“No,” Erlendur said.

“You know. On the stopovers. Abroad.”

“Yes.”

“What happened, were they hot. Stuff like that. He’d heard things get pretty wild… on international flights.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

The pilot thought. He couldn’t remember.

“It was a few days ago,” he said eventually.

“Did you notice whether anyone had visited him recently?” Erlendur asked.

“No, I’m not home much.”

“Did you notice any people snooping around in the neighbourhood, acting suspiciously, or just loitering around the houses?”

“No.”

“Anyone wearing a green army jacket?”

“No.”

“A young man wearing army boots?”

No. Was it him? Do you know who did it?”

“No,” Erlendur said, and knocked over a half-full can of beer as he turned to leave the flat.

The woman had decided to take her children to her mother’s for a few days and was ready to leave. She didn’t want the children to be in the house after what had happened. Her husband nodded. It was the best thing for them. The parents were visibly shocked. They’d bought the flat four years before and liked living in Nordurmyri. A good place to live. For people with children too. The boys were standing by their mother’s side.

“It was terrible finding him like that,” the husband said, in a voice like a whisper. He looked at the boys. “We told them he was asleep,” he added. “But…”

“We know he was dead,” the elder boy said.

“Murdered,” the younger one said.

The couple gave embarrassed smiles.

“They’re taking it well,” the mother said and stroked the elder boy on the cheek.

“I didn’t dislike Holberg,” the husband said. “We sometimes talked together outside. He’d lived in the house for a long time, we talked about the garden and maintenance, that sort of thing. As you do with your neighbours.”

“But it wasn’t close,” the mother said. “Our contact with him, I mean. I think that’s as it should be. I don’t think it should be too close. Privacy, you know.”

They hadn’t noticed any unusual people in the vicinity of the house and hadn’t seen anyone in a green army jacket roaming the neighbourhood. The wife was impatient to take the boys away.

“Did Holberg have many visitors?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“I never noticed any,” the wife said.

“He gave the impression of being lonely,” her husband said.

“His flat stank,” the elder son said.

“Stank,” his brother chorused.

“There’s rising damp in the basement,” the husband said apologetically.

“Spreads up here sometimes,” the wife said. “The damp.”

“We talked to him about it.”

“He was going to look into it.”

“That was two years ago.”

The couple from Gardabaer looked at Erlendur with anguish in their eyes. Their little daughter had gone missing. They hadn’t heard from her for three days. Not since the wedding she’d run out from. Their little girl. Erlendur was imagining a child with curly golden locks until he was told she was a 23-year-old psychology student at the University of Iceland.

“The wedding?” Erlendur said, looking around the spacious lounge; it was like a whole storey of the block of flats where he lived.

“Her own wedding!” the father said as if he still couldn’t understand it. “The girl ran away from her own wedding!”

The mother put a crumpled handkerchief to her nose.

It was midday. Due to road works on the way from Reykjavik it had taken Erlendur half an hour to reach Gardabaer and he found the large detached house only after a considerable search. It was almost invisible from the street, enclosed by a large garden with all kinds of trees growing in it, up to six metres high. The couple met him in a clear state of shock.

Erlendur thought this was a waste of time. Other more important matters were waiting for him, but even though he’d hardly spoken to his ex-wife for two decades he still felt inclined to do her a favour.

The mother wore a smart, pale green dress suit, the father a black suit. He said he was growing increasingly worried about his daughter. He knew she would come home eventually and that she was safe and sound — he refused to believe otherwise — but he wanted to consult the police, although he didn’t see any reason to call out the search parties and rescue teams immediately or to send announcements to the radio, newspapers and television.

“She just disappeared,” the mother said. The couple looked a little older than Erlendur, probably about 60. They ran a business importing children’s wear and that provided for them amply to enjoy a prosperous lifestyle. The nouveaux riches. Age had treated them kindly. Erlendur noticed two new cars in front of their double garage, polished to a shine.

She braced herself and started to tell Erlendur the story. “It happened on Saturday — three days ago, my God how time flies — and it was such a wonderful day. They had just been married by that vicar who’s so popular.”

“Hopeless,” her husband said. “Came rushing in, delivered a few cliches and then he was off again with his briefcase. I can’t understand why he’s so popular.”

His wife wouldn’t let anything mar the beauty of the wedding.

“A marvellous day! Sunshine and lovely autumn weather. Definitely a hundred people at the church alone. She has so many friends. Such a popular girl. We held the reception at a hall here in Gardabaer. What’s that place called? I always forget.”

“Gardaholt,” the father said.

“Such a wonderful cosy place,” she went on. “We filled it. The hall, I mean. So many presents. And then when… then when…”

“They were supposed to dance the first dance,” the father continued when his wife burst into tears, “and that idiot of a boy was standing on the dance floor. We called out to Disa Ros, but she didn’t show up. We started looking for her, but it was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed her.”

“Disa Ros?” Erlendur said.

“It turned out that she’d taken the wedding car.”

“The wedding car?”

“The limousine. With the flowers and ribbons, that brought them from the church. She just ran away from the wedding. No warning! No explanation!”

“From her own wedding!” the mother shouted.

“And you don’t know what made her do that?”

“She obviously changed her mind,” the mother said. “Must have regretted the whole thing.”

“But why?” Erlendur said.

“Please, can you find her for us?” the father asked. “She hasn’t been in touch and you can see how terribly worried we are. The party was a total flop. The wedding was ruined. We’re completely stumped. And our little girl is missing.”

“The wedding car. Was it found?”

“Yes. In Gardastraeti.”

“Why there?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t know anyone there. Her clothes were in the car. Her proper clothes.”

Erlendur hesitated.

“Her proper clothes were in the wedding car?” he said eventually, briefly pondering the plane this conversation had dropped to and whether he was in some way responsible.

“She took off her wedding gown and put on the clothes she’d apparently kept in the car,” the wife said.

“Do you think you can find her?” the father asked. “We’ve contacted everyone she knows and no-one knows a thing. We just don’t know where to turn. I have a photo of her here.”

He handed Erlendur a school photograph of the young, beautiful blonde who was now in hiding. She smiled at him from the photograph.

“You have no idea what happened?”

“Not a clue,” the girl’s mother replied.

“None,” the father said.

“And these are the presents?” Erlendur looked at the gigantic dining table, piled high with colourful parcels, pretty bows, cellophane and flowers. He walked towards it as the couple watched. He’d never seen so many presents in his life and he wondered what was inside the parcels. Crockery and more crockery, he imagined.