“Why did she run off with Niran?” Erlendur asked, lowering his voice.

“I don’t know,” Gudny said.

“Could she be trying to get him out of the country?”

“Out of the country?”

“Why not?”

“I think she’s trying to protect him, not that I know anything about it. No, I don’t think she’s trying to get him out of the country. In the first place, I don’t think she’d have a clue how to go about it”

“She might know someone.”

“That’s absurd!”

“I agree that she’s trying to protect Niran,” Erlendur said. “I think she’s gone into hiding because he’s told her something at last. He knows what happened.”

“I can’t believe you’re claiming he was involved in murdering his own brother!” Gudny said, outraged.

“We have to examine all the possibilities and Sunee disappearing with the boy doesn’t help. She may well want to protect him by doing so but she may also know something that we don’t. I expect he told her something important.”

“If Niran has done something wrong, Sunee would tell us. I know her. She wouldn’t cover up for the boy.”

“We have to keep all our options open.”

“But it’s out of the question!” the interpreter shouted.

“Don’t tell me what’s out of the question and what isn’t,” Erlendur said.

“You can’t keep them imprisoned here at least,” Gudny said. “You can’t lock them up in this flat! They must be free to go where they please.”

“I don’t want anything else to happen to them,” Erlendur said. “They need to let us know where they’re going.”

“That’s crap,’Gudny said.

“There she is!”

Sigurdur Oli stared out through the door into the corridor where Sunee was standing. Her brother was with her, but there was no sign of Niran.

Gudny went over to them and said something in Thai. Virote answered her. Sunee looked apprehensively at Erlendur.

“Niran not do nothing,” she said.

“Where is he?” Erlendur asked.

Sunee spoke to Gudny for a long while.

“She’s not certain that she can look after him,” Gudny said. “He’s safe where he is. Sunee knows you want to question him, but says it’s unnecessary. He hasn’t done anything and doesn’t know anything. He came home by himself yesterday and saw the police and his brother and went into a state of shock. He hid and couldn’t speak to his mother until this morning. He assured Sunee that he has no idea what happened to his brother. He had no part in it himself and didn’t see or meet Elias that day. He was scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That the same thing would happen to him,” Gudny said.

“Will you tell Sunee that it’s not right to conceal the boy. It’s suspicious behaviour and even dangerous as long as we don’t know any more about the case. We don’t know what happened to Elias and if she thinks Niran’s in danger she’ll have to trust us to look after him. She’s just making things worse.”

Gudny translated Erlendur’s words as he spoke but Sunee started shaking her head before she managed to finish.

“Niran not do nothing,” she said again, glaring at Erlendur.

“Please ask her to tell us where her son is,” Erlendur asked.

“She says you needn’t worry about him,” Gudny said. “She asks you to find Elias’s murderer instead. Are there any new developments on that front?”

“No,” Erlendur said, trying to imagine what he himself would do in Sunee’s shoes. Perhaps she was doing the right thing. He could not tell.

“We hear you’ve met a man — an Icelander,” Erlendur said. “I haven’t had the opportunity to ask you about him yet.”

Gudny interpreted between them.

“He’s nothing to do with this,” Sunee said.

“Who is this man?” Sigurdur Oli asked. “What can you tell us about him?”

“Nothing,” Sunee said.

“Do you know where we can reach him?”

“No,” Sunee replied.

“Is he at work? Do you know where he works?”

“He’s none of your business,” Sunee said.

“What kind of relationship do you have?” Erlendur asked.

“He’s my friend.”

“What kind of friend?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“Is he more than just a friend?”

“No, nothing more.”

“Do you think this man was involved in the murder of your son?” Sigurdur Oli asked.

“No,” Sunee said.

“Isn’t that enough for now?” Gudny asked.

Erlendur nodded.

“We’ll talk to her again later today. And try to make her understand that she’s not helping at all by hiding Niran.”

“Except helping to save his life perhaps,” Gudny said. “Try to put yourself in her position. Try to understand what she’s going through.”

They walked downstairs and got into Erlendur’s car.

“Who is this woman who’s such a good interpreter?” Erlendur asked, taking out a pack of cigarettes.

“Are you going to smoke?” said Sigurdur Oli, who was sitting in the back seat.

“Gudny?” Elinborg said. “She lived in Thailand for years. Goes there regularly, worships the place and the people, and works as a tourist guide during the summer. I think she’s done a great job under difficult circumstances. I like her.”

“She can’t stand you,” Sigurdur Oli said to Erlendur.

Erlendur lit his cigarette and tried to blow the smoke into the back seat.

“Did you get anything else out of Andres?” he asked.

Sigurdur Oli had stayed behind in the interview room when Erlendur had leaped to his feet and run out. He told him how he had tried to get Andres to name the man who had recently moved to the neighbourhood, but to no avail. Sigurdur described the interview to Elinborg; he thought Andres was spinning a cock-and-bull story to shift the attention away from himself. It was a tired old ruse.

“He refused to describe the man to me,” Sigurdur Oli said, “or to provide any details about him.”

“If he harmed Andres when he was a child, then at least he must be quite a bit older,” Erlendur said. “I don’t know, he might be in his sixties by now. Actually, I don’t think it was a paedophile. They’re not murderers. Not in the literal sense anyway”

The investigation was into its second day and they still lacked sufficient information to be able to draw any conclusions. No one had come forward who had seen Elias’s movements that day. At the place where he was stabbed — the substation — there was an open path that narrowed to accommodate garages on one side. The scene was overlooked by the top flats of the nearby blocks but none of the residents had seen anything unusual or suspicious. Very few people were home at the time of day when Elias was attacked.

Erlendur’s interest focused on the school. Elinborg told them how, at the boys” previous school, Niran had been a member of a gang of immigrant children who were involved in fights. She wondered if he had imported the influences that he came under there to the new school. Erlendur pointed out that he was a member of a gang which, one pupil had told him, hung around the local chemist’s shop and sometimes clashed with other pupils from the school.

And then we have a paedophile and a repeat offender and an Icelandic boyfriend,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Not forgetting a teacher who patently hates all immigrants and foments bad feeling at the school. Nice bunch.”

Niran obviously had to be a key witness in the case, and the fact that he had disappeared or fled or gone into hiding with his mother underlined his importance. They had let him slip out of their grasp in the clumsiest way imaginable. Erlendur had plenty of strong words to say about that. He blamed himself for the way it had all turned out. No one else.

“How could we have foreseen this?” Elinborg protested at his overreaction. “Sunee was very cooperative. There was nothing to suggest that she would go and do something stupid.”

“We need to talk to the boy’s father and Sunee’s mother-in-law and brother straight away,” Sigurdur Oli said. “They’re the people closest to her. They’re the people who would want to help her.”