8

They moved to the bar next to the dining room when they had eaten their fill of the buffet and drunk coffee afterwards. Erlendur bought them drinks and they sat down at a booth well inside the bar. She said she couldn't stay long, from which Erlendur read polite caution. Not that he was planning to invite her up to his room – the thought didn't even cross his mind and she knew that – but he felt a sense of insecurity about her and the same kind of barriers he encountered from people who were sent to him for interrogation. Perhaps she didn't know herself what she was doing.

Talking to a detective intrigued her and she wanted to know everything about his job, the crimes and how he went about catching criminals. Erlendur told her that it was mostly boring administrative work.

'But crimes have become more vicious,' she said. 'You read it in the papers. Nastier crimes'

'I don't know,' Erlendur said. 'Crimes are always nasty'

'You're always hearing stories about the drug world; debt collectors attacking kids who owe money for their dope, and if the kids can't pay, their families are attacked instead.'

'Yes,' said Erlendur, who sometimes worried about Eva Lind for precisely that reason. 'It's quite a changed world. More brutal.'

They fell silent.

Erlendur tried to find a topic of conversation but he had no idea how to approach women. The ones he associated with could not prepare him for what might be called a romantic evening like this. He and Elínborg were good friends and colleagues, and there was a fondness between them that had been formed by years of collaboration and shared experience. Eva Lind was his child and a constant source of worry. Halldora was the woman he married a whole generation before, then divorced and whose hatred he earned for doing so. These were the only women in his life apart from the occasional one-night stands that never brought anything more than disappointment and awkwardness.

'What about you?' he asked. 'Why did you change your mind?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'I haven't had an invitation like that for ages. What made you think to ask me out?'

'No idea. It slipped out over the buffet. I haven't done this for a long time either.'

They both smiled.

He told her about Eva Lind and his son, Sindri Snaer, and she told him she had two sons, also both grown up. He had the feeling that she didn't want to talk too much about herself and her circumstances, and he liked that. He didn't want to poke his nose into her life.

'Are you getting anywhere with the man who was murdered?'

'No, not really. The man I was talking to in the lobby...'

'Did I interrupt you? I didn't know he was connected with the investigation.'

'That's all right,' Erlendur said. 'He collects records, vinyl that is, and it turns out that the man in the basement was a child star. Years ago.'

'A child star?'

'He made records.'

'I can imagine that's difficult, being a child star,' Valgerdur said. 'Just a kid with all kinds of dreams and expectations that rarely come to anything. What do you think happens after that?'

'You shut yourself up in a basement room and hope no one remembers you.'

'You think so?'

'I don't know. Someone might remember him.'

'Do you think that's connected with his murder?'

'What?'

'Being a child star.'

Erlendur tried to say as little as possible about the investigation without appearing standoffish. He hadn't had time to ponder this question and didn't know whether it made any difference.

'We don't know yet,' he said. 'But we'll find out'

They stopped talking.

'So you weren't a child star,' Valgerdur then said.

'No,' Erlendur said. 'Devoid of talent in all fields.'

'Same here,' Valgerdur said. 'I still draw like a three-year-old.'

'What do you do when you're not at work?' she asked after a short silence.

Unprepared for this question, Erlendur dithered until she began to smile.

'I didn't mean to invade your privacy,' she said when he gave no answer.

'No, it's... I'm not accustomed to talking about myself? Erlendur said.

He could not claim to play golf or any other sport. At one time he had been interested in boxing, but that had waned. He never went to the cinema and rarely watched television. Travelled alone around Iceland in the summer, but had done less of that in recent years. What did he do when he wasn't at work? He didn't know the answer himself. Most of the time he was just on his own.

'I read a lot,' he said suddenly.

'And what do you read?' she asked.

Once more he hesitated, and she smiled again.

'Is it that difficult?' she said.

'About deaths and ordeals,' he said. 'Death in the mountains. People who freeze to death outdoors. There are whole series of books about that. Used to be popular, once.'

'Deaths and ordeals?' she said.

'And plenty of other things, of course. I read a lot. History. Local history. Chronicles.'

'Everything that's old and gone,' she said.

He nodded.

'But why deaths? People who freeze to death? Isn't that awful to read?'

Erlendur smiled to himself.

'You ought to be in the police force,' he said.

In that short part of an evening she had penetrated a place in his mind that was carefully fenced off, even to himself. He did not want to talk about it. Eva Lind knew about it but was not entirely familiar with it and did not link it in particular with his interest in accounts of deaths. He sat in silence for a long time.

'It comes with age,' he said finally, regretting the lie immediately. 'What about you? What do you do when you've finished sticking cotton wool buds in people's mouths?'

He tried to rewind and make a joke but the bond between them had been tarnished and it was his fault.

'I really haven't had time for anything other than work,' she said, realising that she had unwittingly struck a nerve. She became awkward and he sensed that.

'I think we ought to do this again soon,' he said to wind things up. The lie was too much for him.

'Definitely,' she said. 'To tell you the truth I was very hesitant but I don't regret it. I want you to know that.'

'Nor do I,' he said.

'Good,' she said. 'Thank you for everything. Thanks for the Drambuie,' she added as she finished her liqueur. He had also ordered a Drambuie for himself to keep her company, but hadn't touched it.

Erlendur lay stretched out on the bed in his hotel room looking up at the ceiling. It was still cold in the room and he was wearing his clothes. Outside, it was snowing. It was a soft, warm and pretty snow that fell gently to the ground and melted instantaneously. Not cold, hard and merciless like the snow that caused death and destruction.

'What are those stains?' Elínborg asked the father.

'Stains?' he said. 'What stains?'

'On the carpet,' Erlendur said. He and Elínborg had just returned from seeing the boy in hospital. The winter sun lit up the stair carpet that led to the floor where the boy's room was.

'I don't see any stains,' the father said, bending down to scrutinise the carpet.

'They're quite clear in this light,' Elínborg said as she looked at the sun through the lounge window. The sun was low and pierced the eyes. To her, the creamy marble tiles on the floor looked as if they were aflame. Close by the stairway stood a beautiful drinks cabinet. It contained spirits, expensive liqueurs, red and white wines rested forward onto their necks in racks. There were two glass windows in the cabinet and Erlendur noticed a smudge on one of them. On the side of the cabinet facing the staircase, a little drip had been spilt, measuring roughly a centimetre and a half. Elínborg put her finger on the drip and it was sticky.

'Did anything happen by this cabinet?' Erlendur asked.

The father looked at him.

'What are you talking about?'

'It's like something's been splashed on it. You've cleaned it recently.'

'No,' the father said. 'Not recently.'

'Those marks on the staircase,' Elínborg said. 'They look like a child's footprints to me.'

'I can't see any footprints on the staircase,' the father said. 'Just now you were talking about stains. Now they're footprints. What are you implying?'

'Were you at home when your son was assaulted?'

The father said nothing.

'The attack took place at the school,' Elínborg went on. 'School was over for the day but he was playing football and when he set off home they attacked him. That's what we think happened. He hasn't been able to talk to you, nor to us. I don't think he wants to. Doesn't dare. Maybe because the boys said they would kill him if he told the police. Maybe because someone else said they would kill him if he talked to us.'

'Where's all this leading?'

'Why did you come home early from work that day? You came home around noon. He crawled home and up to his room, and shortly afterwards you arrived and called the police and an ambulance.'

Elínborg had already been wondering what the father was doing at home in the middle of a weekday, but had not asked him until now.

'No one saw him on his way home from school,' Erlendur said.

'You're not implying that I attacked ... that I attacked my own boy like that? Surely you're not implying that?'

'Do you mind if we take a sample from the carpet?'

'I think you ought to get out of here,' the father said.

'I'm not implying anything,' Erlendur said. 'Eventually the boy will say what happened. Maybe not now and maybe not after a week or a month, maybe not after one year, but he will in the end.'

'Out,' the father said, enraged and indignant by now. 'Don't you dare ... don't you dare start... You leave. Get out. Out!'

Elínborg went straight to the hospital and into the children's ward. The boy was asleep in his bed with his arm suspended from the hook. She sat down beside him and waited for him to wake up. After she had stayed by the bedside for fifteen minutes the boy stirred and noticed the tired-looking policewoman, but the sad-eyed man in the woollen cardigan who had been with her earlier that day was nowhere to be seen now. Their eyes met and Elínborg did her utmost to smile.

'Was it your dad?'

She went back to the father's house when night had fallen, with a search warrant and forensics experts. They examined the marks on the carpet. They examined the marble floor and the drinks cabinet. They took samples. They swept up tiny grains from the marble. They plucked at the spilt drop on the cabinet. They went upstairs to the boy's room and took samples from the head of his bed. They went to the laundry room and looked at the cloths and towels. They examined the dirty laundry. They opened the vacuum cleaner. They took samples from the broom. They went out to the dustbin and rummaged around in the rubbish. They found a pair of the boy's socks in the bin.

The father was standing in the kitchen. He dialled a lawyer, his friend, as soon as the forensics team appeared. The lawyer came round promptly and looked at the warrant from the magistrate. He advised his client not to talk to the police.

Erlendur and Elínborg watched the forensics team at work. Elínborg glared at the father, who shook his head and looked away.

'I don't understand what you want,' he said. 'I don't get it.'

The boy had not said it was his father. When Elínborg asked him, his only response was that his eyes filled with tears.

The head of forensics phoned two days later.

'It's about the stains on the stair carpet,' he said.

'Yes,' Elínborg said.

'Drambuie.'

'Drambuie? The liqueur?'

'There are traces of it all over the sitting room and a trail on the carpet up to the boy's room.

Erlendur was still staring at the ceiling when he heard a knock on the door. He got to his feet, opened the door and Eva Lind darted into his room. Erlendur looked along the corridor, then closed the door behind her.

'No one saw me,' Eva said. 'It would make things easier if you could be arsed to go home. I can't suss out what you're playing at.'

'I'll get myself home,' Erlendur said. 'Don't worry about that. What are you doing here? Do you need anything?'

'Do I need a special reason to want to see you?' Eva said. She sat down at the desk and took out a packet of cigarettes. She threw a plastic bag onto the floor and nodded towards it. 'I brought you some clothes," she said. 'If you plan to hang around at this hotel you'll need to change.'

'Thank you,' Erlendur said. He sat down on the bed facing her and borrowed a cigarette from her. Eva lit them both.

'It's nice to see you,' he said, exhaling.

'How's it going with Santa?'

'Bit by bit. What's new with you?'

'Nothing.'

'Have you seen your mother?'

'Yes. Same as usual. Nothing happens in her life. Work and television and sleep. Work, television, sleep. Work, television, sleep. Is that it? All that awaits you? Am I staying clean so I can slave away until I croak? And just look at you! Hanging round in a hotel room like a dickhead instead of getting your arse back home!'

Erlendur inhaled the smoke and blew it out through his nose.

'I didn't mean to—'

'No, I know,' Eva interrupted him.

'Are you giving in?' he said. 'When you came yesterday ...'

'I don't know if I can stand it.'

'Stand what?'

'This fucking life!'

They sat smoking, and the minutes passed.

'Do you sometimes think about the baby?' Erlendur asked at last. Eva was seven months' pregnant when she miscarried, and sank into a deep depression when she moved in with him after leaving hospital. Erlendur knew that she had nowhere near shaken it off. She blamed herself for the baby's death. The night that it happened she called him for help and he found her lying in her own blood outside the National Hospital after collapsing on her way to the maternity ward. She came within a hair's breadth of losing her life.

'This fucking life!' she said again, and stubbed out her cigarette on the desktop.

The telephone on the bedside table rang when Eva Lind had left and Erlendur had gone to bed. It was Marion Briem.

'Do you know what time it is?' Erlendur asked, looking at his watch. It was past midnight.

'No,' Marion said. 'I was thinking about the saliva.'

'The saliva on the condom?' Erlendur said, too lethargic to lose his temper.

'Of course they'll find it out for themselves, but it might not do any harm to mention Cortisol.'

'I've still got to talk to forensics, they'll surely tell us something about the Cortisol.'

'You can work a few things out from that. See what was going on in that basement room.'

'I know, Marion. Anything else?'

'I just wanted to remind you about the Cortisol.'

'Goodnight, Marion.'

'Goodnight.'