to the dance, then came back with us to Helga's afterwards, but she wanted to go home soon after that. I left before her so I don't really know what happened there. She didn't turn up for work on the Monday and I remember phoning her, but she didn't answer. A few days later the police came to ask about Kolbrún. I didn't know what to think. I didn't notice anything about Holberg that was abnormal in any way. He was quite a charmer if I remember right. I was very surprised when the police started talking about rape."
"He apparently made a good impression," Erlendur said. "A ladies' man, I think he was described as."
"I remember him coming into the shop."
"Him? Holberg?"
"Yes, Holberg. I think that was why they sat down with us that night. He said he was an accountant from Reykjavík, but that was just a lie, wasn't it?"
"They all worked at the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority. What kind of a shop was it?"
"A boutique. We sold ladieswear. Lingerie too."
"And he came to the shop?"
"Yes. The day before. On the Friday. I had to go back through all this at the time and I still remember it well. He said he was looking for something for his wife. I served him and when we met at the dance he behaved as though we knew each other."
"Did you have any contact with Kolbrún after the incident? Did you talk to her about what happened?"
"She never came back to the shop and, as I say, I didn't know what happened until the police started questioning me. I didn't know her that well. I tried to phone her a few times when she didn't turn up for work and I went to where she lived once, but didn't catch her in. I didn't want to interfere too much. She was like that. Mysterious. Then her sister came in and said Kolbrún had quit her job. I heard she died a few years afterwards. By then I'd moved up here to Stykkishólmur. Was it suicide? That's what I heard."
"She died," Erlendur said, and thanked Agnes politely for talking to him.
His thoughts turned to a man called Sveinn he'd been reading about. He survived a storm on Mos-fellsheidi. His companions' suffering and deaths seemed to have little effect on Sveinn. He was the best equipped of the travellers and the only one who reached civilisation safe and sound, and the first thing he did after they'd tended to him on the closest farm to the heath was to put on ice skates and amuse himself by skating on a nearby lake.
At the same time his companions were still freezing to death on the heath.
After that he was never called anything but Sveinn the Soulless.
24
The search for the woman from Húsavík had still not led anywhere when towards evening Sigurdur Óli and Elínborg sat down at Erlendur's office to talk things over before going home. Sigurdur Óli said he wasn't surprised, they'd never find the woman this way. When Erlendur asked peevishly if he knew a better method, he shook his head.
"I don't feel as if we're looking for Holberg's murderer," Elínborg said, staring at Erlendur. "It's as if we're looking for something completely different and I'm unclear what it is. You've exhumed a little girl's body and I, for one, have no idea why. You've started looking for a man who went missing a generation ago and who I can't see has anything to do with the case. I don't think we're asking ourselves the obvious question: either the murderer was someone close to Holberg or a total stranger, someone who broke in intending to burgle him. Personally I think that's the most likely explanation. I think we ought to step up the search for that person. Some dopehead. The green army jacket. We haven't really done anything about that."
"Maybe it's someone Holberg paid for his services," Sigurdur Óli said. "With all that porn on his computer there's a good chance he paid for sex."
Erlendur sat through the criticism in silence and stared into his lap. He knew that most of what Elínborg had said was true. Maybe his judgment had been distorted by worrying about Eva Lind. He didn't know where she was, he didn't know what state she was in, she was being chased by people who wanted to harm her and he was helpless to protect her. He told neither Sigurdur Óli nor Elínborg of what he had discovered from