The little guy shook his head.

‘No names,’ he said gruffly and folded his arms. ‘I don’t ask for names or which school you go to, and you don’t ask me.’

Anton wasn’t sure whether to laugh or let his temper show. The boy kept the fireworks in a shed in a garden in the Hlíðar district, so Anton guessed that he lived in the house in front of them, and went to school somewhere close by. The boy was just playing at being the big man.

‘It’s brilliant, isn’t it?’ Gunnar said, weighing a large cherry bomb in his hand.

Anton grunted without answering. He couldn’t see why Gunnar was so excited about a few fireworks when the dynamite in his basement at home easily had a thousand times more explosive power.

‘It’s too big,’ he said, taking the cherry bomb from Gunnar’s hand and showing him an ordinary rocket. ‘We need a few of these.’ Gunnar’s excitement dried up as he picked up a few similar rockets.

‘Would you like a bag?’ the boy asked, as if he was serving in a shop.

Anton shook his head, laid the rockets out in his backpack and handed the boy the money.

‘Special celebration?’ the boy asked cheerfully, stuffing the bundle of notes into a back pocket without bothering to count them.

‘We’re going to use them as—’ Gunnar began.

Anton quickly interrupted him.

‘My girlfriend’s birthday,’ he said and Gunnar immediately nodded in agreement, as this was in fact true. The explosion was supposed to be a birthday present for Júlía.

‘Where next?’ Gunnar asked on the pavement outside as he started the moped.

‘A builders’ merchant,’ Anton said, taking his place behind him. ‘Or an electrical place.’

This was the serious stuff. He had watched a few videos on the internet that showed how to make a detonator. He needed some wire and other components. This fireworks business was just indulging Gunnar, who really thought that it would be cool to set off the dynamite using a firework. They would do a few trial runs to figure out what the best method would be, and they would only have to sacrifice a few sticks of dynamite doing tests. There would be more than enough left for a powerful explosion; a seriously big bang.

20

Presumably, George Beck and his associates expected her to go straight to Ingimar. But that would have been precisely the wrong approach. Ingimar would do everything in his power to keep her away from this. She needed a clearer picture of what was going on before going anywhere near him. She needed more background. Maybe it hadn’t been all that clever to come over all David Attenborough on María, but that TV programme about the development of species had sprung into her mind as she watched María in the visitor’s room, howling like a wolf about the world’s corruption. So it was a good comparison.