They’re going to speak to the ferry company, check if my car was on that ferry. And if they take a look at the CCTV footage, they’ll see me sitting behind the wheel. My head will be down, maybe I’ll look like I’m on my phone. But they’re going to recognise my long dark hair and that ugly hat. They’re going to recognise my coat and tartan scarf.

They’ll find my car somewhere on Heimö, probably near the sea, and my handbag will be on the front seat. They’ll find my phone, check if I made any calls. I won’t have, but I might have sent a text to someone, maybe Mum. Probably something about how I can’t take it anymore.

She screams at the top of her lungs.

The sound rebounds from the arched ceiling and the brick floor, underlining the fact that she is trapped. Sheer desperation makes her stand up and walk over to the door. But William Tryste was right not to worry about leaving her here; the door is new and made of steel, carefully selected to protect the fortune contained in the eleven whiskey barrels.

I’m going to pour out your precious booze, she hisses under her breath. Break every last wine bottle and empty out the barrels. Let the millions seep out through the cracks in the floor. That will be my revenge. There won’t be so much as a fucking drop left. He’s going to kill me anyway. Besides, I can drink myself into oblivion before he comes back. I won’t feel a thing.

She walks over to the barrel on the wooden stand. Picks up the white rag and grabs hold of the bung. Feels how easily it comes out. The others are bound to be wedged in tighter, she muses and glances over at the ten barrels lined up against the wall. Just then, the memory of how smug William Tryste had looked when he told her about the barrels he’d discovered in the tunnel leading down to the mine flashes through her mind. She recalls the involuntary movement of his head. A nod toward the wall behind him, hidden behind a shelving unit holding row upon row of wine bottles.

The shelving unit is solidly built and very heavy, but it’s not bolted to the wall. When Karen finally feels it topple and hears the crash of about fifty wine bottles hitting the brick floor, followed by the sound of the massive shelving unit itself landing in a mess of broken glass and wine, she lets out another scream. Not because her jeans are wet, not because she has cuts on her face and hands from ricocheting shards of glass, but because she feels like her prayers have been answered.

*