Sharp paused. Frowned. And then nodded in acknowledgement.
‘What shall I tell Krakatoa?’ Fjóla asked her boss, pulling out her phone. ‘He wanted to know how it went.’
‘Tell him it went well,’ said Sharp. ‘Don’t you think, Dísa?’
‘Who’s Krakatoa?’ she asked.
‘My partner,’ said Sharp. ‘He’s the brains behind the operation.’
‘Is he an Icelander too?’
‘I think he’s from Canada,’ said Fjóla. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Vancouver,’ said Sharp. ‘But after this, we may make him an honorary Icelander.’
Dísa thought Thomocoin sounded good. It sounded very good. She’d check it out online, but it looked like it might be a good option for her bitcoin.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Tell him it went well.’
But one thing she had heard didn’t quite ring true. Dísa wasn’t totally convinced that Thomas, or Tómas, was real. Not that that mattered.
Or did it?
Six
Magnus looked down at the spiky blonde head on his lap, or what he could see of it behind the covers of a book. Something about trolls in the medieval north.
The set-up was both uncomfortable and very comfortable. It turned out Eygló liked to read and so did he, and they liked to read together.
Work was busy. To Magnus and Vigdís’s frustration, the rape victim had withdrawn from her case, unwilling to give up her mobile phone’s secrets. But the data-server heist had exploded. There had been two more break-ins; the value of the equipment stolen was now counted in the hundreds of millions of krónur. Magnus had been investigating the sales channel the thieves had used to offload the servers, and trying to track down any bitcoin transactions with which they could have been paid. More promising was a CCTV image of a suspicious blue van taken near one of the break-ins.
Some progress, but not enough. The pressure was on: the news websites were all over the story.
They were in Eygló’s small flat in Kópavogur. Bjarki, Eygló’s eleven-year-old son, was playing Football Manager in his bedroom as usual. He had explained at great length to Magnus how he was managing Macclesfield Town, some tiny place in England, and powering it up to the English Premier League. Magnus didn’t know much about English soccer, although he was trying to keep up with Bjarki’s passion for Liverpool.
Frankly, Magnus couldn’t give a damn about Macclesfield Town.
He was trying to get Bjarki interested in the Red Sox. He reckoned he’d snare him in the end with the statistics, but so far Bjarki was only showing polite interest in baseball.
Eygló looked on with wry amusement.
Soccer wasn’t a bad game. Magnus had been pretty good at it when he was a little kid, playing at the Snaefell club in Stykkishólmur in the west of Iceland. Although they played it a bit at his middle school in Cambridge in Massachusetts, he had taken up real football. American football.
Ási had shown some early talent on the beach. Would he play for his own club team eventually? Icelanders were pretty good at soccer.
It was three weeks since Magnus had kicked a ball around on the beach with his son, and he couldn’t help thinking about it. He didn’t really understand why. Until a couple of months before he hadn’t really thought about children. But now?
He couldn’t wait to see Ási again. Christmas was coming. Could he get him a gift? Something small, or it would be weird. After all, Ási thought of Magnus as no more than a friend of his mother.
Ingileif had promised she would text, but she hadn’t. Magnus was beginning to fear she wouldn’t.
Patience! All he needed was patience.
‘What’s up, Magnus?’ said the head on his lap, putting down her book. ‘You’re fidgeting.’
‘Sorry.’
Eygló sat up. ‘Are you thinking about Ási?’
Magnus nodded. ‘I’m worried Ingileif isn’t going to contact me.’
Eygló sighed. ‘Then call her.’
‘Should I send her a text?’
‘No. Call her. Talk to her. Then you’ll know what’s what.’
‘All right.’ Magnus took out his phone as Eygló tactfully withdrew to the kitchen.
Magnus found Ingileif’s number and called it. It rang and then went to voicemail.
He put the phone down, disappointed. He was just wondering whether to assume she was avoiding him when his phone buzzed.
It was her. ‘Hi, Ingileif,’ he said.
‘Hi.’
‘I was just calling to see how you were. And Ási.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
Uh-oh.
‘Magnús. I know I said I would bring Ási to see you again, but now I don’t think it’s such a good idea.’
Magnus’s blood went cold. ‘Why not?’
‘Hannes came back.’
‘So what? You said Ási knows he isn’t his father.’
‘Yes. But Hannes says that if the three of us are to operate as a family, then you shouldn’t be part of it. It will confuse Ási.’ Ingileif hesitated. ‘It will confuse me.’
‘What do you mean?’
Ingileif sighed. ‘On the beach at Álftanes I told you that Hannes had gone. I gave you a chance to come back. But you didn’t want to. I respect that, I really do. But I need to make a clean break. I need to.’
‘But...’ Magnus was at a loss for words. ‘But — but how could you take him back? He went off with another woman!’
‘You took me back,’ said Ingileif.
‘Yes. But that was different.’
‘Was it?’ Ingileif said.
Magnus pulled back from the retort that was forming on his lips. ‘I told you I have a girlfriend and I’m very happy with her,’ he said. ‘Can’t you tell Hannes there is no chance of anything between us? I want to see Ási. I need to see Ási.’
Magnus was surprised by the strength of feeling as he uttered these last words. But he meant them.
‘I’m very sorry, Magnús. The answer is no. I owe it to you to be crystal clear on that. No.’
‘But I have a right to see him. And your sleazy husband doesn’t have any right to stop me!’
Now anger flared in Ingileif’s voice. ‘You have no right, Magnús. You didn’t know Ási even existed until three months ago. Even then, I didn’t want to tell you. He’s my son, and I want to bring him up in a stable family. With the man I love. Who, by the way, isn’t you.’
‘But — Ingileif! You have to let me see him. You have to.’
‘No, I don’t, Magnus. And don’t even think of trying to force it.’
The line went dead. Magnus stared at his phone.
He fought to control tears welling up in his eyes. Where the hell did they come from?
Two hands rested on his shoulders, and he felt lips kiss the back of his head.
‘I’m sorry, Magnús. I couldn’t help hearing that.’
‘She said no.’
‘I heard.’
‘I don’t know why it bothers me so much,’ said Magnus, turning to Eygló. ‘But it does.’
‘You need a family,’ said Eygló. ‘We all do.’
Magnus reached up to kiss her. ‘I’m very glad I’ve got you.’
Part Two
— 2020 —
Seven
He lay on his stomach at the brow of the hill, looking down the valley towards the fjord. A low, flat island floated close to the near shore. The cluster of white buildings that was the village of Dalvík squeezed itself between its mountain and the water, while a large blue trawler edged its way into the harbour.