In the final analysis, it wasn’t a difficult decision. Wada wasn’t remotely equipped to make a run for it across the Icelandic interior. She was fortunate still to be alive, well aware Espersen could have killed her along with Zayala if he’d wanted to. What would happen at the end of their journey – how Driscoll would react to her account of all that had happened at Stóri-Asgarbær – she couldn’t predict. There were plenty of ways it could go badly. But she was tired and out of options. And Espersen seemed to radiate the certainty that defying him was a very bad idea.

Beyond that, though, Wada had a certainty of her own to steady her nerves. Somehow, against the odds, she’d emerged from Stóri-Asgarbær alive. She’d survived. Since leaving Tokyo, she’d become more cunning, more resourceful. And the discovery of what she was capable of had made her stronger.

After they’d been on the road for half an hour or so, Espersen pulled over and phoned in the fire report. By then, Stóri-Asgarbær was likely to have been reduced to embers and ashes. Identifying the bodies was going to be a complicated exercise. The launch of a quadruple murder inquiry was still a long way off. Just so long as no one pointed the police in the right direction. That, apart from anything else, was the hold Espersen had over her.

There was nothing to stop her questioning him, however. ‘Do you know what is in the Emergence file I printed, Mr Espersen?’ she asked as they set off again.

‘Pretty much. Some vendors needed a special kind of persuasion to sell an option on their land.’

‘And you are fine with Quartizon buying and selling chunks of your own country?’

‘It’s not my country. I’m Danish.’

‘But even so …’

‘You’re a clever woman, Wada. You wouldn’t have gotten this far otherwise. But you keep making mistakes. Hard to avoid when you don’t know what’s really going on, I suppose.’

‘What is really going on?’

‘A big play. In a long game.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means if you don’t shut up I’ll have to turn on the radio. And, believe me, you don’t want to have to listen to an Icelandic phone-in the rest of the way to Reykjavík. So, shall we drop the subject?’