“Niran?” Erlendur said.

The boy did not move.

“Is that you, Niran?”

The boy did not answer him. Erlendur knelt down and tried to make him look up, but the boy buried his head even deeper between his knees. He was clasping his legs together in a locked position that could not be budged.

“Come along out of here,” Erlendur said, but the boy behaved as if he was not there.

“Your mother’s looking for you.”

Erlendur took hold of the boy’s hand. It was as cold as an icicle. The boy bowed his head down to his chest. It was as if he thought Erlendur would just go away and leave him be.

After a while Erlendur felt he had tried everything, so he stood up slowly and walked backwards out of the rubbish store. He rang Sunee’s entryphone. The interpreter answered. Erlendur said he thought he had found Niran. He was safe but his mother would have to come down and talk to him. Sunee, her brother and mother-in-law and the interpreter soon came running down the stairs. Erlendur met them at the door and showed Sunee alone the way into the storage room.

The moment she saw the boy hunched up beneath the chute she gave a little shriek, ran over to him and hugged him. Then for the first time the boy released his grip on himself, and burrowed into his mother’s arms.

Some time later that evening Erlendur returned home to his lair, as Eva Lind had once called his flat when he thought that their relationship was improving. She said that he crawled into it to celebrate his misery. Those were not the words she used; Eva had a very limited and monotonous vocabulary, but that was the gist of it. He did not switch on the light The illumination from the street cast a pale glow into the living room where his books were and he sat down in his armchair. He had often sat alone in the dark, looking out of the large living-room window. When he sat like that, looking out, there was nothing in the window but the endless sky. Occasional stars glittered in the winter stillness. Sometimes he watched the moon riding past his window in all its cold and distant glory. Sometimes the sky was dark and overcast, like now, and Erlendur stared into the blackness as if wanting to be able to disperse his weary thoughts out into the void.

He pictured Elias lying in the back garden of the flats, and once again an old image entered his mind, of another boy who all those years ago, that unfathomable eternity, had died in a raging blizzard. It was his brother, eight years old. He did not realise until he was sitting at home in his own living room, alone in the calm of night, how profound an effect the discovery of the boy’s body by the block of flats had had on him. Erlendur could not help thinking about his own brother. The wound that his death left behind had never healed. Guilt had gnawed at Erlendur ever since, because he felt that he was to blame for his younger brother’s fate. He was supposed to take care of him, and he had failed. No one but Erlendur himself made this unfair judgement. No one had ever mentioned that he could have done better. If he had not lost his grip on his brother in the blizzard, they would have been found together when the search party was sent out and Erlendur was dug out of the snowdrift in remarkably good shape.

He thought back to Niran when Sunee led him in tears out of the rubbish store. Did he feel that he should have been his brother’s keeper?

Erlendur heaved a sigh and closed his eyes. All those endless thoughts that cut into his mind like shards of glass on his descent into a dreamless sleep.

He thinks about Elinborg snuggling up exhausted against her little daughter, as if to protect her from all harm.

He sees a worried-looking Sigurdur Oli creeping into his house, taking care not to wake Bergthora.

Elias lies in the back garden of the flats in a ripped anorak, his broken eyes watching the snow drifting past.

Odinn paces the floor on Snorrabraut.

Niran lies in his room, his lips trembling in silent anguish.

Sunee sits alone on the sofa, weeping quietly beneath the yellow dragon.

The woman he is searching for bobs gently in the lapping waves.

His eight-year-old brother lies frozen in a blizzard that will last for ever.

In a sun-drenched dream, a little bird flicks its tail in its new bird-house and sings for its friend.

9

When Erlendur arrived at the school the following morning with Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli, the bell had just rung for break. The children were walking quietly along the corridors. Teachers and assistants were controlling the flood and all the exits stood wide open. It had snowed towards morning. The younger children intended to use every second of the break to play outside. The older ones were more blase, huddling by the walls or strolling in small groups down to the shop.

Erlendur knew that trauma counselling was available for the children in Elias’s class and that some of the parents had taken advantage of it. They had accompanied their children to school and told the teachers of their concerns. The principal had decided to gather all the pupils and staff in the assembly hall at lunchtime for a period of quiet reflection in memory of Elias. The local clergyman was going to address the pupils and a representative from the police would ask anyone who knew about Elias’s movements, or had any information that might prove useful in the investigation into his death, to notify a teacher, the principal or the police. An emergency telephone number would be given for anonymous callers. All leads would be investigated, however trivial they might seem. Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg were going to ask Elias’s classmates about his last day alive, although this process was complicated by the fact that parental permission was required before a child could be questioned. Agnes, Elias’s form teacher, had been very helpful and telephoned the parents first thing, and had received permission from most of them to allow the police, in cooperation with the Reykjavik Child Welfare Agency, to gather important information. She emphasised that this would not involve proper questioning, only information collection. Some parents wanted to be present when their children were interviewed and stood in the corridor with anxious expressions on their faces. Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg were already sitting down with the children, one at a time, in an empty classroom they had been allocated for the purpose.

Erlendur met the principal and asked specifically about the woodwork teacher. He understood that, like the Icelandic teacher, Egill had expressed some antipathy towards Asian women who immigrated to Iceland. The principal, who was rather stressed about preparing for the lunchtime meeting with the police representative, showed Erlendur to the woodwork room. No one was there. Erlendur returned to the staff room and was told that the woodwork teacher was probably sitting in his car out in the car park. This was a long break and he had the habit of going out to his car sometimes to smoke a cigarette or two, Erlendur was told.

The police investigation was still focusing on the immediate vicinity, the school and the estate. It transpired that a repeat offender lived in a block of flats not far from Elias’s. He had been brought in for questioning that night but, paralytic with drink, he had assaulted the officers and was detained in custody. Towards morning a search warrant was obtained for his flat, but so far nothing had been found that could be linked to Elias’s murder. The police also investigated several of the usual suspects, who might conceivably be connected with stabbings — debt collectors and people who had been picked up by the police due to clashes with immigrants or even tourists.

Niran had not spoken a word since he was found. A child psychologist had been called in that night and a social worker from the Child Welfare Agency, but Niran remained wrapped in a blanket and said nothing, no matter how they pressed him. He was repeatedly asked where he had been that day and whether he knew about his brother’s fate, whether he knew what had happened, who could have committed the deed, when he had last seen his brother, what they had talked about. While all these questions rained down on him, especially from his mother, Niran never opened his mouth, sitting instead in silence in his blanket and staring into space. It was as if he had withdrawn into a closed world; into a sanctuary that he alone knew.