She winked at Eva, who looked at her with the same concerned expression on her face.

‘The girl came, as I asked her to,’ she said at last. ‘Shall I show her in?’ she asked.

Úrsúla nodded.

121

Stella came into the room shamefacedly, and hesitantly approached the bed, as if she expected Úrsúla to scream at her, or worse. 273

‘Sorry I said that on TV about the journalist guy. Your assistant said that your marriage is wrecked because of it. I didn’t even know you were married. I was just trying to help – make up for what I did. It’s just wrong that you have to resign because of some shit that leaked because I sold the rubbish. I’m so sorry.’

Úrsúla put out a hand, and Stella hesitated before taking it.

‘Your part in all this was quite small. Óðinn is the guilty one. He was manipulating Thorbjörn. He meant for Thorbjörn to pin some sort of scandal on me so I’d have to resign. Thorbjörn had his own methods to get close to me – he used … personal methods, and bought the ministry trash from you. But then he started digging into my father’s death, and it all started to go wrong for Óðinn; all that coming to light again was disastrous for him. So your part in all this wasn’t a big one. You were caught up in it, like so many others.’

The tears flooded from Stella’s brown eyes, and she blinked quickly as if trying to hold them back. Instead they gathered on her long eyelashes and glittered like pearls.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked and sniffed hard. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

‘I’m going to be fine,’ Úrsúla said. ‘Especially if you can help me with one last thing. That would easily make up for selling the ministry rubbish and blathering on TV.’

‘Anything,’ Stella said eagerly. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

Úrsúla cleared her throat.

‘I want you to go to your friend at the TV station,’ she said.

‘You mean Gréta?’

‘That’s right. Go to Gréta and tell her that you heard me mention that the reason behind the cancellation of the South Coast Highway is Ingimar Magnússon.’

‘The government’s pulling out of the South Coast Highway?’

‘Yes. I’ll be announcing it tomorrow, but your friend can be ahead with the news, and if she does her homework well, then she’ll understand why I cancelled the initiative.’ 274

‘People are so excited about that road…’ Stella began and Úrsúla held back a sigh.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ she said sternly, sounding like a strict teacher. ‘Just tell Gréta that you heard me say that the initiative was cancelled because of Ingimar Magnússon. She can find the rest of it out for herself. You remember the name?’

‘Ingimar Magnússon. Who’s that?’

‘That doesn’t matter. And tell her that you’re giving her this as an anonymous source. Nobody else must know that this came from you. OK?’