‘I guess it’s best if I don’t ask who.’

‘Probably.’

‘So, if you’re going to wait until tomorrow, why are we here?’

‘Not sure. It’s just a house, after all. But the idea that he might be … in there … doing whatever he does … while we’re out here … so close and yet so distant …’ Nick sighed. ‘It’s a strange feeling.’

‘It must be.’

‘Perhaps, in fact, the strangest feeling I’ve ever had.’

They went to a restaurant Erla recommended on the grounds that she couldn’t afford to eat there but Nick could. They were in no hurry, reckoning the later they arrived at the Sol the better their chances of finding Wada in her room. Nick had hidden from Erla the reason why he hadn’t rung the bell at Fjólugata 19. Now it had come to the point, he’d started wondering whether he really should take the final step. He was going to take it, no question. But, afterwards, would he be happy he had? Would the day come when he regarded this journey to Iceland as the biggest mistake he’d ever made?

The Sol was quiet, the reception area enveloped in shadows. The baby-faced young man behind the desk was fiddling idly with his phone. But he was all attention when Nick and Erla approached him.

‘Umiko Wada?’ He consulted a computer screen. ‘I’m sorry, she isn’t here at the moment.’

‘But she does have a room here?’

‘Oh yes. But … she’s not here at present.’

‘Can you tell me when she was last here?’

‘Er, I’m not sure. I’m not on duty all the time.’

Erla asked something in Icelandic, smiling and making encouraging eye contact with the young man. He smiled back and said a lot more than he had to Nick, though, judging by Erla’s expression, it wasn’t much more helpful. She pressed on. He began to look flustered.

‘Are you friends of Miss Wada?’ he asked at last, breaking out of Icelandic.

‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘We are. And we’re worried about her. We haven’t been able to contact her since Sunday night.’

‘You haven’t?’

‘Has she actually been here since then?’

‘As I say …’

Erla chipped in with more Icelandic and more smiling.

The young man gave a little exasperated smile of his own. He leant forward across the counter and lowered his voice. ‘Look, I never told you this, OK?’

Nick nodded. ‘OK.’

‘Miss Wada hasn’t been here since Monday morning. That is, the bed in her room hasn’t been slept in since Sunday night, according to housekeeping. She’s booked in for the rest of the week, but, er … we haven’t heard from her either.’

‘Have you done anything about that?’

‘Such as what? If she wants to rent a room here but not use it …’ He shrugged.