She picked up the toaster and put it on the kitchen table, plugging it into the socket that was normally used for the little kitchen radio. She put two slices of bread in it and reached for butter, cheese and jam from the fridge. As the two slices popped up, she immediately put two more in. It was a long time since she had 224done this. When she was younger, and Jonni was trying her patience, this was how she had sought solace, with endless rounds of toast. Sometimes she had lost count, only noticing when half a loaf had disappeared. She buttered the slices generously and added cheese right away so that it would soften and start to melt on the hot toast, and then she would take a bite, leaning forward so that the liquid butter would drip onto the plate in front of her and not down the front of her sweater.

She mulled over the possibilities while she chewed. She couldn’t call the police to ask about Omar – whether he had been arrested – as that would reveal that he hadn’t left the country. Calling the movement wasn’t an option, as that would tell them that she had broken the rules and allowed Omar to stay with her for far too long. And the news that he had travelled to Iceland on a murdered man’s papers would definitely exclude him from any future assistance from them. The only structure NDM seemed to have was that it chose carefully who would be helped and who wouldn’t. Apart from that, it didn’t seem to concern itself with how people passed from one household to the next. Omar had just been given a list of people on a sheet of paper of people willing to offer shelter to refugees, and after that it was up to them to look after themselves, so that nobody higher up in the movement would be in the position of having to lie to the police. It also stated on the piece of paper that people were recommended to stay no longer than two to three weeks in one place; and, as a further security measure, that refugees shouldn’t say where they would be going next. Olga had feared this day would come, that one day Omar would pack up and leave, and that she would have no idea what had become of him. But that couldn’t be what he’d done; she’d looked in his room, and as far as she could see, all his stuff was still there. Surely he hadn’t left her, taking with him nothing but the clothes he wore?