“I wanted to see if you remembered someone from Reykjavik who went missing in the 1960s,” Erlendur said. “A man who sold farm machinery and diggers. He failed to turn up for a meeting with a farmer just outside town and he’s never been heard of since.”

“I remember that well. Niels handled that case. The lazy bastard.”

“Yes, quite,” said Erlendur, who knew Niels. “The man owned a Ford Falcon that was found outside the coach station. One hubcap had been removed.”

“Didn’t he just want to give his old girl the slip? As far as I recall that was our conclusion. That he killed himself.”

“Could be,” Erlendur said.

Marion’s eyes closed again. Erlendur sat on the sofa in silence for a while, watching the film while Marion slept. The video-box blurb described how John Wayne played a Confederate Civil War veteran hunting down the Indians who had killed his brother and sister-in-law and kidnapped their daughter. The soldier spent years searching for the girl and when he found her at last she had forgotten where she came from and become an Indian herself.

After twenty minutes Erlendur stood up and said goodbye to Marion, who was still sleeping under the mask.

When he arrived at the police station, Erlendur sat down with Elinborg, who was writing her speech for the book launch. Sigurdur Oli was in her office too. He said he had traced the sales history of the Falcon right up to the most recent owner.

“He sold the car to a spare-parts dealer in Kopavogur some time before 1980,” Sigurdur Oli said. “The company’s still in business. They just won’t answer the phone. Maybe they’re on holiday.”

“Anything new from forensics about the listening device?” Erlendur asked, and he noticed that Elinborg was moving her lips while she stared at the computer screen, as if she was trying out how the speech sounded.

“Elinborg!” he barked.

She lifted a finger to tell him to wait.

“…And I hope that this book of mine,” she read out loud from the screen, “will bring you endless pleasure in the kitchen and broaden your horizons. I have tried to keep it plain and simple, tried to emphasise the household spirit, because cookery and the kitchen are the focal point…”

“Very good,” Erlendur said.

“Wait,” Elinborg said. “…The focal point of every good household where the family gathers every day to relax and enjoy happy times together.”

“Elinborg,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Is it too sentimental?” Elinborg asked, pulling a face.

“It makes me puke,” Sigurdur Oli said.

Elinborg looked at Erlendur.

“What did forensics say about the equipment?” he asked.

“They’re still looking at it,” Elinborg said. “They’re trying to get in touch with experts from Iceland Telecom.”

“I was thinking about all that equipment they found in Kleifarvatn years ago,” Sigurdur Oli said, “and this one tied to the skeleton. Shouldn’t we talk to some old codger from the diplomatic service?”

“Yes, find out who we can speak to,” Erlendur said. “Someone who remembers the Cold War.”

“Are we talking about spying in Iceland?” Elinborg asked.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said.

“Isn’t that pretty absurd?” Elinborg said.

“No more than “where the family gathers every day to relax and enjoy happy times together”,” Sigurdur Oli parroted her.

“Oh, shut up,” Elinborg said, and deleted what she had written.

Wrecked cars were kept behind a large fence, stacked six high in some places. Some had been written off, others were just old and worn out. The spare-parts dealer looked the same, a weary man approaching sixty, in a filthy, ripped pair of overalls that had once been light blue. He was tearing the front bumper off a new Japanese car that had been hit from behind and had concertinaed right up to the front seats.

Erlendur stood sizing up the debris until the man looked up.

“A lorry went into the back of it,” he said. “Lucky there was no one in the back seat.”

“A brand new car too,” Erlendur said.

“What are you looking for?”

“I’m after a black Ford Falcon,” Erlendur said. “It was sold or given away to this yard around 1980.”

“A Ford Falcon?”

“It’s hopeless, of course — I know,” Erlendur said.

“It would have been old when it came here,” the man said, pulling out a rag to wipe his hands. “They stopped making Falcons around 1970, maybe earlier.”

“You mean you didn’t have any use for it?”

“Most Falcons were off the streets long before 1980. Why are you looking for it? Do you need spares? Are you doing it up?”

Erlendur told him that he was from the police and that the car was connected with an old case of a missing person. The man’s interest was aroused. He said he had bought the business from a man called Haukur in the mid-1980s but did not recall any Ford Falcon in the stock. The previous owner, who had died years ago, had kept a record of all the wrecks he’d bought, said the dealer, and showed Erlendur into a little room filled to the ceiling with files and boxes of papers.

“These are our books,” the man said with an apologetic smile. “We, er, never throw anything away. You’re welcome to take a look. I couldn’t be bothered to keep records of the cars, never saw the point, but he did it conscientiously.”

Erlendur thanked him and began examining the files, which were all marked on the spine with a year. Spotting a stack from the 1970s, he started there. He did not know why he was looking for this car. Even if it did exist, he had no idea how it could help him. Sigurdur Oli had asked why he was interested in this particular missing person over the others he had heard about in the past few days. Erlendur had no proper answer. Sigurdur Oli would never have understood what he meant if he had told him that he was preoccupied by a lonely woman who believed she had found happiness at last, fidgeting outside a dairy shop, looking at her watch and waiting for the man she loved.

Three hours later, when Erlendur was on the verge of giving up and the owner had asked him repeatedly whether he had turned up anything, he found what he was looking for: an invoice for the car. The dealer had sold a black Ford Falcon on 21 October 1979, engine defunct, interior in reasonable condition, good lacquering. No licence plates. Stapled to the sheet of paper describing the sale was a pencilled invoice: Falcon 1967. 35,000 kronur. Buyer: Hermann Albertsson.

The First Secretary at the Russian embassy in Reykjavik was the same age as Erlendur but thinner and considerably healthier-looking. When he received them he seemed to make a special effort to be casual. He was wearing khaki trousers and said, with a smile, that he was on his way to the golf course. He showed Erlendur and Elinborg to their seats in his office, then sat down behind a large desk and smiled broadly. He knew the reason for their visit. The meeting had been arranged well in advance so Erlendur was surprised to hear the golfing excuse. He had the impression that they were supposed to rush through the meeting and then disappear. They spoke English and, although the First Secretary was aware of the reason for the enquiry, Elinborg briefly repeated the need for the meeting. A Russian listening device had been found tied to the skeleton of a man probably murdered and thrown into Lake Kleifarvatn some time after 1961. The discovery of the Russian equipment had still not leaked to the press.

“There have been a number of Soviet and Russian ambassadors in Iceland since 1960,” the Secretary said, smiling self-confidently as if none of what they had related was any of his business. “Those who were here in the 1960s and early 1970s are long since dead. I doubt that they knew anything about Russian equipment in that lake. Any more than I do.”

He smiled. Erlendur smiled back.