He spat his words out over her where she sat, unable to move, and he punched the air like a boxer, then spun on his heel to march back to his room and slam the door behind him.

Marita wanted to get to her feet, to follow him and ask him more, to find some words to comfort him, anything that could soothe the boiling fury that seemed to rage increasingly fiercely inside him. But she couldn’t find the strength. His anger was one thing, but the crudeness of his words, describing sexual acts in such a casual way, left her paralysed.

In spite of his deepening voice and his frame, which seemed to be growing in every direction by the week, her little boy speaking of fucking and sucking, as if these were something everyday in his youthful existence, had taken her completely off guard.

121

Friday

50

Adolf moved one step closer to her as she entered the lift, and she immediately had the feeling he had been waiting for her. She said ‘good morning’ as a sneering smile appeared on his face. He folded his arms across his chest and she felt that he was deliberately flexing to place an emphasis on his physique. She felt uncomfortable, but she knew that she was still tense after the previous evening. It had been a very long time since she had broken down like that. She hadn’t freaked out even when Pétur had leaped at her from the car’s boot. But at that time she hadn’t known that it was Pétur coming at her. When it came, that realisation had filled her with a searing mixture of fear and sorrow that had opened a weakness she seemed to have spent her life trying to conceal. It was the sensitive and immature weakness of a child. She moved to the far end of the lift and repeated her ‘good morning’ in a firmer tone.

‘Has the matter got to committee stage?’ Adolf asked in a derisive voice, without returning her greeting. The lift came to a halt and Úrsúla stepped out with relief.

‘Not to committee,’ she replied and smiled amiably. ‘But an informal working group has been put together to work with the Coast Guard on finding a solution.’

Adolf put out a hand to stop the lift door from closing.

‘Really? I haven’t heard about a working group,’ he said, and Úrsúla’s smile broadened.

‘No, I don’t think you’re part of it,’ she said, turning and 122walking quickly into the minister’s corridor, hearing the door lock behind her. She went directly to her office and told Freyja that she wanted no interruptions for the next hour.

Her breath was coming fast and as soon as she was in her office she leaned against the door. Eva was sitting with her nose almost against the screen of her laptop.

‘I’m pretty much in shock,’ Eva whispered.

Úrsúla nodded her agreement.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I read the interview with that poor girl’s mother when I got home yesterday. It’s such a tragic description of the whole thing.’