I knew it! the terror inside him shrieked, and he began to hyperventilate, feeling the oxygen flowing through him and poisoning his thoughts. He stopped the car. If he didn’t slow his breathing, there was every chance he would pass out. But that wasn’t his main concern right now. He hadn’t changed his trousers; neither had he checked to see whether they had been spattered with blood. And the giant suitcase couldn’t be missed, bulging and looking ready to burst. His breathing came even faster as he saw in the rear-view mirror that a police officer had got out of the patrol car and was walking towards him.

Now the cops are coming to get you, murderer, the terror inside squealed, and this time he had no retort.

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89

His thoughts were a whirl of indecision as he sat in the back of the patrol car and the policeman told him that the breathalyser showed he had been drinking.

‘I have a flight to catch,’ he said, trying to protest, knowing it was hopeless. ‘I have to get to the airport.’

‘And where are you off to?’ asked the policewoman who sat in the driving seat. Her tone was amicable, as if she was making an effort to be cheerful, even friendly. Maybe they could see that Grímur was frightened.

‘London,’ he said without thinking. He hadn’t prepared any kind of story that would justify this weird trip with an outsized suitcase, so he just said the first thing that came into his mind.

‘Are there London flights this early?’ the policeman asked, and Grímur quickly replied that he wanted to be in good time, that he had a horror of being late, that he was terrified of missing his flight.

‘You can come down to the station with me for a blood test, and he’ll drop your car off at the terminal,’ the policewoman said, nodding in her colleague’s direction. ‘You’re right on the blood-alcohol limit. So we can’t allow you to drive.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We can leave the car here. I’ll fetch it when I get back from London.’

The policeman had opened his door and already had one foot on the ground outside.

‘It’s not a problem. But there’s no question of leaving your car here by the road while you’re in London,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘Let’s have the key. I promise I won’t damage it.’

‘He has a truck licence,’ the policewoman joked. ‘He’ll park it in the long-term car park and you’ll catch your flight. Just take care that you’re stone-cold sober when you collect it. Not even one drink.’213