She stumbled over the bank of solid snow and onto the path outside their house, which was clear because Gunnar always carefully shovelled and salted it. Her fingers trembled with a mixture of confusion and cold as she fumbled to slot the key into the lock, unwilling to use the doorbell in case the children were at home. She needed to go directly to Nonni, to shut the two of them away, to try and find the right words to explain this to him. She had to find words to tell him that she loved him, and only him; that she knew this now, and that she felt more clearly than ever before that he and the children meant more to her than anything. Thorbjörn had been some kind of terrorist attack on herself, a horrible mistake.

The lights were on in the kitchen but nobody was there. Everything was quiet. A fillet of fish lay on the worktop, still in its packet, and next to a chopping board, a knife and some chopped onion stood half a glass of white wine. She went up the stairs and looked into the empty rooms. Ari must have been playing with Lego, judging by the bricks that were scattered across the floor, and in Herdís’s bedroom a pile of clothes lay on the bed, as if she had been in the middle of one of her occasional sessions of trying everything on, and had left in a hurry. In the bathroom the children’s toothglasses were empty, and only her toothbrush stood in the glass that she and Nonni shared.

She went back downstairs, went into the living room and sat 252on the sofa in the darkness. Nonni had undoubtedly taken the children with him to his mother’s, or even to a hotel if the humiliation had been too crushing. He had even taken Kátur with them. She missed the dog terribly. If he had been at home, by now he would have been in her arms or sitting at her feet, gazing at her with love in his eyes and waiting for her to pick him up. Her mind was numb, and if she hadn’t known better she would have said that her heart was bleeding, as if a hole had been ripped in it. She kicked off her shoes and a pool of water formed on the floor around them. This was the beautiful, polished wooden floor on which Nonni had strictly forbidden shoes or playing with a ball. All of a sudden, that insignificant detail took on a new importance. She had dirtied what had been clean. She had desecrated what they had built up. She couldn’t understand what had been going on in her mind. What had she been looking for with Thorbjörn? The Thorbjörn who had used her; the Thorbjörn who had triggered a passion in her, and then betrayed her.

She blinked, trying to force tears, needing to unburden herself and seeking the clarity of thought that would follow weeping. But she couldn’t allow herself that. She had no right to cry. She had given up that privilege. It was more painful to betray than to be betrayed.