There was no wind and the light was wonderfully blue, as it always was at night at this time of year. He wheeled the sack truck silently along the street. There was nobody about, although to be sure he stopped at the corner to listen out for any traffic. All he could hear was the distant whine of a motorcycle up on Laugavegur, so he hurried across the street and into the car park. He could feel a stab of anticipation and terror in his stomach, which only passed when he pushed the sack truck up past the building and around the back. There was a window there that he had planned to smash using the monkey wrench that was in the box, but there was no need for it. The window hadn’t been properly hooked shut. He slid a hand through the gap to open it and a moment later he was inside.

He carefully opened the door into the corridor, peeping through the gap to be sure, but the place was dark and silent. He went to the back door and opened it, putting the doormat in the opening to stop it closing behind him while he fetched the sack truck with the bomb and rolled it inside and along the corridor.

Gunnar wouldn’t be happy that he had left the sack truck behind, but he could buy him another one to replace the one he had borrowed from his cousin. It was old and battered and would be destroyed in the explosion, so it wouldn’t be traceable, and it was safer not to have to take it back to the car. That reduced the likelihood of any passers-by paying him any attention.

Anton stopped the sack truck in the middle of the corridor, opened the box and the toolbox inside, and activated the bomb. Then he closed the hasp of the toolbox’s lid and jogged out into the corridor.

He hurried away as soon as he was outside, not that there was any danger yet. It wasn’t time for the explosion. He still had to go home and erase any traces left from when he’d put the bomb together. In the morning he would be back here, and he’d have the remote control with him.

94

The Spotlight team were interested and had struck a deal with María on the basis that the TV programme’s editor agreed to buy her Meteorite story. They had sat into the night listening to every minor detail of the story, making notes and then calling the editor, waking him up in the process. He responded by saying that he was fully booked the following day but suggested a meeting at seven, before usual working hours, to go over the matter and finalise a contract.