As far as Erlendur knew, there were not many individuals in the police files who were considered actively dangerous or likely to commit serious crimes from racist motives. A few violent thugs had been arrested, at their own homes in a couple of instances, and a variety of offensive weapons — clubs, knives and knuckledusters — had been removed, along with propaganda that could be described as neo-Nazi: material from the Internet, pamphlets, books, photocopies, flags and other racist paraphernalia. Much of it had been confiscated. This was no organised circulation of hate propaganda, and few people had been picked up by the police specifically for showing hostility towards immigrants. Most complaints about racial prejudice were the result of random, one-off incidents.

Erlendur rooted around in the boxes. In one he found a carefully folded Confederate flag and another bearing a swastika. There were also a variety of publications in English, which, judging from the titles, seemed to write off the holocaust as a Zionist conspiracy, and racist pamphlets featuring pictures of primitive African tribes. He unearthed articles from American and British magazines inciting hatred, and finally an old book of minutes from an association calling itself “Fathers of Iceland’.

The book recorded several meetings that took place in 1990, where the issues discussed included Hitler’s contribution to the reconstruction of post-Weimar Germany. At one point there was a passage referring to the problem of immigration in Iceland and discussing how to stem the tide. It predicted that the Nordic race would face extinction in Iceland within a hundred years if miscegenation continued. Among the measures to oppose this it advocated passing tougher laws on eligibility for citizenship, and even closing the borders to foreigners, regardless of whether they came to the country to work, for family reasons or as asylum seekers. The entries stopped abruptly. Apparently the association had disbanded without warning. Erlendur registered that the handwriting was elegant, the style terse and to the point, with no unnecessary digressions.

Although no list of members was appended, the minutes contained a name that seemed familiar to Erlendur. He was sitting racking his brains about where he had heard it before when his mobile rang. He recognised the voice immediately.

“I know I mustn’t call but I don’t know what…”

The woman began to sob.

“…I don’t know what to do.”

“Come and talk to me,” Erlendur said.

“I can’t. I can’t do it. It’s so terrible how…”

“What?” Erlendur said.

“I want to,” the voice said. “I do want to, but it’s impossible.”

“Where are you?”

“I . . . “

The woman abandoned what she had been going to say and there was silence.

“I can help you,” Erlendur said. “Tell me where you are and I’ll help you.”

“I can’t,” the voice said, and he could hear the woman crying down the phone. “I can’t . . . live like this . . .” She trailed off again.

“But you keep calling,” Erlendur said. “You can’t be in a good way if you’re phoning me like this. I’ll help you. Are you hiding because of him? Is it because of him that you’re in hiding?”

“I’d do anything for him, that’s why-‘ The woman broke off.

“We need to talk to you,” Erlendur said.

Silence.

“We can help you. I know it must be difficult but…”

“It should never have happened. Never.”

“Tell me where you are and we’ll talk,” Erlendur said. “It’ll be all right. I promise.”

He waited with bated breath. All he could hear over the phone was the woman’s sobbing. A long moment passed. Erlendur did not dare to speak. The woman was weighing up her options. His mind racing, he tried to find something to say to her to clinch the matter. Something about her husband. Her family. Her two children.

“Your children will certainly want to know—”

Erlendur got no further.

“Oh God!” the woman cried, and hung up.

Erlendur stared at the phone in his hand. The caller ID was blank like last time. He assumed the woman had called from a public payphone; the background noise had suggested as much. When he had her first call traced, it turned out to have been made from the Smaralind shopping mall. Information of this kind had little bearing as a rule. People who called the police from public payphones did so for a reason and avoided using phones near their home or workplace. The location would tell the police nothing.

Pensively, he shoved the phone back in his pocket. Why was the woman calling him? She disclosed no information. She did not tell him why she was in hiding. She did not mention her husband or reveal anything about what she was thinking. Maybe she felt it was enough to let him know that she was alive. She might even be trying to prevent him from looking for her. What was she concealing? Why had she left him?

He had got little response when he put the same questions to her husband. The man shook his head as if he had no idea what was going on. It was almost his sole reaction to the disappearance. It was not until after New Year that Erlendur met his ex-wives and asked them what they thought could have happened. One received him at her home in Hafnarfjordur; her husband was abroad on business. The woman was eager to help Erlendur with his inquiries, eager to tell him what a shit her ex-husband was. He listened to the diatribe, then asked her if she thought her ex was capable of harming his new wife. The answer came instantly.

“No question,” she said. “I’m certain of it.”

“Why?”

“Men like him,” she said contemptuously, “they’re capable of anything.”

“Have you any proof of what you say?”

“No,” the woman said, “I just know. He’s the type. I bet he’s started sleeping around again. Men like that never give up. It’s like a disease. It’s like a disease with those bastards.”

The other woman was more informative when she came, at her own request, to see Erlendur down at the station. She did not want him to come to her house. He described the case to her and she listened attentively, especially when he began to hint at the possibility that her ex-husband might be involved in his new wife’s disappearance.

“Have you no idea what happened to her?” she asked, her eyes wandering around the office.

“Do you think he could have done something to her?” Erlendur asked.

“Is that what you think?”

“We don’t think anything,” Erlendur said.

“Yes you do or you wouldn’t be asking.”

“It’s simply a routine inquiry,” Erlendur said. “We try to consider every angle. It has no bearing on what we do or don’t think.”

“You think he killed her,” the woman said, seeming to perk up.

“I don’t think anything,” Erlendur said, more firmly this time.

“He’s capable of anything,” the woman said.

“Why do you say that?”

“He once threatened me,” she said. “Threatened to kill me. I refused to divorce him so he could get married for a third time to that bitch you’re looking for. I said I’d never give him a divorce and he’d never be able to marry again. I was very angry, maybe even hysterical. A friend of mine told me about the affair, she’d heard people gossiping about it at work and told me. Everyone knew but me. Do you know how humiliating it is when everyone knows except the person who’s being cheated on? I went berserk. He hit me. Then he said he’d kill me if I put up any fucking obstacles.”

“He threatened to kill you?”

“He said he’d throttle me nice and slow till I was dead.”

Erlendur started out of his musings. He looked down at the book he had been perusing and his thoughts returned to the name recorded under the minutes. He remembered who it might be. Sigurdur Oli had mentioned the name and how bad-tempered and unpleasant he had been. If it was the same man, Erlendur would have to bring forward the interview he had scheduled with Kjartan, the school’s Icelandic teacher.