stairs he paused and listened for the TV in the living room. A daytime soap meant that the old woman was in. In fact, she wasn’t older than Matti, but years of hard living had taken a grim toll.
‘Tota! Going out for a bit,’ Matti called, hoping she wouldn’t hear him, but the door swung open and the heavy-set woman stood in the doorway leaning on the frame.
‘Going to be long?’ she demanded without taking the cigarette from her lips.
‘Day or two,’ Matti lied.
‘Paid up, are you?’
‘Yeah, I think so,’ he lied again as Tota’s eyes narrowed, and he knew that she could smell something wrong. Set a thief to catch a thief, he thought bitterly.
‘Well, if you’re not sure how long you’re going to be, then I’d better have another month’s rent so’s I can be sure,’ she said in a sandpaper growl.
Matti knew when not to argue. He pulled a handful of notes from his trouser pocket and handed them over.
‘That’s all I’ve got right now. Nonni’s supposed to be paying out at the end of the month for the booking work and we’ll square up then if that’s OK.’
Tota thumbed through the notes, counting under her breath.
‘All right. That’ll do for now,’ she said as her face broke into a gap-toothed smile. ‘I won’t rent your room out straight away, though I reckon I could put four Poles in there tomorrow if I wanted to. Tonight, even,’ she cackled, and promptly dissolved into a fit of coughing. Matti made his escape as Tota’s face was beginning to go a colour he wasn’t comfortable with.
The big car’s engine whispered into life and within seconds he had made up his mind and was out on the main road, heading through the late morning traffic of Reykjanesbraut to Kopavogur. He drove through the centre of the town in a hurry, but not enough of a hurry to attract attention. He kept his eyes peeled for the police, half expecting to see his cousin Gunnhildur creeping up on him with that sinister lopsided grin of hers.
Matti shuddered at the thought that Hardy was now probably aware that he wasn’t going to meet him, and he waited for his phone to ring as he swung off the main road and swerved to take the speed bumps of the suburban streets as painlessly as possible. He stamped on the brake and stopped in front of a terraced house at the bottom of a cul-de-sac. He leaped out of the car, bounded up the half-dozen steps and was inside the door as he hammered on it.
‘Marika!’
‘She sleeping,’ a tall woman in a coarse towelling dressing gown said sourly, appearing from the kitchen with a plate of toast in one hand.
‘But she’s here?’ Matti demanded. ‘Alone?’
‘She alone,’ the woman replied sharply. ‘We not work here,’ she added, by which time Matti was at the top of the stairs and knocking at a door. Before a sleepy questioning reply was heard, he was already inside the room.
‘Marika, get up. We have to go.’
‘What? Matti?’ The girl in the bed looked out from under her duvet in bewilderment, black hair twisted around her face.
‘Marika, listen,’ Matti panted. ‘We have to get away from here. Just for a few days. There’s trouble.’
Marika sat up in bed, one hand scratching under her outsized Fatalagerinn T-shirt.
‘Trouble? What you mean, trouble? Police trouble?’
‘Yes, yes, police trouble. You come with me, OK?’
‘OK, Matti. Tell me what trouble? All of us in trouble?’
‘No, just you, me trouble. Just a couple of days. Then we come back here.’
Marika yawned and snapped into wakefulness. ‘Matti, you tell me what problem is. Then we go. Sit here.’ She patted the bed.
‘No. Get dressed. I’ll tell you while you put clothes on.’
‘OK. You tell. But turn round.’
Marika slipped from the bed and waited for him to turn his back before hauling the voluminous T-shirt over her head.
‘Matti. Tell. Not look in mirror,’ she admonished.
‘Look. I have a problem, a bad man is looking for me, wants to maybe kill me. He has seen me with you in the car. He knows Kaisa and some of the girls, maybe he knows this place, and he knows Mundi, says Mundi is going to have trouble.’
‘You turn round now,’ Marika instructed, buttoning a plain blouse. She raised her arms and tied her hair back in a bun before starting to drop things haphazardly into an open suitcase. Matti wanted to yell at her that the car was parked outside where Hardy would be able to see it, that the street was a dead end with no hope of escape except on foot through someone’s garden, but he held his breath and sat on his hands.
‘Ready. We go,’ Marika announced brightly, at last, and Matti grabbed the case and was downstairs before she had closed her mouth.
At the doorway Marika and Kaisa held a loud conversation, not a word of which could Matti understand. Kaisa banged the door behind them as the car pulled away and Matti sighed with relief.
‘Matti, where we going?’
‘Out of town. West.’
Marika seemed satisfied and filed her nails on the way through Reykjavik, on to the main road. Only when they had cleared the city and were bowling past the well-kept gardens and stables of Mosfell did she look up and take notice, as if seeing the scree-sloped hillsides for the first time.
‘Matti?’
‘Yeah, sweetheart.’
‘This man. Policeman?’
‘No.’
‘Criminal man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pity.’ She shrugged.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Police no problem.’
‘How so?’
Marika sat back and folded away her nail file. ‘Sometimes policeman come to us and say he make trouble. OK, Kaisa take him upstairs, be nice to him for half an hour. No more trouble.’
Matti rocked with laughter. ‘Always Kaisa?’
‘Always Kaisa look after policeman.’
‘But why her?’
‘Don’t know. Maybe policeman like very tall. Maybe Kaisa just like police.’
‘This policeman, he comes to the house, or to the club?’
‘Club. Always club.’
‘In uniform?’
‘No, of course not uniform. Don’t be stupid.’
‘So how do you know he’s a policeman.’
‘Because he smell like a policeman,’ Marika said with decision. ‘He walk like policeman, he have clothes like policeman.’
‘You don’t know his name, do you?’ Matti hazarded.
‘No, of course not. Not real name. Anyway, who would want to make trouble for Matti?’
‘You’ve seen him once or twice at the club. The tall guy with blond hair. Always wears that leather jacket.’
Marika nodded. ‘Swedish man.’
‘Swedish? No, I thought he was American?’
‘Swedish,’ Marika said firmly.
‘How do you know?’
