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Saudárkrókur Airport, or we can find someone going that way.’
    Ari Thór stepped back and looked at the house more carefully. It had last been painted in a pale red colour that had started to comeoff in flakes. There were two storeys, the upper level built into the eaves. The roof was a vivid red, mostly hidden under a blanket of snow. The dwelling had been built on a low-slung basement and two windows could be seen on the bottom level. A large shovel had been propped by the door to the basement.
    ‘You’ll need that,’ said Tómas, his laughter dark but good-natured. ‘It’ll be useful when we get some real snow and you have to shovel your way out. You’re no use to us if you’re snowed in!’
    The discomfort grew inside Ari Thór and his heart beat faster.
    They made their way up the steps to the front door, where Ari Thór hesitated.
    ‘What are you waiting for, young man?’ Tómas asked. ‘Open the door – we’ll catch our death out here.’
    ‘I don’t have the keys,’ Ari Thór said awkwardly.
    ‘Keys?’ Tómas asked, grasping the handle, opening the door and stepping inside. ‘Nobody locks their doors. There’s no point, nothing ever happens around here.’
    But he fished a bunch of keys from his pocket and handed them to Ari Thór. ‘I thought you’d like to have a set of keys anyway, just to be sure.’ He smiled. ‘See you later.’
    Ari Thór was alone. He shut the door. In the kitchen he looked out of the window that gave him a view of the houses across the street and hopefully a view of the mountains on a good day.
    Tómas’s words echoed in his mind.
    ‘Nothing ever happens around here.’
    What have I got myself into?
    What the hell have I got myself into?

7
    She had seen hunting knives before. Her husband had several. But nothing could have prepared her for this moment. She stiffened, and then felt the strength draining from her limbs. Darkness spread before her eyes. He lost his grip, or let her drop, and she fell to the floor.
    Then she saw him for the first time. He was dressed all in black – a shabby leather jacket, dark jeans and trainers, and a balaclava hiding everything but his eyes, nose and mouth. She was positive that it was a man, had been since she first sensed his presence, and the strength in his hands told him that he had to be young. She knew right away that she would never recognise him again, even if she did manage to escape with her life.
    She heard him hiss, telling her to keep quiet, otherwise she’d feel the knife and he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She had to believe him. For the first time she was aware of her own mortality, and the thought that these could be her last few moments of life brought a cold sweat to her forehead. Questions darted back and forth across her mind. What comes next? A black eternity, or heaven? She lay on the floor, every part of her wracked with pain from the fall, watching him standing there in the middle of the living room floor, dressed for action, the weapon in his hand.
    For the first time in years she found herself praying.

8
SIGLUFJÖRDUR. DECEMBER 2008
    The ceiling was low in the room in which Ari Thór had chosen to sleep. This wasn’t the largest room upstairs; for some reason he had chosen the smaller room with the single bed over the double in the larger bedroom. It was as if he was emphasising to himself that this was a solo venture.
    He had shifted the bed around so that it gave him a view straight out of the skylight when he went to sleep and when he woke up, although there was rarely anything to be seen, other than pitch darkness.
    The alarm clock buzzed for the fourth time. Ari Thór stretched for the button that would give him a precious extra ten minutes of dreams. He dropped back into sleep each time, and each time there was a new dream, different from the last. It was like watching a series of short films, in which he was all at once the writer, director and leading man.
    It was getting on for ten