But Anton’s thoughts were elsewhere as he walked away. A solution to the detonator problem was taking shape in his mind.

44

Agla looked at the blurred picture María had attached to her email. Despite the heavy grain and the green cast, it seemed to support what her short message said. The warehouse at Meteorite Metals was full to the rafters. Agla had learned that sometimes things were just what they appeared to be, and this seemed to be one of those instances. Apparently, the Icelandic smelter was producing aluminium that was registered on LME, but instead of being sold, it was put into Meteorite’s warehouse, where it was stacking up. But despite all its activity, Meteorite Metals looked to be in poor financial shape, and things were deteriorating. The outgoings on its balance sheet had not been itemised, though, so it was impossible to see where the money was going.

It was obvious that William and his bank were running a scam of some kind, undoubtedly with Ingimar’s involvement, that revolved around stockpiling aluminium. But the reason why they were doing this remained a mystery. At some point there had to be a use for it all. Maybe it was an attempt to lift the world price, but as this was governed by demand rather than production capacity, such a venture was doomed to failure. International regulations would have to be changed before stockpiling would have any effect on the world market price; these rules had been put in place explicitly to prevent stockpiling. Yet it was clear that neither the smelter in Iceland nor Meteorite Metals was selling the aluminium. It was all very strange. Agla sent a message to María, asking her to follow one of the trucks. It wouldn’t do any harm to know where they were taking aluminium.

She suddenly felt a shudder of discomfort pass through her, of the kind she had not felt since her first few days in prison. She had to stand up, move her legs and use every ounce of willpower not to scream in frustration. She had to get out of this place; she needed to go where she wanted, to breathe fresh air, to be herself. She jumped a few times, forcing herself to draw breaths that went all the way down to her belly. She lay on the library floor, closed her eyes and concentrated on a mental image of the ceiling of her bedroom at home. In her mind she lay in her own bed, free to stand up, walk out and go wherever she pleased.

Agla was startled when the door opened and one of the warders let Elísa in.

‘Hey, do you want to come to my room at eight tonight?’ Elísa whispered, glancing at the security camera as if she was sure that it recorded sound as well as images. ‘They’re all going to an AA meeting – everyone except the bookkeeper – and I’m going to pretend to have a headache. We can have an hour to ourselves with nobody to disturb us.’