She googled his name and pulled together all the news articles she could find about him. Then she logged into her Icelandic bank account, which allowed her to use the bank’s link to the national registry, where she could locate his ID number. A search through the tax office’s company registry was easy. She also opened the European company registry gateway she had set up to save herself time, and with all of these tools at her disposal, she stood up and slid another capsule into the coffee machine. She had a few hours ahead of her to go through the information available online, and she had the feeling that a search through Hákon’s companies would reveal all kinds of interesting information.

Business geeks like Hákon habitually had strings of holding companies, and those holding companies owned other holding companies. It was as if making the web of ownership as complex as possible was a competitive sport for these guys, muddying the waters for the authorities and creditors who might want to follow a trail. But this was Áróra’s home ground. She could tease the truth from the most tangled web, and she relished it. It wasn’t exactly the work itself that she enjoyed – the endless hours in front of a screen, and the hunt for loose ends – but the promise of reaching the finishing line. This was because somewhere at the end of all the twisted strands, when every one had been followed to its conclusion, there would be a crock of gold. There would be a treasure trove in the form of property, diamonds, bonds, or simply cold, hard cash.

She had made a profession of searching out money. To keep life simple for herself, normally she told people she was an accountant. Most people lacked the imagination to appreciate what she actually did, as the world of tax havens and fraud was so alien to them; and generally telling people that she was a financial investigator – a private detective who tracked down missing cash, a financial bloodhound – ended up with tiresomely convoluted explanations. But in her mind she saw it as a treasure hunt. It was a good description, as people still had a preference for hiding their 40money on Caribbean islands, and just like the pirates of yore, today’s thieves had the same obsessive fear that someone would find their cash, so a search would often lead her past obstacles and dangers.

At the end of the search, when she had found the hidden gold and returned it to its rightful owner – generally the tax authorities or a bankruptcy court – she celebrated by taking her fee, her share, in cash and taking it home. There she would spread it out on the bed and roll in money. This was an eccentricity all of her own that she kept strictly to herself, her own little secret. There was nothing like literally wallowing in cash.