evidence of a conspiracy with Gunnar?’

‘No. The only person Gunni communicated directly with about Thomocoin was Helga, apart from a couple of emails from him to Fjóla worrying about the lack of a Thomocoin exchange. Neither she nor Sharp met him recently, although Sharp met him a couple of times when Gunnar was an MP in Reykjavík years ago.’

‘So nothing, then?’

‘The questions had to be asked.’

‘Did they? When I had specifically told you not to ask them?’

‘Sorry,’ said Magnus, seeing no point in arguing further.

His phone rang. It was Vigdís. He raised his eyebrows to Thelma, who nodded for him to take it.

Vigdís’s voice was urgent, concise. ‘Homicide. Female, about twenty years old, near the university. Found under a hedge, naked.’

‘Any sign of sexual assault?’

‘Not yet, but they are looking.’

‘I’ll be right down.’

The body was stuffed under a hedge on the network of small roads between the university and the sea. Three police cars with flashing lights marked the spot, together with police tape. No sign yet of Edda and her forensics team; they wouldn’t be long.

Magnus spoke to the constable who had been first at the scene. The police had been alerted by a dog walker, a man in his fifties standing a few metres away with his curious terrier, watching proceedings. Magnus and Vigdís put on their overalls, signed the log and approached the body.

No ID found as yet. Her wallet, if she had one, or phone — and she would definitely have had one of those — were gone.

She was so pale, a skin of white wax. Face down in the dirt. Magnus crouched and looked without touching. A bloody nose. Horizontal red line around her throat. Bruising at the nape of her neck. It looked as if rigor had set in throughout the body, including the legs. Carefully he touched her cheek. Cold.

No sign of bruising on the rest of her body, not even between her legs, from what he could see.

‘Well?’ said Vigdís. She was perfectly capable of drawing her own conclusions, but thanks to the years he had spent in Boston’s Homicide Unit, Magnus had seen far more murders than she.

They had worked together off and on since Magnus’s first assignment to Reykjavík in 2009. The mixed-race daughter of a black American serviceman at the airbase at Keflavik whom she had never met, Vigdís sometimes faced hostility or just bemusement in her own country. She was fed up with Icelanders assuming she was a foreigner and addressing her in English and so refused to reply to anyone in that language, ever. She was a very good detective and during the surge in virus infections the previous spring had proven herself adept at tracking and tracing people who had been in contact with carriers of the disease. Iceland’s expedient of using police detectives to help with that effort had worked out well.

‘Strangled with a ligature,’ Magnus said. ‘Probably last night. Probably moved to this spot.’

‘Probably sexual,’ said Vigdís. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Probably. But let’s not jump to any conclusions.’

They both stood up and exchanged glances. Vigdís was worried.

Murders were always worrying, but Magnus knew what she was thinking.

‘Wasn’t Albert DeSalvo from your old patch?’ Vigdís said.

The Boston Strangler. One of the most notorious serial killers ever.

Iceland didn’t have serial killers. Or, at least, not up till now. Magnus profoundly hoped that wasn’t about to change.

‘I said, let’s not jump to any conclusions. We’ll see what Edda comes up with. Get in touch with the university. And Missing Persons. We need an ID.’

‘Magnús!’

It was the constable.

Magnus and Vigdís joined her outside the crime-scene perimeter.

‘Got a missing person’s report. From an address just around the corner.’

‘Yes?’

‘Katrín Ingvarsdóttir. Nineteen years old. Dark hair, blue eyes, about one-sixty tall.’

Magnus glanced at the body. It matched the description: a bit over five feet long, blue eyes staring in glassy shock, black hair matted with dirt. ‘Come on,’ he said to Vigdís.

They drove, but it was only a couple of hundred metres to the address, a grey concrete house broken up into apartments, a pile of bikes leaning against the wall indicating its student inhabitants. Magnus rang the bell, his warrant card at the ready, steeling himself to deliver the bad news. A female voice answered, barely comprehensible over the screech of static from the intercom.

A moment later a young woman appeared, her eyes wide with fear, fear for bad news she had already imagined.

But it was Magnus who was surprised.

‘Dísa?’

Thirty-Six

Dísa wiped the tears from her eyes as Vigdís handed her a mug of instant coffee. They were in Dísa and Kata’s tiny student flat.

‘Was she... raped?’ Dísa asked.

‘We think so,’ said Vigdís. ‘We won’t know for sure until she has been examined. She was found naked.’

‘Actually, we don’t know yet,’ said Magnus.

Vigdís glanced at him sharply. It was bad form to contradict a colleague. But Magnus wanted to stop the rape assumption taking hold.

Dísa noticed the look between the two detectives. ‘How was she killed?’

‘She was strangled,’ said Magnus. ‘With a cord or rope of some kind, probably. We think last night.’

‘Oh, God.’ Dísa stared miserably down at her mug.

‘You reported Katrín missing at twelve-forty a.m.?’ Magnus asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she hadn’t come home.’

‘Lots of students don’t come home every night.’

Dísa nodded. ‘That’s true. She was going to see her boyfriend Matti — her ex-boyfriend. She told me she was going to explain why she split up with him. So I didn’t expect her to stay the night.’

‘They could have made up?’ said Magnus.

‘I know. That’s why I called him. He said she had never shown up. So I called the police. They didn’t seem very interested. I knew something had happened to her! I had to beg them to take her details.’

‘It’s not odd that the police weren’t concerned about a student staying out all night,’ said Magnus gently. ‘What’s odd is that you were.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Why were you so scared something would happen to Kata?’

‘Something did happen, didn’t it?’ she said defiantly.

‘Something you were expecting?’

‘No! Why would I be expecting something to happen to her?’

‘That’s a good question.’

‘Well, I wasn’t.’

Magnus paused. ‘Do you think this attack may have something to do with Thomocoin? Or your mother’s murder?’

‘Of course not,’ said Dísa. ‘Why should it? You said it was rape, didn’t you?’

‘No,’ Magnus corrected. ‘We said it looked like rape.’

‘I don’t know why she was killed,’ Dísa protested, another tear running down her cheek.

‘There have been only two murders in the whole of Iceland this month,’ said Magnus. ‘Both involving victims you knew very well. That can’t be a coincidence.’

‘Can’t it?’ Dísa scrambled to collect her thoughts. ‘Kata had nothing to do with Thomocoin. She wasn’t interested in it at all whenever I talked about it.’ Then a thought seemed to strike her. ‘But that might be why I assumed the worst when she didn’t come home. Because of what happened to Mum.’

That was possible. But it looked to Magnus like Dísa had stumbled on a plausible explanation for her fear for her friend’s life.

‘Have you done anything about Thomocoin?’ Dísa asked.

‘I made some inquiries,’ Magnus said. ‘It does sound dodgy. But I couldn’t find any direct link between Thomocoin and your mother’s murder, or even much of a link between Gunni and Thomocoin apart from some email correspondence with Fjóla.’

‘What about Sharp?’ Dísa asked. ‘Did you talk to him? Is he still in Iceland?’

‘I did. But he went back to London at the end of last week. The British police tried to arrest him, but he had already fled. As had Jérôme Carmin in Paris. Interpol thinks they both flew to Panama via Madrid.’

‘So is that it for Thomocoin?’ said Dísa.

‘It looks like it,’ said Magnus.

Dísa nodded.

Magnus wasn’t sure how she was taking that news. ‘Are you happy? That Thomocoin has blown up?’

Dísa sighed. ‘They deserve it. But it means that all those investors have definitely lost their money, doesn’t it? That my grandparents will lose their farm?’

Magnus nodded. His own father’s death had blown up his family, although that had taken years. His grandparents, his uncle, his little brother: all had been damaged. Or caused the damage. Murders were messy and catastrophically destructive to the survivors.

Magnus was on the side of the survivors. He was on Dísa’s side. But he needed her help.

‘And now Kata’s dead,’ she said.

‘Are you quite sure Thomocoin has nothing to do with that?’ Magnus asked.

‘Not that I know of,’ said Dísa firmly.

Magnus let the silence hang.

But then he moved on. They needed information from Dísa: timings of Kata’s movements the day before, details about her boyfriend Matti, her address in Dalvík, her closest friends at university, her professors.

And, lastly, they needed Dísa to identify the body in situ. The sooner they had a definite ID the better; if it turned out the victim wasn’t Kata after all, they would avoid wasting a lot of time.

It was Kata.

Magnus’s heart went out to Dísa as he saw her glance quickly at the body, still uncovered under the bush, and recoil. She had lost her mother. She had lost her best friend.

And, unless Magnus was very mistaken, she was scared.

‘Sorry I contradicted you back there,’ Magnus murmured to Vigdís. ‘About the rape.’

‘I see why now,’ said Vigdís.

‘Do you think she’s hiding something about Thomocoin?’

‘I’m damned sure she is.’

A major murder investigation swung into action. Magnus called Thelma to warn her to play down the rape angle with the press until it had been confirmed by a physical examination. He didn’t mention Thomocoin to her. But he did when he called Árni in Dalvík and asked him to check whether Kata or any of her relatives were involved in the cryptocurrency.

Matti the ex-boyfriend was interviewed, as were his friends, as were Kata’s friends. The international airport at Keflavík confirmed that Sharp hadn’t slipped back into the country. The police search soon discovered a spot of blood on the pavement thirty metres away from where the body had been found, which indicated where Kata had been murdered. CCTV was examined, neighbours questioned. Although Kata’s phone wasn’t found, her computer and a tablet were, and by lunchtime keyword algorithms were swarming all over her online life.

Thirty-Seven

After the police had left her, Dísa sat on her bed and cried.

She cried for Kata. She cried for her mother. She cried for herself.

She knew that she was responsible for Kata’s death, but she couldn’t bring herself to face that fact. Not now. Not quite yet.

She told herself she hadn’t received any threats from Krakatoa. She hadn’t ignored them. Grandma was an expert at denial; maybe Dísa had inherited some of it. She would try.

Instead, she focused on Kata. On how they had become firm friends within weeks of Dísa moving up to Dalvík from Reykjavík when they were both nine. They just clicked. On Kata’s sweet little puppy who had grown up and then died, run over on the road outside Kata’s house the year before. On the hours spent talking in Kata’s bedroom or her own. About Kata’s first boyfriend. Kata’s second boyfriend. Dísa smiled to herself. There were quite a lot of them and they all needed lengthy discussion, until Matti.

Kata had been going out with Matti for three years. It was serious.

Poor Matti. Dísa knew why Kata had broken up with him: Kata had spent her whole life within the confines of Dalvík where everyone knew everyone else. Now she had escaped to the big city, she realized she wanted to turn over a new leaf, reinvent herself at uni. It wasn’t his fault, but Matti was part of the Dalvík Kata was trying to escape. Dísa and Kata had thrashed it out on the drive back to Reykjavík after Mum’s funeral.

But Kata had never had a chance to explain it to Matti. That was what she had been planning to do the previous evening.

What had seemed to Dísa reasonable, sensible even, now appeared callous and cruel. She should see Matti.

She knew she had to talk to Kata’s parents. She didn’t know how long she could bury her own responsibility for Kata’s death. Best to ring them now. Get it over with.

They had already heard. She spoke to Kata’s mum, a woman she knew really well. An assistant to one of the top managers at the fish-processing plant, Kata’s mum was calm, well organized, reliable.

But not now. Símon, the oldest and kindliest of the three local policemen, had just left, leaving a crater of emotional destruction behind him. Kata’s mum was the wreckage. She wanted all the details Dísa could give her about what had happened. She was absurdly, illogically grateful to Dísa for reporting Kata missing so soon, as if it made any difference.

A voice was whispering in Dísa’s ear, telling her that she was responsible for Kata’s death, that she should tell Kata’s mum, beg for her forgiveness.

Dísa tried to silence that voice, tried to ignore it. She succeeded, but only barely.

She was exhausted when she hung up.

She texted Jói: Call me. Something terrible has happened. Kata has been murdered.

He called a minute later. It was good to talk to him; he promised to come by later that afternoon.

The doorbell rang. It was three girls from Dísa’s economics class. They had heard the news.

Dísa had only known them for a few weeks, but they were kind, they were sympathetic, and they took Dísa’s mind off that insistent whisper: You are responsible for Kata’s death. You as good as killed your best friend.

They went for lunch to a local café. On the way back, Dísa spoke to a couple of journalists who were staking out her flat, Kata’s flat. She mumbled bland, factual responses to their questions.

Then she told the girls she wanted to be alone for a bit.

The time had come to face up to what she had done. What she would do next.

She made herself a mug of mint tea, sat at the kitchen table and looked around Kata’s flat.

She was under no illusions that Kata’s death was the result of a random, anonymous attack. It was Krakatoa.

She had to accept the fact that if she had given Krakatoa his bitcoin back as he had demanded, Kata would still be alive.

For some reason the idea that Kata would turn out to be the ‘someone else’ who might be killed hadn’t occurred to Dísa until she was lying in bed, eyes open, at eleven-thirty the night before and she hadn’t heard Kata return. Maybe she and Matti had made up?

Or maybe Kata was the ‘someone else’ Krakatoa had mentioned.

Dísa had waited, her fears growing, her imagination running amok. Midnight. Twelve-fifteen. She had called Matti. When he said Kata hadn’t shown up that evening, she called the police. She had been frantic. The police officer who took her call was polite at first, then sympathetic, then irritated.

By that stage, it didn’t matter how the police responded: Kata was already dead.

Krakatoa had killed her. Or had had her killed.

Dísa was pretty sure that Sharp was Krakatoa. If Sharp wasn’t in Iceland, he could still have had Kata murdered by an accomplice or a hired killer.

An accomplice. Dad?

No. No way. She couldn’t believe that.

She hadn’t been in touch with him since she had taken his bitcoin, and he hadn’t been in touch with her. She had been expecting a phone call or a visit, a demand that she return his coin, but nothing.

At first, she had hoped he hadn’t realized that it was she who had broken into his trove. But if Krakatoa had figured out it was Dísa, then Dad must have too.

Did Dad know about Krakatoa’s threats?

Dad knew Krakatoa really well. They must trust each other completely — why else would Krakatoa have left the key to his wealth at Dad’s summer house?

Did that mean Dad knew Krakatoa had killed Kata?

The police had asked whether there was a connection between Mum’s murder and Kata’s. Was Dad that connection? Had he somehow murdered Mum? Or got Gunni to do it?’

The thought was unbearable. It was also ridiculous. Dad would never do something like that.

The whole thing was ridiculous.

But it was also real. Kata’s death was real.

So what should Dísa do now?

She fetched her laptop and opened it up. Her phone had been overloaded with messages of sympathy and curiosity, and she expected a few backed up in her computer too.

But there was one that immediately caught her attention. An email.

That was clear.

Oh, God!

She thought of the twenty million dollars’ worth of bitcoin she held in her wallet. Twenty million! An unimaginable amount of money. A scary amount of money.

Too much.

Mum had died. Kata had died. Dísa was terrified that if she didn’t do what Krakatoa had demanded, she would die soon too.

There was only one answer.

She hit ‘Reply’. She typed: OK. You win.

Her mouse hovered over ‘Send’.

And hovered.

No. No.

No!

Krakatoa had killed her best friend and probably killed her mother. Krakatoa had ruined dozens of her neighbours in Dalvík, including Gunni. Krakatoa had taken Blábrekka away from her family after five hundred years.

Who knew how many people all over the world Krakatoa had ruined? The eager Chinese, the smiling Ugandans, the smug Dutch in the videos she had seen.

No, damn it. No!

She was glad Krakatoa had threatened her life and not another ‘someone else’ — Jói perhaps, or even worse, Anna Rós. Dísa was OK with being responsible for her own life. Someone had to stand up to Krakatoa, to stop him from sneaking off to Panama with other people’s savings, other people’s dreams. Other people’s lives.

It was she. She was the one who had Krakatoa’s twenty million under her control. The police couldn’t stop him.

She could.

She had a little over twenty-four hours.

She needed to figure out how to pay out that twenty million to as many of the Thomocoin investors as possible, including her own grandparents.

For that, she needed Uncle Eggert.

She had called him several days before to ask him to help her figure out how to pay out the bitcoin. She had explained that she had inherited a small amount of bitcoin from her mother and wanted to repay something to those people Helga had encouraged to invest in Thomocoin, including Uncle Eggert himself.

Uncle Eggert had been happy to help, promising to call the management of the bitcoin miner in which he had invested and to do some internet research.

She dialled his mobile.

‘Hi, Dísa. I just saw the news,’ he said. ‘Poor Kata!’

‘Yes,’ said Dísa.

‘And poor you! How are you doing?’

‘Not well,’ said Dísa.

‘Do they know who did it? Why?’

‘No,’ said Dísa. ‘Reading between the lines, the police think it’s probably rape, but they don’t have confirmation yet.’

She didn’t like to lie to Uncle Eggert, but she didn’t want to scare him off either.

‘Any luck with the bitcoin?’ she asked.

‘It’s proving difficult,’ said Eggert. ‘I spoke to the people behind the bitcoin miner I’ve invested in, and they say we really need a bank account abroad to pay the proceeds from the bitcoin into. That’s the tricky part. It’s just about impossible to set up a bank account overseas just like that. At least for ordinary people like you and me. It’s the anti-money-laundering rules. Banks need ID and they need to know where the money comes from.’

‘But what about all those politicians with offshore accounts?’ said Dísa. ‘The ones in the Panama Papers.’

‘They have contacts. And friends. I don’t. Except maybe your dad. But you said you didn’t want to go to him.’

‘That’s right. We can’t go to him.’

‘Because he’s involved with Thomocoin?’

‘Yes,’ said Dísa. ‘I’m afraid he is.’

‘I see,’ said Eggert.

‘Isn’t there anything more you can do?’

‘Short of flying to Luxembourg or Switzerland and trying to open an account directly, no,’ said Eggert. ‘Even then, I’m not sure they would let me. Or you. They would be suspicious.’

‘There must be a way.’

‘I was thinking: maybe the easiest thing would be if you could get everyone to open their own bitcoin wallets and you could pay each of them individually in bitcoin. Then it would be up to them to convert it to krónur.’

‘That doesn’t sound easy,’ said Dísa.

‘I’ve got a bitcoin wallet,’ said Eggert. ‘You could pay me. And you could get your grandparents to open one. We could get the word out through them to the investors in Dalvík. You say you have a list of them?’

‘I do. But I don’t have their email addresses.’

‘Maybe your grandparents have them, or some of them. If they managed to set up wallets to buy Thomocoin, they can figure out how to set up bitcoin wallets. Especially if it’s going to get back their life savings.’ Eggert hesitated. ‘Are you certain Thomocoin is finished? Is there any chance they will come up with an exchange after all?’

‘No chance,’ said Dísa. ‘The police told me they tried to arrest Sharp in London, but he had done a runner. They think he’s in Panama. It’s all gone, Uncle Eggert. All that Thomocoin is worth nothing.’

‘Shit.’

‘Yeah. Let me think.’

Dísa thought. Uncle Eggert’s idea might work. But it would take longer than twenty-four hours. It would take at least a week to contact all those investors and get them to open bitcoin wallets. Some of them, the true believers, would still be believing and would need convincing. Including Grandpa.

She needed to keep the bitcoin somewhere safe for that week in case anything happened to her. If Krakatoa did catch up with her, her private key would be useless. And if the worst happened, no one would be able to access the bitcoin. Ever. Thomocoin’s investors would never be repaid; Blábrekka would be lost.

She had to trust someone. And that someone turned out to be Uncle Eggert. At least he was family.

Dísa took a deep breath. And a leap of faith.

‘Could I transfer the bitcoin to you, Uncle Eggert?’ she asked. ‘Then you could distribute it when I give you the investors’ details.’

‘I don’t see why not. How much are we talking about?’

‘Just under two thousand bitcoin.’

‘OK. Wait a moment.’ Eggert had done the calculation. ‘Do you mean two thousand bitcoin or two thousand dollars’ worth?’

‘I mean two thousand bitcoin.’

‘But that’s twenty million dollars!’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s not Helga’s, is it?’

‘No. It’s mine. Or at least it’s in my bitcoin wallet.’

‘Where did you get it from?’

‘Thomocoin.’

‘You stole it?’

Dísa hesitated. She hadn’t stolen it — that was the whole point. ‘I took it back. It’s not mine, and it’s certainly not Thomocoin’s; it belongs to all those people who trusted Mum and invested with them. That’s why I have to give it back.’

‘I see. Do Thomocoin know?’

‘Probably.’

Silence.

‘Is that why Kata was killed?’

Uncle Eggert wasn’t stupid. ‘Maybe.’

‘I’ve got to think about this,’ he said.

‘OK. But please let me know. Soon.’

A plan was emerging. It wasn’t a great plan, but it might work.

Transfer Dísa’s bitcoin to Uncle Eggert’s wallet. Get email addresses of the investors in Dalvík and Akureyri. Persuade them to set up bitcoin wallets. Get their details. Get Uncle Eggert to pay them.

That would take longer than twenty-four hours. But it could take less than a week.

Dísa had until 5 p.m. the following day. After that time she would have to disappear for a week. Somewhere outside Reykjavík. And away from Dalvík and Akureyri. Iceland was a big, empty country.

Kata’s car was parked on the street outside. And her car keys were in a bowl right there on the kitchen counter.

Dísa reached into the bowl and slipped the keys into her pocket.

She plugged her cold wallet USB stick into her computer and logged into her bitcoin wallet. The bitcoin was all still there. If Eggert agreed, she would need his wallet address to pay him.

Could she trust Uncle Eggert? With twenty million dollars?

Probably. He had always been good to her. Dísa and he didn’t have a strong relationship, but Mum had always trusted him, as far as she knew.

She couldn’t be certain, but she didn’t think he would just grab all the bitcoin for himself.

She didn’t really have a choice.

More likely Uncle Eggert would decide to back away from helping her. He might decide it was too dangerous. It was too dangerous.

Then what?

The doorbell rang. It was Jói.

She gave him a big hug, COVID be damned. He held her tightly.

‘God, I’m so sorry, Dísa,’ he said.

It was good to talk to Jói. Not as good as it would have been to talk to Kata, but he was family. She needed family.

‘You can move back in with me if you like,’ Jói said, looking around the small apartment. ‘I don’t know, maybe you want to stay here. But if you need somewhere else...’

‘Thanks, Jói.’ For a moment, she wondered whether she would be safe in Jói’s apartment. The answer was clearly not — Krakatoa would have no problem finding her there. ‘Maybe in a week or two?’

‘What’s that?’ Jói asked, pointing to Dísa’s pink USB stick.

‘Oh, it’s my bitcoin wallet.’

‘Hot pink?’

‘I know.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Dad gave it to me. I made him promise to switch it to a silver one, but he never did.’

‘So you still have some bitcoin?’

‘Mum had some.’ Dísa lowered the lid to her computer. She didn’t want Jói seeing how much.

‘Do you have a back-up wallet?’ Jói asked. ‘Aren’t you supposed to keep one somewhere, in case you lose that?’

‘I do. But it’s up in Dalvík. In a secret hiding place.’

‘Where?’ said Jói.

‘I can’t tell you that!’ said Dísa. ‘Or it wouldn’t be secret!’

Jói grinned. ‘I guess not.’

She had made light of it. But she wondered whether she should tell Jói where her paper wallet was hidden. Originally she had stuffed it under her old Barbie doll clothes in a drawer in her bedroom, but after her mother’s death, she had moved it to Helga’s hiding place by the elf rock behind the farm. Perhaps she should even give it to Jói for safekeeping.

But there was still a chance he might try to return his father’s bitcoin to him, once he realized Dísa had taken it from him. And even if he didn’t, Dísa would be putting Jói at risk.

It was bad enough that Uncle Eggert would be in danger. One relative at a time.

But if Uncle Eggert’s answer was that he refused to help Dísa any further, maybe she should open up to Jói?

Later, half an hour after Jói had left, Eggert called.

‘OK, Dísa,’ he said. ‘You’re a brave girl. Those people deserve to get their money back, and I’ll help you do it. I’ll give you my bitcoin wallet address and you can pay them over when you’re ready. You realize you’ll be trusting me with twenty million dollars?’

Dísa smiled. ‘I trust you, Uncle Eggert.’

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Thud, thud, thud.

Ómar’s heavy tread pounded along the pavement beside the bay, his gasps loud in his ears. A cold breeze bounded off the water, snapping at his cheeks. He tried to keep his eyes fixed on Mount Esja, a long slab of rock lurking beneath a dark cloud in the distance. No matter how hard he ran, the mountain was not getting any closer, although the grey cloud was slipping upwards, as if pulled back by a giant hand.

He switched his gaze to the sculpture of the Viking ship jutting out a couple of metres from the pavement into the bay, its bones burnished silver in the low sunlight. That at least was getting closer. And he knew there were benches there. He could do a stretch or two, like the responsible athlete he was.

God, he was unfit! This was his third day running and he wasn’t sure he was going to keep it up. But his bulging stomach taunted him every day.

A tall grey-haired guy in tight black leggings loped past him. He had to be at least ten years older than Ómar.

His thoughts turned to Dísa, as they had constantly since Jói had warned him to check his bitcoin wallet. He had driven up to the summer house immediately. The two cigar canisters were still there, stuffed beneath the tuft of grass by the elf rock, and so were the private keys inside. At first, he had found no sign of anyone taking a look, but Dísa could easily have copied down the private keys and shoved them back in their hiding place. Then he spotted part of a fresh Dísa-sized footprint a couple of metres away on some bare earth.

Jói was right. There was no other explanation. Dísa must have stolen his bitcoin. Thirty thousand dollars of it.

She had as good as warned him, that afternoon by that other rock at Blábrekka. She had urged him to give his bitcoin to Dalvík’s Thomocoin investors — more than urged him, virtually ordered him. No doubt that was what she planned to do with his hoard. And Jói’s.

He had no idea how much Jói had stashed in his bitcoin wallet. He was sure it would be more than him, a lot more.

Part of him was impressed with what Dísa had done. She had tried to make him feel guilty about the Thomocoin mess and had succeeded. The message boards suggested that Thomocoin had imploded. The price on the website hadn’t been updated since it had spiked up to five hundred dollars. There were rumours that Sharp and Jérôme were on the run, that Sharp was now in Moscow or Beijing. The believers were suggesting that the haters were trying to shut Thomocoin down, but that Sharp had escaped their clutches and, from the safety of Moscow or wherever, would resurrect the cryptocurrency.

Ómar knew it was bollocks.

So did Dísa. And she had done something about it.

It was partly for that reason, and partly because he wanted to avoid a confrontation with his daughter so soon after her mother’s death, that Ómar hadn’t demanded the bitcoin back. Yet.

Neither had he been in touch with Jói. That was another confrontation he had been avoiding.

Thomocoin had been Jói’s idea. It was Ómar who had put Jói in touch with his friend Sharp in London. Between the two of them, with some help from Sharp’s French friend from business school, Jérôme, they had transformed Jói’s original FOMOcoin into Thomocoin and turned it into what seemed to be a huge success. Ómar had kept out of it — he hadn’t the nerve for that kind of thing any more — but from the periphery, he had been impressed and proud of the way that Jói, in the guise of Krakatoa, had asserted himself as de facto boss of the organization.

Now Thomocoin was in trouble, and so too was Jói, presumably. Unless his Krakatoa alias held. Ómar had been sceptical of Jói’s insistence that Jói feign indifference towards crypto to people he knew in the real world. But now Ómar saw how smart his son had been to preserve his anonymity: Jói could look after himself, he had proved that.

Part of Ómar admired Dísa for what she had done, but a bigger part of him needed the money. The tourist season had been a complete washout that summer. Although Iceland had allowed tourists back in July, there were strict quarantine requirements, and not many had come. And those that had come had brought the virus with them. Two French tourists had just managed to infect more than ninety people after a little bar crawl in downtown Reykjavík; they hadn’t understood the quarantine rules. And with the tourists had gone Ómar’s income as a freelance guide.

He had found some work advising his various employers on dealing with their cash-flow problems, but for that he was mostly earning goodwill rather than hard krónur. He needed his stash of bitcoin. Especially since his small holding of Thomocoin was now worthless.

And he couldn’t just pretend forever that he hadn’t noticed what Dísa had done. It would be an unpleasant conversation, but he had to have it sometime, and it might as well be now. He would call her as soon as he got home.

Actually, he had a shower as soon as he got back to his flat in Nordurmýri. As he was drying himself he turned the radio on.

A student had been murdered not far from the university. She had been identified as Katrín Ingvarsdóttir, nineteen, from Dalvík.

That was Dísa’s friend Kata, wasn’t it?

Oh, God! Poor Dísa. First her mother and now her best friend.

Weren’t they roommates now? Dísa had said she’d moved out of Jói’s flat and in with Kata.

He pulled on some clothes and called her.

No reply.

He texted her.

No reply to that, either.

He remembered Dísa had sent him a message with her new address.

He scrolled back through his texts from her and found it.

Forty

After Jói left, Dísa put together her own spreadsheet of the names on Helga’s computer that she had downloaded. She needed to gather together corresponding email addresses. Or maybe Facebook pages.

She recognized at least half of the names. She began googling, seeing if she could glean emails from the internet. It wasn’t difficult, especially for the Dalvík names. Facebook pages were even easier. The medical staff in Akureyri posed a little more of a problem, but she was pretty sure she would be able to gather contact information for 90 per cent of them. The rest she could contact through the online phone book, or through their friends.

As she was working, she was composing in her mind the email or Facebook message she would send. She was concerned she would have to persuade some of them that their Thomocoin really was worthless, despite the fact that the website seemed to have gone dead.

She also realized that she shouldn’t contact anyone with her plan before the five o’clock deadline the following day for fear it might somehow get back to Krakatoa or her father.

Her phone buzzed.

Dad.

She hesitated. Was he calling to see how she was? Or to demand his money back? Or to threaten her?’

She nearly picked up — she wanted her dad. She really wanted her mum!

But she didn’t want a fight with him now.

Later maybe.

So she ignored it. And she ignored the three texts from him that pinged on her phone afterwards.

But not the one from Matti.

Hey Dísa.

Oh Matti! I can’t believe it!

Do you want to talk?

Yeah. Can I come round to your place?

Sure.

I’ll be there in ten.

Matti was sharing with two other guys in a place half a kilometre away. Walking distance. For Kata. And now for Dísa.

She shut up her laptop and hurried downstairs. As she opened the front door, she saw a figure approaching her.

Dad.

She hesitated.

‘Dísa!’

She made to shut the door.

‘Don’t do that, Dísa! We need to talk.’

Dísa hesitated. Dad’s expression was full of pain, and sympathy.

He smiled. ‘Can I come in?’

The smile clinched it. She needed that smile. ‘OK.’

Dísa went back upstairs, Dad following.

‘I’m so sorry, Dísa,’ he said when they were inside the apartment. He reached out to hug her. She stood back. Then she let him wrap her arms around her. It felt good.

They sat at the kitchen table.

‘What happened?’

Dísa told him. The same story she had told many people that day. He listened. He seemed genuinely shocked.

As if he had nothing to do with it.

As she spoke, Dísa felt her anger rising. He sat there. Pale. Dazed. His straggly goatee seeming to droop with his shoulders. Weak.

Mum was right. Her father was weak.

Dísa didn’t know what his exact role in all this was. She was sure he wasn’t the leader. He was a follower. Dad was always a follower.

Weak.

Well, she felt strong.

She interrupted herself.

‘Dad? You know I took your bitcoin? I drove out to the summer house and found the private keys hidden by the elf rock and I logged into your wallet and took all your bitcoin?’

Ómar raised his eyebrows. ‘I... er... I suspected it was you.’

‘Dad. Who is Krakatoa?’

‘Krakatoa? I... I don’t know. Who is Krakatoa?’

For someone who had spent so much time in prison, Dad was a pretty bad liar.

‘OK. Who is K?’

‘K?’

Yes. K. The second private key you hid under that rock belonged to K. I took his bitcoin too.’

Dad just blinked.

‘K is Krakatoa, right? So who is Krakatoa?’

‘I told you, I don’t know.’ Firmer now, but Dísa was unimpressed.

‘Krakatoa is Sharp, isn’t he?’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I want you to answer my question!’ Dísa glared at her father.

Ómar looked down at his hands and then faced his daughter. ‘All right. I thought it was you who took my bitcoin. And... K’s. But I won’t tell you who Krakatoa is. And I want my bitcoin back.’

‘I’m going to give it back to those people who were foolish enough to believe Sharp and you and my mother.’

‘Wait a minute! I didn’t have anything to do with that! All right, I introduced you to Sharp and Thomocoin, and I’m very sorry about that. But I told you not to talk to Helga about it.’

‘It was bitcoin you told me not to talk to her about, not Thomocoin,’ Dísa said.

‘You never said you had given your bitcoin to your mother when I introduced you to Thomocoin!’

That at least was true. Dísa had deceived her father, at her mother’s request.

‘Look,’ Ómar said, aiming for sincerity. ‘I’m not part of Thomocoin, I promise you. That bitcoin is what’s left over from my trading. And I need it to get through the winter to next year’s tourist season.’ He leaned forward. ‘Give it back to me, Dísa. It’s mine. It’s not yours. And it’s not even those poor suckers’ in Dalvík.’

‘Poor suckers like Grandpa?’ said Dísa.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ said Ómar.

He clearly did. And, actually, he wasn’t wrong. Grandpa was a sucker. But he didn’t deserve to lose Blábrekka.

‘And if I don’t give it back to you? What will you do to me?’ Dísa asked.

Ómar seemed taken aback by that question. ‘You should give back what you stole because it’s the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘You know right from wrong, Dísa.’

‘Oh yeah? And should I give Krakatoa his bitcoin back too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because he said he would kill someone if I didn’t?’

Ómar sat back. ‘What?’

‘You heard me. He sent me a warning a few days ago that if I didn’t give him his bitcoin back someone would die. Then he sent another one twenty-four hours later. And someone did die.’

‘You mean Kata?’

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

‘Oh, God.’ Ómar’s pale already skin went even paler — if that was possible.

‘So, Dad. Who is Krakatoa?’

Ómar didn’t answer. It was clear he had no idea what to say.

‘He told me I’m next,’ Dísa went on. ‘That if I don’t give him his bitcoin back by tomorrow at five o’clock, he will kill me.’

Ómar swallowed. ‘So what are you going to do?’

An idea came to Dísa. She let her shoulders sag. ‘I’ll give it back. Right at the last minute. You can tell him that. Go and tell him that.’

Her father just sat there.

‘Go!’ she said.

He swallowed. ‘What about my bitcoin? Will you return that to me?’

Dísa stared at him. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me you will kill me if I don’t give it back. And I will. But you have to threaten to kill me first.’

Ómar met her eyes for a couple of seconds. He scrambled to his feet and stumbled out of her flat without a backward glance.

Weak. So weak.

Dísa waited a couple of minutes and followed him out. The brief walk to Matti’s place would be good to clear her head.

Jói sat in his car, watching Dísa’s building. He saw his father go in and then come out again.

Ten minutes later, he saw Dísa emerge.

He was still hopeful that Dísa would do the sensible thing and return his bitcoin. But there was one other way to get his coin back. It was a long shot, but worth a try.

Ideally, he would have liked to pay Tecumseh to do it. But Tecumseh was gone and there was no time to line up a replacement. Jói had transferred the forty thousand dollars in bitcoin he owed him for the hit immediately. He didn’t want Tecumseh as an enemy.

Jói would just have to do his own dirty work from now on.

He waited another ten minutes and then walked around the block to the road behind Dísa’s. He had already checked the street and identified the right house.

He was strangely nervous. He had done a good job for months dealing with the vicissitudes of Thomocoin and had taken life-and-death decisions coolly. But that was from behind a computer. Out in the real world, a bit of breaking and entering in a Reykjavík street in daylight scared him.

He pulled himself together and boldly walked along the side of the house and through a small gate into a back garden. No furtive glances, no hesitation; he wanted to give the impression of a man with a perfect right to go where he was going. He swiftly crossed the small yard and slipped through the bushes at the back.

He had noticed the door with a window at the back of the hallway in Dísa’s building. The building had three floors, presumably all containing students. Dísa’s was the top. There were no lights showing on the ground floor, but he could see a yellow glow behind a curtain in the middle storey. He slipped on some gloves, both to protect his hands and wrists from broken glass and to avoid fingerprints. He smashed the glass and waited a few seconds.

If anyone came to investigate, he would run.

No one came.

He reached in and opened the door from the inside.

Quick. Up the stairs. Dísa’s door wasn’t even locked.

He had listed in his head the most likely places she would hide her pink USB wallet, accepting the possibility that she had kept it with her. It turned out it was still stuck in her laptop, which was lying on the counter in the kitchen.

He yanked the stick out of the machine, slipped out of the apartment, crept down the stairs and left the property by the front door.

In fifteen minutes he was back in his own flat.

He stuck the USB stick into the most powerful of his three computers.

Password protected.

He started with the obvious: ‘1234’; ‘password’ and its Icelandic equivalent ‘lykilord’. Dísa’s date of birth in different formats. ‘Dalvík’. ‘Bonny’. ‘Bonnie’ — Jói didn’t know how to spell Dísa’s horse’s name.

None of them worked, but that was OK. There was no sign that the USB stick had a finite number of tries before it would lock, so he fired up his favourite password cracker and set it to work.

He sat and watched it for a few seconds — it would only take that long to crack a simple password — but the password Dísa had chosen was clearly not a simple one, so Jói just let it run, chugging through the combinations of words and numbers.

The password cracker was top of the range; there was a good chance he wouldn’t have to see his threat through.

Forty-One

Magnus heard the squeak and looked up to see Thelma approaching his desk with her habitual loping gate. Her false leg had started squeaking a few days before. Thelma refused to be embarrassed about it, but it clearly annoyed her. No one dared mention it; presumably, it would take more than a squirt of WD40 to fix.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

It was late: everyone else had gone home.

Magnus nodded at his computer screen. ‘Just going through the interviews today.’

‘What’s it look like?’

‘Not sure yet. There are no physical signs of sexual assault or really much of a struggle. The attacker probably grabbed her from behind and strangled her with a cord, dragged her off and stripped her.’

‘Why did he strip her if there wasn’t a sexual motive? Could he have been disturbed?’

‘It’s possible.’ Magnus shrugged. ‘Maybe he was trying to put us off the scent?’

‘Off the scent from what?’

‘I remember a similar case in Boston,’ said Magnus. ‘It looked like a sexual assault. Turned out it was a professional hit.’

‘You think a pro did this?’

‘It’s something to bear in mind.’

‘Why would a professional killer be involved? Was she dealing?’ There were drug gangs in Iceland, and they had the occasional turf war.

‘No. She didn’t even take drugs — her friends are adamant about that.’

‘What about the boyfriend? I understand she had recently dumped him?’

‘That’s right. He was waiting in his flat all evening for her with his two roommates, so unless they are covering for him, he didn’t do it. In theory, he could have hired a professional to do it, but he just doesn’t look the type.’

‘But you’re keeping an open mind?’

‘Always.’ Magnus was thinking. Thelma let him.

‘Yes?’ she said at last.

‘There’s the Dalvík angle.’

Thelma listened. ‘OK.’

‘Kata came from Dalvík. Helga Hafsteinsdóttir was murdered in Dalvík. Helga was Dísa’s mother; Kata was her best friend. There’s a connection.’

‘There could be.’

‘I’ve got Árni checking whether any of Kata’s relatives were involved in Thomocoin.’

‘And were they?’

‘So far, no.’

‘So at least we know there’s no Thomocoin connection.’

‘We don’t know that,’ said Magnus. ‘We need to look further.’

‘I can see how there might be a Dalvík angle or a Dísa angle,’ said Thelma. ‘Look for links between Kata and Gunni, perhaps. Maybe he had an affair with her in Dalvík? But don’t get dragged into Thomocoin unless you are sure that there is a real connection, do you understand me, Magnús?’

‘You know what murder investigations are like. You can’t be sure there’s a real connection until you go looking for it.’

‘The Thomocoin scandal is going to be big; the press is going to be all over it. The last thing we need is for them to find you have been interviewing the scammers about murder. That would create the kind of shitstorm that could bring down governments.’

‘But what if it’s true, Thelma?’ Magnus was doing his best to control his temper.

‘If there is a link and you have proof, fine. But that’s not the case, is it?’

‘No,’ said Magnus. He meant not yet, but he didn’t say it. Thelma was right he was a long way from establishing a link. And the Gunni — Kata angle was worth pursuing. There was some connection between the two murders; he was sure of it.

‘Why did you ask me about Tryggvi Thór the other day?’ Magnus asked her.

Instantly, Thelma’s expression changed, from aggression to wariness. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I was just curious.’

‘I remember that when I first lodged with him three years ago, you said you didn’t know who he was. You said he was bent.’

‘You must be confused, Magnús,’ said Thelma. She turned to stalk off back to her office, her leg squeaking all the way.

But Magnus wasn’t confused. He recalled that conversation very clearly. Thelma had claimed she didn’t know Tryggvi Thór, that he must have left the police before her time. She had also warned Magnus not to stay with him, given his reputation as a bent cop. But soon after that, Magnus had spotted Thelma and Tryggvi Thór leaving a restaurant together.

He didn’t know what his boss’s connection with his landlord was, but he did know she wanted to keep it concealed.

Not a big believer in openness, was Superintendent Thelma.

His phone rang. ‘Magnús.’

‘Good afternoon. This is Mark Grayson from the DA’s office in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.’ The voice had a warm southern tang. ‘Agent Malley of the FBI in New York gave me your name. He said you spoke good English?’

‘I do,’ said Magnus. ‘How can I help you?’

‘We’re investigating a homicide from September last year. Victim’s name was Corey Henning, forty-two. Online name Cryptocheeseman. Looked like a mugging — victim was knifed in the abdomen on a street close to his house. But we found computer evidence that Henning did work for Thomocoin, which I believe you have been investigating?’

‘I have. And a couple of murders related to it.’

‘Good. We think that the homicide may have been a professional hit ordered by a guy named Krakatoa. The FBI in New York have been investigating Krakatoa, and Agent Malley believes he might be an Icelandic national named Skarp... Skarp-herd...’

‘Sharp,’ said Magnus. ‘I know the guy. I interviewed him last week here in Iceland, but he went back to London the following day. Malley put a red notice out on him, but he had skipped town by the time the British police showed up to arrest him.’

‘And gone to Panama. From where we have no chance of getting him.’

‘How much evidence do you have that Krakatoa ordered the hit?’

‘Just a few messages on Henning’s computer. Veiled threats. Krakatoa seems to have believed that Henning stole two hundred grand in bitcoin from him. He was pissed and he wanted it back. We need more.’

‘Have you found the bitcoin?’

‘No.’

‘Can’t find the key?’

‘That’s right. We need to find Krakatoa and get a look at his computer. But we don’t have hard evidence that Krakatoa is this Sharp guy, at least not yet. Do you?’

‘Not yet,’ said Magnus. ‘He’s definitely the favourite.’

‘What are the murders you are investigating?’

Magnus described Helga’s killing, and Kata’s, and agreed with Grayson to share any information he had about Krakatoa.

As Magnus was driving home to Álftanes, Árni called.

‘Sorry it’s so late, Magnús.’

‘No problem, Árni. What have you got? Did any of Kata’s relatives say they’d invested in Thomocoin?’

‘No. Her parents claim they don’t have any spare money to invest in anything and never have. But you know what these small towns are like; Kata is related to half the population, so I haven’t spoken to her entire extended family.’

‘OK. So what’s up?’

‘I’m still not sure about Gunni.’ Árni sounded hesitant.

‘I know.’

‘So I’ve been going back through the interviews. The house-to-house.’

‘Yes?’

‘And I came across something interesting. A man claims he saw someone out of his bathroom window sneaking around the houses by the church in Dalvík at about one a.m. the evening after the murder.’

‘Sneaking around? What does that mean?’

‘Precisely. He says a man was looking at the houses as he walked by.’

‘Looking at them?’

‘I know. It doesn’t sound much. But people just don’t do that in Dalvík at that time of night.’

‘OK.’

‘The thing is, that’s where Gunni lives. Near the church.’

‘Ah.’ Magnus processed the information. ‘Any description?’

‘No. Just a man. Alone. Acting suspiciously. My guess is the constable who spoke to the witness didn’t think anything of it at the time. The sighting was twelve hours after the murder.’

‘But before you found the knife.’

‘Precisely. We found the knife on the Monday morning. The witness was spoken to the day before — Sunday.’

‘So the knife was planted?’ said Magnus.

‘Maybe.’

‘Have you spoken to Ólafur about this?’

‘No. I’ve only just read the report.’

‘Do you think he’s seen it?’

‘Probably. I haven’t, but then I haven’t read through everything. It’s not surprising it didn’t register with Ólafur.’

It damn well should have done, thought Magnus. If not right away, then after the knife was found in Gunni’s shed.

‘What shall I do?’ said Árni.

‘Tell him tomorrow morning.’

‘He’s not going to like it.’

‘Well, he should,’ said Magnus.

As he hung up, he knew Árni was right. Ólafur wouldn’t like that report coming to light. It would seriously screw up his case.

Because Gunni was innocent.

Forty-Two

It was after eleven by the time Magnus got home. Tryggvi Thór was still up.

‘Brandy?’ he asked.

Magnus knew he should get some sleep so he could wake up again. But he also needed to wind down a bit.

‘Sure.’

Tryggvi Thór poured two glasses and they sat in the living room. The brandy tasted good. Magnus let the day’s events wash over him.

‘Are you working on the murdered girl?’

Magnus had known Tryggvi Thór would ask. That was, after all, why he had stayed up and offered the brandy.

He nodded.

‘Was it rape?’

‘Almost certainly not,’ said Magnus. ‘But do you mind if we don’t talk about it just now?’

Tryggvi Thór looked disappointed, but Magnus knew he understood. He understood Magnus quite well.

They sat in companionable silence, sipping the brandy.

For the first time that day, Magnus’s thoughts slipped away from poor Kata. To Thelma.

Something bothered him about Thelma.

‘My boss asked after you the other day. Thelma.’

‘Oh really? Why did she do that?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Magnus. ‘She asked if you were OK. With the virus. She said I should keep an eye on you.’

Tryggvi Thór bristled at this. ‘Why should she care?’

‘I asked her that. She just walked off.’

Tryggvi Thór grunted.

‘How well do you know her?’

‘Not very well.’

‘When I first moved in here, she told me she didn’t know you at all. In fact, she warned me off you. Said you were a bent cop.’

‘Everyone said I was a bent cop,’ said Tryggvi Thór matter-of-factly.

‘But I saw you two having lunch together. Remember?’

Although Thelma hadn’t seen Magnus watching her and Tryggvi Thór leaving the restaurant three years before, Tryggvi Thór had.

Tryggvi Thór was silent.

‘You were attacked back then. Twice. Nearly killed both times. Then you had lunch with Thelma. And it all stopped.’

More silence. Tryggvi Thór’s heavy dark brow was knitted in anger.

‘What’s going on, Tryggvi Thór?’

Tryggvi Thór took a deep breath. ‘I told you back then that I wouldn’t answer those questions. And I said it was a condition of living here that you didn’t ask them.’

‘You did say that,’ Magnus agreed. ‘And I complied. But I’m worried about Thelma. A woman was killed in Dalvík. Her daughter’s best friend has just been murdered in Reykjavík. This cryptocurrency Thomocoin links them both. Yet Thelma is telling me not to bring Thomocoin into the investigation. She says it’s a political hot potato.’

‘Maybe it is. You know it’s the job of a superintendent to deal with politics. I’m sure it was like that in Boston. That’s what they do.’

‘“Dealing with” is OK,’ said Magnus. ‘Covering up isn’t.’

‘Do you think she’s covering stuff up?’

‘Maybe. And maybe you and she are covering stuff up too.’

The anger was growing. Tryggvi Thór clutched his brandy glass tight. ‘Are you saying I’m a bent cop too?’

‘Maybe,’ said Magnus. As soon as he uttered the word, he regretted it. But he didn’t trust Thelma and he needed to.

Tryggvi Thór pursed his lips. He was hurt. And he was angry.

‘I had to leave the country twenty-five years ago. I came back to try to clear my name. And you’re right, I nearly got killed for it!’

‘And you stopped!’ said Magnus. ‘Right after you had spoken to Thelma, it all stopped. And she claimed she never knew you.’ He shook his head. ‘I know you told me to trust you and leave it alone, and I’ve done that. But this stinks. You’ve got to admit, it stinks.’

Tryggvi Thór’s brown eyes glared at Magnus.

‘I’ve got two women murdered,’ Magnus said. ‘And my boss is squashing an obvious line of inquiry. I’m going to have to stick my neck out in the next couple of days. And I need to know I can trust her.’

‘Of course you can bloody trust her!’ Tryggvi Thór said. ‘If you trust me, you should know you can trust her.’ His stare was firm, direct, uncomfortable.

‘Even though she seems to have got you to back away from something? Something important enough for people to try to kill you?’

‘Even though,’ Tryggvi Thór said. ‘Believe me when I tell you whatever case you are working on has nothing to do with her and me.’

‘Are you sure?’

Tryggvi Thór nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

Magnus shook his head. ‘That’s not enough. If she can cover up once, she can cover up again.’

Tryggvi Thór stared down at the brandy, which he swilled around his glass, his thin lips pursed.

Then he looked up.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you this. There is a cover-up of a crime. But it’s decades old. When I came back here from Africa four years ago, I intended to lift the lid. Some people clearly didn’t like that.’

‘Including Thelma?’

Tryggvi Thór nodded. ‘Including Thelma. And she asked me to stop.’

‘And you did?”

‘I did.’

‘But why would you do that?’ said Magnus.

Tryggvi Thór hesitated. ‘Because she was the one person with the right to tell me to stop.’

Tryggvi Thór held Magnus’s eyes, willing him to understand. It took him a moment to figure it out; then he did.

‘Thelma was the victim.’

Tryggvi Thór grunted. ‘And that’s all we’re going to say about it.’

Forty-Three

Magnus emerged from Tryggvi Thór’s house in Álftanes the following morning to find a figure leaning against his car. A figure wearing a familiar cream-coloured woolly hat.

Ingileif.

His heart leaped when he saw her and then rearranged itself in its proper place.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Hi. Have you got a minute?’

‘Is it about Ási?’

‘Partly.’

‘Can you make it quick?’

‘Sure. Can we walk down to the beach?’

‘Look, I’ve got to hold a briefing at headquarters. There’s been another murder.’

‘Really, it will only be a couple of minutes. I’ll say my piece and be on my way.’

They walked in silence down to the sand, both of them avoiding small talk, both waiting for whatever Ingileif had to say. The tide was out. Terns wheeled and cried above them. The black folds of the Reykjanes peninsula slumbered above the water. The sea slurped softly on the volcanic pebbles at their feet.

At last, Ingileif spoke. ‘I’ve mismanaged my life, especially with men. I was going to say “screwed up” but I haven’t screwed up. I’ve had fun. My relationships may have ended up badly, but they started out well. They were good men, most of them. I have Ási: that’s good. That’s very good. But I can’t go on like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Finding a man. Having fun. Then dumping him.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Magnus neutrally.

‘I feel different with you, Magnús. Safer. Secure. I trust you, and you, God help you, you trust me. Maybe it’s because both our fathers were murdered, I don’t know. But there’s something. Don’t you think?’

Magnus was reaching for an answer when Ingileif stopped him.

‘Don’t answer that. I told myself I wouldn’t demand an answer from you on anything. I just want you to understand. Understand me.’

‘OK. I was going to say yes, there is something, but OK.’

Ingileif flashed a quick smile at him and then looked out over the water to the lava field.

‘All right. So I feel safe and secure with you. And from that security, I feel like I can have some fun. Fool around. Mess up... Back when we first met, I said you were hung up on relationships, that you were too serious, that monogamy was overrated.’

‘I remember you saying that.’

‘I did. I do think monogamy is overrated. But...’

‘But?’ Magnus was listening, fascinated.

‘I don’t know. I love Ási. I like you. Actually, I love you, I always have. But if I go back to you, if you have me, it will be great for me, and then I’ll screw it up again unless I do something.’

‘Do what?’

Ingileif looked straight at Magnus. ‘Commit. Commit to you as a lover. As Ási’s Dad. Commit myself not to have sex with anyone else. Commit and mean it. I hate to say this, but we’d probably have to get married.’ Ingileif’s lips twitched upwards at the absurdity of such a suggestion coming from her.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘That you have a girlfriend who is a hundred times better for you than I am? Yes, I’m kind of ignoring that. And that’s why I’m not looking for a response from you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve finally worked out what’s right for me. I’m not at all sure it’s right for you. But I had to tell you. I had to tell you.’

Magnus didn’t know what to say, how to respond. His brain was spinning. For so many years this was exactly what he had wanted Ingileif to say, but now she was saying it, he didn’t know how to respond. Because she was right. He had a girlfriend who was good and kind and sexy and... not Ingileif.

‘I’m going now,’ said Ingileif. ‘Text me when you want to see Ási again.’

She turned to head back up the beach to the road.

‘Ingileif?’

She stopped. ‘I told you I didn’t want any kind of answer.’

‘Thank you,’ said Magnus.

‘For what?’

‘For talking to me. Telling me all that.’

She smiled quickly and was gone.

Forty-Four

As Magnus drove into Hverfisgata, Ingileif’s words swirled around his head. They stirred up his thoughts into a mixture of excitement, nervousness and confusion.

He could feel Ingileif pulling him towards her. He had no idea whether he should let himself go, or fight it. Ingileif was dangerous, at least for him. She always had been. He knew he had an important decision to make, something that would alter the course of his life — and that of other people — but he didn’t know how he was going to make it.

And what about Eygló? Eygló who trusted him. Eygló who wanted to build a family with him. Eygló on whom he could always rely. Eygló whom he loved.

Didn’t he?

As he entered the conference room full of police officers, he firmly pushed Ingileif to one side. He had a murder to solve. Probably two murders.

He stood in front of the crowd and kicked off the briefing. The volume of information had built up in the previous twenty-four hours, but precious little useful had come out of it.

The autopsy showed no sign of semen or injury that could have resulted from rape. Death was by asphyxiation from strangling by a nylon cord. No signs of a struggle apart from the blood on the nose. No DNA from the attacker; nothing under the victim’s fingernails. Some fibre that may have come from gloves; Edda’s forensics team were working on pinning down the brand.

There were no CCTV cameras at the scene or even on the short route from Kata’s apartment to where she was killed. But a camera situated a couple of hundred metres towards the centre of town from the apartment showed several single men walking that way, three of whom returned later in the evening. The police would try to identify these men; officers would be standing by the camera that evening in case it was a regular route for one or two of the three.

The jilted boyfriend was an obvious line of inquiry: Vigdís would interview him again that morning, as well as his two flatmates who claimed to be with him all evening.

Magnus mentioned that Árni in Akureyri was checking the Dalvík angle and any possible connection with Helga’s murder. He didn’t mention Thomocoin, or the call from the DA’s office in North Carolina. Not yet.

Nor did he mention Thomocoin at the quick press conference he held after the briefing. But he did everything he could to scotch rumours that there was a rapist on the streets of Reykjavík.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk to Matti with me?’ said Vigdís afterwards.

‘No. I’m off to Hólmsheidi.’

‘To see Gunni?’ said Vigdís. Magnus had filled Vigdís in privately on his conversation with Árni.

‘That’s right.’

‘Does Thelma know?’

‘No. But if she asks, tell her I’m following up on her suggestion that there may be something between Gunni and Kata.’

‘I don’t think that’s what she meant you to do,’ said Vigdís.

Magnus grinned. ‘Probably not.’

‘What about Ólafur? He won’t be happy. He’s leaving Gunni to stew. He won’t like someone else interviewing him first.’

‘He may not,’ said Magnus. ‘So let’s not worry the poor guy, eh?’

Vigdís rolled her eyes. ‘Árni had better be right, or you are in big trouble.’

‘Árni is sometimes right,’ said Magnus.

‘Oh yeah?’

Dísa got up early, made herself a cup of coffee and set to work on her computer. The flat was quiet and empty without Kata there.

For a moment that stretched to several, Dísa stared ahead, focusing on a scratch on the cupboard above the sink, and thought of her friend. How she would never see her again. How she always seemed to know what Dísa was thinking and how Dísa knew what she was thinking. How there would be no future boyfriends to dissect and analyse.

How Dísa would never now be able to persuade her that Taylor Swift was a good singer and not a commercial sell-out.

That last got to her. Yet another tear leaked from her raw eyes.

She was glad she had seen Matti the evening before. The break-up with Kata had clearly hurt him badly, but obviously not as badly as her death. He was a wreck.

He had repeated that he had no idea why Kata had dumped him. Dísa tried to explain as gently as possible that it all had to do with Kata and her desire to reinvent herself, and not with Matti.

Matti didn’t seem to understand. He also didn’t understand why the police seemed to be treating him as a suspect when it should be obvious how much he loved her.

In the end, Dísa had said that Kata was an idiot to dump Matti, and in Dísa’s opinion Kata would have realized that eventually. Dísa wasn’t sure that was true, but it might have been, and it seemed to give Matti some comfort. The poor guy needed comfort.

She shook herself. She had a lot to do before five o’clock that afternoon. She still had some more email and Facebook addresses to compile, and she needed to draft messages to persuade the Thomocoin investors to set up their own bitcoin wallets together with instructions how.

She would send those at four that afternoon. And by that time she would be well out of Reykjavík. Where should she go? Not Akureyri or Dalvík. The Westfjords maybe? Or east to Höfn or Seydisfjördur, or somewhere even smaller. She should put some thought into that.

She went to check her bitcoin. The pink USB stick wasn’t in the desk drawer where she usually kept it. A surge of panic leaped in her chest. Had she taken it with her the previous evening when she had visited Matti? She didn’t think so. If she had left it stuck in her computer, it definitely wasn’t there now.

She checked the pockets of her jeans. No.

She looked around the kitchen, the living area, her bed.

No.

Could someone have taken it?

Krakatoa? Or Krakatoa’s people?

She checked the flat for a sign of a break-in. She hadn’t locked the door. No one locked their doors in Dalvík, and she didn’t like doing it in Reykjavík unless she really had to. As it was, the door to the building itself was always locked, and she had nothing worth stealing.

Usually.

Now she had twenty million dollars of bitcoin.

She opened the door to her flat and stuck her head out into the narrow landing. A cold draught touched her face. She padded down the stairs in her socks.

The window of the back door was broken and had been roughly covered with a plastic bag.

She knocked on the door of the ground-floor flat. A bleary-eyed student, Nína, answered the door.

‘What happened?’ Dísa asked, pointing to the door.

‘Someone broke in yesterday evening. We don’t think they took anything. And we didn’t want to disturb you because... well, you know. Did you hear them?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Dísa. ‘I was out.’

‘Oh. Have you lost anything?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Should we report it to the police? Maybe you could tell them next time you see them?’

‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’ Dísa was surprised at how casually Nína had taken the break-in.

She hurried back upstairs and fought the surge of panic that washed over her. She had lost the cold wallet. Krakatoa had stolen it, or arranged for someone to steal it.

The question was, could he get access to the private key?

The USB stick was password protected. Dísa had done some research back in 2017 and had learned that the best passwords were four individual unrelated words strung together. These created a password of many letters that was nonetheless possible to remember.

Dísa had chosen horse, dessert, philosopher and calm. Except she had chosen the Icelandic equivalents: hestur, eftiréttur, heimspekingur and logn: hestureftiretturheimspekingurlogn. She knew that there were ever more sophisticated password-breaking programs around, but she doubted it would be worth anyone’s while to program the Icelandic language into them.

Maybe there was a way that Krakatoa could bypass the password protection?

Perhaps there was. But there was nothing that Dísa could do about that now. Best to assume the password held and that the twenty million dollars of bitcoin were still there, untouched.

She had her back-up. The paper cold wallet that was buried next to her mother’s beneath the stone at Blábrekka.

She needed to change her plans. It would take her all day to drive Kata’s car to Dalvík if she set off right away. She could grab the cold wallet, send the messages to the Thomocoin investors and then drive off again, either west to the Westfjords or east, before Krakatoa realized she wasn’t going to pay him.

It would be difficult to explain to Grandma and Grandpa at Blábrekka what she was up to, but she would think of something.

She packed a small suitcase, grabbed Kata’s keys and left the apartment for the long drive north.

Forty-Five

It was shortly after 1 a.m. when Krakatoa realized what an idiot he had been. The password-cracking program was still chugging away. It operated in parallel using two different methodologies. One was brute force: checking every letter, number and punctuation mark in every combination. This worked well for short passwords, but not for longer ones — the number of combinations of truly random characters increased exponentially. The other was to combine numbers and letters from a host of dictionaries and lists of place names and proper names. It was almost impossible to memorize, say, twenty random characters; much easier to recall them if they combined words or dates or places.

If someone wrote down the twenty random characters and used that as a password they could beat the program, but why do that? You might as well just write down the private key itself. Yet it was beginning to look as if that was what Dísa had done.

Until Krakatoa realized that his program didn’t speak Icelandic. Whereas a fifteen-year-old Dísa would have used Icelandic words for her password.

Shit!

Krakatoa thought, spoke and wrote in English. His online world was all in English and he kept it that way. He didn’t want anyone to suspect that he was, in fact, Icelandic. Yet he really should have guessed that his own sister would pick Icelandic passwords.

He spent a frustrating hour trying various Icelandic words Dísa might have used, blak for example, which meant volleyball, but he didn’t get anywhere. In the end, he gave up and went to bed.

He didn’t sleep well.

When he got up at nine and logged on, there was plenty going on in the Thomocoin world for him to deal with. And not all of it bad.

Lindenbrook and Dubbelosix were safely ensconced in Panama. No one else in his globally dispersed network of employees had been bothered by the police. And, most surprisingly, Thomocoin seemed to be living on, at least in the eyes of some of its investors.

Thomocoin believers in India, England, the Netherlands and Iceland wanted to fight back against the haters. They were pleased to learn that Sharp had evaded the FBI and the CIA, who were trying to catch him and shut him up. The big banks wouldn’t win! They would never shut down Thomocoin!

Tubbyman suggested posting prices again, at a much lower level. A price low enough to tempt the believers to invest more: $298 perhaps?

Krakatoa told her to give it a whirl.

These people! Really.

Krakatoa was more worried about his own situation. And his twenty million in bitcoin.

He was going to have to action his own evacuation plan as soon as he could. He held the key to a safety deposit box on a small Caribbean island in which was stored a new passport in a new name. He had opened associated bank accounts. It was a name no one would know: not his father, not Sharp, not Jérôme. Not even Petra.

Krakatoa would live on. Jói would be gone. Forever.

Krakatoa had wanted to avoid this if he possibly could. He liked his life in Iceland. He really liked Petra. But he had to face facts. All that was over.

It had been over when he had decided to kill his stepmother.

At the time, it had looked as though he had no choice. She had flown to Reykjavík to see Dad to ask him about Thomocoin’s prospects. One of her investors, Gunni Sigmundsson, was being difficult about the delays to the promised exchange. Helga had somehow got Dad to admit that Jói was involved; not only that, but Jói was Krakatoa, the guy who called all the shots.

So then she had come right across town to Jói’s place in Gardabaer and confronted him, threatening to expose him. Jói had promised to pay her and all her investors back if things went wrong with Thomocoin.

The following day, Helga had called Jói from Dalvík and said she would go to the police if Jói didn’t transfer the funds right away.

What bothered Jói wasn’t just, or even mostly, that he would be identified with Thomocoin; he was still hopeful that Thomocoin might work out in the end. It was that he had got word from his man in the FBI, Goodmanhunting, that the police in Charlotte suspected Krakatoa of ordering Cryptocheeseman’s murder. Until that point, only Sharp and his father knew Jói was really Krakatoa. He could trust them to keep quiet; Jói knew he couldn’t trust Helga.

He would have to ensure she kept quiet himself.

So he had pleaded for a few days — enough time to activate Tecumseh and get him to Iceland.

Jói. Krakatoa. They weren’t the same people. The only way Krakatoa could operate was by keeping them apart.

Jói was a mild-mannered, laid-back Icelander, a games developer with a girlfriend he liked, a few friends with whom he mostly communicated online, a father he loved, a mother he loved less, and a stepfamily who accepted him. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. People who knew him knew he was clever. But they didn’t respect him.

People respected Krakatoa.

In real life, Jói was never assertive. He had a low-grade craving for people to like him. He didn’t want to offend.

Online, Krakatoa was ruthless, aggressive, decisive, effective. He had started messing around on the dark web in his late teens, getting involved as an intermediary in minor drug deals. By watching others, he learned to flex his online muscles, to earn respect, to lead.

And he liked it. No, he fucking loved it.

He wanted to build up his own online empire. At first, he had thought of drugs. Then of hacked personal details.

Then a cryptocurrency.

He had come up with the idea of FOMOcoin and through his father had approached Sharp. He had insisted from the outset on his anonymity as Krakatoa, claiming it was for security reasons, but actually because he knew that Krakatoa could do all sorts of things that Jói Ómarsson would never have dared. Krakatoa had outmanoeuvred Sharp and his friend Jérôme to retain 50 per cent of the profits of Thomocoin and, more importantly, to call the shots.

It was Krakatoa who had been ruthless enough to do what had to be done with Cryptocheeseman when he had tried to rip off Thomocoin. Sharp had noticed. The dozens of people who worked for Thomocoin online had noticed.

They never asked questions. But they knew not to mess with Krakatoa.

Killing Helga as Krakatoa had been difficult, but Krakatoa had managed it. Through Tecumseh. Just as he had ordered Cryptocheeseman’s death before her. But to go to his stepmother’s funeral as Jói, to see his father and his sisters Dísa and Anna Rós so upset — that was hard.

Which was why, although he would miss Iceland, he wouldn’t miss Jói and his scruples and his guilt.

Krakatoa had none of that. Krakatoa would live on. Krakatoa had a bright future, even if Thomocoin blew itself up. He had the skills, the reputation, the connections to build up something new, something bigger. He had some ideas already. A new angle on ransomware looked promising.

He could do all that, but he needed capital for his new life on a Caribbean island. He needed those twenty million dollars of bitcoin.

And now Tecumseh had left Iceland, only Jói could get it for him.

Jói would have to be brave. Jói would have to conquer his scruples.

He picked up his phone and selected a number.

‘Hi, Eggert. It’s Jói.’

Forty-Six

The new prison at Hólmsheidi nestled in a wooded hollow just outside Reykjavík, a couple of kilometres off the main Ring Road and safely out of sight of any of the city’s inhabitants. It was an isolated modern modular building of concrete, steel and glass, more akin to a secret defence-research establishment than a prison, facing eastwards across a blasted heath of desolation. It was a hell of a lot more convenient than Litla-Hraun, over an hour away from the capital on the south coast.

The traditional technique after a suspect was arrested in Iceland was to leave him alone in solitary confinement for three weeks and then present him with evidence of his guilt and get him to confess. International prison inspectors had raised eyebrows at this in the past, and the practice was much rarer than it used to be when Magnus had first arrived in the country, but Ólafur had persuaded an Akureyri judge to lock Gunni up for three weeks to sweat.

Those three weeks were nearly up. The last thing Ólafur would want was Magnus muscling his way in to speak to Gunni before he had had his chance.

Which was why Magnus hadn’t told him.

Ólafur would be seriously pissed off, understandably. Magnus knew he was skating on very thin ice. If indeed Gunni was responsible for Helga’s death, Magnus could be screwing up the prosecution. But Magnus was pretty sure Gunni wasn’t.

Some men cope well with solitary confinement; some don’t. Unsurprisingly, a tough old sea captain like Gunni could handle it. As he entered the small interview room in the prison he struck Magnus as calm, composed, but angry.

‘Don’t I need a lawyer to speak to you?’ Gunni asked.

‘You do if we discuss Helga’s murder,’ said Magnus. ‘But I want to talk to you about something else. As a witness.’

The difference between ‘witness’ and ‘suspect’ was key in Icelandic law. Gunni wasn’t a suspect yet for Kata’s murder, and Magnus was pretty sure he wouldn’t become one, but if he did, Magnus would have to stop the interview to allow Gunni to get himself a lawyer.

‘Something else?’ said Gunni.

‘Have you heard that Katrín Ingvarsdóttir was murdered in Reykjavík two days ago?’

‘No. Who’s she?’

‘She was a student from the university. She comes from Dalvík.’

‘Ingvar Brynjólfsson’s daughter? I know her. Poor Ingvar.’ Then he frowned. ‘Wait a minute. Are you here to try to pin that on me as well?’

‘Did you have her killed?’

‘No! I was in here, wasn’t I?’

‘Yes, you were,’ said Magnus. ‘But did you get someone else to kill her?’

‘No! Why should I?’

‘Do you know who did kill her?’

‘Of course not! You said I’m not a suspect.’

‘You’re not,’ said Magnus calmly. ‘But I need to rule you out of the inquiry. Did you know Kata?’

‘I know who she was. I’ve seen her about town. I’m not sure I’ve ever spoken to her.’

‘You never had any sexual liaison with her?’

‘What? No! Kata’s young enough to be my daughter! She’s younger than my daughter.’

‘OK,’ said Magnus. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry I had to ask you those questions, but it is quite a coincidence that two women from Dalvík are murdered two weeks apart.’

‘Well, I didn’t kill either of them, and that’s no coincidence.’ Gunni’s fierce stare reminded Magnus a little of Tryggvi Thór. Strong men angry at accusations against them.

Magnus let the words hang there. He watched Gunni with half a smile, trying to convey the idea that he believed him, without actually saying it.

‘OK. Did you know that Kata was a good friend of Dísa, Helga’s daughter?’ Magnus asked.

‘No. But I’m not surprised. They are about the same age, aren’t they?’

Magnus nodded. ‘Can you think of anything that might link Kata and Helga together?’

Gunni was watching Magnus carefully. Gunni was still suspicious, but he was also curious. ‘Thomocoin. Was Kata involved with Thomocoin?’

‘Not as far as we know,’ said Magnus. ‘Her parents say they didn’t have any spare cash to invest.’

‘I can believe that,’ said Gunni. ‘I never heard Ingvar talk about it, and I doubt he ever had much in savings. But Dísa was involved, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘Through her mother. But yes, she was.’

Gunni sat back in his chair. He grinned. ‘You don’t think I killed Helga, do you?’

Magnus kept his face expressionless.

‘You think that Kata and Helga’s murders are connected,’ he continued. ‘You know I didn’t kill Kata. Which means you think I didn’t kill Helga. Your job is to find out who killed Kata. The other guy — Inspector Ólafur — his job is to find out who killed Helga. Am I right?’

Magnus didn’t answer.

‘Unless you are just playing good cop to the other guy’s bad cop?’

‘I like to think I’m a good cop. Which is why I can’t ask you about Helga’s murder without a lawyer present.’

‘But I can tell you why I didn’t kill her?’

Magnus didn’t move.

‘That knife was planted, you know? Why would I leave a knife with blood on it lying around?’

Magnus didn’t reply, waiting for more.

Gunni went on. ‘I’ve got a little less than an hour unaccounted for the morning Helga was killed, when I was walking the dog. If I killed Helga up on the mountainside, I would have had to run there from my house with my dog running after me, stab her and sprint back. I know that mountain well; it’s just not possible for me to do it in the time. And how would I know she would be at that spot exactly at the time I got there? Whoever did kill her must have been lying in wait for her, probably for at least an hour. It makes no sense! I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last couple of weeks. I can’t see how a judge can convict me, despite the knife evidence.’

‘If you didn’t kill Helga, who did?’

‘I’ve got no idea. But I bet it’s got something to do with Thomocoin. Some other poor sucker she talked into putting their life savings into it — that’s my guess. Someone from Dalvík. Or maybe a doctor from Akureyri who worked with her. But not me.’

‘And why Kata?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gunni. ‘That’s your job. But it seems to me it must have something to do with Thomocoin and something to do with Dísa.’

On the way back to police headquarters, Magnus called Árni.

‘Did you speak to Ólafur?’ Magnus asked.

‘Just now.’

‘And?’

‘As we predicted. He’s not happy. He says I shouldn’t be wasting time trying to do the defence’s job for them. I should be looking for evidence to incriminate Gunni.’

‘Is he going to pass on the report to the defence?’

‘He says it’s not relevant. He says someone seeing someone walking along the street looking around is not evidence.’

Idiot.

‘You think Gunni may be innocent, don’t you?’ Árni said.

‘I’m damn sure he is,’ said Magnus. ‘From what Gunni told me, he would have had to run from his house with his dog to the spot where Helga was killed, stab her and run back immediately. And for that to work he would have had to know she would be there at precisely that time.’

‘Yes. That’s right,’ Árni said.

‘Well, that didn’t happen, did it?’

‘No. But wait a minute, Magnús! Have you just been to see Gunni?’

‘Yes. In Hólmsheidi.’

‘Does Ólafur know?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Jesus! He is going to go ballistic.’

‘I expect so. Don’t tell him, will you, Árni?’

‘All right. But he will find out.’

‘I know. I’ll deal with it.’

Dealing with it meant talking to Thelma. Right away.

She looked up at him over her reading glasses as he entered her office.

‘Any progress?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’ Magnus took a seat.

‘Tell me.’

Best to get it out quickly.

‘Gunnar Snaer Sigmundsson didn’t kill Helga. Helga and Kata’s deaths are connected. The connection is Dísa and Thomocoin.’ Best also to sound certain. Give Thelma any room for doubt and she would grab it and stuff it down his throat.

‘What! I hope you’ve got evidence for this.’

‘I have. One. The knife was planted in Gunni’s garage. There is no reason why he wouldn’t have cleaned Helga’s blood off it before hiding it there. Árni has uncovered a report of a man prowling around Gunni’s house the evening after the murder.

‘Two. Gunni didn’t have time to get to the scene of the crime to murder Helga. If he did somehow run there and back quickly enough he would have had to have known the precise time she would be there. What actually happened was that the killer lay in wait for Helga.

‘Three. I have just spoken to Gunni in Hólmsheidi. He was very convincing to me. He didn’t kill Helga.’

‘You went to Hólmsheidi? You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.’

‘Just now, this morning. You suggested I check to see if there is a link between Gunni and Kata. There isn’t, by the way.’

‘What does Ólafur say about all this?’

‘Ólafur is convinced Gunni is guilty.’

‘I bet he is.’ Thelma frowned. ‘Assuming for a moment that Gunni didn’t kill Helga — and I haven’t heard enough yet to believe he didn’t — what has Thomocoin to do with it?’

‘There’s an obvious link between the death of Helga and the death of Kata, and that’s Dísa. Thomocoin has dominated Dísa and her mother’s life in the last month or so. Her family have lost everything, including the farm that has been theirs for generations. We know Helga wasn’t killed by a former lover. We know Kata wasn’t killed in a random sex attack. Both murders must have been committed by a professional. They were hits.’

Magnus paused. ‘I got a call last night from a district attorney’s office in North Carolina. They are investigating a murder which they believe may have been committed by a professional killer under instructions from someone called Krakatoa, who supposedly runs Thomocoin.’

He looked Thelma in the eye. ‘The connection is Thomocoin.’

Thelma’s eyes were blazing. ‘Magnús. I told you to leave Thomocoin out of this. I was clear; I was explicit. It’s a political nightmare. But more important, much more important, if I tell you not to do something, I have to trust you not to do it! Now get out and don’t bother me with these idiotic theories. And if you have screwed up the prosecution of Gunnar, I’ll discipline you. It’ll be back to Sergeant Magnús.’

Magnus sat there.

‘I said go!’

‘I know you did,’ said Magnus. ‘I spoke to Tryggvi Thór last night.’

‘What has that got to do with anything?’

‘I know you and he are covering something up. I don’t know what it is, and I’ve told him I won’t ask any more. But I did ask him whether I could trust you. He said I could.’

Thelma opened her mouth and then closed it.

‘You’ve got a choice here, Thelma. If you spend a minute thinking through what I’ve just said, you’ll see I’m right. You know I’m right. Two women have died and we need to do all we can to find their killers. That’s what we do. Isn’t it?’

The fire in Thelma’s eyes had hardened. But she was listening.

‘Politically it’s a disaster. I get that. All kinds of ministers I don’t know will be upset. Ólafur will be really upset — I would be if I was him and another cop trampled all over my investigation. But we shouldn’t care about that, you and I. We should find the killer and the people who paid him, and we should arrest them.

‘If you don’t want me to do that, and you want me to walk out of here, I will. And I’ll just keep walking.’

Thelma swung her artificial leg out from under her desk and paced over to the window.

Magnus waited.

She turned. She looked grim, but Magnus could tell she had made up her mind. ‘All right. So what do we do next?’

‘The link is Dísa,’ said Magnus. ‘She knows what the connection between Thomocoin and the murders is but she’s not telling us. So we pull her in and we make her talk.’

Thelma nodded.

‘Whoever set up Gunni must have known about Helga’s affair with him. Which means it was someone who knew Helga well. It could be her ex-husband. There’s her brother, Eggert — he was the one who told us about the affair. She has a stepson, Jói: we should talk to him. Ideally, we should talk to Sharp, who is Thomocoin’s boss, but he’s supposed to be in Panama.’

‘And Gunni?’

‘I suggest you go and talk to Gunni. Apologize to him. See if he has any further ideas.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. He has been locked up for over two weeks for something he didn’t do. That shouldn’t have happened. He used to be an MP so he’ll have powerful friends. You’re the expert on the politics, but I’d have thought we want him on our side. And if you do this quickly, he might be happy. If we continue to pursue him and the judge throws the case out — which he will do — we will look really bad.’

Thelma sighed. ‘There’s something I don’t get about the Thomocoin angle, Magnús. I see why Helga would be a victim. Or Dísa. But why Kata? What’s her link to Thomocoin?’

‘Dísa, I suppose,’ said Magnus, feeling secure enough now to allow some doubt into his reply. It was a good question, and one he hadn’t answered yet.

‘Dísa was her friend. Was Kata working with Dísa on Thomocoin? Helping her?’

‘Not that we’ve heard,’ said Magnus.

‘Then why would someone want to kill her?’

It was the right question. And as Thelma asked it, the answer came to Magnus. ‘It’s a warning. To Dísa. Someone has threatened her. To keep quiet, or to get her to do something. Which is why she’s hiding something from us. She’s scared.’

Thelma nodded. ‘Well, go find her then. Find out what she’s hiding. Now.’

Forty-Seven

Dísa drove fast on the empty road north — no tourists. She appreciated the time to think, to force her mind into some kind of order.

Helga had died. Kata had died. There was a chance she would die too, no matter how careful she was, and that scared the hell out of her. But she was determined not to panic.

Yet, for once she felt that she had gained some kind of control of the situation. She had a plan. She had asserted her will against her father. She had no illusions that Krakatoa wouldn’t be after her once the five o’clock deadline had passed and he hadn’t received his bitcoin.

Who was Krakatoa anyway? Perhaps Sharp. Or perhaps some nameless evil genius in a bedroom in Moscow or San Francisco or some other far-flung place, who had crept into Dísa’s life through the internet.

Whoever Krakatoa was, he had killed before and he would kill again. If he could find Dísa.

The Westfjords were the place to go, with their twisty, slow roads and their scattered communities. Grandpa had a tent and some camping gear at Blábrekka — Dísa would borrow that. No hitman would ever find her.

Once the bitcoin had been safely distributed from her wallet to Uncle Eggert’s, and from there to all the investors, she could re-emerge into the world. Or at least get in touch with the police. Perhaps wait until they had arrested Krakatoa or the hitman. If they could arrest him. While Krakatoa was loose, Dísa wouldn’t be safe. She might need a longer-term solution to hide. Where could she go?

Perhaps she should keep some of the bitcoin back to help her go on the run. Twenty million dollars was surely more than the Icelanders had invested; she would also have to figure out how to return the rest of it to investors abroad. A website, or something, where people could make claims. But how to verify them? Tomorrow’s problem.

Maybe Jói could help. After facing down her father, Dísa was a little less worried that Jói would grab her bitcoin and return it to him. Jói would probably be more use than Uncle Eggert in helping her find somewhere to hide.

She was placing a lot of trust in Uncle Eggert. Perhaps, before going to Dalvík, she should drop in and see him in Akureyri. She would need good Wi-Fi and a bit of peace and quiet to send out the string of emails and Facebook messages she had planned for the Thomocoin investors. It would be good to talk through the details with him. He would no doubt be at work, but maybe he could slip away for an hour.

She picked up her phone and called him.

Magnus took Vigdís with him to interview Dísa. They tried her doorbell, with no response. Magnus rang a couple of the other bells in the building. He was just about to give up when the door opened to reveal a tall, dark-haired woman with big bleary eyes, of about Dísa’s age.

‘Hi,’ she said, blinking.

‘Inspector Magnús Ragnarsson,’ Magnus said, holding up his ID. ‘Reykjavík police. And this is Sergeant Vigdís Audardóttir. Do you know where Dísa Ómarsdóttir is?’

‘Have you come about the break-in?’ said the student.

‘What break-in?’

The student, who said her name was Nína, showed them the broken glass in the back door.

‘We need to get forensics on to this,’ said Magnus to Vigdís. ‘Did whoever broke in take anything from any of the flats?’

Nína shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. I told Dísa about it this morning. She did seem kinda worried.’

‘Do you know where we might find her?’ Vigdís asked. ‘Is she in class now?’

‘I don’t really know her,’ said Nína. ‘She hasn’t been here very long. I did know Kata, of course.’

‘So you don’t know what class she might be in?’

‘I doubt she’s in any class.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I saw her leaving the building a couple of hours ago, dragging a suitcase behind her.’

They tried to call Dísa; unsurprisingly she didn’t pick up her phone. Vigdís made some calls to secure the back door to Dísa’s building and to get forensics over there. She also got the ball in motion to get a trace on Dísa’s phone. That needed a warrant, and that would take at least a couple of hours.

Magnus drove to Dísa’s father’s house in Nordurmýri. Ómar Baldvinsson looked, if anything, more strung out than the last time Magnus had spoken to him.

Vigdís and Magnus crammed together on the tatty sofa. Magnus noticed that Ómar had been working on a spreadsheet on his desktop computer when they had interrupted him. A laptop lay on a pile of magazines on a wooden chair.

‘So, I’ve got the both of you, have I, this time?’ Ómar said with a weak smile. ‘How can I help you today?’

‘We’re investigating the murder of Katrín Ingvarsdóttir,’ Magnus said.

‘Ah. Dísa’s friend. That’s very sad.’

‘It is. Did you know her?’

‘Not really. I’d heard about her and I’d met her once or twice, but Dísa and she didn’t become friends until Helga and the girls moved north to Dalvík about ten years ago.’

‘When did you last see Kata?’

‘Last week — at Helga’s funeral. She was with Dísa. I’m not sure I said anything directly to her.’

‘Where were you the night before last at about six p.m.?’

‘Hah! You don’t think I killed her, do you?’

‘Please answer the question, Ómar,’ said Vigdís.

‘All right. I was here. Watching TV.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘So no one can verify that?’

Ómar shrugged. ‘You could ask the neighbours. They are pretty nosy. Especially the old bat downstairs. But I don’t understand. Why would I kill Dísa’s best friend? Wasn’t she found naked anyway? Do you think I’m some kind of rapist?’

‘We think she was stripped to put us off the scent,’ said Magnus. ‘As to why, we think the answer is Thomocoin.’

‘Not this again,’ said Ómar.

‘We believe there is a link between Kata’s death and your wife’s.’

‘I thought you had arrested Helga’s killer? That guy Gunni?’

‘New evidence has come to light which suggests he’s innocent.’

‘Oh. So you think I killed Helga as well? I thought you had already checked that I was in Reykjavík the day she died.’

Vigdís glanced at Magnus.

‘We now think that both her murder and Kata’s were committed by a professional killer,’ Magnus said.

‘Oh.’

‘And that the connection between the two is your daughter. And Thomocoin.’

Ómar ran his fingers over his thinning scalp. ‘Oh.’

‘So we are trying to find the connection between Dísa, Thomocoin and the two murders.’

Ómar frowned. ‘I told you, I can’t help you.’

‘Oh, yes you can,’ said Magnus. ‘This is a double-homicide investigation. I need you to tell me all about Thomocoin. We’re not talking about fraud here. We’re talking about murder.’

‘I need a lawyer before I discuss Thomocoin.’

‘The same professional may have killed a former employee of Thomocoin in North Carolina last year. Cryptocheeseman. Have you heard of him?’

‘I won’t answer any questions about Thomocoin without a lawyer.’

‘Ómar.’ Magnus leaned forward. ‘We think your daughter is in danger. We don’t know exactly why your ex-wife was killed. But we think Kata’s death was a warning to Dísa. To keep quiet about something, maybe. Or to get her to do something else. We don’t know what. But we are pretty sure it has to do with Thomocoin.’

Ómar put his head in his hands. Magnus and Vigdís waited.

After a few seconds, he looked up, despair, anguish and fear filling his eyes. ‘Have you talked to her? What does she say?’

‘She’s gone from Kata’s flat,’ said Magnus. ‘With a suitcase.’

‘I suppose that’s good,’ said Ómar. ‘If she really is in danger.’

‘We’ll find her. But in the meantime, tell us what you know about Thomocoin.’

They waited while Ómar gathered his thoughts. ‘I really don’t know much about it. Sharp first described it to me a few years ago, and I took Dísa to a presentation he gave here in Reykjavík. She was impressed and so was I. She had made a lot of money trading bitcoin, and I thought this new Thomocoin would be a good way of converting her profits into krónur, which was very difficult back then with exchange controls. Actually, it’s still difficult in Iceland. I thought she might make some more money out of Thomocoin. At that point, I hadn’t realized she was giving it all away to Helga.’

‘Would that have bothered you?’

‘I would have warned her not to. Helga was always greedy. She was bad with money. I never realized she had got so many people involved with Thomocoin until after she died. She only did it for the commission.’

‘Didn’t your friend Sharp tell you about Helga’s investments?’

‘No. I had no direct involvement in Thomocoin myself, except a small investment.’

‘How much?’

‘About half a million krónur. Five thousand dollars at the time. It’s all I could afford.’

‘What might Thomocoin be wanting Dísa to do? Or to keep quiet about?’

Ómar sighed. ‘I really have no idea.’

‘And what about Krakatoa?’

‘You asked me before. I don’t know who or what Krakatoa is.’

‘Really?’ said Magnus, looking directly at Ómar. ‘Because if Krakatoa is the guy who is really running Thomocoin, then Krakatoa may well be trying to scare your daughter, or even kill her.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Ómar.

‘Is Krakatoa your friend Sharp?’

‘No idea.’

‘Kata’s dead,’ said Vigdís. ‘Inspector Magnús and I saw her body yesterday morning. It was a terrible sight. Honestly. Horrible.’

This shook Ómar. ‘Well, for God’s sake find who did it then!’ he said. ‘Find this Krakatoa! Lock him up! But I’ve told you I can’t help you.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Magnus.

Ómar’s shoulders slumped, as if the brief outburst of outrage had exhausted him and despair had reasserted itself. He shrugged.

‘Do you have any idea where Dísa might be?’ Magnus asked. ‘We need to find her. If only to keep her safe.’

‘No.’

‘Think,’ said Magnus.

‘Does Dísa own a car?’ Vigdís asked.

‘No,’ Ómar said. He hesitated. ‘The only place I can think of is my summer house. It’s on Apavatn. I used to take the girls there when they were kids. I don’t know for certain she’s gone there now. But I know she was... thinking about it recently. I can give you directions. She could have taken a bus there from Selfoss, although it would be a good walk to the summer house from the bus stop.’

‘Do you believe him?’ asked Magnus afterwards as they got into the car.

‘No,’ said Vigdís. ‘He knows who Krakatoa is.’

‘When we get back to the station, get someone from Selfoss to check out the bus and the summer house. We need to find Dísa. Put out an active alert. And get on to the airport — we don’t want her leaving the country.’

‘What about bringing Ómar in for more questioning?’ Vigdís asked.

‘I was thinking about that. But we need a warrant for his computer and phone first. See if he communicated with Sharp or Thomocoin, or Dísa for that matter.’

‘I’ll get on to it.’

‘I wish we could speak to Sharp.’

‘In Panama?’ said Vigdís. ‘We could. Instead of all that warrant stuff, I could fly out there and have a little chat. What about it?’

Magnus grinned. ‘I’d have you on the next plane, Vigdís, but unfortunately, we have no jurisdiction there. Plus it’s hurricane season.’

‘I could wait it out. Lie by a pool until he cracked and confessed. It’s got to be worth a try. And Panama in a hurricane can’t be worse than Reykjavík on a windy Monday.’

‘Actually, I have an idea,’ said Magnus. ‘I’ll drop you at the station, and then I will go and see Iceland’s Miss Thomocoin.’

‘And who is that?’

‘Fjóla.’

Forty-Eight

Ómar slumped down into his chair in front of his computer. The numbers on his spreadsheet — a cash-flow forecast for a little company that did glacier tours and was in a bit of trouble with its bank — swam in front of his eyes.

Of course he knew who Krakatoa was.

But he was only now beginning to understand what Krakatoa had done.

He had been so proud of Jói when he had come up with his idea for a new cryptocurrency, and proud when he had introduced Jói to Sharp. He had been hurt that the two of them had seemed to freeze him out of Thomocoin, as Jói’s FOMOcoin was rechristened, but he thought it probably for the best. He had never been privy to the inner workings of the operation, and only recently had he realized that his son had the dominant role. He had been gratified when Jói had asked to stash his cold wallet at the summer house.

Ómar had been a banker. He understood the potential for Thomocoin, but he also knew there were risks. When they had failed to come up with the exchange they had promised which would convert Thomocoin into real money, these doubts had grown. He was glad he had only invested five thousand bucks: enough to make a decent profit if it all worked; not enough to wipe him out if he lost it all. His bitcoin profits had been good and he had taken most of those and spent them; if he lost all his Thomocoin, well, easy come, easy go.

He had become much more worried when Helga had started pressuring him for answers about the exchange and visited him in Reykjavík demanding answers and wheedling Jói’s role in Thomocoin out of him. It was only then that he realized how she had bet everything on Thomocoin and suckered in so many other people as well. He didn’t care about Helga, she deserved to lose her money, but he did care about Dísa and Anna Rós and their inheritance.

For a moment he had wondered about Helga’s death and whether Sharp might be responsible for it, but he couldn’t conceive of his friend doing anything like that to Helga, whom Ómar knew Sharp and his wife genuinely liked. So he was relieved when it turned out a local had done it. A local who had been his wife’s lover, before he himself had strayed with Bryndís.

Kata was dead. And Dísa was convinced that Krakatoa had killed her, or had had her killed. Because Krakatoa had said he would.

And now Krakatoa was threatening to kill Dísa.

His son was threatening to kill his daughter.

His instinct had been to protect Jói’s identity. Not to tell Dísa and certainly not the police who Krakatoa really was. Give himself time to think.

All right. Now was the time to think.

What he thought first was that Jói was incapable of killing Kata, let alone Dísa. Ómar’s son was not a murderer. First and foremost he needed to have faith in his son. Dísa, and the police, must be mistaken.

So, if it wasn’t Jói who had killed Kata and was threatening Dísa, who was it?

Sharp? Either it was Sharp, or Sharp would know who it might be.

Ómar would really have liked to talk to Sharp on the phone, but he decided it was better to use the end-to-end encrypted messaging system that Jói had set up over Telegram on his laptop. He was glad he hadn’t had time to hit the kill switch on that machine when the detectives showed up, as Jói had instructed him.

‘Hi, Dad.’

Ómar pushed past his son into the flat.

‘What’s up?’ said Jói, his blue eyes wide in alarm at his father’s expression.

‘Did you kill Kata?’

‘What?’

‘Did you kill Kata? Dísa’s friend Kata?’ Ómar’s voice rose to a shout.

‘Of course not, Dad. Why should I? Look, sit down. And calm down.’

Ómar had decided that the only thing to do was to have it out with his son. Face to face, not over the damn internet where Jói could hide behind his Krakatoa personality.

He sat down at the kitchen table, and Jói sat opposite him. Ómar studied his son. Could he really have killed an innocent woman, his sister’s best friend? He didn’t look as if he could.

And yet the evidence was incontrovertible.

‘Dísa took all your bitcoin. You wanted it back, so you threatened her with the death of someone close to her. She didn’t give it back, so you killed Kata. Now you’re threatening to kill your own sister! Dísa told me. The police told me — more or less.’

‘The police?’

‘Yes. They’re just guessing. But they are on to you. Dísa doesn’t know you’re Krakatoa. But I do. I know you killed Kata.’

Jói sat, watching his father calmly.

‘I had no choice, Dad,’ he said eventually.

‘You had no choice! What does that mean? You didn’t have to do it. No one made you. Did they?’ For a second Ómar saw a straw and grabbed at it.

But Jói didn’t magic up an evil mastermind from nowhere. If there was an evil mastermind, it was he.

‘Thomocoin is blowing up,’ Jói said. ‘I’m going to have to disappear pretty soon. Dísa has nearly all my money and I’m going to need it back.’

‘But you killed someone, Jói! And the police say you killed Helga too!’

‘I didn’t kill her myself. And I didn’t kill Kata. But I did arrange it. I had to.’

Ómar couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His anger evaporated to be replaced by dismay. His son, whom he loved so much, in whom he was so proud, was a murderer.

‘You got a hitman to do it?’

‘Yes,’ Jói said quietly. ‘From the dark web. I’ve never met him.’ He looked down at the table. He looked ashamed.

And so he bloody well should!

Ómar’s son looked up. His expression was hard to read. He looked like the old Jói, the shy, innocent, clever boy he had always been.

But he was a killer.

‘What are you going to do, Dad? Are you going to the police?’

‘I don’t know. You’re not going to kill Dísa, are you?’

‘Of course not! I’m only trying to scare her.’

‘But you killed Kata.’

‘Dad. I had to. I truly didn’t want to. But I had to.’

‘That’s crap, Jói.’

Now Ómar was faced with the certainty that his son was a murderer, he didn’t know what to do. He should report him to the police, he knew that. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He just couldn’t.

And Jói knew it.

But Ómar had to regain the initiative. He had to assert some kind of authority over his son — stop him killing his daughter.

‘OK. This is what’s going to happen. You are going to disappear now. Without your bitcoin. You’ll manage — you were always a smart kid. You are going to leave Dísa alone. I’ll stay quiet for a day or two, then I will go to the police. If you haven’t left the country by then, then that’s your problem.’

Ómar took a deep breath. ‘And I never want to see you again.’

Jói hung his head. ‘OK, Dad. I’ll go tomorrow. And I’ll leave Dísa alone. I promise.’

‘You’d better,’ said Ómar.

He took one last long hard look at his son. The killer.

Then he left Jói’s flat without saying goodbye.

Back in his car. Ómar called his daughter. She didn’t pick up, which wasn’t a surprise. So he tapped out a quick text: Spoke to Krakatoa. He will leave you alone now. You can keep his money. Much love, Dad.

Forty-Nine

Fjóla answered the door to her flat in Hverfisgata. She worked from home — but then everyone worked from home in these virus days.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ She wasn’t pleased to see Magnus.

‘I’ve got some questions.’

‘I’m sure you have. Do I need my lawyer?’

‘No, it’s not about Thomocoin,’ said Magnus. ‘Or at least not about your part in the fraud — if it is a fraud. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of questions about that.’

‘Just one guy so far,’ said Fjóla. ‘He was from the Financial Services Authority. But I’m expecting more.’

‘Has Thomocoin actually folded?’

‘I thought it had,’ said Fjóla. ‘But they refreshed the price just now. It’s down, but not out. And there are lots of enthusiastic people out there who refuse to let it die.’

‘But not you?’

‘I stopped taking any more orders a few days ago. If my clients want to buy, then they have to do it directly.’

‘And do they?’

‘Some of them.’ Fjóla smiled. Much of the bounce and energy had gone out of her, but there was still warmth. ‘Have a seat. Coffee?’

‘No, thanks. There’s been another murder.’

‘I saw it on the news. In fact, I saw you on the news.’ Fjóla’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Don’t say this has something to do with Thomocoin. I thought it was a sex murder?’

‘That’s what the killer wanted us to think. But, yes, we do think it has something to do with Thomocoin.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Was Katrín Ingvarsdóttir an investor?’

‘I don’t recognize the name.’

‘Can you check? She did live in Dalvík. And can you check her parents, Ingvar Brynjólfsson and Stefanía Jónsdóttir?’

‘Sure. One moment.’ Fjóla moved over to a laptop on a desk by the window overlooking the bay, tapped a few keys and tickled a trackpad. ‘No. None of them. Thank God.’

‘OK. I didn’t think so.’

‘So what’s the Thomocoin connection?’ Fjóla asked, returning to her chair.

‘We’re not sure precisely,’ said Magnus. ‘That’s why I’m here. Kata was Dísa Ómarsdóttir’s best friend. We think that Kata was killed to warn Dísa or to threaten her to do something. And we believe Dísa may have received a threat from Krakatoa.’

‘I see where this is going,’ said Fjóla. ‘You think Sharp killed her?’

‘If Sharp is Krakatoa. We’re not certain of that, are we?’

‘Not certain, no,’ Fjóla said. ‘But it’s my best guess. And you can be sure that Krakatoa, whoever he is, will have paid someone to do it, not done it himself.’

‘I’ve just been talking to Dísa’s father, Ómar. He claims he wasn’t involved in Thomocoin. Is that correct?’

‘Yes. He made an investment, but nothing major. I don’t think he was involved in the operations, although he is an old mate of Sharp from Sharp’s banking days.’

‘Can you check how much he invested?’

‘One moment.’ Fjóla checked her computer again. ‘About five thousand dollars’ worth at the price he invested. Maybe twelve now at today’s prices.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘True value zero, more like. Don’t quote me on that.’

Fjóla’s brow furrowed as she processed what Magnus was telling her. ‘You don’t think I had anything to do with the murder you’re investigating? Because, believe me, I never would. I wish now I’d had nothing to do with Thomocoin. I thought it was legit. I knew it was bending the rules, but I thought that was in a good way. That’s how change comes, from bending rules. Murder is never good.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Magnus leaned forward. ‘Fjóla, I need your help.’

‘I’ll do anything I can to help you with that poor girl’s death. What do you want?

‘I want to talk to Sharp.’

Fifty

Krakatoa closed the Telegram window.

He had crumbled when faced with his father, and, actually, that had been a good thing. Because as Krakatoa, he could stand up to him.

It had been hard to write those words: I’m not your Jói. You are not my pabbi. But it was necessary. And he felt better having written them. Stronger.

Much stronger.

The essential difference between Krakatoa and Jói wasn’t a negotiating tactic for his father. It was, Krakatoa had come to realize, his only hope of living with himself in the future. He had to become a new person, in a new country. He had to become Krakatoa.

Jói could never kill or even threaten to kill Dísa and his father. Jói was racked with guilt at what he had already done. Jói was worried about his girlfriend Petra and would miss her. The remainder of Jói’s life would be hell: a mixture of regret and crushing guilt, as well as a long prison sentence.

So Jói had to go. And Krakatoa had to do whatever was necessary to make that happen.

The passport waiting for him in the safety deposit box in the small Caribbean island bore a Danish name, Anders Madsen, so people in the real world would call him Anders. He spoke Danish, but with a strong Icelandic accent, so that might lead to some awkwardness if he bumped into a real Dane in future, but he would deal with that when the time came.

Online, he would be Krakatoa. Online he would be powerful and successful and very very rich.

If only Tecumseh had hung around in Iceland. Because if any more killing had to be done, it was someone who looked a lot like the real-world Jói that would have to do it.

But it would be Krakatoa.

To carry out a credible threat, he needed to know where Dísa was. That was easy.

He picked up his phone and hit her number.

‘Jói!’

‘Hi, Dísa. What’s up? Dad said you’d gone off somewhere?’

‘Yeah. I need to go back to Dalvík. I’m on my way there now.’ His sister’s voice sounded strained. It also sounded as if she was in a car.

‘What for?’

‘I can’t really say, Jói. I’m sorry.’

‘Are you in trouble? Does it have something to do with poor Kata’s murder?’

‘It does, yes.’

‘Can I help?’

‘Maybe. Maybe you can, Jói. But not quite yet. I may need to call you later.’

‘I’m here when you need me. Take care.’

‘Thanks.’

Krakatoa knew why Dísa was suddenly driving to Dalvík. He glanced at her pink USB stick jutting out of his computer. Without that, she needed the back-up private key to her bitcoin wallet. And that must be at Blábrekka.

It wasn’t necessarily a problem that Dísa was on her way to Dalvík. To pay him back, she needed that key, and that was the solution Krakatoa wanted. Then no one else had to die.

Whatever choice Dísa made about her bitcoin when she got access to them again, Krakatoa needed to be there too.

Krakatoa quickly packed a bag, which included two of his three computers. He hit the combination of keys that acted as the kill switch on the third, locking the hard drive from outside interference.

He was just about to leave the flat when the door opened and Petra walked in.

‘Oh, hi, Jói. I got off work early.’ She noticed his bag. ‘Where are you off to?’

For a moment Jói looked at his girlfriend in something close to panic. She frowned. ‘What’s up, Jói? Where are you going?’

Then Krakatoa barged past her and down the stairs without a backward glance.

Ómar stared at his computer screen.

Here was proof that his son was a murderer. Proof that his son was perfectly capable of killing his sister.

And his father.

Ómar realized he was scared. Scared of his own son. Jói, the sweet, innocent nerd who would never hurt a fly.

He had to warn Dísa. He typed a text. I spoke too soon. Krakatoa still wants his money back.

Ómar hesitated before pressing ‘Send’. Then he added: Maybe you should give it to him.

He sent that.

No response.

Ómar realized he could warn Dísa that Krakatoa was Jói, that Jói was after her. He could also tell the police.

If he did that, Jói had said that the professional hitman who had killed Helga and Dísa would kill him too.

Did Ómar believe Jói would do that?

Damn right he did.

He was absolutely correct to be scared of his son.

But he couldn’t let Jói get away with it. Somehow he had to regain the initiative with his son.

How?

He didn’t know. He just didn’t know. Jói, he could deal with. But Krakatoa?

Krakatoa had him.

‘Fuck!’ He slammed his fist on his desk so hard the whole apartment seemed to rattle. It made no difference.

Ómar closed his eyes. There was still a solution to this — of a sort. Dísa gives Jói his bitcoin back. Jói disappears. Dísa is still alive.

It was the only way.

Warning Dísa that Jói was after her wouldn’t save her. It wasn’t Jói whom she had to look out for. It was whatever hitman Jói had dragged out of the dark web. A hitman who had killed at least twice before.

Ómar sent another text.

A reply came.

Ómar shook his head. This didn’t look good.

Ómar couldn’t help but admire his daughter’s bravery. Dísa thought she could hide from Jói’s hitman. And maybe she could — for a week or a month or perhaps even a year.

But not forever.

Which was why Ómar didn’t call the police. He believed his son. Or rather, he believed Krakatoa. If he told the police about Jói, he would die, and Dísa probably would too.

But at least he knew where Dísa was going. There was only one place that her paper cold wallet would be hidden.

Blábrekka.

That was probably where Jói’s hitman was going too.

Ómar checked his computer. There was a flight to Akureyri in forty minutes. He could make that if he was quick.

He might just be able to prevent his son from killing his daughter.

Fifty-One

It was only a couple of minutes’ drive from Fjóla’s apartment to police headquarters at the bottom of Hverfisgata.

Magnus had at least been able to get through to Sharp. He wasn’t sure whether he had made the most of the opportunity. If Sharp was indeed Krakatoa, then he had no reason to respond to Magnus’s questions at all. But if he wasn’t — at least Magnus had opened up a line of communication.

As Magnus parked his car and walked towards the back entrance of the station, he recalled his conversation with Ingileif.

He had an important decision to make, once he had a moment to think about it. One that could change his life. And Ingileif’s and Eygló’s. And Ási’s.

There was only one sensible answer, he knew that. Eygló was loyal. Ingileif was dangerous.

And yet. He felt an unexpected tingle of excitement course through his body.

‘What are you smiling about?’ said Vigdís as he sat at his desk. ‘Did Fjóla come up with something?’

‘Not really. I did message Sharp using her messaging app. His nickname is Lindenbrook, you know? The professor from Journey to the Centre of the Earth.’ That classic story by Jules Verne had supposedly taken place at Snaefellsjökull, only a few kilometres from where Magnus had grown up.

‘But not Krakatoa?’

‘He wouldn’t say,’ said Magnus. ‘Fjóla thinks he uses both handles, but she’s not sure. And he didn’t answer any of my questions.’

‘So what were you grinning about?’

Magnus ignored her question. ‘Any sign of Dísa anywhere?’

‘Nothing. The Selfoss guys are on their way to Apavatn.’

‘It’s worth checking the buses to Akureyri. And flights from the City Airport.’

‘I’ve done that.’

‘She may just have gone to stay with a friend somewhere in Reykjavík.’

‘What friend?’

‘She hasn’t been at the university very long: this is her first semester. Maybe a kid from her school in the north who’s now at uni with her?’

‘Before she moved in with Kata, she was staying with her brother Jói,’ said Vigdís. ‘Maybe she’s gone back there?’

‘That’s not exactly hiding, but we should check it out. We need to question her friends in Reykjavík systematically. Find out who was close to her. Ask if anyone has seen her. We can use that list you put together of Kata’s friends — there will probably be an overlap. How are the warrants for tracking her phone and Ómar’s computer coming?’

‘Still waiting.’

Two hours later, there was still no sign of Dísa, or, to Magnus’s frustration, the warrants to locate her phone or to search Ómar’s devices. They were piecing together a network of Dísa’s friends in Reykjavík, but none of them had seen her. A detective had interviewed Jói’s girlfriend at his flat; she said Dísa hadn’t been back since Kata’s murder.

Magnus’s phone beeped.

A text. From a country code he didn’t recognize: +507.

‘Vigdís! Come with me! Now.’

It was ten minutes to Jói’s apartment in a modern block in Gardabaer, next to the sea, or at least that’s how long it took at the speed Magnus was driving.

A woman with dark hair and an un-Icelandic olive complexion answered Jói’s door. Her eyes were red; she had been crying.

‘Where’s Jói?’ Magnus asked in Icelandic, after identifying himself.

‘I don’t know,’ the woman replied in Australian-accented English.

‘Have you seen him today?’

‘Yes. I told your colleague who was here earlier. He left a couple of hours ago.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Magnus snapped.

‘No.’ The woman looked as if she was about to burst into tears.

Vigdís interrupted. ‘My name’s Vigdís,’ she said in slow, clear Icelandic, avoiding speaking English. ‘Now why don’t we sit down and you can tell us what happened? What’s your name?’

The girl seemed to understand. ‘Petra.’

Vigdís sat on a sofa in the living room, and Petra sat opposite. Despite his impatience, Magnus knew Vigdís was right to take this slowly.

‘Why are you upset?’ Vigdís asked.

‘Can we do this in English?’ Petra said.

‘Sure,’ said Magnus gently. ‘You seem upset. My colleague was asking why.’

‘Is Jói in trouble?’

‘He may be.’

‘Oh, God.’ Tears leaked from Petra’s eyes.

‘Does the name Krakatoa mean anything to you?’

Petra glanced sharply at Magnus. Clearly, it did. But Magnus waited.

Petra nodded.

‘What?’

‘It’s Jói’s handle. When he’s online. When he’s running Thomocoin.’

‘Do you know about Thomocoin?’

‘Not much,’ said Petra. ‘Except Jói spends almost all his time on it. He pretends he’s working for some game-development company, but it’s Thomocoin, Thomocoin, Thomocoin all the time.’

‘Does he talk to you about it?’

‘No. He knows I know that’s what he’s doing but he prefers to keep me away from it. It’s taking over his life! He’s changing. Especially in the last couple of weeks.’

‘Since Dísa’s mother died?’

‘Maybe a bit before then.’

Magnus nodded. Vigdís was taking notes — he hoped her English was up to it. Magnus knew her understanding of the language was better than her speaking, and better than she admitted.

‘Petra. Do you know whether Jói had anything to do with Helga’s death?’

The woman sobbed.

‘Petra?’

‘I don’t know, no.’

‘What about Kata, Dísa’s friend?’

The sobs came louder. Magnus waited.

Petra recovered herself. ‘He didn’t kill them both, did he?’

‘I doubt he did. But he may have gotten someone else to do it.

‘Tecumseh.’

‘Tecumseh?’

‘Yeah. Sometimes I see Jói’s conversations over his shoulder. Normally I don’t pay any attention, Jói knows that, so he’s stopped worrying about it like he used to. But there was this one guy, Tecumseh. He sounded like a genuine bad guy. You know, like a hitman, or something. I assumed it was just someone Jói knew acting tough — some kind of joke. I didn’t think about it. But it scared me.’

‘What did this Tecumseh say?’

‘I don’t know. I tried to forget it. Tried to put it out of my mind.’

‘OK. I understand that. But try to remember now.’

‘It was something about a knife. Hiding a knife. It was the day after Helga was stabbed.’

‘Did you ask Jói about it?’

‘No. I couldn’t believe it really had anything to do with Helga’s death. And... well... I am beginning to get a bit scared of Jói. So I played dumb. He likes it when I play dumb.’

‘And you have no idea where he went? Or when he’ll be back?’

‘No. That’s what upset me. He had a bag with him. And he didn’t talk to me. He just blanked me.’ She sniffed. ‘I checked his stuff. He’s taken his passport with him. Two of his computers. And his favourite leather jacket.’ She looked at the two detectives. ‘Jói’s gone.’

‘Where’s his computer?’ Magnus asked.

‘He’s got three of them. He left one of them here. But it’s dead.’

‘Can I take a look?’

The computer was in the corner of a large bedroom, with a view over the sea. The bed was a mess, but the desk was tidy. There were two screens, keyboard, mouse, high-end Bose headphones and a weird-shaped pink USB stick jammed into a tower under the desk.

Magnus’s finger hovered over the keyboard, but he glanced at Vigdís, who shook her head. He knew she was right. Looking into Jói’s computer without a warrant would be asking for trouble if there was a trial. Magnus might have risked it if there had been a chance of finding information that could save Dísa, but if Petra was correct, the computer was dead anyway.

A pad of paper lay on the desk, half covered with jotted notes: some words, mostly numbers. Magnus took a picture with his phone.

‘What do you think that is?’ he asked Vigdís, pointing to the numerals 1450.

‘Could it be a time?’

‘That’s what I thought. A bus? Or a plane?’

‘Does Jói have a car?’ Vigdís asked Petra.

‘Yes. It’s a Nissan four-wheel-drive. Silver. But it’s gone, I checked.’

‘He doesn’t need a bus if he’s taken his car,’ said Vigdís.

‘A plane then?’ said Magnus. ‘He could have parked it at the airport. A plane to Akureyri, I’ll bet.’

Fifty-Two

Uncle Eggert met Dísa in the lobby of the town hall in Akureyri. She threw herself at him. He wrapped his long arms around her and squeezed.

‘Come up to my office,’ he said.

Fortunately, Eggert rated his own office, albeit a small one. It boasted a tiny meeting table, where Dísa dumped her backpack containing her computer, and half a view over the narrow fjord to the wooded mountain slopes on the other side.

‘You’ve just driven from Reykjavík, I take it?’ Eggert said.

‘Yes. I borrowed a friend’s car.’

‘Does anyone know you’re here?’ Eggert looked concerned.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t know what people know.’

‘Sit down and tell me what’s going on.’

So Dísa told Uncle Eggert as briefly and clearly as she could all about Thomocoin, Krakatoa’s threats and Kata’s death.

Eggert’s concern deepened. It became more than concern; it became fear.

‘Does this Krakatoa know anything about me?’ he asked.

Dísa shrugged. ‘He’ll know you’re an investor along with dozens of other Icelanders. He may know you are my uncle. But I don’t think he’ll guess I’ve come to see you. At least I hope not.’

‘So do I. Who do you think he is?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Dísa. ‘Sharp, maybe? You remember him from the Thomocoin videos. Maybe it’s someone else entirely. But he might be paying someone to do his dirty work.’

‘You mean a hired gun?’

‘Something like that. I don’t know, Uncle Eggert. I’m just trying to keep one step ahead of him. Have you seen anything suspicious? Anyone try to contact you?’

Eggert paused. ‘No. Nothing.’

‘Keep your eye out.’

‘Jói called me this morning. Asking how you were. He sounded worried about you.’

‘Yeah, I saw him yesterday. What did you say to him?’

‘Nothing. You asked me not to tell anyone you had been in touch. I didn’t know if that included Jói, so I kept quiet.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dísa. She smiled at her uncle; she was extremely grateful to him. ‘I might need his help later. But it’s probably best if as few people know what’s going on with all this as possible.’

For a moment she wondered why Jói had called Eggert, then she remembered she had asked him for Eggert’s number — Jói had always been much better at keeping track of numbers and addresses than she. She had no doubt her brother was concerned about her.

‘Can I use your table for an hour or so?’ she asked.

‘Sure. Have you got a list of investors?’

‘Yes. I’m going to send out messages to them all, telling them to set up bitcoin wallets and to pass on to me their wallet addresses so we can pay them. I’ll send you the list of names now, and then, as I get the details in, I’ll forward them to you so you can make the payments.’

‘What about all the bitcoin in your own wallet? When will you transfer that?’

‘My private key is at Blábrekka. My plan is to go straight there and transfer the bitcoin to you right away. Can you send me your wallet address?’

‘Yeah — I’ll send you an email now,’ said Eggert. ‘You say that’s twenty million dollars’ worth?’

Dísa nodded.

Eggert swallowed. He looked nervous. Which just proved he wasn’t an idiot. ‘Then what will you do?’

‘I disappear.’

‘Where?’

‘Best you don’t know.’

Eggert nodded. ‘OK.’ He paused, clearly unsure how to say what he wanted to say. ‘What if I don’t hear from you?’

‘I’ll check in every day. If you don’t hear from me, wait twenty-four hours and then get in touch with Inspector Magnús Ragnarsson. I’ve got his details here.’ She passed Eggert a scrap of paper.

‘I know him,’ Eggert said. ‘He interviewed me after Helga’s murder. But what shall I do with the bitcoin?’

‘Pay as much as you can out to the investors. Then get the police to take care of the rest of it. Get it out of your own wallet as quickly as possible; you’ll be safer that way. We’ll just have to trust that they can get it back to investors. Although God knows what the police will do with it. I’m hoping you’ll never find out. I’m hoping our plan will work, and you’ll be able to repay everyone.’

Otherwise, it meant Dísa was dead.

‘Of course,’ said Eggert.

‘Thanks for doing this, Uncle Eggert,’ Dísa said. ‘I’m so grateful.’ She didn’t want to specify the risk that her uncle was taking, but she knew he understood it.

‘OK.’ He grinned. ‘But the most important thing is that Aunt Karen must never find out. Otherwise we really will be in trouble. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

Jói’s flight had indeed left Reykjavík City Airport, right in front of the university, for Akureyri at 1450. Icelandair confirmed Jói Ómarsson had been a passenger, and Vigdís found Jói’s car in the City Airport car park. Magnus checked his watch — it was four-thirty.

Jói’s flight had landed at 1535. While Vigdís checked with car rental firms at Akureyri Airport, Magnus called Árni and asked him to check buses to Dalvík and send the local Dalvík cops to Blábrekka.

If Jói was going to Akureyri, it was probably to go on to Blábrekka. And the most likely reason for Jói to be going to Dalvík was that he knew Dísa was already there.

In which case, Magnus would go there too.

The next flight was at 1710. Magnus called Árni back and told him to meet him at Akureyri Airport.

Jói was waiting in Hafsteinn and Íris’s bedroom, sitting on their bed, Hafsteinn’s 12-gauge shotgun lying next to him, when he heard a car drive up towards the farmhouse.

Crouching, he approached the window.

A police car! Two officers in black uniforms climbed out and walked towards the house.

Wait here for them, or hide outside?

Outside.

He grabbed the shotgun and hurried downstairs as quietly as he could. He let himself out of the back door as he heard the doorbell ring.

He scurried across the farmyard to a boulder at its edge and squatted behind it.

A couple of minutes later, a grey-haired policeman emerged from the backdoor.

‘Hafsteinn?’ he called. ‘Hafsteinn?’

He glanced at the small blue VW that Jói had rented from the airport, which was now parked by the side of the house. Jói hoped there would be nothing about it to suggest that it didn’t belong to the farmer or his wife.

The policeman was forty metres away but, even from that distance, Jói could hear his radio bursting into life. The officer answered it and then turned to his younger colleague, who was sticking his head out of the back door.

‘Hey! Símon!’ the other policeman called. ‘Did you hear that? Accident in the Ólafsfjördur tunnel. Suspected fatality.’

‘Sounds bad,’ said the older man. ‘No one’s here. Let’s go.’

Jói waited until he heard their car drive off. He picked up the shotgun and emerged from behind the rock, heading for the large barn with its white concrete walls and red metal roof.

He entered through a side door and switched on the lights. The warm fug of a couple of hundred sheep enveloped him, the smell of their coats and their feed and their shit. The sea of light grey wool rustled and rippled as they acknowledged his entrance with muted bleating. The barn was divided by wooden railings into pens of different sizes, most of them full of sheep. He hurried along one of the raised aisles and then climbed into a pen at the end. He pushed his way through the animals to the far corner, where the farmer and his wife were slumped against railings in their his ’n’ hers lopi sweaters.

Hafsteinn was still unconscious, blood streaking his cheek. His wife stared at Jói, her eyes wide with fear. Muffled squeaks and grunts emerged from beneath the plumber’s tape over her mouth.

Jói squatted beside her, trying to avoid her eyes as he checked the knots of the cords that secured both of them to a railing. Hers were tight, and so were her husband’s.

Hafsteinn was breathing, and the bleeding from his head had stopped.

Jói couldn’t help it: as he moved away, he glanced back at the old woman. She was scared, but she was angry. Her eyes burned with hatred.

He was going to have to kill her. And her husband.

How?

It was going to be difficult.

It had been hard enough to shoot the damn sheepdog. Jói liked dogs, and this one was only doing its job, but there was nowhere to put it where it couldn’t be heard barking.

Jói turned in shame. He forced his way back through the sheep and emerged into daylight, breathing hard.

He bent over. He fought the urge to vomit. This was as difficult as he thought it would be. If only Tecumseh hadn’t scarpered!

He stood up straight.

He had to make a decision and stick to it. Was he Jói Ómarsson? Or was he Krakatoa?

Jói would admit defeat. Give up on his bitcoin. Free Dísa’s grandparents. Turn himself in before anyone else was killed. Admit to the deaths of Helga and Kata and Cryptocheeseman. Take the consequences.

Even with Iceland’s notoriously lax sentencing regime, Jói would be in jail for a long time. And when he came out, everyone in the country would know who he was and what he had done.

No one would forgive him. Why should they? His life would effectively be over.

Jói’s life would be over.

So he should acknowledge that now. Jói was dead. He hadn’t quite realized it at the time, but when he had given instructions to one man he had never met to kill another man he had never met in a country he had never been to, he had signed Jói’s death warrant. From that moment on, there was no hope for Jói.

But there was for Krakatoa.

As far as he knew, the police weren’t looking for him yet. If that was true, he still had time to transfer the bitcoin from Dísa’s wallet — once he gained possession of her private key — get himself to Keflavík and fly off. Anywhere. Anywhere off this damn island.

Jói was beginning to understand Tecumseh’s nervousness. Iceland was a prison, with only one exit: Keflavík Airport — if you excluded the weekly ferry from the east of the country, which you probably should. With enough money, he might be able to bribe a fisherman to take him on board and dump him on a foreign coastline, but an international flight was much the best solution.

As long as the police weren’t looking for him.

That meant more people had to die. Dísa, for one, after she had been persuaded one way or another to give up her private key. Probably the two old people in the barn. And Jói would have to kill them.

He had the farmer’s shotgun and a pocketful of cartridges. Gunshots from a farm in Iceland would cause a neighbour’s head to rise in curiosity, an ear to be cocked, but nothing more.

Was he strong enough to do it?

Jói wasn’t.

Krakatoa was.

Krakatoa entered the farmhouse, took up his position in the owners’ bedroom and waited.

Fifty-Three

Dísa drove quickly along the familiar coast road from Akureyri to Dalvík. She was anxious to get her cold wallet and transfer the bitcoin to Uncle Eggert. Five o’clock had passed, Krakatoa’s deadline.

Her life was now officially in danger.

She hoped that Krakatoa wouldn’t act instantaneously. That he would take a few hours to instruct whomever he was using to carry out his dirty work. Dísa wasn’t any use to Krakatoa dead; with her would die his only hope of getting his bitcoin back. He should have no idea she had transferred it to Eggert.

Despite that logic, she was still scared.

Maybe she should keep hold of the bitcoin and trust that Krakatoa wouldn’t harm her? Too risky. The bitcoin was safer with her uncle; she would feel much happier when it was his problem and not hers.

Don’t think about it. Find the private key. Transfer the bitcoin. And then get the hell out of Dalvík.

She was keeping an eye out for lone figures on the roadside who could possibly be hitmen — what did a hitman even look like? Then she saw one, just as she was approaching the turn-off to Blábrekka, a couple of kilometres before Dalvík.

But this lone figure was very familiar. He was standing on the bridge by the junction, examining every car arriving from the south.

She considered driving on, but curiosity overcame her. So she slowed to a halt just past the bridge, and opened the passenger window.

‘Dad?’

‘Hi, Dísa.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Waiting for you. Can I get in?’

Dísa hesitated and then nodded.

Her father jumped into the passenger seat. ‘I’m so glad to see you! For a while there, I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘How did you know I’d be here?’ Dísa asked.

‘I didn’t. I just guessed. The police came to see me and said you had left Kata’s flat with a suitcase. I thought this was the most likely place.’

‘Did you tell them that?’ said Dísa. ‘The police?’

Her father smiled. ‘No. I actually sent them to Apavatn.’

‘So they don’t know I’m here?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Good. But I still don’t know why you came.’

‘To help you, Dísa. I’m worried. The police seemed to think that Helga and Kata were killed by a professional hitman. If that’s true, and if you are determined to ignore Krakatoa’s threats, then you’re in danger. You need my help.’

A lorry barrelled past them. Dísa was happy to wait stationary on the side of the road while she spoke to her father. They were nearly at Blábrekka — she could see the farm on the lower slopes of the mountain from where the car was pulled over — and she wanted to figure out what her father was up to before she dealt with her grandparents.

‘How are you going to help me?’ she asked.

‘By persuading you to pay Krakatoa his bitcoin.’

‘It’s not his bitcoin!’ Dísa protested. ‘That’s the whole point! He effectively stole it. I want to give all that money back to the people he conned. Like Mum.’

‘All right. I understand why you are doing this. But we have to take his threat seriously. I’m scared he’s going to kill you.’

‘I know. I’m scared too. But he killed my mother and my best friend — he deserves to lose his bitcoin. I will not give it him back. Do you understand me? Who is Krakatoa anyway?’

Ómar looked at his daughter and swallowed. Here we go, thought Dísa.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Dad! Of course you bloody know! How could you not know? You hid Krakatoa’s back-up cold wallet for him. How could you do that without knowing who he is?’

‘All right,’ said Ómar. ‘I do know, but I’m not going to tell you.’

‘Well, get out of the car then,’ said Dísa.

Ómar turned to his daughter, his eyes pleading. ‘All right, we’ll do it your way. You can pay the bitcoin to whoever you like. But I can’t just let you go off by yourself. I’m scared for you, Dísa. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. You need my help. If there is some killer out there looking for you, you need my help.’

Dísa looked at her father with contempt. But the contempt was wavering.

She did need his help. He had come all this way to offer it. He was dead right: she was in danger.

‘You know how much I love you, Dísa. You know I’d do anything for you. So let me. Please, let me.’

Dísa hesitated. Then nodded. ‘All right. But this is the plan. My cold wallet is at Blábrekka. That’s why I’m going there. Once I’ve got the private key, I’m going to transfer Krakatoa’s bitcoin to someone else. That person is going to transfer it to the investors from Dalvík and Akureyri. I’m going to go into hiding for a week. And once the bitcoin has been distributed to all the investors I’m going to talk to the police — I don’t want the cops grabbing it first. Are you OK with all that?’

‘Who are you going to transfer the bitcoin to?’

‘Who is Krakatoa?’

‘Fair enough,’ said Ómar. ‘As I said, we’ll do it your way. Let’s go.’

Grandpa’s old Land Cruiser and Grandma’s even older Suzuki were parked outside the farm, together with a small blue car that Dísa didn’t recognize. She hoped her grandparents didn’t have visitors. It was going to be difficult enough explaining her arrival, now with her father, without having to go in for chit-chat with a neighbour.

She tried the doorbell. No answer, not even from the dog.

She glanced over the fields. No sign of her grandfather or any farm machinery on the move. Bonnie returned Dísa’s gaze and, despite herself, Dísa waved to the horse. Anna Rós should be back from school in Ólafsfjördur by now, but there was no sign of her either.

She tried the doorbell again. Nothing.

She glanced at her father and pushed the door open. It was unlocked, but that didn’t mean anything — her grandparents never locked the door.

‘Grandpa! Grandma! Anna Rós!’

Nothing.

‘They’re not here,’ said Dísa to her father. ‘Come on.’

She led him down the hallway, through the kitchen and out of the back door.

‘Grandpa!’ Nothing. ‘Perhaps they’ve gone for a walk together,’ said Dísa, scanning the mountainside. Odd. That wasn’t what her grandparents usually did.

‘So where is your cold wallet?’ Ómar asked.

Dísa grinned. ‘You’ll see. I actually stole your idea.’

She strode across the farmyard, with Ómar following, and climbed the slope on the far side. A pair of ravens watched her closely from their perch on the fence.

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Ómar. ‘Is that an elf rock?’

‘It certainly is,’ said Dísa.

‘That’s where we sat when I was talking to you at your mother’s funeral.’

‘Yeah. And I told you to give the bitcoin back. Well, the hidden people were my witnesses.’

Ómar laughed. Dísa found the familiar sound oddly reassuring.

Dísa squatted down by the rock and lifted up the stone. Underneath lay the plastic food container.

She carried it back to the farmhouse and set it on the kitchen table. ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to get my computer from the car. And then I’ll make the transfer.’

Árni met Magnus at the foot of the steps off the plane.

‘Blábrekka,’ Magnus said. ‘Now.’

They jogged to Árni’s unmarked car, and he set off, lights flashing, blazing through the centre of town to the road to Dalvík.

‘Are there any cops at the farm?’ Magnus asked.

‘I got a couple of the local uniforms to check it out. They saw no one there, not even the farmer.’

‘Are they waiting for us?’

‘No. They had to leave.’

‘What!’

‘There’s been an accident in the Ólafsfjördur tunnel. Injuries. One killed, another critical.’

‘All right,’ said Magnus. ‘But we need back-up. With firearms.’

‘That means talking to Inspector Ólafur.’

‘Then talk to him.’

‘You talk to him. I’m driving.’

It was true; at the speed Árni was driving he needed all his concentration. As Magnus picked up his phone to make the call, it buzzed.

‘Vigdís?’

‘Yes. Are you in Akureyri?’

‘Just leaving. On our way to Blábrekka. Jesus!’ Magnus lurched to one side as Árni’s car swerved past a car that was itself breaking the speed limit, narrowly missing a truck coming the other way. ‘Although we may never get there, the way Árni’s driving. What have you got?’

‘Several things. Dísa’s father Ómar is in Akureyri. He was on the same flight as Jói at 1450.’

‘Together?’

‘No. Separate bookings. Separate seats. Could be a coincidence?’

‘Maybe. It’s clear both of them think Dísa is up here somewhere. It must be Blábrekka.’

‘They were right. Just got the data through from the phone company. Dísa was in Akureyri this afternoon, but the last read they got was from a phone mast near Hjalteyri.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Between Akureyri and Dalvík. She’ll have got to Dalvík by now.’

‘Blábrekka.’

‘Or a friend? A relative?’

‘True,’ said Magnus. ‘But Blábrekka has got to be our first shot. Could she have taken a bus? I thought we’d checked that.’

‘Her friend Kata’s car has gone. The cameras at Hvalfjördur caught it going north this morning. It’s a white Hyundai Accent. I’ll text you the registration.’

‘Good work, Vigdís.’

‘And Jói rented a car from Avis at Akureyri Airport. A blue VW Golf. I’ll text you the registration for that too.’

‘Great! Now I need to speak to Ólafur.’

Ólafur was not at all happy to hear that Magnus had arrived on his patch and was on his way to Dalvík. But no regional police inspector in Iceland could be impervious to the excitement of a request for armed police to hurry towards trouble. He called the district commissioner for approval, and within five minutes the armed back-up was on its way.

Árni was out on the open road now, the fjord flashing by on the right, the brute of a mountain above Dalvík approaching ever closer.

Magnus had an idea. There was no chance that Dísa would answer a phone call from the police. But she might read a text message.

He picked up his phone and tapped one out.

Fifty-Four

As Dísa went out to the car she felt the phone in her back pocket buzzing with a text. She ignored it and pulled out her backpack containing her computer from the rear seat.

She stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. There was someone else standing there, next to her father.

‘Jói!’ She dumped the backpack and rushed over to hug him.

He grinned, his blue eyes twinkling.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked him.

‘Same as Dad. Looking out for you. You told me you were coming here and, well, it all sounded a little dangerous. After Kata’s murder.’

‘So that’s your car outside? The blue one?’

‘Yeah. I rented it from the airport. I was out at the back of the barn looking for your grandparents when I heard your voice shouting for Hafsteinn.’

‘Do you know where they are?’

Jói shrugged. ‘They don’t seem to be on the farm.’

‘I’m so glad you’re here!’ She smiled at her father and her brother. ‘I’m so glad you’re both here.’

‘What’s that for?’ said Jói, nodding towards the backpack.

‘It’s a long story,’ said Dísa. ‘But maybe you can help me. It turns out that Mum’s murder was to do with Thomocoin, as was Kata’s. Long story short, I’ve got twenty million dollars’ worth of Thomocoin’s bitcoin in my wallet, and I want to pay it back to the investors.’

‘Twenty million!’ said Jói.

‘Yeah, I know. I lost my cold wallet, you know, the pink one Dad gave me. But I had hidden a back-up here.’

‘Is that it?’ said Jói, pointing to the plastic food container.

‘Yes. So, my plan is to transfer the bitcoin somewhere safe now, and then get that person to transfer it on to the investors when they have had a chance to set up bitcoin wallets.’

‘Sounds complicated,’ said Ómar.

‘It is, a bit,’ said Dísa. ‘Which is why you may be able to help, Jói.’

‘OK. So who are you transferring the bitcoin to now?’

‘Uncle Eggert. I’ve got his wallet address on my computer. All I need is to transcribe the private key. But it’s really long. Look.’

Dísa extracted the two sheets of paper from the food container. One was her mother’s and one was hers. She smoothed out the one covered in letters and numbers in her own handwriting.

‘See,’ said Dísa.

Suddenly she felt confident. The three of them, plus Uncle Eggert, could beat Krakatoa. Her family was there for her after all. There was still a lot to be done: she had to hide from a vengeful Krakatoa, and there was still a chance that a professional killer was right now on his way to try to find her.

But she would survive. With Dad and Jói’s help, she would survive.

And she would get some justice for her mother, justice for Kata. She would make Krakatoa pay.

She opened up her computer and, as she waited for it to load, she checked her phone. She had been ignoring texts all day.

This one was from the policeman Magnús.

She read it. And froze.

Krakatoa is your brother Jói Ómarsson. I think you are in danger. Where are you?

She unfroze. It had only been a second; she had to move, to stop Jói from thinking there was anything untoward in the text. She shoved her phone in her back pocket.

‘Who was that?’ Jói asked.

‘Friend from uni, wondering where I am. I won’t reply.’

She sat down in front of her computer screen and opened and closed programs at random, trying to give herself time to think.

Was Jói really Krakatoa? No. That would mean it was Jói who had threatened her; Jói who had killed her mother and her best friend. Jói could never do that.

And yet, here he was, asking about Krakatoa’s bitcoin. It was quite possible that Jói could have hidden his own private key at their father’s summer house. It was possible that Jói could run an online business.

Jói knew Helga. Jói knew Kata. Jói knew her.

And she trusted Magnús.

‘I’m just going to the toilet,’ Jói said. ‘I’ll be back in a moment to help you with that.’

‘OK,’ said Dísa, head deep in her computer.

She lifted it once Jói was out of the kitchen.

‘Dad, we’ve got to go,’ she whispered, snapping her laptop shut and grabbing it.

‘What do you mean?’ said her father.

‘Jói is Krakatoa. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on!’

She stood up to leave. Her father moved ahead of her to the front door and then turned to block her path.

‘How do you know?’

‘Just got a text from the police,’ Dísa hissed. The downstairs toilet door was shut. ‘Quick!’ She tried to push past her father to the door.

‘No, Dísa.’

‘Dad!’ She pushed harder.

He wouldn’t move.

Then it hit her. She should have seen it right away.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You know Jói is Krakatoa, Dad, don’t you?”

Her father inclined his head in assent.

Dísa took a step backwards. ‘You and he came here together. From the airport.’

Ómar nodded again. ‘We bumped into each other on the plane.’

There was a sound on the staircase. Dísa turned. Her brother was coming slowly down the stairs. Pointing Grandpa’s shotgun right at her.

‘No,’ said Dísa. ‘No!’ she screamed and launched herself towards Jói, gun or no gun.

Strong hands grabbed her shoulders and held her back. ‘It’s OK, Dísa,’ her father said. ‘It’s all going to be OK.’

The tears came as outrage overwhelmed her. ‘What do you mean it’s OK?’ she yelled. ‘You and Jói ganging up on me like that. Killing Mum. Killing Kata.’

‘I didn’t have anything to do with that, believe me,’ said Ómar.

‘But he did!’ said Dísa, pointing to her brother.

‘I had to,’ said Jói reasonably. Quietly.

‘Of course you didn’t have to!’

Dísa stopped struggling.

‘If I let you go, will you keep still?’ her father said.

Dísa nodded. Anger wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She needed to think.

But how could she think in the face of this betrayal? A betrayal that ripped at her heart, ripped at her mind, trampled on her very being. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised that her father had let her down. Again. Yet she had always been sure of his love for her. For a second she had believed that his appearance in Dalvík proved that.

Idiot!

And she still couldn’t believe Jói would kill anyone, let alone their mother. He had always liked Mum, for God’s sake! And Kata. What had Kata ever done to him?

But the man pointing the shotgun at her didn’t look like her sweet half-brother Jói. He looked perfectly capable of pulling the trigger.

She staggered back into the kitchen and slumped on to a chair.

‘So it wasn’t a professional killer after all?’ she said to Jói.

‘It was. I paid someone to deal with your mother and with Kata. But, unfortunately, he’s left Iceland now.’

‘So you have to do the dirty stuff yourself?’

Jói nodded.

‘There doesn’t need to be any dirty stuff,’ Ómar said. ‘You pay Jói what you owe him—’

‘I don’t owe him anything,’ Dísa snapped.

‘What you took from him,’ Ómar said. ‘Jói leaves. And once he’s out of the country we tell the police what’s happened.’

‘And you think the police won’t arrest you?’ Dísa said.

‘They probably will,’ said Ómar. ‘But you’ll be alive. You’ll both be alive. This is the only way I can figure out for that to happen. And if I end up in jail again, so be it.’

‘Don’t act the noble martyr with me, Dad. Claiming to sacrifice yourself for me. You need to stand up to Jói, that’s what you need to do.’

‘Well, I disagree. Jói, transfer Dísa’s bitcoin to your wallet, and then we’ll go.’

‘Why didn’t you warn me? That Jói was Krakatoa?’

‘Because I thought he would get his hitman to kill you if I did.’ Ómar swallowed. ‘And me.’

‘But the hitman has left Iceland. Didn’t you hear him say that?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t know that. Until now.’ Ómar looked away from his daughter.

Jói was still holding the shotgun. ‘OK. Both of you stand over there, where I can see you.’

He pointed to the corner of the kitchen furthest away from the table, by the microwave.

‘Jói?’ said Ómar. ‘You can trust me.’

‘Possibly. But I’ll be happier if I have you both covered.’

Ómar frowned. ‘All right.’

He and Dísa watched as Jói laid the shotgun on the table, pointing towards them and tapped on Dísa’s laptop. He pulled out his phone and tapped on that, glancing at them every few seconds. After a minute or so, he began to transcribe the characters from Dísa’s private key into her computer.

‘The police know you are Krakatoa,’ Dísa said.

Jói looked up sharply.

‘That was the text I read,’ Dísa explained. ‘From Inspector Magnús. They know who you are. You won’t be able to get away.’

‘I will with this money,’ Jói said. ‘You can do anything with twenty million dollars. I’ll find someone with a boat or a plane who will get me out.’

‘Stop him, Dad,’ Dísa said, pleading with her father.

Ómar didn’t answer. He didn’t look at her. He was watching his son as he carefully typed the characters into Dísa’s machine. Then, with a triumphant flurry of taps, Jói grinned.

‘Done!’

‘All right,’ said Ómar. ‘Now let’s tie Dísa up and put her with the other two.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘I’m sorry, Dísa. I’ll let you go once Jói’s safely away. It’s the only way for you to get out of this alive.’

Jói got to his feet and picked up the shotgun, waving it vaguely at them. At both of them.

‘No,’ he said, simply.

‘What do you mean, no? We discussed this.’

‘Dísa knows too much. She has to die.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yes, now.’

‘Jói? You can’t do this.’

‘I’m not Jói,’ said the man holding the shotgun. ‘I’m Krakatoa.’

Ómar stared at his son as if seeing him for the first time. A stranger. Dísa saw his face crumple as if in pain.

Then he straightened. He turned away from Jói and towards her.

She saw him wink. Once, long and slow.

He sighed. ‘All right, Jói. But let me do it.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. I can’t have my son kill my daughter. I’ll do it. Give me the gun.’ Ómar moved forward, extending his arm.

Jói took a step back. ‘Do you think I’m an idiot? Stop. Or I’ll shoot you,’ he warned. ‘In fact, I may just shoot you anyway.’

‘OK,’ said Ómar. He stopped. ‘You do it. You kill her.’

Jói’s eyes flicked from his father to Dísa and back again. The shotgun wavered between them.

‘Run, Dísa!’ shouted Ómar as he flung himself at his son.

The shotgun went off, the sound in the confines of the kitchen deafening.

Dísa did what she was told and bolted for the back door.

There was another explosion from inside the farmhouse as the second barrel went off.

Dísa sprinted across the farmyard. There were open fields above and behind the yard, with nowhere to hide except behind the elf rock.

That wouldn’t work.

Then there was the barn.

She sprinted for the side door and, glancing behind to make sure that Jói hadn’t emerged from the farmhouse, stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

The warm, familiar, safe smell of sheep and matured hay welcomed her. Thin daylight trickled into the barn through its small windows, illuminating hundreds of woolly backs. If the sheep made any noise at her arrival, she couldn’t hear it; her ears were still ringing from the report of the shotgun inside the farmhouse.

She jogged down an aisle and then swung her legs over the railing into a pen. She dropped to her knees and crawled among the sheep. They looked bemused, but not frightened.

She noticed a leg, a human leg clad in denim. She crawled towards it. As the sheep parted, she saw Grandma and Grandpa pressed against a railing running along the back of the shed. Her grandmother was staring at her, eyes wide with alarm, mouth taped shut. She wriggled.

Her grandfather was slumped on the ground, out cold.

Oh, God! Was he dead?

Dísa was about to creep towards them and try to free them when she heard the barn door open. She raised her finger to her lips to tell her grandmother to be quiet and then crept away from her.

She slid through the railings into an adjoining pen and waited.

‘Dísa?’ It was Jói’s voice, and he was getting closer. Her hearing was returning; she could make out his footsteps as they passed the pen in which she was lying. He stopped.

The sheep around her moved. Shifting.

One of them looked down at her quizzically. She recognized the ewe: unlike Anna Rós, she didn’t know all of the sheep, but she knew a fair few of them. This one was Móey. She was one of the forystufé on the farm, the leader sheep who guided the others up on the hills in the summer. Smarter than the rest, they looked subtly different: longer-legged, skinnier. Móey had distinctive dark red patches on her wool, a black snout and a nice pair of curly horns.

She bleated. She recognized Dísa. The other sheep around her turned to look.

Dísa raised her finger to her lips. It might have been coincidence, but Móey shut up. She continued to stare.

Dísa could hear Jói moving towards the end of the barn. He was checking on her grandparents, only one pen away.

Dísa pressed her face close to the floor. The sheep seemed to gather around her.

She heard the sound of a body swinging over the rails between pens, the thud of feet landing on concrete.

She could see Jói’s trainers coming towards her. Stopping. Turning to the right. Then turning towards her again. Then stepping her way.

‘Oh, Dísa.’

She looked up. He was standing three metres away, pointing the shotgun directly at her.

She scrambled to her feet. She knew she was going to die, but she wanted to die upright, facing her brother, proud, not cowering on the floor. She successfully fought back the urge to cry.

‘Did you kill Dad?’

‘I think so. He has a big hole in his chest. He shouldn’t have done that. You were never going to get away.’

‘What now?’

‘I kill you,’ said Jói.

His voice was flat. His eyes were flat. They had lost their Jói sparkle. His expression was... expressionless.

Her brother Jói seemed to have gone. There was no one to appeal to. She couldn’t appeal to this man standing before her.

There was a rustle and a loud bleat, almost like a roar, and a black head shot out of the woollen mass like a cannonball and hit Jói in the thigh.

The shotgun went off, causing the sheep to skitter and jostle, and the whole barn erupted into panicked cries.

Jói stumbled and fell.

The shot had gone high and to the left of Dísa’s head. She leaned down to grab the shotgun and took a step backwards, pointing it at Jói.

Móey gave him another butt, this time on his arse. He swore and twisted around to face his attacker, who glared back.

Dísa gripped the shotgun. It was double-barrelled, with two triggers. Dísa thought that the second trigger would fire the second barrel, but she wasn’t sure. She assumed the second barrel was loaded.

By the look on Jói’s face, so did he.

‘OK, Jói. Stand up,’ said Dísa.

Carefully, Jói pulled himself to his feet, the ewe still glaring at him.

‘All right. We’re going to leave this pen, slowly.’

Jói stood up straight and stared at his sister.

‘Turn around and walk slowly to the railings.’

Jói didn’t move.

‘I said turn around!’

Still no movement.

In frustration, Dísa wiggled the barrel of the gun up and down in an attempt to show she meant business, that she would fire lead shot into her brother at close range.

Jói wasn’t buying it.

‘Put the gun down, Dísa,’ he said quietly.

Dísa lowered the barrel a couple of inches. Her face puckered in frustration. What could she do? She couldn’t shoot him in cold blood. She just couldn’t. And Jói knew it. He was going to escape.

Worse than that, if she put the gun down, he would use it on her.

She should pull the damn trigger! But she couldn’t.

She looked down at Móey for inspiration. But although the sheep was looking at her intently, she had no wise advice.

‘Lay the gun on the floor,’ Jói repeated.

‘Shoot him!’ The cry rang out loud from the other side of the barn, by the door.

It was the policeman, Magnús. Unarmed.

‘Shoot him, Dísa! It would be self-defence. I’m a witness. You can shoot him.’

Dísa raised the barrel of the shotgun and aimed. Yes, she could shoot him. In self-defence.

Jói’s eyes widened. He knew his sister well; he could see what she was about to do. He took a step backwards. Raised his arms. And turned towards the policeman.

‘Jói Ómarsson, you are under arrest,’ said Magnus as he approached the brother and sister.

Dísa waited until the detective had grabbed Jói, then she laid the shotgun down on the concrete floor and burst into tears.

Fifty-Five

Magnus caught a flight from Akureyri back to Reykjavík at about noon the following day.

He was exhausted. He had spent the morning on statements at the Akureyri police station before going to the hospital with Árni.

Ómar had survived: the focus of the shotgun blast had been on his left shoulder — the damage to his chest was less severe. They had operated the night before. He was awake but in a bad way.

Hafsteinn had regained consciousness but they were keeping him in hospital under observation for a couple of days.

His wife was murmuring nonsense at his bedside, flustered and shaken.

Dísa and Anna Rós were with their father. Dísa had told Magnus she was going to try to forgive him. In the end, he had risked his life for her. Plus he was the only father she’d got.

The hour after Jói had been arrested had been predictable mayhem. Árni had tried to staunch the flow in Ómar’s chest and called an ambulance. Anna Rós’s bus from school had been delayed by the accident in the tunnel, and she had arrived home at the same time as the armed police back-up to find her father shot, her grandfather unconscious, her grandmother a wreck and her brother arrested. Not surprisingly, she was distressed.

Yet in the midst of all this, Dísa had pulled Magnus to one side and asked if she could take a couple of minutes to shut down her computer.

It had been more like ten. Dísa had had a grim smile on her face as she closed the lid of her laptop.

‘All right?’ Magnus had asked.

Dísa had nodded. ‘Yes. All right.’

Magnus was impressed by the nineteen-year-old. It wasn’t only that she had risked her life to try to make amends for her mother’s folly. He suspected that despite having faced death down the wrong end of a shotgun barrel held by her own brother, that was exactly what she had just done. Made amends.

As Magnus had got off the plane at Reykjavík, Árni had forwarded him an email sent to him by a neighbour of Helga’s in Dalvík, who had been an investor in Thomocoin. The email was from Dísa the day before, giving instructions on how to set up a bitcoin wallet so she could receive her investment back.

He would bet that was what Dísa had been fiddling with on her computer.

Magnus knew that the police should find out what Dísa was up to as soon as possible and put a stop to it. And yet... he trusted her. Thomocoin’s assets, such as they were, would probably be tied up in legal limbo for years. As would Sharp’s and Jói’s, if anyone could find them.

Maybe that was what Dísa had done? Maybe she had found those assets and was sending them back to where they belonged?

Magnus liked that idea.

The various Icelandic authorities had turned a blind eye to the activities of Thomocoin for too long. A little more of a delay would be entirely consistent with that policy.

Magnus had called Árni back and told him to leave it with him. He would look into it. In his own time.

He had called Agent Malley in New York and the guy from the DA’s office in North Carolina the night before to tell them that Krakatoa had been arrested. Jói was going to be popular with the world’s law-enforcement officers.

What happened to Sharp wasn’t Magnus’s problem either. The guy deserved to be prosecuted for the Thomocoin scam, but at least he had warned Magnus about Jói. That, Magnus was be grateful for. If they managed to extract him from Panama, Magnus would speak up for him.

If.

As he walked from the terminal at the City Airport to where he had parked his car, his phone buzzed.

Another text from Eygló. She had texted him three times the evening before, and once already this morning.

She wanted to talk to him. With all that was going on in Dalvík, he hadn’t felt able to talk to her. At least not to say what he knew he had to say.

He unlocked the car, sat in the driver’s seat and called her number.

‘Hi,’ she said. She sounded nervous rather than angry.

‘Hi,’ said Magnus.

‘Where are you?’

‘At the City Airport. Just got back from Akureyri. The Dalvík murder cases blew up.’

‘Did you catch the guy who did it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’

‘Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t call you and tell you I wouldn’t be at your place last night.’

‘You said you would be. I told you it was important.’

‘You did,’ said Magnus.

There was a moment’s silence on the phone. ‘I said “yes” to Southampton.’

‘I didn’t know they’d even offered you the job yet?’

‘They hadn’t. It was one of those stupid “if we were to offer you the job, would you take it?” things. They said they needed to know right away — something to do with department politics or visas after Brexit or something. I didn’t completely understand it. But I said “yes”.’

Magnus knew a response was required from him. And he knew what it was.

‘Good.’

More silence. Eventually, she spoke. ‘Good for me or good for you?’

‘Good for both of us.’

Silence.

‘We should talk about this properly,’ Magnus said. ‘Honestly. I know we haven’t up till now and it’s been my fault. I’ll see you at seven this evening, I promise.’

‘Will you?’

‘I will.’ He hung up.

He felt guilty about Eygló. He hadn’t spoken to her openly about how he felt over the last few weeks. He hadn’t known how. But he was sure that her decision was best for both of them.

He was supposed to be going straight to police headquarters at Hverfisgata, but instead he drove to Vesturbaer.

He had no idea whether she would be in, but he had to try.

She didn’t answer the bell on the first ring. But she did on the second.

He leaned into the intercom. ‘It’s Magnús.’

‘I’ll be right down.’

Magnus shifted from foot to foot; he found the thirty seconds he spent waiting at the door to her building an eternity.

Eventually, she opened it and shot him an anxious glance.

But then she saw his grin. Her grey eyes sparkled and a warm smile of happiness spread across her face.

‘Come in,’ she said.