The lift halted, and Úrsúla stood in the opening as she turned to face Adolf.

‘The Coast Guard will get its additional funding,’ she said. ‘That’s because of me, and not you. If anything, it’s your pushiness and lack of manners that have made it harder for them. You people – men who can’t accept a female minister – are completely tactless.’

She turned and stormed away, and instantly began to wonder if she had been too hard on him. She shook the feeling off. It had been a hard day, on top of which she had slept badly the night before, which had left her irritable. Right now she had no patience with men who tried to blame their own inappropriate behaviour on a woman’s poor sense of humour.

Gunnar was waiting for her right by the door, with the car already warm. She was set on using the ministry’s front door from now on, convinced that there was no reason to sneak in and out of the back door as if she preferred not to be seen. She was going to use the same strategies as she had in Syria. She was going to hold her head up high, crank up her determination, even though it might be at the expense of a little courtesy, and look straight in 216the eye those who seemed to relish reminding her of her every minor shortcoming – something that seemed to be an inevitable part of this job.

‘Home, please,’ she said to Gunnar and pulled off her leather gloves to put them in her coat.

As she did so, she found a scrap of paper in her pocket. She opened the glove compartment, where Gunnar kept a small bag for rubbish, but as she was about to drop the paper into it, she saw it bore her own face. She smoothed it out and inspected it.

It was a cutting from a newspaper; less a cutting than something that had been torn out, leaving the edges ragged and tattered. It was from the day she had taken over as minister. For a moment it seemed that it had been long ago, even though hardly two weeks had passed. Lettering in a hand she had come to recognise had been scrawled on the paper, the letters misshapen and the lines wavering, as if the fingers holding the red pen had trembled.

‘Look,’ she said to Gunnar, who slowed the car and stopped by the side of the road as he took the scrap of paper from her hand.

‘Where did you find this?’ he asked in surprise.

‘It was in my coat. I found it when I put my hand in my pocket.’

Gunnar looked at it for a long moment.

‘Pétur must have slipped it into your pocket,’ he said.

Úrsúla took it from Gunnar’s fingers and read the shaky script on the clipping.

‘Little Úrsúla’ had been scrawled by her face, which was smiling for the cameras as she took the keys to the ministry from Óðinn, who was handing them over to her. Over his head had been drawn a pair of red horns, and the words ‘Devil-cop, Ari’s killer’.