So he tried to do everything he possibly could to make sure that she had a feeling of security when she was near him.

He gently squeezed her little finger and turned his head towards her.

She smiled.

‘Shall we go to the pictures tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Dinner and a movie?’ he suggested with a wink. That had to mean a burger or a kebab, followed by a bus ride to the cinema. It would be her birthday soon, and he had decided he would take her out somewhere smart, a shirt-and-tie place, and he’d have to do a deal with his father to cover transport and some extra finance.

By then he would also have given her the birthday present. This was what he had dreamed of for so many weeks. He was certain that it would be the best moment of their whole lives.

‘Talk to you this evening,’ she said as Gunnar cruised up to the school steps on his moped, which was still muddy from the night before.

‘Talk to you this evening,’ Anton said, squeezing her little finger again. There was no need to say it, as they talked every evening and sent each other endless messages and chatted online. As well as being the prettiest, she was the most fun girl he had ever met.

He hopped onto the moped and held on tight to Gunnar’s coat as he set off. They had agreed to meet after school to find a better place to store the dynamite, and to think over the problem of detonators. He had been sure that they would find detonators in the shed as well, but there hadn’t been any. They had searched everywhere to be certain. They would just have to find some other way to set the dynamite off.

7

‘If you get a call from a journalist called María, phoning from Iceland, then don’t give her any chance to ask you anything,’ Ingimar said once he and William had exchanged the usual greetings.

The background music he could hear down the line told him that William was out enjoying himself somewhere. The man was a well-known party animal who never let a celebration or a gathering pass him by. He reminded Ingimar of a younger version of himself. Back in his younger days he had the same kind of energy that allowed him to spend a night on the town and be awake and ready for a tough day’s work after only three hours’ sleep. As far as he was concerned, that was now all in the past. But the same didn’t apply to William.

‘I’m at a friend’s birthday party,’ he said, his strong American accent coming across clearly. ‘You’d have had a great time.’