The man handed her the box as soon as she opened the door.

‘Do I need to sign for this? she asked.

The man laughed. ‘It’s the chocolate you asked for,’ he said, winking and smacking his lips twice as if she ought to know that she had requested chocolate.

‘Who sent this?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t ask for any chocolate.’

‘Are you saying you weren’t expecting me?’ he said without waiting for an answer. Then shouldered her aside and forced his way in. 196

Úrsúla tightened her grip on Kátur and fumbled desperately for the emergency button.

86

‘There you go,’ Stella said to the creepy journalist as she handed him the bags of rubbish.

He smirked as he handed her notes, and now she wished she had planted something nastier than a banana skin in the middle of the minister’s bag – or what he thought was the minister’s bag. Today she had shredded the waste from the minister’s office, as she was supposed to, along with the paper waste from the permanent secretary’s office, and had handed the creep rubbish that had come from some other office, with no idea of what went on in there, but which had nothing to do with the minister. The guy deserved to spend time going through two bags of ordinary junk in the hope of finding some dirt on the minister. She couldn’t stand men who slept with a woman and then treated her badly.

Stella stopped in her tracks in the middle of the ministry car park, her eyes drawn to that grey tower block that loomed over the city’s Shadow District. Was that how she had treated Gréta? Slept with her and then let her down badly? Had she hurt her by suggesting unnecessarily that they shouldn’t let anyone know what had gone on between them? She had made it glaringly obvious that she didn’t want to be seen with her. Was she no better than that arsehole of a journalist?

She strode with determination across the car park and out into the street, then took a short-cut across Klapparstígur and between the white apartment blocks. She was going to apologise to Gréta. She could feel deep in her heart that it was the right thing to do. She wasn’t going to be a bitch. She jogged through the playground that nestled between the high-rise buildings and 197was panting by the time she reached the lobby of the grey tower block. She punched in the number of Gréta’s apartment and waited, but there was no reply. She tried the number a second time and pressed the bell icon, but before it had finished buzzing, the door opened and Gréta stepped out. Stella didn’t have to glance twice at the tall fair-haired woman beside her to know that this was the one she had been so captivated by on Tinder. She was even more attractive than her profile picture had indicated. Stella wondered what this woman saw in Gréta. They looked an unlikely pair, but there was something about them, some glow that joined them together. Stella was certain that they had only just got out of bed.