Nick looked at the policewoman who’d spoken to Erla. She’d turned and was eyeing them. ‘We’re going to have to leave, Erla,’ he said glumly.

‘And then? What are we going to do?’

‘At the moment … I have no idea.’

There was nothing for it but to drive back to Reykjavík. Initially, they were too shocked to say much. And when they did speak there was nothing good to say.

The route took them past Þingvellir. Coachloads of tourists were milling about and swarming over the rocks at the top of the walk down through the rift valley. Nick and Erla huddled over coffees in the visitor centre café and looked solemnly at each other.

‘We don’t know Wada is one of the four fatalities,’ Nick reasoned half-heartedly.

‘She asked for help,’ said Erla. ‘She said she was in serious trouble and had to get away from Stóri-Asgarbær. She didn’t get away. And the serious trouble arrived before we did. Are you going to tell me I’m wrong about that?’

‘No. Just that you can’t be … certain.’

‘The phone she called me on isn’t working any more. Nor’s the phone she used in Reykjavík. Why? Because they were both destroyed in the fire. Along with …’ Erla took a moment to compose herself. ‘I need a cigarette. Can we go outside?’

They stood in the car park, Erla smoking her way through one cigarette, then another. She was shivering, though it wasn’t particularly cold. Nick felt a little unsteady himself. The fire – and the reported fatalities – had forced him to acknowledge that the stakes were far higher than he’d ever supposed. Violent deaths forty years ago were one thing. But these deaths were in the present – the here and now.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t go to the Emergence thing this evening,’ said Erla.

‘Chicken out, you mean?’

‘It’s too late to help Wada. As for Kristjan, the police will release him eventually. He might have to do a few months in prison. But he’ll be OK. And we can all get on with our lives. I’ll settle for that.’

Thinking seriously about dropping his pursuit of the man who was his father and the secrets he harboured made Nick realize how important the truth had become for him. He’d come too far in his search to turn back now. Go home, tell Kate Caldwell hadn’t shown up and he’d got nowhere, then sit down to Easter lunch with her parents and make small talk about nothing very much? There was simply no way he could do it.

‘I know Driscoll’s your father, Nick, but you’ve lived this long without knowing him. Maybe that’s how it should stay.’

‘No.’ He shook his head and looked Erla in the eye. ‘I’m going on.’