‘What experiment?’ Tryggvi asked. He was his cousin’s opposite in every way: shy and retiring, and liked to keep himself to himself. He never spoke up in company, refused to go on trips to the mountains with the rowdy medical students and was already beginning to have problems with alcohol.

‘It was unbelievable,’ his cousin said. ‘They induced a cardiac arrest in one of their fellow students and kept him dead for three minutes until they resuscitated him. The justice system hasn’t a clue what to do with them. They killed him, but they didn’t, if you see what I mean.’

Tryggvi’s cousin seemed obsessed with this piece of news. For weeks afterwards he talked of nothing but the French medical students, followed their trial in the news, and started whispering to Tryggvi that he would be interested in doing something similar. He had been contemplating the idea for ages and now this news had brought his enthusiasm to a pitch he couldn’t control.

‘You studied theology, you must at least be curious,’ he said one day when they were sitting in the medical faculty cafeteria.

‘I’m not letting anyone kill me,’ Tryggvi said. ‘Find someone else.’

‘There is no one else,’ his cousin said. ‘You’re the perfect person. You’re young and strong. There’s no heart disease of any kind in our family. Dagmar’s going to be in on it, and Baddi, another guy I know who’s studying medicine. I’ve talked to them already. It’s watertight. Nothing can happen. I mean, you’ve often wondered about it – you know, life after death.’

Tryggvi knew who Dagmar was. He had noticed her as soon as he started medicine.

‘Dagmar?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ his cousin answered, ‘and she’s no fool.’

Tryggvi knew that. She was his cousin’s friend and had once talked to him, at the first and only medical faculty party he had attended. She knew they were cousins. He had met her several times since and they had chatted. He thought she was lovely but he didn’t have the courage to take the next step.

‘Does she want to be in on this?’ he asked in surprise.

‘Of course,’ his cousin said.

Tryggvi shook his head.

‘And naturally I’ll pay you,’ his cousin added.

In the end Tryggvi gave in. He didn’t know exactly why he let them persuade him. He was always broke, he yearned to be with Dagmar. His cousin was extremely overbearing and moreover he had reawakened Tryggvi’s fascination with life after death. He knew about Tryggvi’s interest from when they were younger and used to discuss the existence of God, heaven and hell. They both came from deeply religious families who used to pack them off to Sunday school, were regular churchgoers and did good works in the parish. But the cousins were not particularly devout themselves when they grew up and began to have their doubts about various aspects of doctrine, such as the resurrection and eternal life and the existence of heaven. Tryggvi thought his decision to embark on a theology degree had stemmed from this. From his doubts, combined with the urgent questions that had pursued him all his life: what if? What if God existed? What if eternal life was true?

‘We’ve discussed it so often,’ his cousin said.

‘It’s one thing to talk about it…’

‘We’ve got this one minute. You’ll have one minute to go over to the other side.’

‘But I…’

‘You went into theology in search of answers to these questions,’ his cousin pointed out.

‘What about you?’ Tryggvi asked. ‘What do you want to prove by this?’

His cousin smiled.

‘Nothing ever happens around here and no one ever does anything,’ he said. ‘At least, not like this. It would be exciting to test those stories about the bright light and the tunnel, because we can do it without taking too great a risk. We can do it.’

‘Why don’t you do it yourself? Why don’t we put you to sleep?’

‘Because we need a good doctor and with all due respect, coz, I’m a better doctor than you are.’

Tryggvi read about the trial of the French medical students. They had successfully resuscitated their friend who had made a full recovery and by his own account had suffered no ill effects afterwards.

The evening they put their plan into action was his cousin’s twenty-seventh birthday. They all met up at his place: the cousins, Dagmar and Baddi, and from there headed down to the hospital. Tryggvi’s cousin had prepared an empty room with a bathtub and brought in a cardiograph and defibrillator. Tryggvi lay down in the bath. It was filled with a constant flow of cold water and they had procured large bags of ice which they added to the tub.

Gradually Tryggvi’s heartbeat slowed and he lost consciousness.

‘All I remember is coming round,’ Tryggvi said, watching an empty coach pulling up to the terminal. It had started to rain and the sky was overcast in the south. Rainwater streamed down the windows.

‘What happened?’ Erlendur asked.

‘Nothing,’ Tryggvi said. ‘Nothing happened. I felt nothing, saw nothing. No tunnel, no light. No nothing. I fell asleep and woke up again. That was it.’

‘The experiment worked, then – they managed to… managed to put you to death?’

‘That’s what my cousin said.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He went to do postgraduate study in the States and has lived there ever since.’

‘And Dagmar?’

‘I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since… since then. I quit medicine. Quit university. Went to sea. I felt happier there.’

‘Were you unhappy?’

Tryggvi didn’t answer.

‘Did they ever try it again?’ Erlendur asked.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Did you make a full recovery?’

‘There was nothing to recover from,’ Tryggvi said.

‘And no God?’

‘No God. No heaven. No hell. Nothing. My cousin was very disappointed in me.’

‘Were you expecting some answers?’

‘Maybe. We were all a bit high on the excitement.’

‘But nothing happened?’

‘No.’

‘And there’s no more to tell?’

‘No. No more to tell.’

‘Are you sure? You’re not hiding something?’

‘No,’ Tryggvi said.

They sat without talking for a while. The cafeteria was beginning to fill up with customers. They sat down with their trays or cups of coffee at the empty tables and picked up a paper to look at before going on their way. From time to time announcements were made over the tannoy.

‘Since then it’s been downhill all the way,’ Erlendur commented.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your life,’ Erlendur said. ‘It hasn’t exactly been easy.’

‘That has nothing to do with the stupid experiment, if that’s what you’re implying.’

Erlendur shrugged.

‘You’ve been coming here for years, I gather. Sitting here by the window.’

Tryggvi looked silently out through the glass and rain at something beyond the fading outline of the Reykjanes peninsula and Mount Keilir on the horizon.

‘Why do you sit here?’ Erlendur asked, so quietly as to be barely audible.

Tryggvi looked at him.

‘Do you want to know what I felt?’

‘Yes.’

‘Peace. I felt at peace. Sometimes I feel as if I should never have come back.’

There was a crash as someone dropped a glass over by the counter and fragments scattered all over the floor.

‘I experienced a strange sense of peace that I can’t describe, not to you or anyone else. Not even to myself. After that nothing mattered any more; not other people, not my studies, not my surroundings. Somehow life stopped mattering. I didn’t feel connected to it any longer.’

Tryggvi paused. Erlendur listened to the rain mercilessly lashing the window.

‘And since that peace…’

‘Yes?’ Erlendur said.

‘To tell the truth I haven’t experienced a moment’s peace since,’ Tryggvi said, watching the Keflavík bus pulling out of the forecourt. ‘I feel this constant need to be on the move, as if I’m waiting for something or someone’s waiting for me but I don’t know where and I don’t know who it is and I don’t know where I’m going.’