“And hello to you,” said Adamsson. “Nice to finally meet you face-to-face, if not eye-to-eye.”

Artemis did not rise to the forge-a-relationship lure that Adamsson had tossed out. He did not have room in his life at the moment for yet another friend that he didn’t trust.

“I do not intend to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage, Mr. Adamsson, so I think we can skip over any icebreakers you may feel obliged to offer. Is everything ready?”

Adam Adamsson’s pre-prepared icebreakers melted in his throat, and he nodded half a dozen times.

“All ready. Your crate is around the back. I have supplied a vegetarian buffet and goody bags from the Blue Lagoon Spa. A few seats have been laid out too, as bluntly requested in your terse e-mail. None of your party turned up, though-nobody but you-after all my labors.”

Artemis lifted an aluminium briefcase from the SkiDoo’s luggage box. “Don’t you worry about that, Mr. Adamsson. Why don’t you head back to Reykjavík and spend some of that extortionate fee you charged me for a couple of hours’ usage of your frankly third-rate restaurant and perhaps find a friendless tree stump to listen to your woes?”

A couple of hours. Third-rate. Two plus three equals five. Good.

Now it was Adamsson’s turn to grunt, and the tips of his walrus mustache quivered slightly.

“No need for the attitude, young Fowl. We are both men, are we not? Men are entitled to a little respect.”

“Oh, really? Perhaps we should ask the whales? Or perhaps the mink?”

Adamsson scowled, his windburned face creasing like a prune. “Okay, okay. I get the message. No need to hold me responsible for the crimes of man. You teenagers are all the same. Let’s see if your generation does any better with the planet.”