Áróra’s heart beat fast as she reached her room, and this time it was excitement and not a thumping hangover that was the cause. Hákon had said that he needed to do some work, and they had taken the lift together. She got out on the second floor and ran along the corridor to her own room, hurrying inside to switch on her computer. The imaging software showed the view from the webcam, but she couldn’t immediately get her bearings as the overhead viewpoint was so different. Little by little, though, the image began to tally with her recollection of Hákon’s room. The large black area that occupied half of the picture was the desk, and the dots on it were glasses and other oddments. A large grey circle at the lower end of the image looked like a ball, but had to be the office chair, and some indistinct black shapes beside it had to be clothes on the floor or something that had gone flying when she had tumbled off the table last night. The square that lay at the edge of the deck was the computer; the computer that this was all about.

Her heartbeat gradually returned to normal as she waited for something to happen. She stared at the computer screen, expecting Hákon to appear, so determined not to miss anything that she didn’t even dare stand up and make herself the coffee that she had a real need for. Of course, this was ridiculous; the webcam software would record everything and she could replay it if she needed to. But there was something about watching what was happening in another room in real time; it gave her the feeling of becoming a higher being, larger and greater in some way, like an eagle calmly soaring beneath the clouds, but still able to see every tiny movement on the earth below.

Áróra was startled when Hákon finally appeared on the screen. To begin with he appeared as a blurred shape, and when he sat in 183the chair she could see clearly in the monochrome image how his head became clear against his white-clad shoulders. He worked much faster at the keyboard than she had expected, and in a few moments he had opened the laptop, clicked on something, tapped at the keyboard, again clicked with the mouse and punched something in. At this speed there was no possibility of making out the keyboard strokes. But now she had a recording and could slow down the replay.