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have had a couple of brandies.
    ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But it will be difficult. I’m not sure how I can get him to come here.’
    ‘Couldn’t you say you had something you needed to discuss with him?’ Sindri said.
    ‘At a bar, maybe. Or at his house. But not with a bunch of strangers.’
    ‘Get him to meet you at a bar in town and we’ll stop him on the way,’ said Ísak. ‘Bring him back here.’
    Harpa considered Ísak’s suggestion. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it a go.’
    It was nearly midnight. The bars in Reykjavík would still be open, but it would be hard to force Gabríel out.
    She pulled out her mobile phone and selected his number. She was surprised she hadn’t deleted him from her address book. He should have been deleted totally from her life.
    ‘Yes?’ he answered with little more than a croak.
    ‘It’s me. I need to see you. Tonight.’
    ‘Uh. What time is it? I’ve just gone to sleep. This is ridiculous.’
    ‘It’s important.’
    ‘Can’t it wait?’
    ‘No. It’s got to be right now.’
    ‘Harpa, are you drunk? You’re drunk, aren’t you?’
    ‘Of course I’m not drunk!’ Harpa protested. ‘I’m tired and I’m upset and I need to see you.’
    ‘What is it? Why can’t you tell me over the phone?’
    Harpa’s brain was fuzzy, but an idea was emerging. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you can discuss over the phone.’
    ‘Oh, my God, Harpa, you’re not pregnant are you?’
    Gabríel had obviously stumbled on the same idea.
    ‘I said not over the phone. But meet me at B5. In fifteen minutes.’
    ‘All right,’ said Gabríel and hung up.
    Harpa rang off. ‘Done,’ she said. B5 was a bar on Bankastraeti, a street that rose eastwards up a gentle hill from Austurvöllur, the square outside the Parliament building, to Laugavegur, the main shopping street. She and Gabríel Örn used to go there with their friends on Friday nights. ‘I know the way he will take, we can cut him off.’
    ‘Let’s go,’ said Frikki.
    Sindri’s flat was on Hverfisgata, a scruffy street that ran parallel to Bankastraeti and Laugavegur, between those roads and the bay. As they spilled out into the open air, Harpa felt exhilarated. The frustration and misery of the last few months were pouring out. Sure, the bankers and the politicians were to blame, but one man was most to blame for ruining Harpa’s life.
    Gabríel Örn.
    And in a moment he would come face-to-face with the ordinary decent people whom men like him held in such contempt. He would try and weasel out of it, but she wouldn’t let him. She would
force
him to stand in front of them and apologize and explain what a shit he was.
    The cold didn’t sober Harpa up, but it energized her. She led the way, hurrying the others on. The Skuggahverfi or Shadow District was a new development of high-rise luxury apartments that linedthe shore of the bay. Only a few had actually been finished before the developers had run out of money; they looked down on their half-completed brethren, and the condemned buildings surrounding them, like Sindri’s place, yet to be demolished. She was only about a hundred metres from the spot where Gabríel Örn would cross Hverfisgata on his way to B5.
    A couple of snowflakes fell. It was late, but there were still people on the street, jazzed up by the demonstrations. Down at the bottom of the hill towards the square outside Parliament, flames rose out of a wheelie bin, illuminating hooded shadows flitting around it, and two firecrackers went off.
    Harpa led them down one of the little side streets off Hverfisgata, on the route she knew Gabríel would take. Sure enough, there he was, head down against the snow.
    She stopped in front of him. ‘Gabríel Örn.’
    He looked up in surprise. ‘Harpa? I thought we were going to meet at the bar?’
    Harpa felt a surge of revulsion as she saw his face. He was a couple of years younger than her, a little flabby around the jowls and neck, fair hair thinning.