Marita closed the laptop and picked up her phone. It was almost eight-thirty and she had finished her coffee. She would have to brazen it out with the school secretary and the receptionist at the bank, both of whom would act as if nothing untoward had happened, but of course both would know something had. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down as the hand that held the phone began to tremble.

30

Úrsúla should have remembered that Thorbjörn worked through the night and worked fast. But she hadn’t expected his article to appear online until the next day. Now all the other media had picked it up, and an interview with Rósa, the mother of the rape victim, was set to appear the following day. Thorbjörn had also booked an interview with Úrsúla so he could give her side of the story and explain where in the system the case was. Eva had pushed the interview to as late in the day as she could to give Úrsúla time to prepare.

Freyja, the secretary, put her head around the door to tell her that Óðinn had arrived.

‘Show him in, please,’ Úrsúla said, and gestured to Eva to stay 77where she was. It would be better to have her present for this conversation.

Óðinn held his smartphone in front of him as he came in and held it up for her as he sat down.

Thorbjörn’s headline could be seen on the screen: ‘Police Rape. Fifteen-Year-Old’s Case Lost in the System’.

‘What’s this supposed to mean?’ he asked.

She didn’t even try to pretend to be surprised. Óðinn was an experienced official and knew all the system’s horse-trading tricks.

‘I need to respond to the media to explain just where in the system this case is, so I’m asking you to make a formal status request.’

Óðinn nodded and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but Úrsúla forestalled him.

‘Immediately. This happens right away.’

‘I see,’ he said and stood up with a sour smile on his face. He hesitated, as if he had something more to say, but said nothing, turned on his heel and left.

This wasn’t the way Úrsúla wanted things done, but she needed him to learn the lesson – to take on board that he wasn’t to sweep cases under the carpet because they could turn out to be an embarrassment for the minister.

‘Óðinn,’ Úrsúla said before he disappeared through the door. ‘Just so you know: you don’t need to shield me. I can take no end of flak. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that people get their grievances handled by the authorities. I promised the girl’s mother that I would examine the case and I want it examined.’

He turned in the doorway, looked at her for a moment and nodded. She could see that he was hurt, that by using this stratagem she had humiliated him, but she had needed to do something to kick-start this case, which seemed to have been repeatedly stifled.