She ignored him and headed for the back door. However bad a driver she might be, she was going to drive away from Stóri-Asgarbær now. She was going to drive far away. And while she was on the road, she was going to decide what to do next. As for Caldwell, he would have to take his chances. If he’d let her go, it would be different. But his change of mind had made her mind up. He deserved nothing from her.

He was still calling after her as she left the house and hurried round to the front, where George’s car was parked. Soon, mercifully, she could no longer hear him.

She reached the car and opened the tailgate to confirm her shoulder bag was where she’d left it, complete with the kage-boshi file and the printed extract from the Emergence files. They were all in Japanese, of course, so, even if Caldwell had looked at them, he wouldn’t have understood what they meant.

She closed the tailgate, went round to the driver’s door and climbed in. She slid the key into the ignition and turned it. Lights glowed on the dashboard. But the engine did no more than sputter and die. She tried again. There wasn’t even a sputter this time. Then she saw the red light on the fuel gauge. Empty.

She stared at the red light in disbelief. How could that be? There’d been no warning of low fuel when she’d driven the car. George had filled up as they left Reykjavík on Monday morning. This made no sense.

Then she remembered the shot Ohara had fired when she reversed into him. She’d heard a metallic crack as well as the shot itself. Could it be …

She jumped out of the car and ran round to the rear wing that had impacted with the roadside post. There was the flap over the filler-cap. And, below and to the left of it, a bullet-hole in the bodywork. She sighed and leant against the car, cursing her luck. The gasoline must have been leaking out while she fought for her life with Ohara – and later, while she made her first futile attempts to persuade Caldwell to release her. Leaking out – until it was all gone.

She took a breath and stood upright. This wasn’t going to stop her. There was a second car – Ohara’s – in the barn. She collected her shoulder bag and hurried across the yard.