It was correct that Björn had seemed caught off-guard when Violet mentioned the picture. Maybe he was surprised that Ísafold was posting pictures of herself at all, Daníel thought, and he could feel a weight on his heart, and the flash in his head, his instinct, pulsed faster, like the flashing of a blue light on a squad car in hot pursuit. Maybe Björn was just surprised that Ísafold had shown a sign of life.

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67

The chambermaid’s reaction that morning had irritated Áróra all day, and her intuition about it was confirmed when Hákon leaned forward over their starter and whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the chatter in the smart downtown restaurant: ‘I hear you were asking my staff about their rates of pay. I suppose that’s because of the stuff in the papers saying I pay below the minimum wage…’

‘What stuff was that?’ Áróra asked. This was a surprise, as she had seen no coverage of the topic, despite having spent some time scouring the internet for information about Hákon and his hotel business.

‘Well, there was some newshound who got hold of someone’s pay slip and published it, without knowing the full story, of course, and as I can’t publicly say what the facts are, it looked bad for me.’

Áróra gazed at him. He was agitated and apologetic, and the flush that he was prone to had appeared, as tiny droplets of sweat gathered on his upper lip.

‘So what are the facts?’ she asked. She was aware how pushy she sounded, so it was unexpected when he appeared to reply candidly.

‘Between ourselves, I’ll admit that I sometimes pay a small part of people’s wages as cash in hand, so they don’t have to pay so much tax as it isn’t high-paid work. It goes without saying that I know it’s against the rules, and I know that as an accountant you don’t approve of that kind of thing…’

‘Exactly. But I wasn’t wondering about that,’ Áróra said. ‘Your business affairs are no concern of mine. I just wanted to be sure you weren’t one of those creeps you hear about in the travel business here who run something that’s only just short of slavery, 164making people work all hours and paying them peanuts, if anything.’

He smiled in relief, obviously taking her explanation at face value.

‘I’m not a creep,’ he said, raising his glass as she did the same, but hers was empty so they didn’t manage to clink glasses before the waiter arrived bearing their main courses. ‘I think I can say with pride that my staff are happy to work for me. And everyone benefits when a few krónur escape the tax system.’