Meltwater (Fire and Ice)

on to the wide green strip next to the bay on the way down, but she could see the spire on the hill above her. She jogged past a skeletal
bronze sculpture of some kind of Viking ship which she hadn’t passed on the way out, and decided to cut up through some narrow roads, past half-finished blocks rising unnaturally high above
the low city skyline.
    Her earlier speed had tired her, especially as she was going uphill. She glanced behind her, back towards the bay.
    And saw a man running up the hill, only fifty yards behind.
    The way his eyes were focused on her, she knew he hadn’t just happened on the same route as her.
    He was chasing her.
    The man saw Erika pound across the square in front of the Hallgrímskirkja in sweatpants and a hoodie with the faded name of some American college on her chest.
    Car or foot?
    Foot. The man was fit; he knew he could keep up. And all it would take would be for her to cut down a one-way street and he would lose her in a car.
    He was wearing trainers and his own sweatshirt, which was good, but also jeans, which would make him look less like a runner and more like someone chasing someone else.
    Nothing he could do about that. He grabbed his hunting knife, hidden in a plastic supermarket bag, and jumped out of the car.
    She was running fast, this Erika woman. Soon he was panting. He kept well back from her, but nonetheless he attracted some strange looks from passers-by. The knife was swinging in the plastic
bag – he hoped it wasn’t too obvious what it was. He fell back. Tried to run with less purpose.
    He was fairly sure that Erika was heading down towards the line of the bay, in which case he could allow a hundred metres or more between them, perhaps try to catch her on her way back.
    His blood flowed faster, and not just from the running. He was going to get his chance. This time he wouldn’t blow it.
    This time he would kill the bitch.
    He followed well behind her along the shoreline, until she suddenly turned and retraced her steps. Realizing she was going to pass right by him, he slowed down, began panting more heavily and
rolling his head from side to side like a runner in pain. There were a couple of other runners along the shore path, together with the odd walker and half a dozen cyclists.
    Erika didn’t even register him as she jogged past. Her mind was miles away.
    He left it a minute and then turned, keeping his eye on her. Suddenly she cut across one of the two carriageways of the busy road. He lengthened his stride and made up some of the distance
between them as she waited at the next carriageway.
    He knew he had to act fast. Within ten minutes she would be back in the house in Thórsgata, and who knew when she would next emerge?
    He ran across both carriageways, dodging traffic, and pounded up the hill. He was nearly on her when she turned and saw him.
    He lengthened his stride to close to a sprint.
    She turned left down a narrow side street and he lost sight of her for a second. As he sped around the corner the street ahead was empty. It was only a short road with a recently constructed
block of flats on one side and some derelict houses on the other. At the end of the street a slightly bigger road ran uphill.
    He was really moving now as he headed for the next corner. But his eye caught a narrow path to the left.
    He stopped.
    Erika hadn’t been going quite fast enough to reach the far end of the road before he would have seen her.
    Which meant that she was still in the street somewhere.
    He scanned the road. There were no people. Good.
    There were only a few doorways, and all the doors seemed firmly shut. Good.
    And there was the one little path.
    He jogged up to the gap between two derelict buildings. The path led to a small courtyard surrounded by buildings on all sides. It was empty apart from a half-filled skip.
    He pulled the knife out of the plastic bag and jogged towards it. He was only a metre or so away when Erika leaped out of the skip.
    She ran away from him into the corner of the courtyard. He held his arms wide. There was nothing she could do now but try to rush past him. He was ready.
    He’d got her.
    Magnus felt bad about leaving the station before Vigdís and Árni, but he felt worse about keeping Ollie waiting too long.
    As he walked across the compound behind police headquarters to his Range Rover, he thought about what Tom Bryant had said. Magnus’s instinct was to avoid the CIA. In his experience,
whenever government intelligence