23

THE ROAD THAT Siggi had taken to circumvent the roadblock was not really a road. It was generous to call it a track, and his jeep was not up to the job at all. The further he drove, the rockier the terrain got. And he was still miles away from the town. What was he doing? It was ridiculous. He couldn't rock up, find Hekla and Arna and insist they leave with him. Arna had no idea who he was. And that was before he'd even thought about how Hekla's husband would fit into the scenario.

He stopped battling with the increasingly large rocks that were scattered across the road in front of him and came to a stop. He dropped his forehead onto the steering wheel.

‘ Fokk! '

He had to turn back before he made a fool of himself, or worse. He was right in the middle of somewhere that was about to erupt. As if to remind him of that, the earth shook briefly. Enough was enough. He had to get back on the road.

A three-point-turn ended up being a five-point-turn as he tried to avoid the worst of the rocks. He only hoped he hadn't shredded his tyres and that they'd get him back to the main road. Once he'd made the one-eighty, he carefully drove back along the way he'd come. He took it steady now that the impulse to race to Hraunvik had left him and common sense had prevailed. His priority wasn't Arna. He had to accept that. And he had accepted that a long time ago. It was the stress of the situation that had led to him forgetting that for a moment or two. What he ought to be doing was getting back to Reykjavik to tell Iris he was an idiot. Perhaps he was always an idiot? That's definitely how the last couple of days were looking.

After another ten minutes, he thought that he should have made it back to the road by now, but maybe he had gone further than he thought before he'd turned around. When he came to an enormous boulder with a ditch on one side of it and a steep bank rising to the left, it was clear he wasn't on the road he'd set out on at all.

He reversed the jeep ten metres. Twenty metres. There was no other way he could go. Unless he turned around again and tried to find the way he'd come originally. But because the ground was basically an old lava field, like most of Iceland, his jeep wasn't leaving any tracks, so chances were he'd end up taking the wrong turn again and end up lost. He opened the door of the jeep and stood up in the footwell to get some height and see if he could see the road, or Hraunvik. Anything to help him get his bearings. Grabbing his phone in desperation, he found he still didn't have a signal. He opened the maps. The dot that showed his location was far from anything resembling a road. It looked as if the main road where the roadblock had been was a couple of kilometres away, if he walked on from the other side of the boulder. Maybe he should walk to the road and flag someone down.

But that would mean leaving his jeep, and although he didn't want to do that, his tour guide safety training kicked in and he knew he needed to get out of the area as soon as he could. He grabbed what he could carry, loading only the most essential things into his rucksack. He shoved some spare clothes in there and the small amount of food and water that he had left. It should only take half an hour to get to the road, but he might have to wait to be picked up for a while longer than that.

Keeping his phone in his hand to make sure he was heading in a straight line, he began walking. On foot, it was easy to get past the boulder, and if he had more time, he would have back-tracked and found a way to drive out. But by now, there had been another couple of earth tremors and he didn't want to push his luck.

After a few minutes, his phone came to life, having connected to the network again. Siggi whooped and scrolled through the messages to see if there was anything from Iris. There was. She was ready to talk. He checked that his own message to her had finally sent and, with a big grin on his face, he carried on walking. Rather than type out a message, which would take ages, he sent a voice note to Jonas telling him what had happened, and hoped that it would send before he lost the signal again.

The relief at being in contact with the world again was so immense that he lost concentration for a second and stumbled over a rock. He ran a couple of steps to catch up with himself and stop himself from falling over, but his foot went over and pain shot through his leg.

He called out as he fell, unable to stop himself, landing on rocks that hammered into his ribs despite the layers he was wearing. With his rucksack on his back, he couldn't roll off them, and it took him a minute to gather himself enough to be able to sit up. His breathing was ragged. The shock of the fall disorientating him and the adrenaline coursing through him, meaning it was another minute before he realised he was hurt.

He reached down and pulled his trousers up from his ankle. Even that slight movement was agony for his ribs and his ankle, and he thought he might pass out. But he took a deep breath and tried again while he exhaled, trying to visualise pushing the pain away. What he saw was enough for him to know, if he didn't already, that something was wrong. Something that was going to mean he wouldn't make it to the road without help. His phone had flown out of his hand when he fell and was lying a couple of metres out of his grasp. Reaching it seemed next to impossible. He shrugged the rucksack off his shoulders and propped himself against it.

If he could just get the phone, he might find that there was still a signal and be able to call for help. Sitting here for any length of time wasn't an option. Being sat on the cold, wet ground was sapping the warmth from him.

He put his hands on the ground behind him, and lifted himself and his injured leg up from the ground, then shuffled his hands along behind him while trying to shift his bottom across the ground as gently as he could. A small earth tremor stopped him in his tracks, but at least he was closer to the phone. Another couple of tries and he would be there.

He just needed a minute to gather himself. He pulled the rucksack over to where he was, and laid back against it again, closing his eyes, then forced himself to open them, knowing how important it was to keep himself alert. A couple of deep breaths helped, then he manoeuvred himself further towards his phone. This time, he carried on until he got there, his fingers curling around his phone as he collapsed back to the ground.

He was exhausted. Holding the phone above his face, the screen now cracked but thankfully still working, he tried to call Jonas.

Nothing.

Maybe sending a text would work.

He typed out a brief message, hoping that the information he'd given Jonas in the voice note before would give him something to go on because the words were swimming in front of his eyes and he couldn't be sure that he was making any sense. He had tried to say he'd had an accident and had pressed send, hoping for the best.

After all that, he deserved a rest. He closed his eyes for a minute.

Just a minute.