Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

opened by an exhausted-looking Zivah.
    Magnus rushed past her into the living room, ready to make an arrest. Only Dieter was there, headphones on, tapping on his keyboard. No sign of Franz.
    ‘Upstairs, Árni,’ said Magnus. ‘Where’s Franz?’
    ‘Why do you want to know?’ said Dieter, straightening himself up and facing Magnus.
    Magnus took three strides over to him, grabbed him by the T-shirt and lifted him out of his chair. ‘I’ve had enough of you people not telling me the truth! I want to know where Franz
Freitag is and I want to know now! And please don’t tell me he is with Erika.’
    Dieter swallowed. ‘Why do you want to know?’ he repeated.
    ‘Because Franz is trying to kill her, that’s why. Is that good enough for you?’ He threw Dieter backwards so that he tripped over a bin and fell on to the floor.
    ‘What!’
    ‘I know you care about Erika, Dieter,’ Magnus said, standing over him. ‘So if you want her to stay alive, tell me where he is.’
    ‘OK, OK. They’ve gone to the airport. Dúddi, Erika and Franz. But they are stopping at the Blue Lagoon first.’
    ‘Have you got Erika’s cell number?’
    ‘No,’ said Dieter. ‘She uses pay-as-you-go phones. She doesn’t keep them switched on.’
    ‘What about Dúddi?’
    Dieter shrugged.
    ‘When did they leave?’
    ‘About a quarter of an hour ago.’
    Sébastien Freitag sat in the café in Hafnarfjördur, nursing his second cup of coffee, and stared out over the harbour. Lying on the table next to the cup was
his phone.
    It was nearly over, one way or the other. In five hours either Erika Zinn would be in a plane over the North Atlantic, or she would be dead. Where Sébastien would be, he had no idea.
    After the Italian, killing the priest hadn’t been so difficult. And it had had to be done. François had been such a fool to tell her everything when she had confronted him with her
discovery that he was Sabine Dumont’s son. Of course, in typical François fashion, he had thought he was being clever, ensuring her silence through the seal of confession. But
confession only applied in the Catholic Church; François should have known that. They couldn’t risk Ásta talking, just couldn’t risk it, at least not until after they had
got to Erika.
    So she had had to die.
    Sébastien didn’t feel any regrets about Nico. The Italian was an integral part of Freeflow. Although he hadn’t been around when Freeflow had published the investigation, he
was just as guilty as the rest of them. Just as guilty as Erika.
    Freeflow had destroyed their mother.
    Sébastien would never forget that week in the summer of 2008 when his family had been blown apart. They were all so proud of his mother’s achievement in becoming Finance Minister.
It was so unexpected and yet it seemed to her family that it was nothing less than what she deserved. Then, two weeks later, Sébastien had noticed on his way to work the headline on the
morning paper: Dumont affair with German Fraudster .
    He couldn’t conceive of his mother having an affair with anyone, let alone a German banker. A corrupt German banker who was in jail.
    He had called François in Zurich and told him. The newspaper story referred to an organization named Freeflow , of which neither brother had heard. As soon as Sébastien got
in to work he had checked out their website and seen all the squalid details.
    He was furious with his mother. He called her the next day and had a bitter conversation with her on the phone, which ended with her hanging up in tears. A day later she was found swinging in a
hotel room in Antwerp.
    Their father, a mild-mannered Swiss economist who had followed his wife from Frankfurt to Belgium, was bewildered and then devastated. He left his job at a think-tank in Brussels and returned to
Zurich. But no one there wanted to hire him – he was old, washed out, miserable. So he drank.
    He blamed himself, he blamed her, he blamed everyone but the people who had really caused his wife’s death: Freeflow.
    Specifically Erika Zinn. He might not have blamed her. But his sons did.
    It was when they read Erika’s justification in an interview in Der Spiegel about her decision to put the investigation up on to the Freeflow website that the two brothers had
decided they must take action. The arrogance, the sanctimoniousness, the assumption of role of judge – no, worse that that – of God, in the life of their mother. And in her death.
    Erika claimed that