He quickly pushed his stuff into his training bag, put on his shirt and buttoned it up, but dropped his tie into a pocket. He could put it on in the car. He picked up his shoes, and walked barefoot to the gym’s lobby and out into the snow. To begin with the cold was pure pain, but this was followed by a chilled mist of satisfaction. The snow was soft, forcing itself up between his toes, and creaked with each step. By the time he reached the car his feet were numb, but the fire in his body had subsided and he felt good. Now his shirt wouldn’t be soaked with sweat. He turned up the car’s heater, directing it into the footwell to dry his feet while he knotted his tie. He’d put on his socks and shoes but hadn’t tied the laces when his phone rang. As soon as he saw the number he checked his watch in a moment’s panic, but there was nothing to worry about. He had a clear hour before he needed to be at the ministry.

Disappointment welled up in his chest as he put the phone aside, and the feeling that Iceland wasn’t the right place for him returned yet again. All his bodyguard training – most recently a course in evasive driving – would probably never be of any real use to him in this little country. He had imagined that the government offices would be just the place for him, and indeed they had liked the look of him, especially after the national commissioner of police had said there should be a higher level of security around ministers. But there were very few jobs going and plenty of people after them. All he could look forward to now was the same as usual: security at the ministries. He swallowed his disappointment and swore to himself. What sort of minister didn’t want a driver?

6

His feet carved a path through the snow as he ambled up and down Ingólfsstræti, keeping an eye on people going in and out of the ministry. He had tried to go in, but the security guard sitting 17in front of a computer at the reception desk told him to stay outside. He went round the corner of the building and climbed the steps under the balcony on the Sölvhólsgata side, but that door was locked, so he continued to wander around the building, peering through windows in the hope of seeing her inside.

Every now and again he stopped to look at the picture he had torn from the paper. There was no doubt whatever that this was the man: the devil incarnate. And he was holding on to little Úrsúla’s hand. She was no longer a little girl with cropped hair but a grown woman in a smart jacket and her hair in a bun. What on earth had she been thinking, giving him her hand like that? Examining the scrap of newspaper, he tried to imagine what the look in her eye might mean, but the picture was too grainy for him to judge whether her expression was one of a little girl who had got lost somewhere along the line and joined hands with evil.