Agnes stopped talking and Erlendur waited for her to start again.

“She wasn’t fond of going out and I really had to cajole her to come out with me and my friend Helga that evening. She moved to America but passed away many years ago, maybe you know that. Kolbrun was so reserved and sort of lonely and I wanted to do something for her. She agreed to go to the dance, then came back with us to Helga’s afterwards, but she wanted to go home soon after that. I left before her so I don’t really know what happened there. She didn’t turn up for work on the Monday and I remember phoning her, but she didn’t answer. A few days later the police came to ask about Kolbrun. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t notice anything about Holberg that was abnormal in any way. He was quite a charmer if I remember right. I was very surprised when the police started talking about rape.”

“He apparently made a good impression,” Erlendur said. “A ladies’ man, I think he was described as.”

“I remember him coming into the shop.”

“Him? Holberg?”

“Yes, Holberg. I think that was why they sat down with us that night. He said he was an accountant from Reykjavik, but that was just a lie, wasn’t it?”

“They all worked at the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority. What kind of a shop was it?”

“A boutique. We sold ladieswear. Lingerie too.”

“And he came to the shop?”

“Yes. The day before. On the Friday. I had to go back through all this at the time and I still remember it well. He said he was looking for something for his wife. I served him and when we met at the dance he behaved as though we knew each other.”

“Did you have any contact with Kolbrun after the incident? Did you talk to her about what happened?”

“She never came back to the shop and, as I say, I didn’t know what happened until the police started questioning me. I didn’t know her that well. I tried to phone her a few times when she didn’t turn up for work and I went to where she lived once, but didn’t catch her in. I didn’t want to interfere too much. She was like that. Mysterious. Then her sister came in and said Kolbrun had quit her job. I heard she died a few years afterwards. By then I’d moved up here to Stykkisholmur. Was it suicide? That’s what I heard.”

“She died,” Erlendur said, and thanked Agnes politely for talking to him.

His thoughts turned to a man called Sveinn he’d been reading about. He survived a storm on Mos-fellsheidi. His companions’ suffering and deaths seemed to have little effect on Sveinn. He was the best equipped of the travellers and the only one who reached civilisation safe and sound, and the first thing he did after they’d tended to him on the closest farm to the heath was to put on ice skates and amuse himself by skating on a nearby lake.

At the same time his companions were still freezing to death on the heath.

After that he was never called anything but Sveinn the Soulless.

The search for the woman from Husavik had still not led anywhere when towards evening Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg sat down at Erlendur’s office to talk things over before going home. Sigurdur Oli said he wasn’t surprised, they’d never find the woman this way. When Erlendur asked peevishly if he knew a better method, he shook his head.

“I don’t feel as if we’re looking for Holberg’s murderer,” Elinborg said, staring at Erlendur. “It’s as if we’re looking for something completely different and I’m unclear what it is. You’ve exhumed a little girl’s body and I, for one, have no idea why. You’ve started looking for a man who went missing a generation ago and who I can’t see has anything to do with the case. I don’t think we’re asking ourselves the obvious question: either the murderer was someone close to Holberg or a total stranger, someone who broke in intending to burgle him. Personally I think that’s the most likely explanation. I think we ought to step up the search for that person. Some dopehead. The green army jacket. We haven’t really done anything about that.”

“Maybe it’s someone Holberg paid for his services,” Sigurdur Oli said. “With all that porn on his computer there’s a good chance he paid for sex.”

Erlendur sat through the criticism in silence and stared into his lap. He knew that most of what Elinborg had said was true. Maybe his judgment had been distorted by worrying about Eva Lind. He didn’t know where she was, he didn’t know what state she was in, she was being chased by people who wanted to harm her and he was helpless to protect her. He told neither Sigurdur Oli nor Elinborg of what he had discovered from the pathologist.

“We have the note,” he said. “It’s no coincidence we found it with the body.”

The door suddenly opened and the head of forensics peeped inside.

“I’m leaving,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know they’re still examining the camera and they’ll call you as soon as they find anything worth reporting.”

He closed the door behind him without saying goodbye.

“Maybe we can’t see the wood for the trees,” Erlendur said. “Maybe there’s a terribly simple solution to the whole thing. Maybe it was some nutcase. But maybe, and this is what I think to be the case, the murder has much deeper roots than we realise. Maybe there’s nothing simple about it. Maybe the explanation lies in Holberg’s character and what he did in his past.”

Erlendur paused.

“And the note,” he said. ” ’I am him.’ What do you want to do with that?”

“It could be from some ’friend’,” Sigurdur Oli said, making quotation marks with his fingers. “Or a workmate. We haven’t applied ourselves much in those areas. To tell the truth I don’t know where all this searching for an old woman is supposed to lead us. I don’t have a clue how to ask them if they’ve been raped without getting hit over the head with a rolling pin.”

“And hasn’t Ellidi told that sort of lie before in his life?” Elinborg said. “Isn’t that precisely what he wants, to make fools of us? Have you considered that?”

“Oh, come on,” Erlendur said as if he couldn’t be bothered to listen to this nagging any more. “The inquiry has led us onto this path. It would be wrong for us not to investigate the clues we get, wherever they come from. I know Icelandic murders aren’t complicated, but there’s something about this one that doesn’t fit if you just want to put it down to coincidence. I don’t think it’s a mindless act of brutality.”

The telephone on Erlendur’s desk rang. He answered, listened for a short while and then nodded and said thank you before putting the phone down. His suspicion had been confirmed.

“Forensics,” he said, looking at Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli. “Gretar’s camera was used to take the photo of Audur’s grave in the cemetery. We took a photograph using his camera and the same kind of scratches came out. So now we know there’s at least a strong probability that Gretar took the picture. Possibly someone else used his camera, but the alternative is much more likely.”

“And what does that tell us?” Sigurdur Oli asked, looking at the clock. He had invited Bergthora out for a meal that evening and intended to make up for his clumsiness on his birthday.

“For example, it tells us that Gretar knew Audur was Holberg’s daughter. Not many people were aware of that. And it also tells us that Gretar saw particular reason, a) to locate the grave, and b) to take a photo of it. Did he do it because Holberg asked him to? Did he do it to spite him? Is Gretar’s disappearance connected with the photograph? If so, how? What did Gretar want with the photo? Why did we find it hidden in Holberg’s desk? What sort of person takes pictures of children’s graves?”

Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli watched Erlendur asking these questions. They noticed how his voice turned into a half-whisper and saw that he wasn’t talking to them any more, but had disappeared inside himself, vacant and remote. He put his hand on his chest and instinctually rubbed it, apparently without realising what he was doing. They looked at one another but didn’t dare to ask.