“What sort of person takes pictures of children’s graves?” Erlendur said again.

Later that evening Erlendur found the man who had sent the debt collectors for Eva Lind. He received information from the narcotics squad, who had a fairly thick file on him, and found out he frequented a pub by the name of Napoleon, in the city centre. Erlendur went there and sat down facing the man. His name was Eddi and he looked about 40, chubby and bald. His few remaining teeth were stained yellow.

“Did you expect Eva to get special treatment because you’re a cop?” Eddi said when Erlendur sat down with him. He seemed to know at once who Erlendur was even though they’d never met before. Erlendur had the feeling he’d been expecting him.

“Have you found her?” Erlendur asked and looked all around the darkened room at the handful of unfortunates who were sitting at tables and making tough-guy gestures and expressions. Suddenly the name of the pub assumed significance in his mind.

“You understand that I’m her friend,” Eddi said. “I give her what she wants. Sometimes she pays me. Sometimes she takes too long about it. The guy with the knee sends his regards.”

“He grassed on you.”

“It’s difficult to find decent people,” Eddi said, pointing around the room.

“How much is it?”

“Eva? Two hundred thousand. And she doesn’t just owe me.”

“Can we make a deal?”

“As you please.”

Erlendur took out 20,000 crowns, which he’d taken out of a cash machine on his way there, and put it on the table. Eddi took the money, counted it carefully and put it in his pocket.

“I can let you have some more after a week or so.”

“That’s cool.”

Eddi gave Erlendur a probing look.

“I thought you were going to give me some lip,” he said.

“For what?” Erlendur said.

“I know where she is,” Eddi said, “but you’ll never be able to save Eva.”

Erlendur located the house. He’d been in that kind of house before on the same business. Eva Lind lay on a mattress in the hovel surrounded by other people. Some were her age, others much older. The house was open and the only obstacle was a man, whom Erlendur took to be about 20, who met him in the doorway waving his arms. Erlendur slammed him against the wall and threw him out. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling of one of the rooms. He bent down to Eva and tried to wake her. Her breathing was regular and normal, her heartbeat a little fast. He shook her and slapped her lightly across the cheek and soon Eva opened her eyes.

“Grandad,” she said, and her eyes closed again. He lifted Eva up and carried her out of the room, taking care not to tread on the other motionless bodies lying on the floor. He couldn’t tell whether they were awake or asleep. She opened her eyes again.

“She’s here,” she whispered, but Erlendur didn’t know what she was talking about and kept on walking with Eva out to his car. The sooner he got her out of there the better. He put her down on her feet to open the car door and she leaned up against him.

“Did you find her?” she asked.

“Find who? What are you talking about?” He lay her down on the front seat, fastened her seatbelt, sat in the driver’s seat and was about to drive away.

“Is she with you?” Eva Lind asked without opening her eyes.

“Who, dammit?” Erlendur shouted.

“The bride,” Eva Lind said. “The babe from Gardabaer. I was lying next to her.”

Erlendur was eventually woken up by the phone ringing. It resounded in his head until he opened his eyes and looked around everywhere. He’d slept in the armchair in the sitting room. His coat and hat were lying on the sofa. It was dark in the flat. Erlendur got to his feet slowly and wondered whether he could wear the same clothes for yet another day. He couldn’t remember the last time he had undressed. He looked into the bedroom before answering the phone and saw that the two girls were lying in his bed where he’d put them the night before. He pulled the door to.

“The fingerprints on the camera match the ones on the photograph,” Sigurdur Oli said when Erlendur eventually answered. He had to repeat the sentence twice more before Erlendur realised what he was talking about.

“Do you mean Gretar’s fingerprints?”

“Yes, Gretar’s.”

“And Holberg’s prints were on the photo too?” Erlendur said. “What the hell were they up to?”

“Beats my balls off,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. So Gretar took the photo then. We can assume that. He showed it to Holberg or Holberg found it. We’ll go on looking for the Husavik woman today, won’t we?” Sigurdur Oli asked. “You don’t have any new leads?”

“Yes,” Erlendur said. “And no.”

“I’m on my way up to Grafarvogur. We’ve almost finished the women in Reykjavik. Are we going to send someone up to Husavik when we’ve finished here?”

“Yes,” Erlendur said and put down the phone. Eva Lind was in the kitchen. She’d been woken up by the phone ringing. She was still dressed, as was the girl from Gardabaer. Erlendur had gone back into the hovel, carried her out and driven them both to his flat.

Eva Lind went into the toilet without saying a word and Erlendur heard her retching violently. He went into the kitchen and made some strong coffee, the only solution he knew in that situation, sat down at the kitchen table and waited for his daughter to come back out. Quite a while passed, he filled two cups. Eva Lind came out at last. She had wiped her face. Erlendur thought she looked terrible. Her body was so scrawny it barely hung together.

“I knew she did dope sometimes,” Eva Lind said in a hoarse voice when she sat down with Erlendur, “but I met her by pure chance.”

“What happened to you?” Erlendur asked.

She looked at her father.

“I’m trying,” she said, “but it’s difficult.”

“Two lads came here asking for you. Filthy-mouthed. I gave some Eddi character some money you owed him. It was him who told me where that the hovel was.”

“Eddi’s okay.”

“Are you going to keep trying?”

“Should I get rid of it?” Eva Lind stared down at the floor.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m so scared I’ve damaged it.”

“Maybe you’re trying on purpose.”

Eva Lind looked up at her father.

“You’re fucking pathetic,” she said.

“Me!”

“Yes, you.”

“What am I supposed to think? Tell me that!” Erlendur shouted. “Can you possibly handle this endless self-pity? What a bloody loser you can be sometimes. Do you really feel so good in that company you keep that you can’t think there’s anything better for you? What right do you have to treat your life like that? What right do you have to treat the life inside you like that? Do you really think things are so horrible for you? Do you really think no-one in the world feels as bad as you? I’m investigating the death of a girl who didn’t even reach the age of five. She fell ill and died. Something no-one understands destroyed her and killed her. Her coffin was three feet long. Can you hear what I’m saying? What right have you got to live? Tell me that!”

Erlendur was shouting. He stood up and hammered on the kitchen table with such a force that the cups started jumping around and when he saw that he picked one up and threw it at the wall behind Eva Lind. His rage flared up and for a moment he lost control of himself. He overturned the table, swept everything off the kitchen surfaces, pots and glasses slammed into the walls and floor. Eva Lind sat still in her chair, watched her father go berserk and her eyes filled with tears.

Finally Erlendur’s rage abated, he turned to Eva Lind and saw her shoulders were shaking and she was hiding her face in her hands. He looked at his daughter, her dirty hair, thin arms, wrists hardly thicker than his fingers, her skinny, trembling body. She was barefoot and there was dirt under all her nails. He went over to her and tried to pull her hands away from her face, but she wouldn’t let him. He wanted to apologise to her. Wanted to take her in his arms. He did neither.