But how was he supposed to put the question to these middle-aged women? "Excuse me, madam, I'm from the police and I've been sent to ask you whether you were ever raped in Húsavík when you lived there." He talked it over with Elínborg, who had a list with the names of ten other women, but she didn't understand the problem.
Sigurdur Óli regarded it as a futile operation that Erlendur had launched. Even if Ellidi happened to be telling the truth and the time and place fitted and they finally found the right woman after a long search, what guarantees were there that she would talk about the rape at all? She'd kept quiet about it all her life. Why should she start talking about it now? All she needed to say, when Sigurdur Óli or any of the five detectives who were carrying the same kind of list knocked on her door, was "no", and they could say little more than "sorry to bother you." Even if they did find the woman, there were no guarantees that she had in fact had a child as a result of the rape.
"It's a question of responses, you should use psychology," Erlendur had said when Sigurdur Óli tried to make him see the problem. "Try to get into their homes, sit down, accept a coffee, chat, be a bit of a gossip."
"Psychology!" Sigurdur Óli snorted when he got out of his car on Barmahlíd and he thought about his partner, Bergthóra. He didn't even know how to use psychology on her. They'd met under unusual circumstances some years before, when Bergthóra was a witness in a difficult case and after a short romance they decided to start living together. It turned out that they were well suited, had similar interests and both wanted to make a beautiful home for themselves with exclusive furniture and objets d'art, yuppies at heart. They always kissed when they met after a long day at work. Gave each other little presents. Even opened a bottle of wine. Sometimes they went straight to bed when they got home from work, but there'd been considerably less of that recently.
That was after she had given him a pair of very ordinary Finnish Wellington boots for his birthday. He tried to beam with delight but the expression of disbelief stayed on his face for too long and she saw there was something wrong. When he finally smiled, it was false.
"Because you didn't have any," she said.
"I haven't had a pair of Wellington boots since I was . . . 10," he said.
"Aren't you pleased?"
"I think they're great," Sigurdur Óli said, knowing that he hadn't answered the question. She knew it too. "No, seriously," he added and could tell he was digging himself a cold grave. "It's fantastic."
"You're not pleased with them," she said morosely.
"Sure I am," he said, still at a total loss because he couldn't stop thinking about the 30,000-króna wristwatch he'd given her for her birthday, bought after a week of explorations all over town and discussions with watchmakers about brands, gold plating, mechanisms, straps, water-tightness, Switzerland and cuckoo clocks. He'd applied all his detective skills to find the right watch, found it in the end and she was ecstatic, her joy and delight were genuine.
Then he was sitting in front of her with his smile frozen on his face and tried to pretend to be overjoyed, but he simply couldn't do it for all his life was worth.
"Psychology?" Sigurdur Óli snorted again.
He rang the bell when he'd arrived at the door of the first lady he was visiting on Barmahlíd and asked the question with as much psychological depth as he could muster, but failed miserably. Before he knew it, in a fluster he'd asked the woman on the landing whether she might ever have been raped.
"What the bloody hell are you on about?" the lady said, war paint on her face, finery on her fingers and a ferocious expression which did not look likely to ease up. "Who are you? What kind of a pervert are you anyway?"
"No, sorry," Sigurdur Óli said and was back down the stairs in a split second.
Elínborg had more luck, since she had her mind more on her work and wasn't shy about chatting away to gain people's confidence. Her speciality was cooking, she was an exceptionally interested and capable cook and had no trouble finding a talking point. If the chance presented itself she'd ask what that gorgeous aroma emanating from