“There are boggy areas up on the moors,” Erlendur said at last. “Quagmires that can be dangerous. They freeze over in winter, but every now and then there’s a thaw. The ice may have cracked and Bergur may have fallen through and got stuck. That’s one theory because we never found his remains.”

“So the ground swallowed him up?”

“We searched for weeks, months,” Erlendur said. “Local farmers. Our friends and relatives. It was no good. We found nothing. Not a single trace. It was literally as if the ground had swallowed him up.”

Sindri contemplated his father.

“That’s what people said.”

No one spoke for a long moment.

“Why is it still so hard after all these years?” Eva asked.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “Because I know he’s still up there somewhere lost and alone, with nothing to look forward to but death.”

They sat in silence for a long time and the only sound was the howling of the north wind. Eva Lind stood up and walked over to the living-room window.

“Poor little boy,” she said into the cold winter’s night.

When they had gone, he sat down in his chair again and a sentence from Elias’s exercise book came into his mind; a little comment or thought that Elias had written on its own at the bottom of a page, as if he had noted it down on the spur of the moment. Perhaps he had meant to ask his mother.

How many trees does it take to make a forest?

24

Erlendur woke from a dreamless sleep. A book about avalanches in Iceland lay open on the bedside table. More books were piled beside it: Icelandic novels, descriptions of arduous journeys over mountain tracks, folktales and legends, ghost stories and travellers” tales from days gone by, but mostly tragic accounts of death and destruction in extreme weather conditions. Valgerdur had asked if these accounts he revered so much dealt only with death and injury. Erlendur said that on the contrary many of them told of miraculous rescues, and the apparently limitless capacity and endurance of people who survived the most extraordinary ordeals. That’s the point of the stories, he said. That’s why they’re so relevant.

He admitted that they contained few laughs, though he did find the occasional glimmer of wry amusement amidst all the trials and tribulations. Before going to sleep he had read an account in a parish register from 1847 that told of a farm labourer who went far into the mountains in search of sheep, having been warned of the danger from avalanches. When the labourer did not return at the appointed hour, two men were sent out to look for him. After searching for some time they saw that he had probably fallen over a snowy precipice into a large gully that was by now almost entirely full of snow. The men scraped away at the snow with their hands and after they had dug down about four feet they uncovered the soles of the labourer’s feet. Assuming he must be dead, they ceased their digging and returned to the farm, but when they reported their discovery, there was a commotion. The farm people would not have it that the labourer’s death was beyond doubt, and ordered the pair back up the mountain, this time armed with a shovel, some Hoffmann’s drops and camphor oil. When they dug the man out of the snow, it transpired that he had been trapped head-down in the drift, was still very much alive in spite of everything, and “came out talking furiously’.

Erlendur smiled to himself as he got out of bed and put on some coffee. Sigurdur Oli phoned and they had a brief conversation about the knife from the recycling depot. Anyone from the school could have removed the knife from the workshop, assuming it came from there in the first place, as there was a steady stream of pupils, teachers and other staff through the classroom. Egill was right, the carving knives used at Icelandic schools were identical, and it was uncertain whether they would be able to find any evidence to link the knife to the attack on Elias. The employee who discovered it had been using it at work and claimed that it was so shiny when he found it that someone must have cleaned it before it ended up in the scrap-metal bin.

The phone rang again. This time it was Elinborg.

“She’s been found,” she announced without preamble. “The missing woman.”

“Who?”

“The missing woman. Exactly where I said we’d find her. On Reykjanes. In the lavafield south of the aluminium plant.”

The police forensics team were standing over the body, well bundled up in thick down jackets. A tripod supporting two arclights lay on its side with the bulbs smashed, where it had blown over. Erlendur had driven the Ford along the old track as far as he dared before getting out and walking the last stretch. The place was known as Hraun, a short distance from the aluminium plant at Straumsvik. The lava shoreline was indented here by small coves full of sharp skerries. Snow fell in intermittent flurries and an angry sea crashed on the rocks. Erlendur was aware that this used to be a landing place for rowing boats and noted the outlines of ruined walls, which were all that remained of the old fishermen’s huts and sheds.

The corpse had been washed up in one of the coves. Although the official search for the woman had been called off some time ago, a small team of voluntary rescue workers from nearby Hafnarfjordur had been on a dawn exercise, combing the beaches south of the aluminium plant, when they stumbled across the body. Elinborg was talking to members of the team in one of the patrol cars that had made it all the way down to the sea. An ambulance and two other police cars were parked a short way from the corpse, their headlights illuminating the narrow cove, the breakers on the beach and the figures stooping over the body.

Elinborg stepped out of the car when she saw Erlendur approaching.

“Has someone let the husband know?” he asked, stopping.

“I gather he’s on his way.”

“Is it definitely her?”

“There’s no question. We found her ID. Aren’t you going to take a look at her?”

“Yes, in a minute,” Erlendur said, taking out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one. He had dreaded this moment. It would be the first time he had seen the woman and he wished that it had not been like this, as a corpse on a Reykjanes beach. He remembered their last telephone conversation. He had been a brute. He regretted it now.

The Hafnarfjordur district medical officer had been summoned to sign the death certificate. When he had finished examining the body, he walked over to them.

“Can you see any injuries?” Erlendur asked.

“No, not at first sight,” the medical officer said.

The phone calls had been so brief, so truncated. Erlendur wondered if he could have responded differently. Could he have helped her? Ought he to have listened to her better?

“I’m only here to sign the death certificate,” the medical officer said. “The police pathologist will have to determine the cause of death.”

They saw a jeep approaching. Erlendur flicked away his cigarette butt. The jeep stopped by the squad cars and the woman’s husband jumped out and started running towards them.

“Have you found her?” he called.

Erlendur and Elinborg exchanged glances. The man’s path was blocked by police officers.

“Is it her?” the man yelled, staring over towards the body. “Oh my God! What has she done?”

He tried to push past them but the police officers held him back.

“What have you done?” he shouted in the direction of the body.

Erlendur and Elinborg stood motionless in the cold, their eyes meeting. The man turned to Erlendur.

“Look what she’s done!” he shouted in utter despair. “Why did she do this? Why?”

The officers led the man aside and tried to calm him.

Erlendur stood in the shelter of a large police vehicle with Elinborg and the medical officer. His thoughts went out to the woman’s children and former husband. He knew that the more time that elapsed after her disappearance, the more their fears for the worst had grown, and now their worst nightmares had been realised.