“So the flat wasn’t registered in anyone’s name?”

“No,” the landlord said with a shrug, as if confessing to a minor oversight.

“Tell me something else. Sunee who lives opposite him, does she always pay on time?” Erlendur asked.

“You mean the Thai?” the landlord asked. “Always pays.”

“Cash in hand?” Elinborg asked.

“No, no,” the landlord said. “It’s all above-board. They’re all above-board except for that bloke.”

He paused.

“Well, and maybe two or three others. But no more. And I told her that I’d kick her out double quick if she didn’t pay. I don’t like letting to her sort but the market’s a nightmare, the types you get renting! I’m going to call it a day. Sell the flats. I can’t be doing with it any more.”

That was all they had to go on when they entered the flat. They stood in the living room of the man who called himself either Gestur or Rognvaldur, utterly perplexed. They had no idea where to look for him, did not know who he was. In fact, they had nothing whatsoever to go on but the word of a known criminal.

“Strange how people keep vanishing in this case,” Elinborg said. “First Niran, now this guy.”

“I’m afraid it’ll prove a harder job to track this man down than Niran,” Erlendur said. “It’s as if he’s done the same thing before. As if he’s been forced to do a disappearing act at short notice before.”

“You mean, if he is what Andres says he is?”

“It’s too well prepared somehow,” Erlendur said, “too premeditated. He probably has some other bolthole where he can lie low if something happens to draw attention to him.”

“He doesn’t even keep any personal belongings here,” Elinborg said. “He’s left nothing behind. As if he doesn’t exist — as if he never existed.”

The landlord had told them when handing over the spare key that he himself owned the few bits and pieces that were in the flat. Even the paperbacks in the bookcase were his property. There was an old television in the living room and an ancient radio-cassette player in the kitchen. The television was licensed to the landlord as well.

“We need to talk to his neighbours on the staircase,” Erlendur said with a sigh. “Ask about his movements. Whether he showed any particular interest in the kids in the block or in the neighbourhood. That sort of thing. Would you mind seeing to it?”

Elinborg nodded.

“Do you think Sunee hid Niran because of this man?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “It’s all so hazy still.”

“Why doesn’t she just tell us what she’s afraid of so that we can help her?”

“Search me.”

Erlendur walked across the landing to Sunee’s flat once Gudny had arrived. He had called her over to assist. He did not know exactly how to express the questions to find out what he wanted to know without distressing Sunee. He sat down with her and Gudny under the yellow dragon and told her about her next-door neighbour and their suspicions as to what kind of offender he might be. Sunee listened attentively, asked questions and answered without hesitation, and by the time they stood up again Erlendur was convinced that the man had never behaved in an inappropriate way towards her boys.

“I’m sure,” Sunee said firmly. “It never happen.”

“He seemed to know Niran and Elias.”

“They knew him because he lives right opposite,” Gudny translated. “It’s out of the question that they ever went into his flat. Elias went to the shop for him a couple of times, that’s all.”

The other residents on the staircase had had little to do with the man; he came and went without anyone paying much attention. There was never any noise from his flat. “He crept around here like a mouse,” Fanney said.

Elinborg noticed that Erlendur seemed preoccupied when he returned from Sunee’s flat.

“Has Sigurdur Oli ever talked to you about his father?” he asked as they walked downstairs. “Do you know anything about him?”

“Sigurdur Oli? No. Not that I remember. He never talks about himself. Why do you ask? What about his father?”

“Oh, nothing. I was talking to Sigurdur Oli today and it suddenly occurred to me that I don’t know anything about him.”

“I don’t know anyone who does,” Elinborg said.

It was intended as a joke but she sensed that Erlendur was being serious and regretted her words. She often made snide comments at Sigurdur Oli’s expense, but then he asked for it by being so inflexible in his views, so pedantic and lacking in empathy. He never let his job get to him, whatever happened. He seemed completely thick-skinned. Elinborg knew that this was the difference between Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli; the source of the friction, almost amounting to antipathy, that existed between them.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “He’s not a bad cop. And he’s not as bad as you think.”

“I never said he was,” Elinborg answered. “I just don’t feel like spending much time with him.”

“It suddenly struck me as odd when I was talking to him today that I don’t know him at all. I know nothing about him, any more than I ever really knew Marion Briem. You know Marion’s passed away?”

Elinborg nodded. The news had spread around the force. Few people remembered Marion, apart from the oldest members. No one had stayed in touch except Erlendur, who had been wondering ever since Marion died just what their working partnership and friendship had been based on. His thoughts had turned to Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg, his closest colleagues. He barely knew them and recognised that this was not least his own fault. He was well aware that he was not a sociable man.

“Do you miss Marion?” Elinborg asked.

They stepped outside into the bitter cold. Erlendur stopped and pulled his coat tight around him. He had not had time to consider the question until suddenly confronted by it now. Did he miss Marion?

“I do,” he said. “I miss Marion. I’ll miss—”

“What?” Elinborg said when Erlendur broke off in mid-sentence.

“I don’t know why I’m burdening you with this,” he said and walked towards his car.

“You’re not burdening me,” Elinborg said. “You never do,” she added, in the belief that Erlendur would not hear.

“Elinborg,” Erlendur said, turning.

“Yes.”

“How’s your daughter? Is her gastric flu any better?”

“She’s perking up,” Elinborg said. “Thanks for asking.”

They arrived at Andres’s place shortly after dinnertime. He was at home, rather the worse for wear but not too drunk to hold a conversation. The police had released him after the initial interview; they did not have sufficient grounds to detain him any longer. He let them in with a grin that immediately got on Erlendur’s nerves. Sigurdur Oli closed the door behind them. He had spent the best part of the day looking for leads that might help them trace Gestur but had found nothing on him in the police records and was feeling tired. Elinborg had gone home. It was dark in Andres’s flat and there was a suffocating odour of cooking, almost a stench, as if he had been eating putrefied skate with dripping. They stood in the living room. Andres sat down in front of the television. Beer cans littered the table beside him and empty schnapps bottles lay overturned on the floor. He sat with his back to them, glued to the television as if they did not exist. The sole illumination was the flickering glow of the screen. Only the top of his head was visible over the high back of the chair.

“How’s it going?” Andres asked. He picked up a beer can, took a swig and belched.

“We found him,” Erlendur said. “Your old stepfather.”

Andres slowly replaced the beer can.

“You’re taking the piss.”

“He calls himself Gestur. Lives in the same block of flats as the boy who was attacked.”

“So what?”

“You tell us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where is he?”

“Hang on a minute, didn’t you just find him?”