Her mother had cried, asking why on earth they had placed the two men together in a cell. One of the policemen had explained that it had been Saturday night with a full moon, and every cell had been full. They had all said how sorry they were, and the priest had laid a hand on Úrsúla’s head and muttered a short prayer. She recalled that she had found it uncomfortable, as if the priest was treating her like a little girl, as if he thought of her as an innocent child when in fact she was twelve years old and had lost any belief in God.

She had often thought back to how that moment had been so different from her mother’s death more than a decade later. She had sat with her, holding her hand, as her mother’s life ebbed away, and the peace and proximity blended with the sorrow and gratitude in her heart. There had been nothing painful about her mother’s death. It had seemed to be completely natural, although it had come early, and there had been no questions or doubts.

Úrsúla was startled by the ringing of her phone. She had promised herself not to reply to any of Thorbjörn’s calls, but she was unable to resist. 128

‘That was a dirty trick,’ she snarled into the phone.

Thorbjörn was immediately on the defensive.

‘I knew nothing about it until a minute before it went live, I swear! Otherwise I’d have warned you,’ he said.

‘How can a story be kept secret on a paper with a staff of only four, all of them working in the same room?’

‘That’s exactly it,’ Thorbjörn said. ‘There aren’t enough of us; we’re loaded down with work and don’t get an opportunity to compare notes. You have no idea how sorry I am about this, Úrsúla. I’m devastated.’

‘Who the fuck leaked this to you?’ Úrsúla hissed, her anger towards him already cooling and her longing for his body against her bare skin building, along with the desire to feel her emotions at work.

‘I’ll find out for you,’ he said. ‘I’m at home now. Come to me.’

‘No,’ Úrsúla said.

‘Yes. Come.’

53

There was no doubt that it had been a tough day for Úrsúla. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said that she had lost weight since the morning. She seemed somehow thinner and slighter in the seat next to him, and was oddly absent-minded, her thoughts apparently far from reality.

Gunnar drove slowly. It wasn’t far but he dragged the journey out as far as he could, as if he was giving her a chance to change her mind. He knew exactly what she was up to. It was pretty obvious. This was the second time in two days she had asked him to drive her to this man’s home for what she called a ‘very quick meeting’.

He had looked up the address in the National Registry, and that was where he found Thorbjörn’s name. It was gut-wrenching 129to know that the minister was privately visiting this man, who worked for an online media outfit that seemed to have as its primary objective besmirching the reputations of government ministers.