"We're going to buy a smaller place," Katrín said almost apologetically when she saw Erlendur looking around. "It's far too big for us, this huge house."
Erlendur nodded.
"Your husband, is he at home too?"
"Albert won't be home until late tonight. He's abroad. I was hoping we could talk about this before he gets back."
"Shouldn't we sit down?" Elínborg asked. Katrín apologised for her rudeness and invited them to sit down. She sat down on the sofa by herself, with Erlendur and Elínborg in the two leather armchairs facing her.
"What exactly is it you want of me?" Katrín asked, looking at them each in turn. "I don't really understand how I fit into the picture. The man's dead. That's nothing to do with me."
"Holberg was a rapist," Erlendur said. "He raped a woman in Keflavík and, as a result, she had a child. A daughter. When we starting checking more closely we were told he'd done this before, to a woman from Húsavík, a similar age to the second victim. Holberg may have raped again, later. We don't know. But we need to track down his victim from Húsavík. Holberg was murdered at his home and we have reason to presume that the explanation may be found in his sordid past."
Erlendur and Elínborg both noticed how his speech didn't seem to have any effect on Katrín. She wasn't shocked at hearing about Holberg's rapes or his daughter, and she asked neither about the woman from Keflavík nor the girl.
"You're not shocked to hear that?" he said.
"No," Katrín said, "what should I be shocked about?"
"What can you tell us about Holberg?" Erlendur asked after a pause.
"I recognised him at once from the photos in the papers," Katrín said, and it was as if the last trace of resistance vanished from her voice. Her words turned into a whisper. "Even though he'd changed a lot," she said.
"We had his photograph on file," Elínborg said by way of explanation. "The photo was from an HGV licence he had recently renewed. Lorry driver. Drove all over the country."
"He told me at the time he was a lawyer in Reykjavík."
"He was probably working for the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority at that time," Erlendur said.
"I'd just turned 20. Albert and I had two children when it happened. We started living together very young. He was at sea, Albert I mean. That didn't happen very often. He ran a little shop and was an agent for an insurance company."
"Does he know what happened?" Erlendur asked.
Katrín hesitated for a moment.
"No, I never told him. And I'd prefer it if you didn't tell him now."
They fell silent.
"Didn't you tell anyone what happened?" Erlendur asked.
"I didn't tell anyone." She fell silent again.
Erlendur and Elínborg waited.
"I blame myself for it. My God," she sighed. "I know that isn't right of me. I know it was none of my doing. It was nearly 40 years ago and I'm still accusing myself although I know I shouldn't. Forty years."
They waited.
"I don't know how much detail you want me to go into. What matters to you. As I said, Albert was at sea. I was out having fun with some friends and we met these men at the dance."
"These men?" Erlendur interjected.
"Holberg and someone else who was with him. I never found out what his name was. He showed me a little camera that he carried around with him. I spoke to him about photography a bit. They went back to my girlfriend's place with us and we went on drinking there. There was a group of four of us girlfriends who went out together. Two of us were married. After a while I said I wanted to go and he offered to walk me home."
"Holberg?" Elínborg said.
"Yes, Holberg. I said no and said goodbye to my friends and walked home alone. It wasn't far to walk. But when I opened the door – we lived in a little detached house in a new street they were building in Húsavík – suddenly he was standing behind me. He said something I didn't hear properly, then pushed me inside and closed the door. I was completely taken aback. Didn't know whether to be scared or surprised. The alcohol dulled my senses. Of course I didn't know that man in the slightest, I'd never seen him before that night."
"So why do you blame yourself?" Elínborg asked.
"I'd been fooling around at the dance a bit," Katrín said after a while. "I asked him to dance. I don't know why