Andres dug his hands into his pockets.

He sniffed, his eyes wet from the cold, and stamped his feet before walking away.

18

Kjartan was not at home but the detectives said that they would wait. The woman regarded them in astonishment.

“Out here?” she asked, her features stretching in surprise.

Erlendur shrugged.

“Why do you keep wanting to talk to Kjartan?” she asked.

“It’s in connection with the incident at the school,” Elinborg said. “Routine procedure. We’re interviewing teachers and pupils.”

“I thought you’d already talked to him.”

“We need to talk to him again,” Elinborg said.

The woman looked from one of them to the other and they sensed that she would have preferred to shut the door in their faces and never see them again.

“Wouldn’t you rather come in?” she asked after an awkward pause.

“Thank you,” Erlendur said and ushered Elinborg inside before him. Two children, a boy and a girl, watched them enter the living room and take a seat. Erlendur would rather have talked to Kjartan down at the station or at the school but he had been avoiding them. He failed to turn up for a meeting at the station and when they went to pick him up from the school he was not there. As he was not answering his phone either, Elinborg suggested they pay him a visit at home and Erlendur had agreed.

“He took the car to the garage to get it looked at,” the woman said.

“I see,” Erlendur said.

It was evening and the woman had been making supper in the kitchen when they knocked on the door. She did not elaborate on the business with the car. She said she had heard from Kjartan that afternoon but not since then. Sensing her apprehension at the visit from the police, Erlendur tried to reassure her, repeating Elinborg’s words about routine procedure.

The woman was not entirely convinced, however, and when she went back into the kitchen she took her mobile with her. The two children followed, turning round in the kitchen doorway to stare wide-eyed at the detectives. Elinborg smiled at them. The woman’s voice carried into the living room. They heard her voice rise sharply at one point, then fall silent. Some time passed before she emerged. By then she was calmer.

“Kjartan’s been slightly held up,” she said, trying to smile. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Thank you,” Elinborg said.

“Can I offer you anything?” the woman asked.

“Coffee, please, if there’s any in the pot,” Erlendur said.

The woman disappeared back into the kitchen. The children were still standing in the doorway, staring at them.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Elinborg murmured to Erlendur after a long silence. She didn’t take her eyes off the children.

“It was your idea,” Erlendur said.

“I know, but isn’t it a bit OTT?”

“OTT?”

“We could make up some lie about a call-out. I had no idea it would be so awkward. If he comes, we could nab him outside.”

“Maybe you should never have quit geology,” Erlendur said.

“Geology?”

“Bits of rock don’t give you this sort of bother,” Erlendur said.

“Oh, ha ha!” Elinborg replied.

She had managed to irritate him in the car on the way over. Started quizzing him about Valgerdur and their future plans, and Erlendur had instantly retreated into silence. Elinborg was not daunted, however, even when he told her not to keep asking those infernal bloody questions. She asked if Valgerdur was still involved in some way with her former husband, a question that Erlendur would have had to answer in the affirmative, if he had answered at all, and if she ever intended to move in with him, a matter that he had still not confronted himself. Elinborg’s tendency to pry into his private life got on his nerves at times; questions about Eva Lind and Sindri Snaer, about himself. She seemed incapable of leaving well alone.

“Are you conducting a distance relationship, by any chance?” she asked. “Lots of people prefer it to living together.”

“Will you give me a break?” Erlendur said. “I don’t know what you mean by a distance relationship.”

Elinborg shut up temporarily, then began to hum the tune to a well-known poem by Steinn Steinarr: Cadet Jon Kristofer, the Sally Army meeting’s at seven, when Lieutenant Valgerdur will show you the way to heaven…”

She kept up her humming until Erlendur lost patience.

“I don’t know how things’ll work out,” he said. “And it’s none of your business anyway.”

“All right,” Elinborg said, still humming.

“Lieutenant Valgerdur.…!” Erlendur snapped.

“What?”

“The things you come out with!”

Kjartan’s wife emerged from the kitchen with some coffee cups. Her face wore a look of acute anxiety. The children followed and were left standing in the middle of the room at something of a loss when their mother returned to the kitchen to fetch the coffee. At that moment the door opened and Kjartan came in. Elinborg and Erlendur rose to their feet.

“Is this really necessary?” Kjartan said, clearly agitated.

“We’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,” Elinborg pointed out.

Kjartan’s wife came in with a coffee pot.

“What’s going on?” she asked her husband.

“Nothing,” Kjartan said, immediately calming down. He spoke reassuringly to his wife. “I told you on the phone, it’s because of the attack on the boy at school”

“What about it? It doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?”

“No,” Kjartan said, looking at the detectives as if for help.

“We’re talking to all the teachers at the school, as I’ve already told you,” Elinborg said. “Could we maybe sit down somewhere where we won’t be disturbed?”

She addressed her words to Kjartan, who hesitated. He looked at the three of them in turn and they all waited for him to speak. At last he nodded.

“I have a study down in the basement,” he said reluctantly. “We can go in there. Is that all right?” he asked his wife.

“Take the coffee with you,” she said.

Kjartan smiled.

“Thanks, love, I’ll be up as soon as they’ve gone.”

Picking up his younger child he kissed her, then stroked the elder child’s hair.

“Daddy’ll be right back,” he said. “He just needs to talk to these people, then he’ll be back.”

Kjartan showed them down to the basement. He had set up a study for himself in a little storeroom with a desk, computer and printer, books and papers. There was only one chair, which he occupied himself. The two detectives stood by the door. Kjartan had led them down to the basement in silence but now his anger seemed to erupt.

“What do you mean by persecuting me in my own home like this?” he snarled. “In front of my family! Did you see the look on my children’s faces? Do you really think this is an acceptable way to behave?”

Erlendur did not respond. Elinborg was poised to speak but Kjartan pre-empted her.

“Am I some sort of criminal? What have I done to deserve this kind of treatment?”

“We’ve been trying to get hold of you all day,” Erlendur said again. “You haven’t been answering your phone. We decided to check if you were at home. Your wife was kind enough to invite us in and make coffee. Then you turned up. Is that any reason to get excited? We only came round to try to catch you at home. Luckily, we did. Do you want to make a complaint?”

Kjartan looked at them in turn.

“What do you want with me?” he asked.

“Perhaps we could begin with something that calls or called itself “Fathers of Iceland”,” Erlendur said.

Kjartan smirked. “And with that you think you’ve solved the case, do you?”

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

“I was eighteen years old,” Kjartan said. “It was kids” stuff. You can imagine. Fathers of Iceland! Only kids come up with that sort of crap. Teenagers trying to sound big.”