‘Well, take me to her, then.’
Sunna María had a phone at her ear and another in her hand, and her eyes bulged for a second as she saw Gunna appear in the doorway of her long, sparse living room.
‘Yes, of course. I’ll settle that at the end of the month as long as we’re ready for the next stage,’ she said, jaw firm and her words clipped. She stabbed at the phone to end the call and put the other one to her ear. ‘Listen. I said Monday, not Wednesday, and not Monday next week,’ she said in the same brusque tone. ‘No. As soon as possible. That’s right,’ she said and ended the call before looking at Gunna.
‘What can I do for you?’ she demanded.
‘Any news of your husband?’
‘Nothing. I haven’t a clue where he’s gone. He’s walked out. That’s what I think.’
‘Leaving his laptop on the table? Did he take his passport? Credit cards?’
Sunna María looked blank for a second. ‘I don’t know where his passport is, so I assume he took it. Of course he had his wallet and cards in his pocket, and I’m sure he can find himself a new laptop easily enough.’
There was a road of sorts. It was deeply pitted and ran mostly downhill, which Jóhann hoped meant he was heading for the coast, facing the distant faint tang of salt water as he walked through a tranquil landscape. The track looped several times. At one point he decided to take a short cut, scrabbling down a loose scree of red earth and stones over a slope that was frighteningly steep once he’d started down it, but as soon as the loose earth had begun to crumble under his feet, there was no way back. Jóhann tottered and fought to stay upright, bouncing the last few yards downhill on his back, terrified that his precious glasses would be lost as more loose stones rattled down the slope and came to rest around him.
He sat dazed in the little landslip that had deposited him on the road sixty yards from where he had started, having saved himself half an hour of walking, he guessed, but at the cost of having ripped the sole from his right shoe, which now flapped as he walked, attached at the heel but with loose stones and gravel now constantly under his foot.
He stopped and sat on a boulder. He laid aside the overcoat he’d wrapped around himself like a cloak and took off his jacket. He picked at the seams of his shirt, a flimsy item that was fine for city wear, but had no practical use out here. He gave up trying to unpick a seam with his broken fingernails. He took off the shirt and ripped both sleeves clear off, one after the other, surprised at his own strength and the noise it made in this quiet landscape.
With the now sleeveless shirt, jacket and overcoat back in place, he used the sleeve to tie up his shoe, hoping it would last as he set off yet again, picking at one of the dried fish he had filled his pockets with before leaving the ruined farm.
The track widened gradually and even became enough of a road to sport a makeshift bridge over a bubbling stream where he stopped and drank. A little further along he encountered a dilemma in the form of a crossroads where he knew the wrong choice could prove fatal. The sun was high in the sky behind grey cloud and he guessed that at least half of the day had gone. He would need to find some kind of shelter for the night if no help could be found before dark, and to start a fire he would need sunlight as well as fuel, and hunting for fuel would be a time-consuming task up here where nothing but moss and heather grew.
He studied the road, trying to work out which direction looked to have been the most used, and therefore more likely to carry some traffic and the possibility of a lift to civilization. Downhill was tempting as that had carried him this far, but this time the uphill direction was the one that seemed more likely to take him seawards, judging by the vague smell of the sea.
It would have to be uphill, he decided, promising himself that at least this would give him a vantage point to spy out the land, and if there was nothing up there, he could at least turn round and hobble back downhill instead.
A pair of coal-black ravens flapped slowly past and Jóhann felt that they were looking for him, waiting for him to give up as he trudged towards the brow of the hill.
Stepping out of the lift on the eighth floor, Gunna immediately saw the familiar nameplates etched into glass in sharp letters in a door that was locked up tight in front of the still darkened office. She knocked and tried the door, and then wrote down the names of half a dozen companies listed below Sólfell Investment’s name on the window.
On the other side of the lift a more inviting door stood open. There was no indication what business Ath! was in, but smooth musack played from a loudspeaker overhead and there were brochures on an unattended reception desk. A stylish computer gleamed on a table to one side, and with no keyboard to be seen, there were just two words visible on the screen.
Gunna touched it with her fingertip, as the words had commanded, and the computer’s screen dissolved into a cascade of pixels that resolved themselves into the Ath! name. She was nonplussed by the images of smiling professionals with perfect skin, hair and teeth that paraded across the screen, extolling the virtues of Ath! and was still none the wiser by the time the presentation had ended and the screen had returned to its former shade of blue with the words ‘Touch Me’ emblazoned across it.
‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Can I help you?’
A smiling young man in a polo shirt had appeared behind the desk, the shirt embroidered with the same Touch Me logo in discreet stitching on one arm.
‘What is this place, then?’ Gunna asked. ‘What does Ath! actually do?’
‘We’re a communications solutions provider.’
‘Public relations, you mean?’
‘Well, yeah. If you want to be old-fashioned about it,’ he said with a hurt look on his face. ‘PR, advertising, that sort of stuff.’
‘I’m looking for the people who run the company next door. Are they about anywhere, do you know?’
The smile faded. ‘You’re a bailiff?’
‘Far from it. Police.’
‘Oh. I’ve no idea. I think the guy who runs it is out of the country at the moment and I haven’t seen his secretary for a long time.’
‘How many people work there, do you know?’
‘There’s a few of them who come and go, I think. I don’t pay a lot of attention. There’s the guy with the moustache, the little one with the grey hair and there’s a blonde woman who’s there occasionally.’
‘You know their names?’
‘The grey guy is called Elvar, I think. Haven’t seen him for a while. I don’t know about her.’
‘Anyone else who shows up there regularly?’
The young man made a show of thinking hard. ‘There’s a cleaner. She’s here once or twice a week. Then there are a few other people who come and go. Like I said, I don’t pay them much attention.’
‘When did you see anyone there last?’
‘End of last week, something like that.’
‘Friday?’
‘Could be.’
‘And was that Elvar or the blonde?’
He shook his head and pouted. ‘I’m not sure, the moustache guy, I think. There were voices, so there must have been more than one person. That’s all I could say. I don’t sit here all day watching out for next door.’
‘I didn’t expect you would. But why did you ask if I was a bailiff?’
‘Because you wouldn’t have been the first one.’
The couple of restaurants and takeaways were lit up for the start of the lunchtime trade and as she parked behind the office block on Ármúli again, the smell of something spicy wafting from the open door behind one of the shops suddenly told her that breakfast had been a long time ago.
Finnbogi Finnbogason sent her a smile as she walked in.
‘You’re not here to order a taco, are you?’
‘Depends what you’ve found out for me.’
‘I’m a little busy at the moment. See you round the back in a few minutes?’