Reykjavik as fast as he could, through Hafnarfjördur and onto the Keflavík road. The traffic was heavy and visibility was poor, but he zig-zagged between the cars and even onto a traffic island to overtake. He disregarded all the traffic lights and made it to Keflavík in half an hour. It helped him that the CID had recently been issued with blue police lights that they could put on the roofs of their unmarked cars in emergencies. He'd laughed at the time. Recalled the apparatus on a detective programme on television and thought it was ridiculous to go around using thriller props in Reykjavik.
Two police cars were parked outside Elín's house when he pulled up. Elín was waiting for him inside with three policemen. She said the man had vanished into the dark just before the police cars pulled up at the house. She pointed out where he'd been standing and the direction he ran, but the police could not find any trace of him. The police were baffled about how to deal with Elín, who refused to tell them who the man was and why he was dangerous; his only crime, apparently, was that he had been standing outside her house in the rain. When they put their questions to Erlendur, he told them the man was connected with a murder inquiry in Reykjavik. He told them to inform the Reykjavik police if they came across anyone matching the man's description.
Elín was fairly agitated and Erlendur decided the wisest move would be to get the police out of her house as quickly as possible. He managed without much effort. They said they had better things to do than chase around after figments of an old woman's imagination, though they made sure Elín didn't hear them say it.
"I swear it was him outside," she said to Erlendur when they were alone in the house. "I don't know how, but it was him!"
Erlendur looked at her and heard what she was saying and could see that she meant it in all seriousness. He knew she'd been under great strain recently.
"It just doesn't make sense, Elín. Holberg's dead. I saw him in the morgue." He paused to think, then added, "I saw his heart."
Elín looked at him.
"You think I'm nuts. You think I'm imagining it all. That it's a way of getting attention because ..."
"Holberg's dead," Erlendur interrupted her. "What am I supposed to think?"
"Then it was the spitting image of him," Elín said.
"Describe this man to me in more detail."
Elín stood up, went to the sitting-room window and pointed out at the rain.
"He was standing there, by the path that leads out to the street between the houses. Stood completely still and looked in at me. I don't know if he saw me. I tried to hide from him. I was reading and I got up when it started to get dark in the sitting room and I was going to switch on the light when I happened to look out of the window. His head was bare and it was like he couldn't care less if he got soaked through. Even though he was standing just there, somehow he still seemed miles away."
Elín thought for a moment. "He had black hair and looked around 40. Average height."
"Elín," Erlendur said. "It's dark outside. Pouring rain. You can hardly see out of the window. The path isn't lit. You wear glasses. Are you telling me that ..."
"It was only just starting to get dark then and I didn't run for the phone straightaway. I had a good look at the man out of this window and the kitchen window. It took me quite a while to realise it was Holberg, or someone like him. The path isn't lit, but there's a fair amount of traffic in the street and every time a car went past it lit him up so I could see his face clearly."
"How can you be so sure?"
"He was the image of Holberg when he was younger," Elín said. "Not the old bloke in the photo in the papers."
"Did you see Holberg when he was younger?"
"Yes, I saw him. Kolbrún was called down to the CID once, out of the blue. They told her they needed a more detailed explanation about some part of her statement. All bloody lies. Someone called Marion Briem was handling the case. What kind of a name is that anyway? Marion Briem? They told Kolbrún to go to Reykjavík. She asked me to go