There was a silence on the line, and then Jónatan sighed deeply.

‘You have to be joking…’ he said.

‘No,’ Marita said. ‘This is a long way from being over, and I don’t want to be anywhere near when the next storm breaks. You can pay the price of your own misdeeds.’

‘Marita,’ Jónatan said, and now his voice was beseeching. ‘Marita, this will all be sorted out. I have a guy on the inside at the ministry. It’s someone who was with me when I joined the police. It’ll blow over soon enough, woman. Then we can start all over 256again, bring Klemmi home, and maybe we can have that trip to the sunshine that you were talking about.’

Marita cleared her throat to stop him, and so that she could get a word in.

‘Jónatan.’

‘Yes?’

‘You can go to hell.’

She ended the call, set her phone to silent and walked over to the car, where Kiddi had squeezed himself into the back seat with the luggage and her mother sat behind the wheel, ready to drive them to Tórshavn.

Marita took a deep breath of the damp air, absorbing the greenness around her that warmed her heart. It was remarkable that despite being only a little further south than Iceland, the Faroe Islands were always dressed in green: light green in summer, grey-green in winter.

115

The relief at the sound of Gunnar’s voice calling her name was so overwhelming that she almost called out. But Óðinn, who towered over her like a giant as she sat on the stool, put a finger to his lips to tell her to keep quiet.

‘Shh,’ he whispered, and backed into a corner of the kitchen, seeming to hope that if they kept quiet, Gunnar would retreat. But Úrsúla knew him better than that. If Gunnar had come looking for her, then he wouldn’t leave until he had searched the house from top to bottom.

Óðinn stood as still as stone, and she saw his eyes flicker from side to side as he listened to Gunnar’s footsteps go from the entrance hall, along the corridor and into the living room. Her heart began to race as she heard him approach the kitchen, and when she saw his face appear in the doorway, she let out a loud, instinctive 257sigh that forced itself out of her throat. She felt herself trembling, but when she looked down at her hand on the kitchen worktop, it seemed motionless.

‘What’s going on?’ Gunnar asked.

Úrsúla sniggered hysterically, her voice strangled. She hardly recognised it herself – the laugh seemed so at odds with the palpable tension in the air. Úrsúla coughed and regained her voice.

‘Óðinn came here to ask me to do certain things,’ she said slowly, searching for words that would explain things to Gunnar without provoking Óðinn, who seemed about to erupt. ‘I told Óðinn that I wanted him to go now, that we could talk things over later, but he wasn’t agreeable and that’s why I’m sitting here.’