María’s meeting with the medium had lent her a degree of strength, She was convinced that her mother had given her a sign by pulling Swann’s Way out of the bookcase, She couldn’t imagine any other explanation, and the medium, the gentlest, most understanding of men, had seemed to agree with her, He told her examples of similar cases of the dead making contact, either directly or else via dreams, sometimes even the dreams of other people rather than of their nearest and dearest.

What María did not tell the medium was that a few months after Leonóra’s death she had begun to see extraordinarily vivid apparitions, and yet she was not frightened by them, despite her fear of the dark, Leonóra would appear to her in the bedroom doorway or on the landing or even sitting on the edge of her bed, If María went into the living room she might see Leonóra standing by the bookshelves or sitting in her chair in the kitchen, She even appeared to her when she left the house, as a faint reflection in a shop window or a face disappearing into the crowd.

To begin with, these visions did not last long, perhaps only for an instant, but they became increasingly prolonged and vivid, and Leonóra’s presence grew stronger, just as María had experienced after her father’s death, She had read up on this type of grief-related hallucination and knew that the visions could be connected to loss and emotions such as guilt and chronic anxiety, She also knew that studies of the phenomenon suggested that they were projections of her own mind, her inner eye, She was an educated woman; she did not believe in ghosts.

And yet she did not want to close off every avenue, She was no longer confident that science had the answers to all mankind’s questions.

The passing of time only reinforced María’s belief that her visions were something more than mere psychological delusions produced by a mind oppressed with suffering, At one point they became so realistic that she felt they must originate in another world, despite what science would have her think, Little by little she began to believe that another world might exist, She immersed herself once more in the accounts that Leonóra had read at her urging about near-death experiences and the golden radiance and the love associated with it, about the divine figure in the light, the weightlessness in the dark tunnel that led towards the light, Instead of seeking help for her suffering, she tried to analyse her own condition by using her innate logic and common sense.

Almost two years passed in this way, María’s visions grew less frequent over time and her obsession with Proust faded, Her life was returning to an even keel although she knew it would never be the same as it had been when her mother was alive, Then one morning she woke up early and happened to glance in passing at the bookcase.

Nothing had changed.

Or…

She looked back at the books.

She felt dizzy when she realised that the first volume was missing. Moving closer she saw that Swann’s Way was lying on the floor.

Not daring to touch the book, she stooped and peered at the open pages, reading:

‘The woods are black now,

yet still the sky is blue…’

Sigurdur Óli returned to work, coughing and fastidiously blowing his nose into a paper tissue. He said he couldn’t face hanging around at home any longer, though he hadn’t completely shaken off the bloody flu yet. He was wearing a new, light-coloured summer coat in spite of the autumnal chill and had already been to the gym and barber’s at the crack of dawn that morning. When he bumped into Erlendur he looked as fit as ever, despite his lingering virus.

‘Everything hunky-dory?’ he asked.

‘How are you?’ Erlendur asked in return, ignoring the irritating phrase that Sigurdur knew always got on his nerves.

‘Oh, you know. Anything happening?’

‘The usual. Are you going to move back in with her?’

It was the same question that Erlendur had asked Sigurdur Óli before Sigurdur came down with flu. He liked Sigurdur’s wife Bergthóra and was saddened by the failure of their marriage. They had once briefly discussed the reasons for the separation and Erlendur had got the impression from his colleague that all hope was not yet lost. But Sigurdur Óli had not answered him then and nor did he do so now. He couldn’t stand Erlendur’s interfering.

‘Still obsessed with missing-person cases, I hear,’ he said and disappeared round the corner.

There was less to do than usual, so Erlendur had dug out the files on the three missing-person cases that had occurred in quick succession nearly thirty years ago and had arranged them on the desk in front of him. He clearly remembered the girl’s parents. He had gone to visit them two months after their daughter had been reported missing, when the search had yielded no results. They had travelled down from Akureyri and were staying in Reykjavík at the house of some friends who were away. Erlendur could see that they had been going through sheer hell since their daughter’s disappearance; the woman looked haggard and the man was unshaven, with black shadows under his eyes. They were holding hands. He knew they had been to see a therapist because they blamed themselves for what had happened; for going on that long trip and only keeping in intermittent contact with their daughter. The trip had been the fulfilment of an old dream of theirs to visit the Far East. They had travelled to China and Japan and even deep into Mongolia. The last contact they’d had with their daughter was via a poor telephone line from a hotel in Beijing. They’d had to book the phone call a long time in advance and the connection was bad. But their daughter had said that things were going very well at her end and that she was looking forward to hearing all about their adventures.

‘That was the last time we heard from her,’ the woman said in a low voice when Erlendur came to see them. ‘We didn’t come home until two weeks later and by then she had vanished. We called again when we got to Copenhagen and when we landed at Keflavík, but she didn’t answer. When we reached her flat, she had disappeared.’

‘We couldn’t really make proper telephone contact until we got back to Europe,’ her husband added. ‘We tried to call her then but she didn’t answer.’

Erlendur nodded. A comprehensive search had been organised for their daughter, who was called Gudrún, nicknamed Dúna, but with no success. The police had interviewed her friends, fellow students and relatives but no one could explain her disappearance or begin to imagine what could have become of her. They combed the beaches in Reykjavík and the surrounding area. Crews in inflatable lifeboats scoured the coastline and divers dragged the sea. No one seemed to have noticed the movements of her Austin Mini; an aerial search of the entire Reykjavík area, the route north to Akureyri and all the main roads had failed to produce any results.

‘It was just an old banger, really, that she bought herself up north,’ her father said. ‘You could only get in through the driver’s door; the passenger door was stuck, the handles for winding the windows were broken and the boot didn’t open, but she was very fond of it all the same and drove it everywhere.’

The parents talked about their daughter’s hobbies, one of which was studying lakes. She was reading biology and had a special interest in lakes and aquatic life. The search for her had taken account of this and encompassed the lakes near Reykjavík and Akureyri and on the road north, but to no avail.

Erlendur looked up from the file. He didn’t know where the couple were living these days. They were probably still based in Akureyri, both in their seventies by now and hopefully enjoying their retirement. They had got in touch with him every so often for the first few years but he had not heard from them for a long while.