It was past midday when Björn’s new girlfriend shut the door behind her and walked across the parking lot to a little grey car. Grímur had watched them come home the previous evening, giggling and happy, Björn with his arm wrapped around her waist, and then he had seen Björn again this morning. Ever since then he had been sitting in the kitchen chair he had placed by the bedroom window, overlooking the outside door and the car park, so that he would see her leave. A couple of times he had quickly gone to the kitchen to make himself some coffee, and then hurried back. He hadn’t even given in to the temptation to shave himself, even though the urge to do so had twice been almost overwhelming. He read the news on his phone while he waited, but it turned out to be such a long wait that he had got as far as the gossip columns about people he completely failed to recognise by the time the woman finally appeared. He watched as she got into the car. She fastened her seat belt before starting the engine, and then leaned forward to look in the rear-view mirror and put on lip salve or lipstick, he couldn’t tell which. Then she drove out of the parking lot, and he saw her disappear into the swirl of traffic on the roundabout by the DIY place.

He immediately got to his feet, fetched washing up gloves from the kitchen and pulled them on, then put on a hoodie, and put the hood up so that it hung over his forehead. There was no need for this, as there were no CCTV cameras in the building, but somehow he felt it afforded him a little protection and made him slightly less vulnerable. Out in the stairwell he looked around and listened. He heard no movement, so he hurried up the stairs, remarkably nimbly, as if the tension inside gave him an extra dose of energy.

He slipped the key into the lock, and for a moment it refused 114to turn. It occurred to him that Björn had changed the locks, but with a little massage and rocking it to and fro, the lock clicked open and he was inside.

Ísafold had given him the key. ‘Just in case,’ she had said. ‘In case you hear he’s about to finish me off.’

But since then there had been no reason to use it. After that it had been quiet up there – remarkably quiet. But now it was as well that he had a key.