“You had military police here.”

“Precisely. That might be the best place to start. It will take a few days. Maybe weeks.”

“We have plenty of time,” Erlendur said, thinking of Skarphedinn.

Rummaging around in Benjamin’s possessions, Sigurdur Oli was bored stiff. Elsa had greeted him at the front door, shown him down to the cellar and left him there, and he had spent four hours turning out cupboards, drawers and countless boxes, without knowing exactly what he was looking for. Bergthora was preoccupying his thoughts. He wondered whether she would be as much of a nymphomaniac when he got home as she had been over the past few weeks. He made up his mind to ask her straight out whether there was any particular reason for her sudden appetite for him, and whether that reason might just be that she wanted a baby. But that question, he knew, would mean broaching another matter that they had sometimes discussed without reaching any conclusion: wasn’t it time to get married with all the appropriate ceremony and trimmings?

That was the question burning on her lips between the passionate kisses that she smothered him with. He still had to make his mind up about that issue and always dodged answering. His train of thought was: their life together was going smoothly, their love was flourishing, why ruin it by getting married? All the fuss. A stag party. Walking down the aisle. All those guests. Inflated condoms in the bridal suite. Unspeakably naff. Bergthora did not want any civil ceremony bullshit. She talked about fireworks and beautiful memories to keep herself warm in her old age. Sigurdur Oli mumbled. Thought it was too early to think about old age. The problem was unresolved, it was clearly up to him to settle it and he had no idea what he wanted, apart from no church wedding and not hurting Bergthora either.

Like Erlendur, when he read the letters he sensed Benjamin’s genuine love and fondness for the girl who had vanished from the streets of Reykjavik one day and was said to have thrown herself into the sea. My lovely. Dearest. How I miss you.

All that love, Sigurdur Oli thought.

Was it capable of killing?

The bulk of the papers concerned Knudsen’s shop, and Sigurdur Oli had given up all hope of finding anything remotely constructive when he pulled a note out of an old filing cabinet and read:

Signed Benjamin Knudsen.

Erlendur was leaving the embassy when his mobile rang.

“I found a tenant,” Sigurdur Oli said. “I think.”

“For what?” Erlendur said.

“For the chalet. I’m on my way out of Benjamin’s cellar. Never seen such a bloody mess in my life. I found a note implying that a certain Hoskuldur Thorarinsson paid rent for Grafarholt.”

“Hoskuldur?”

“Yes. Thorarinsson.”

“What’s the date on the note?”

“No date. No year. Actually it’s only an invoice from Knudsen’s shop. The rent receipt is written on the back. And I also found invoices for what might well be construction materials for the chalet. It’s all charged to the shop and the invoices are dated 1938. He may have started building the chalet around that time or been working on it.”

“What year did we say his fiancee went missing?” “Hang on, I jotted that down.” Erlendur waited while Sigurdur Oli checked. He took notes at meetings, a practice Erlendur had never managed to make a habit of. He could hear Sigurdur Oli flick through papers and return to the telephone.

“She disappeared in 1940. In the spring.” “So Benjamin is building his chalet up to that time, then gives up and rents it out instead.” “And Hoskuldur is one of the tenants.” “Have you found out anything else about this Hoskuldur character?”

“No, not yet. Shouldn’t we start with him?” Sigurdur Oli asked, hoping to escape from the cellar.

“I’ll check him out,” Erlendur said, and to Sigurdur Oli’s chagrin added: “See if you can find anything more about him or anyone else in all that rubbish. If there’s one note, there may well be more.”

Erlendur sat by Eva Lind’s bedside for quite a while after arriving from the embassy, and he turned over in his mind what to talk about. He had no idea what to say to her. He made several attempts, in vain. Ever since the doctor mentioned that it would help if he talked to her, he had repeatedly wondered what to say, but never reached any conclusion.

He began talking about the weather, but soon gave that up. Then he described Sigurdur Oli and told her how tired he had been looking recently. But there was not much else to say about him. He tried to find something to say about Elinborg, but gave up on that too. Then he told her about Benjamin Knudsen’s fiancee, who was supposed to have drowned herself, and about the love letters he found in the merchant’s cellar.

He told Eva Lind he had seen her mother sitting at her bedside.

Then he fell silent.

“What’s with you and Mum?” Eva Lind had once asked when she was visiting him. “Why don’t you talk?”

Sindri Snaer had come with her, but did not stay long, leaving the two of them together as darkness fell. It was December and there were Christmas songs on the radio, which Erlendur switched off and Eva Lind turned back on, saying she wanted to listen to them. She was several months pregnant and had gone straight for the time being, and as usual when she sat down with him she began to talk about the family she did not have. Sindri Snaer never talked about that, nor about his mother or sister or all that never happened. He was silent and withdrawn when Erlendur spoke to him. Didn’t care for his father. That was the difference between the sister and brother. Eva Lind wanted to get to know her father and did not baulk at holding him responsible.

“Your mother?” Erlendur said. “Can’t we turn off those Christmas jingles?”

He was trying to win time. Eva’s probing into the past always threw him into a quandary. He didn’t know the answers to give about their short-lived marriage, the children they had, why he had walked out. He didn’t have answers to all her questions, and sometimes that enraged her. She had a short fuse as far as her family was concerned.

“No, I want to hear Christmas songs,” Eva Lind said, and Bing Crosby went on dreaming of a white Christmas. “I’ve never ever heard her say a good thing about you, but she must have seen something in you all the same. At first. When you met. What was it?”

“Have you asked her?”

“Yes.”

“And what did she say?”

“Nothing. That would mean she’d have to say something positive about you and she can’t handle that. Can’t handle the idea of there being anything good about you. What was it? Why the two of you?”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said, and meant it. He tried to be honest. “We met at a dance. I don’t know. It wasn’t planned. It just happened.”

“What was going on in your head?”

Erlendur did not reply. He thought about children who never knew their parents; never found out who they really were. Entered their life when it was as much as halfway through and did not have a clue about them. Never got to know them except as father and mother and authority and protector. Never discovered their shared and separate secrets, with the result that the parents were just as much strangers as everyone else the children met during the course of their lives. He pondered how parents managed to keep their children at arm’s length until all that remained was acquired, polite behaviour, with an artificial sincerity that sprang from common experience rather than real love.

“What was going on in your head?” Eva Lind’s questions opened wounds that she picked at constantly.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said, keeping her at a distance as he had always done. She felt that. Maybe she acted in this way to produce such a reaction. Gain one more confirmation. Feel how remote he was from her and how far away she was from understanding him.