Gunnar smiled and went to fetch the car, and she weighed the envelope of Tinder profile printouts in her hand, wondering whether or not to take it home to show it to Nonni. She decided against it. He would take it personally, and he had already been through enough, so Úrsúla dropped the envelope in the bin, grabbed her coat from its hook and went to find Eva.

‘I’m all ready for the Coast Guard,’ she said, and they set off together. As the lift doors shut behind them, Eva handed her a sheet of paper.

‘It’s the report on the rape case that you wanted checked. You might want to call the mother yourself with the bad news, as you made a personal promise to look into it. The police have decided to drop the investigation.’

75

Despite the dry suit, the cold enveloped Úrsúla and her senses were swamped by the sea so that she felt she was sinking, even though she knew that the lifejacket and flotation suit would keep her afloat. The salt water had made its way inside the mask and stung her eyes, so she had to fight to keep them open and pay attention to what was happening around her. Somewhere in the water close by was one of the Coast Guard crew, who had jumped out of the boat ahead of her; and above them hovered a helicopter, which was preparing to winch them both to safety.

The downdraught whipped up the waves, turning them into a mist so that sea water rained all around them. Úrsúla had not been fully able to take on board what she was experiencing, her thoughts still dulled by the phone call she had forced herself to make to Rósa, the mother of the girl who had made the rape accusation. So only part of her attention had been on the Coast 177Guard team as they explained the rescue procedure and helped her into the dry suit.

The girl’s mother had wept while Úrsúla read out the report the ministry had received, stating that due to numerous shortcomings, the investigation would be dropped.

‘How can the rape kit get lost between Selfoss and Reykjavík,’ she had sobbed. ‘How can they be so careless with something that’s so important?’

Úrsúla had only been able to reply that she was deeply sorry.

‘You promised me that you’d bring that horrible man to law,’ the mother had said, and Úrsúla felt as if she had been punched in the belly. It was completely true that she had made a promise. She had pledged that she’d ensure justice was done. It went without saying that there could hardly be justice when the case would not even be investigated.

‘I’m truly sorry,’ she repeated.

She said the same words again before the conversation ended, and now she muttered them again as she lay on her back, clad in a dry suit under the salty rain whipped up by the helicopter’s rotor blades, and waited for this demonstration, clearly intended to impress the minister, to come to an end.