‘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.