Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

crater. He tripped and fell
over some of the heather, stumbled on some more, fell again, and then a third time; he lay, panting on the grey stone.
    The heat left him. His toe hurt like hell. A golden plover fluttered over the mossy lava next to him, peeping its displeasure at the disturbance he had caused.
    He sat up, took off his shoe and rubbed his toe, still breathing heavily.
    He felt a little scared. He hadn’t done that for years, not since he was a child. He used to lose his temper sometimes then, when he was bullied or when things didn’t go well at
school. His father had comforted him, called him his little berserker.
    Jóhannes the adolescent had controlled his temper with difficulty at first, but then with more and more ease. In fact one of his main qualities as a teacher was his patience. It was
strange how out of nowhere that temper tantrum had hit him.
    But of course it wasn’t out of nowhere. He had lost his job. He had discovered that his father was a murderer. And that raised all kinds of questions about why his own father had in turn
been killed.
    Life would never be the same again for Jóhannes Benediktsson.
    Ásta picked up a new cartridge on her way home from Thórsgata and installed it on her scanner. It was happy again now – no more whining.
    Eighty pages to go. It was a slow bottom-of-the range machine that liked to grind, slide and wink before each page. It was trying Ásta’s patience.
    It had been a tough day. Ásta was good at dealing with the bereaved, but Teresa Andreose’s distress was of an intensity she had rarely seen before. She had booked her into a hotel,
and then taken her to the police station and left her there. Teresa had eventually warmed to her a little bit, but understandably she was suspicious of Ásta’s connection with
Freeflow.
    Ásta wasn’t sure now what to think about Erika. Like everyone else in the room she had been shocked at Teresa’s accusation. There was no doubt that Erika had slept with
another woman’s husband, and that was clearly wrong. Erika had a lot to answer for. Yet Ásta couldn’t help admiring the way that Erika had stood and accepted Teresa’s
tirade, not arguing with it, not making excuses.
    It also put Erika’s insistence that they continue to work on Project Meltwater in a different light. Ásta had been suspicious that Erika was using the claim that ‘Nico would
have wanted it’ to justify her own ambition to promote Freeflow. Now it was clear that Erika really did care about Nico. Perhaps in her mind there was no conflict: she wanted to go ahead with
the project for her own sake and for Nico’s.
    Thirty-eight pages to go. Ásta was tempted to multi-task.
    Her eyes were drawn to a sheaf of paper she had printed out the previous weekend when she had heard Freeflow were coming to Iceland – press reports on their past leaks. She had skimmed
them on Saturday, but there was something she had heard later in the house in Thórsgata that she wanted to check out.
    She leafed through the printouts. After eight more pages of the journal had been scanned, she found what she was looking for.
    She called up Wikipedia on her machine, and typed in a name.
    She stared at the result. And stared, as the consequences of what she was reading sank in.
    It could be a coincidence, of course. It must be a coincidence. But the more she thought about it, the more unlikely that seemed.
    She needed to know.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    M AGNUS DIDN’T TELL his colleagues about his conversation with the CIA. They were doing well on the list of Israelis
in Iceland: most of the tourists had been accounted for; there were still half a dozen to be followed up. The Italians were harder: half of Reykjavík’s hotels seemed to be harbouring
at least one Italian tourist, and five had been booked into the Hotel Rangá the night of the murder, the nearest big hotel to Fimmvörduháls. Of course none of them was still
there. Vigdís had driven out there to talk to the manager and the staff. That would probably be her last task before going to Paris.
    Árni had tracked down a black Suzuki Vitara rented from Keflavík Airport by two Canadian men, both dark haired and in their twenties. He had their names, but no idea where they
were staying. They could be anywhere in the country.
    Chief Superintendent Kristján called. ‘What were you doing driving across the Markarfljót in the middle of a jökulhlaup ?’ he demanded.
    ‘I wanted to get to the other