But when he had pulled the plastic bag over Björn’s head, he came to and fought back, turning out to be as strong as he looked. He pushed Grímur off, ripped the plastic bag from his head and hauled himself onto all fours, but Grímur hit him again with Venus de Milo. It was a poor blow, glancing off Björn’s head. It was enough to lay him out, but not to knock him unconscious. So Grímur dodged into the bathroom and snatched up his old razor. Björn followed, furious and certain of his own superior strength. Arrogant arsehole.

Grímur slashed his throat with a single, determined movement that was so smooth and quick he might have been practising it for years. The hand holding the razor swished through the air, and Grímur was surprised at his own adroitness, as if thought had given way to some hidden ancient power that steered his hand. Then he stood gasping as Björn’s life ebbed away, and he felt his heart fill with sympathy.

To begin with Björn had tried to clasp his hands over the gaping wound in his throat, which pumped an unstoppable flow of blood out between his fingers. This reaction – to cover the wound – was pointless and stupid, and at the same time so human. It was completely natural to fight for your life, an instinctive response. Grímur’s sympathy was not because he thought Björn deserved a less brutal end – he had shown Ísafold no mercy, after all – but was a simple sympathy for a living thing, an animal of his own species that it went against his nature to harm. But he had to do it. Because murder was only sixteen years, out after ten. 238Björn deserved a much, much harsher punishment for what he had done to Ísafold – for beating her to death, stuffing her body into a suitcase and then driving out to Reykjanes and dumping her in a crack in the lava, like someone would an old sofa.

For doing that he deserved to suffer the same fate himself.

239

100

Daníel was irritated with himself for having given in on Friday to Violet’s insistence that they speak to Björn. Their visit had undoubtedly frightened him, to the extent that he had now fled the country.