“What are you doing alone out here in your car?” she asked after a silence.

“I was thinking about the woman who went missing,” Erlendur said.

“You know she committed suicide,” Elinborg said. “We only have to find the body. It’ll be discovered on the beach in Reykjanes next spring. She’s been missing for more than three weeks. No one knows where she is. No one’s hiding her. She hasn’t been in touch with anyone. She had no money on her and we can’t see any card transactions anywhere. She definitely didn’t leave the country. The only trail leads down to the sea.”

Elinborg paused.

“Unless you think her new husband killed her.”

“He had fake trophies made,” Erlendur said. “He knew his ex-wife wasn’t interested in golf, never read about any kind of sports and never talked about golf to anyone. She told me so. And he didn’t show the cups to anyone but her, because he needed to make up an alibi. Not until afterwards. Once he was divorced he started showing them off. If that isn’t being amoral…”

“Are you concentrating on him now?”

“We always come back to the same thing,” Erlendur said.

“Missing persons and crimes,” said Elinborg, who had often heard Erlendur describe disappearances as a “distinctively Icelandic crime’. His theory was that Icelanders were indifferent about people who went missing. In the great majority of cases they believed there were “natural” explanations, in a country with a fairly high suicide rate. Erlendur went further and linked the nonchalance about disappearances to a certain popular understanding, extending back for centuries, about conditions in Iceland, the harsh climate in which people died of exposure and vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up. Nobody was better acquainted than Erlendur with stories of people who had frozen to death in bad weather. His theory was that crimes were easy to commit under the cover of this indifference. At his meetings with Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli and other detectives he had tried to fit the woman’s disappearance to his theory, but his words fell on deaf ears.

“Get yourself home,” Erlendur said. “Take care of your little girl. Has Sunee come back?”

“Yes, they’ve just got here,” Elinborg said. “Odinn was with them but I think he’s left again. Niran is still missing. Oh God, I hope nothing has happened to him.”

“I think he’ll turn up,” Erlendur said.

“You and your missing persons,” Elinborg said, opening the door. “Are you in contact with your daughter these days?”

“Get yourself home,” Erlendur said.

“I was talking to Gudny, the interpreter. She says Sunee emphasised that her boys should be brought up, as she was, to show respect for older people. That’s one of the fundamentals in the Thai upbringing and remains part of them all their lives. Responsibility is another point. The old people, the grandparents and great-grandparents, are the heads of the extended family. Older people pass on their experience to the younger ones, who are supposed to ensure their security in old age. It’s not an obligation but something they take for granted. And the children are …” Elinborg sighed heavily as she thought of Elias.

“She says that in Thailand, grown-ups stand up for children on buses and give them their seats.”

They were silent.

“This is all so new to us. Immigrants, racial issues… we know so little about it,” Erlendur said eventually.

“That’s true. But I do think we’re trying our best”

“Doubtless. Now get yourself home.”

“See you tomorrow,” Elinborg said, then stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind her.

Erlendur wished he had another cigarette. He dreaded having to go back to see Sunee. He thought about his daughter, Eva Lind. She had dropped in at Christmas but he had not seen her since. The man she was with had been sent to prison just before the Christmas holidays and she thought Erlendur could do something about it. Her partner supplied her with dope. He was given three years for smuggling cocaine and ecstasy into the country and Eva foresaw hard times while he was in confinement.

Eva and Erlendur’s relationship had gone from bad to worse recently. Erlendur could not really see why. For a long time, Eva had shown no willingness to cut back on her drug habit and had distanced herself from him. She had been in rehab, but not of her own accord, and when that was over she immediately slipped back into her old ways. Sindri, her brother, tried to help her, but to no avail. The siblings” relationship had always been close. But it was up and down between Erlendur and Eva, generally depending on Eva’s mood. Sometimes she was fine, talked to her father and let him know how she was coping. At other times she had no contact and did not want anything to do with him.

Erlendur locked the Ford and looked up to the top of the six-storey block of flats that towered menacingly into the darkness. He made a mental note to talk to the landlord in case he could shed any light on Sunee and the boys” circumstances. Yet again he delayed going up to her, and instead walked round to the back of the block and into the garden. The search of the crime scene had been completed. Forensics had packed up their equipment and everything was as before, as if nothing had ever happened at the site.

He walked out to the swings. The frost bit his face and he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and stood motionless for a long time. Earlier that day he had heard that his old boss from the Reykjavik CID, Marion Briem, had been admitted to the terminal ward of the National Hospital. It was many years since Marion had retired, and now the life was slowly ebbing from his old colleague. Their relationship could hardly be described as friendship. Erlendur had always been rather irritated by Marion, probably because Marion was almost the only person in his life who did not tire of asking questions and forcing Erlendur to justify himself. Marion was also one of the most inquisitive creatures ever to walk the earth, a living database of Icelandic crime, and had often proved useful to Erlendur, even in retirement. Marion had no relatives. Erlendur came closest to being at once friend, colleague and family.

A freezing wind pierced Erlendur’s clothes as he stood by the swings where Elias had died, and his mind roamed over the mountains and moors to another child who had once slipped from his grasp and now followed him through life like a sad shadow.

Erlendur looked up. He knew that he could not postpone sitting down with Sunee any longer. Turning round, he strode out of the garden. When he reached the entrance to the flats he noticed that the door to the rubbish store was open. Not wide open, just ajar. He had not noticed the rubbish store before. The door was set into the wall by the entrance and painted the same colour as the block of flats itself. Although the door had come open, that need not mean anything. Anyone could have gone there to empty their rubbish into the bins. The policeman who was guarding the door was standing inside the hallway, warming himself.

After a moment’s pause Erlendur went over to the rubbish store and threw the door wide open. It was pitch dark inside and he searched for the switch to turn on the lights. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling. Dustbins stood in rows along the walls, and beneath the chute was a bin chock-a-block with rubbish. It was cold and there was a sour stench of old food and other refuse. Erlendur hesitated. Then he turned off the light and pulled the door to.

It was then that he heard the whimpering.

It took him a while to work out what the sound was. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps he had not interpreted it correctly. He tore open the door and switched the light back on.

“Is there anyone in there?” he called.

Receiving no answer, he went inside the storage room, shifting dustbins about and searching between them. He pushed the bin away from beneath the chute and behind it discovered a black-haired boy sitting huddled up with his head buried between his knees, as if trying to make himself invisible.