‘Thanks,’ she muttered, and folded her arms, as if she was expecting to be hit by a blast of cold air the moment she stepped outside. Again he felt a surge of sentiment deep inside, a feeble echo of all the emotions he had felt in Ísafold’s presence. And now he wanted to shave, to spend a long time under the hot water to shave off every single hair. Sometimes that was the only thing that would allow him to relax, the feeling of soft skin, free of those narrow threads of disgusting dead protein that sucked all the energy from his body.

‘Don’t mention it,’ he muttered in reply, holding the outer door for her as well.

As soon as they were outside, he walked away. He headed for the shops on the other side of the street without turning to look back at her, even though her body language clearly told him that she wanted to keep talking, to ask him more questions.

But he had no time to stand there and chat about Ísafold. There was always the chance he’d inadvertently let something slip, use a word or a gesture that would let something out, and that would 71jeopardise the new plan. That absolutely couldn’t be allowed to happen. Not now that he had seen through the restaurant window that Björn was working on hooking himself a new woman.

72

29

It was getting on for three in the afternoon, and Áróra had managed to talk to the woman who lived next to Ísafold in the block of flats in Kópavogur, and had seen another of the neighbours, the bald, weird one. He didn’t seem to have known Ísafold particularly well, but at least Áróra had got out of him where she had been working, and that was progress. She should be able to find out from her workplace whether Ísafold had resigned or if she had gone on holiday. She thought of knocking on Björn’s door as well, but she had no new questions to ask him, and he would hardly be likely to offer any new answers.

At half past three Áróra was on her way to meet a cousin who had stayed in touch with Ísafold, but with half an hour spare, she decided to park by the shopping centre in Hafnarfjörður and take a stroll around the town. A breeze ruffled the bright-blue sea out by the docks, but close to the shore the water was perfectly still and almost transparent, the boulders that formed the sea wall mirrored in its surface. Past the end of the breakwaters the long Reykjanes peninsula could be seen, stretching out, the conical Mount Keilir jutting up through the mist like an Egyptian pyramid.