45

He could sense that something had changed when he returned with the cans of sparkling water in a bag, but he wasn’t able to put his finger on it right away. She had sent him out to buy lime-flavoured water that came in aluminium cans, and while he thought it was ridiculous to be buying canned water in Iceland, where the water from the tap was as clear and fresh as it could be, he gave in. He enjoyed spoiling her. But now there was something strange brewing. She stood by the kitchen worktop sipping from a glass of water.

‘Didn’t you just send me out to buy the super-special water because you didn’t want to drink from the tap?’

‘Gotcha,’ she said, emptying her glass into the sink. ‘Just winding you up.’ She did it hurriedly, and there was an awkward look on her face, as if she had been taken by surprise. This wasn’t just teasing, as she referred to the ways she provoked him. She had something to hide. His eyes scanned the living room and stopped at the laptop on the coffee table. He was sure he had left it on the sofa.

‘Have you been snooping in my computer?’ he asked.

‘No, I just…’ she shrugged. ‘I just wanted to look something up on the net, see what’s on at the pictures. Shall we go and see a movie tonight?’

‘That’s my work laptop,’ he said. ‘I told you to leave it alone.’

‘Come on. I was just checking the movie listings,’ she said. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘I told you to use the iPad for the internet when you’re here. And I told you that I’m the only one who uses the laptop. In my line of work I can’t share a computer.’

‘Right! A chauffeur,’ she snapped and stalked to the door. ‘That’s a really special job!’

She slammed the door and Gunnar wondered how long the door frame was going to last. If they were going to be together much longer he’d better start looking for a steel one. 111

He popped open one of the aluminium cans and tasted the sparkling water. It was surprisingly good and certainly made a change from tap water, although he wouldn’t have bothered with anything so trivial. He picked up the laptop and sat on the floor with it.

The email from [email protected] to Úrsúla that Eva had forwarded to him was remarkably similar to the one that Gunnar had received from him the previous evening. Now he bitterly regretted having written to him, to say the least. His email had fallen on stony ground and he wondered if it could even have been counter-productive. Maybe it had stirred up this lunatic’s hatred of the minister even more. No doubt it was best to leave that kind of thing unanswered, but there was something about this kind of spinelessness, people who threatened violence but didn’t dare do it under their own names, that Gunnar found deeply infuriating. He knew it was his weak point, his Achilles’ heel, and that was precisely why he should not have allowed himself to write to Fossi.