“Why wasn’t I contacted about these operations?” he asked, visibly angry.

“You’re ill,” Erlendur said.

“Bollocks,” Hrolfur said. “Don’t you think you can go running the department as you please. I’m your superior. You talk to me about this kind of peration before you go putting your bloody stupid brainwaves into practice!”

“Wait a minute, I thought you were ill,” Erlendur repeated, feigning surprise.

“And how did it ever occur to you to hoodwink the police commissioner like that?” Hrolfur hissed. “How did it occur to you that there’s a man under the floor here? You’ve got nothing to go on. Absolutely nothing except some crap about house foundations and a smell. Have you gone mad?”

Sigurdur Oli walked hesitantly over to them.

“There’s a woman here I think you ought to talk to, Erlendur,” he said, holding out the phone which Erlendur had left behind in the car. “It’s personal. She’s quite worked up.”

Hrolfur turned to Sigurdur Oli and told him to piss off and leave them alone.

Sigurdur Oli didn’t give way.

“You ought to talk to her immediately, Erlendur,” he said.

“What’s the meaning of this? You act as if I don’t exist!” Hrolfur shouted, stamping his foot. “Is this a bloody conspiracy? Erlendur, if we’re going to smash up the foundations of people’s houses because they smell, we’ll end up never doing anything else. It’s totally absurd! It’s ridiculous.”

“Marion Briem had this interesting idea,” Erlendur said as calmly as before, “and I thought it was worth investigating. The police commissioner thought so too. Do excuse me for not contacting you, but I’m pleased to see you’re back on your feet. and I really must say, Hrolfur, that you’re looking exceptionally perky. Please excuse me.”

Erlendur walked past Hrolfur, who stared at him and Sigurdur Oli, ready to say something, but not knowing what it ought to be.

“One thing occurred to me,” Erlendur said. “I should have done it ages ago.”

“What?” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Contact the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority and find out if they can tell whether Holberg was in Husavik or thereabouts in the early ’60s.”

“Okay. Here, talk to this woman.”

“Which woman?” Erlendur said and took the phone. “I don’t know any woman.”

“They put her through to your mobile. She’d been asking for you at the office. They told her you were busy, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

At that moment the pneumatic drill on the tractor started up. A deafening noise came from the basement and they saw a thick cloud of dust billowing out. The police had covered all the windows so no-one could see inside. Everyone apart from the drill operator had gone outside and they all stood at a distance, waiting. They looked at their watches and seemed to be discussing how late it was. They knew they couldn’t go on making that noise all evening in the middle of a residential area. They’d have to stop soon and continue the next morning or take other action.

Erlendur hurried into the car with his phone and closed the door on the noise. He recognised the voice immediately.

“He’s here,” Elin said, as soon as she heard Erlendur’s voice on the phone. She seemed very agitated.

“Relax, Elin,” Erlendur said. “Who are you talking about?”

“He’s standing in front of the house in the rain, staring in at me.” Her voice turned to a whisper.

“Who, Eliin? Are you at home? In Keflavik?”

“I don’t know when he came, I don’t know how long he’s been standing there. I just noticed him. They wouldn’t put me through to you.”

“I don’t quite follow. Who are you talking about, Elin?”

“The man of course. It’s that beast. I’m sure of it.”

“Who?”

“That brute who attacked Kolbrun!”

“Kolbrun? What are you talking about?”

“I know. It can’t be, but he’s standing here all the same.”

“Aren’t you getting things mixed up?”

“Don’t say I’m getting anything mixed up. Don’t say that! I know exactly what I’m saying.”

“Which man who attacked Kolbrun?”

“Well, HOLBERG!” Instead of raising her voice, Elin hissed down the phone. “He’s standing outside my house!”

Erlendur said nothing.

“Are you there?” Elin whispered. “What are you going to do?”

“Elin,” Erlendur said emphatically. “It can’t be Holberg. Holberg’s dead. It must be someone else.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a baby. He’s standing out here in the rain, staring at me. That beast.”

The connection broke off and Erlendur started the engine. Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg watched him reverse through the crowd and disappear off down the street. They looked at each other and shrugged as if they’d given up trying to figure him out ages ago.

Before he was even out of the street he had already contacted the Keflavik police and sent them off to Elin’s house to apprehend a man in the vicinity who was wearing a blue anorak, jeans and white trainers. Elin had described the man. He told the sergeant not to switch on the sirens or flashing lights, but to approach as quietly as possible so as not to scare him off.

“Stupid old bag,” Erlendur said to himself and hung up his phone.

He drove out of Reykjavik as fast as he could, through Hafnarfjordur and onto the Keflavik road. The traffic was heavy and visibility was poor, but he zig-zagged between the cars and even onto a traffic island to overtake. He disregarded all the traffic lights and made it to Keflavik in half an hour. It helped him that the CID had recently been issued with blue police lights that they could put on the roofs of their unmarked cars in emergencies. He’d laughed at the time. Recalled the apparatus on a detective programme on television and thought it was ridiculous to go around using thriller props in Reykjavik.

Two police cars were parked outside Elin’s house when he pulled up. Elin was waiting for him inside with three policemen. She said the man had vanished into the dark just before the police cars pulled up at the house. She pointed out where he’d been standing and the direction he ran, but the police could not find any trace of him. The police were baffled about how to deal with Elin, who refused to tell them who the man was and why he was dangerous; his only crime, apparently, was that he had been standing outside her house in the rain. When they put their questions to Erlendur, he told them the man was connected with a murder inquiry in Reykjavik. He told them to inform the Reykjavik police if they came across anyone matching the man’s description.

Elin was fairly agitated and Erlendur decided the wisest move would be to get the police out of her house as quickly as possible. He managed without much effort. They said they had better things to do than chase around after figments of an old woman’s imagination, though they made sure Elin didn’t hear them say it.

“I swear it was him outside,” she said to Erlendur when they were alone in the house. “I don’t know how, but it was him!”

Erlendur looked at her and heard what she was saying and could see that she meant it in all seriousness. He knew she’d been under great strain recently.

“It just doesn’t make sense, Elin. Holberg’s dead. I saw him in the morgue.” He paused to think, then added, “I saw his heart.”

Elin looked at him.

“You think I’m nuts. You think I’m imagining it all. That it’s a way of getting attention because…”

“Holberg’s dead,” Erlendur interrupted her. “What am I supposed to think?”

“Then it was the spitting image of him,” Elin said.

“Describe this man to me in more detail.”

Elin stood up, went to the sitting-room window and pointed out at the rain.

“He was standing there, by the path that leads out to the street between the houses. Stood completely still and looked in at me. I don’t know if he saw me. I tried to hide from him. I was reading and I got up when it started to get dark in the sitting room and I was going to switch on the light when I happened to look out of the window. His head was bare and it was like he couldn’t care less if he got soaked through. Even though he was standing just there, somehow he still seemed miles away.”