I sprint through the ruins of the building.
Alexander is reversing the jeep out of the yard in front of the new farmhouse when I come running down the pasture.
I run for the silver steed.
Sissi sees me coming and opens the driver’s door.
The black jeep’s about to turn onto the road as I haul my car around in a half-circle in the gravel and put my foot down hard. The tyres howl on the dirt road’s surface, kicking up dust that surrounds us like a storm cloud.
He’s heading north.
‘Where’s the bastard going?’
‘He’s not making for Sauðárkrókur, that’s for sure.’
I hand Sissi my phone.
‘Call Lísa Björk,’ I tell him. ‘Make sure she’s in touch with Raggi.’
I’m on the black jeep’s tail.
Alexander isn’t hanging around. But the silver steed is steadily closing the gap. It’s raring to go like a racehorse that doesn’t know the meaning of coming second.
He’s driving fast on the coast road leading north.
‘Where does this road go?’
‘First out to Skagatá, from there to Skagaströnd and Blönduós and then onto Highway One,’ Sissi replies.
There’s no more than a few metres between the cars.
Alexander must realise that he’s not getting away from me. I’ll always be on his tail.
Like a vengeful witch.
What will his desperation make him do?
He could easily do something crazy, like braking hard in the hope of wrecking my silver steed.
It’s a risk I have to take.
He could also make a serious mistake. He could lose control of the jeep.
We hurtle along the coast road at an insane speed in this mad race. I keep the silver steed as close as I dare.
It’s just as well there’s no other traffic. But I know that could change at any moment.
‘There’s a truck coming the other way!’ Sissi yells.
Alexander has clearly noticed it too late.
He swerves to avoid a collision. But he’s in the loose gravel at the side of the road. Like an idiot, he stamps hard on the brakes.
The black jeep is hurled off the road. It rolls over and over on its way towards the sea. It ends up on the rocky shore.
I stop the silver steed by the side of the road. I jump out and hurry down to the shore where the jeep lies on its side.
Alexander is held in by the seatbelt.
There’s blood on his face. But he’s conscious.
I go to the front of the jeep. I stare at him through the shattered windscreen.
‘Tell me where you buried Julia’s body,’ I say.
Alexander looks back at me with a wild glint in his eye.
Then he starts to laugh like a maniac.
‘You’ll never find a body at Gullinhamrar,’ he says, alternately coughing and laughing. ‘Never. Not ever.’
Murder Under The Midnight Sun bycStella Blómkvist, Translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus Books)
What does a woman do when her husband's charged with the frenzied killing of her father and her best friend? She calls in Stella Blomkvist to to investigate - however unwelcome the truth could turn out to be. Smart, ruthless and with a flexible moral code all of her own, razor-tongued lawyer Stella Blomkvist is also dealing with a desperate deathbed request to track down a young woman who vanished a decade ago. It looks like a dead end, but she agrees to pick up the stone-cold trail - and she never gives up, even if the police did a long time ago. Then there's the mystery behind the arm that emerges from an ice cap, with a mysterious ruby ring on one frozen finger? How does this connect to another unexplained disappearance, and why were the police at the time so keen to write it off as a tragic accident?
Brutal present-day crimes have their roots in the past that some people would prefer to stay forgotten. As Stella pieces together the fragments, is she getting too close to the truth and making herself a target for ruthless men determined to conceal secret sins?
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