But if she was going to be in the pay of the devil, it would be as well to make it worthwhile. Using the torch on her phone, she sifted through the pile of bills, adding up what she owed – something she had not dared to do before for fear of learning the overall picture. Then she doubled the total and emailed Agla.

Agla’s reply arrived before any doubts had time to take root in María’s mind. Agla apparently did not see María’s fee as large, so María got to her feet and felt her way to the door in the darkness. The decision had been taken. She had let the establishment lead her by the hand, had sold her credibility and had become a stereotype – a tool of big business. On the other hand, Agla seemed to be looking into something that did arouse María’s interest. What’s more they seemed to be hoping for the same outcome: she was also hoping to get enough material to frighten the aluminium giants; the ones who were robbing Iceland.

Twenty minutes later she was standing on Finnur’s front steps. She had deliberately not called her former colleague from the special prosecutor’s office to warn him, preferring not to give him an opportunity to hide himself away. The expression on his face when he saw her confirmed her suspicion.

‘A rare white raven,’ he said, gesturing for her to step inside.

She shook her head.

‘This isn’t a courtesy call,’ she said. ‘I need some information.’

He sighed.

‘You of all people should be able to appreciate my position,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy to speak to the press, and I can’t do so without specific permission.’

‘I don’t need to talk to you,’ María said. ‘I need a list from the Central Bank. It’s a list you can easily request and you don’t have to justify asking.’

‘My dear María—’ Finnur began in an avuncular tone, before she interrupted him.

‘I could say the same to you,’ she said. ‘You of all people should be able to appreciate my position, considering you initiated a certain investigation that resulted in me losing my job.’

She had expected him to protest more vigorously, had assumed she would have to apply more pressure, but instead he hung his head and nodded. There was no doubt that he was plagued with guilt over her situation.

‘What do you need?’

23

It no longer became properly dark in the evenings, but as dusk stretched into a colourless grey, it was still difficult to see in the boiler room. Anton switched on his head torch, and Gunnar did the same. They had put together a few different versions of detonator and fastened each one to a stick of dynamite. Gunnar had made three little bombs by binding the rockets they had bought with tape to dynamite sticks, and Anton had prepared rather more sophisticated ignition systems using batteries, lengths of wire and the heads of matches to provide the spark. His detonator worked – he had tried it out a couple of times without any dynamite, but there was no telling how it would work when they tried it for real; and they couldn’t watch it as they would have to run some distance away before the explosion.