Úrsúla stood speechless on the steps and watched him disappear. She went inside, shut the door and dug in the hall cupboard for her coat. It was furthest in, behind the children’s coats, as for once she had been home before them. She dug out the mobile phone that she had intended to leave there, on silent, for the evening and found Gunnar’s number.

‘A small problem,’ she said as soon as he answered. ‘There was a man here just now who said he had received a message from me on Tinder. He was very surprised when he saw Nonni and even more surprised when I had no idea what he was talking about. I guess he was expecting he was coming over for sex.’

‘Are you all right?’ Gunnar asked.

‘Yes, yes. I’m fine. But this is just so weird. I don’t really want to be on Tinder, sending messages to men all over town that I know nothing about.’

She tried and failed to force a laugh. She wished she could see a funny side to this, that she could snigger and tell everyone the story of the stranger who had come to her door with something particular on his mind, but it felt too humiliating.

The thought that someone was sending strange men messages in her name that were, as the man had said, embarrassing, was deeply disquieting. She felt a stab of apprehension: she would have to tell Nonni. There was no way that he would see a funny side to this.

175

Wednesday

74

‘You’re joking, surely?’ Úrsúla said for what must have been the tenth time since Gunnar had appeared in her office to hand her an envelope of printouts of the Tinder profile that someone had set up in her name.

‘Someone put a lot of effort into this, setting up a Facebook page that looks like your personal page, and then using that to set up the Tinder profile.’

‘And no prizes for stylish prose,’ Úrsúla said.

‘No,’ Gunnar agreed. ‘The use of language is very similar to what we’ve seen in the rape-threat emails from Fossi. It doesn’t need much sleuthing needed to figure out it’s the same individual.’

‘What do we do about this?’ Úrsúla asked. She was less than keen on more awkward visits from hopeful men knocking at her door.

‘I’ve already had the accounts closed, both on Facebook and Tinder, and I’ll do my best to keep track of any new profiles that are set up in your name. But the only solution is to find the person responsible for all this, to find Fossi. Boris and co. have all the information, and hopefully they’ll get some results soon.’

‘The Coast Guard’s waiting for you,’ Eva said, her face appearing in the doorway.

Úrsúla got up from the sofa.

‘Thank you, Gunnar,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how I’d manage without you.’ She had often meant to tell him how much she 176appreciated having him at her beck and call, considering her initial doubts about whether she would need him.