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deep?'
    'Conceivably.'
    'Even a child or a young person could have done it, for instance? Someone of his own age?'
    'It's difficult to say. But it looks as if it was inflicted by a very sharp instrument'
    'And the time of death?'
    'Judging from the temperature, he would have died about an hour before he was found. You can discuss that with the pathologist.'
    'He seems to have been coming straight home from school.'
    'It looks that way.'
    Erlendur sat down in his chair and faced the brother and sister from Thailand. Gudný, the interpreter, sat down on the sofa with them. She translated the information Erlendur had received and Sunee listened in silence. She had stopped crying. Her brother chipped in and they talked together in half-whispers for a while.
    'What are they saying?' Erlendur asked.
    'His anorak wasn't torn when he left home this morning,' the interpreter said. 'It wasn't new, but it was in good condition.'
    'Obviously there was a fight,' Erlendur said. 'I can't say whether the attack on Elías was racially motivated. I understand there are thirty children of foreign origin at his school. We need to talk to his friends, people who were in contact with him. The same goes for his brother. I know it's difficult, but it would help us if Sunee could give us a list of names. If she can't remember the names she can provide some details about his friends, their age and the like, where they live. Time is of the essence. Hopefully she realises that.'
    'Do you have any idea how she feels?' the interpreter asked coldly.
    'I can only imagine,' Erlendur said.
     
    Elínborg knocked on the door. She was on the first-floor corridor off the stairwell. The door opened and a uniformed policeman greeted her. A new witness had come forward and talked to him, and was now waiting for Elínborg in the sitting room. She was a woman by the name of Fanney, a sixty-five-year-old widow with three grown-up children. She had made coffee for the policeman, who left as soon as Elínborg appeared. The two women sat down with a cup each.
    'How awful,' the woman said with a sigh. 'This happening in our flats! I just don't know what the world's coming to.'
    The flat was dark apart from a light in the kitchen and a small lamp in the sitting room. It was a mirror image of Sunee's flat, with a thick carpet on the floor and green wallpaper in the hallway and sitting room.
    'Do you know the boys at all?' Elínborg asked. 'The two brothers?'
    She had to get a move on, obtain vital information and keep going. Hurry without missing anything.
    'Yes, a little,' Fanney said. 'Elías was a lovely boy. His brother took rather longer to get to know but he's a fine lad too.'
    'You said you saw him earlier today,' Elínborg said, trying not to sound tired. Her daughter was at home ill with vomiting and a fever, and she had slept little last night. She had intended only to look in at work but that had changed when the report came in about the boy.
    'I sometimes chat with Sunee out in the corridor,' Fanney said, as if she had not heard Elínborg's remark. 'They haven't lived here long. It's bound to be difficult for her to be alone like that. Sunee must work her fingers to the bone; wages aren't so high for factory workers.'
    'Where was Niran the last time you saw him?' Elínborg asked.
    'He was behind the chemist's.'
    'What time was that?' Elínborg asked. 'Was he alone? Did he go into the chemist's?'
    'I was getting off the bus from town at about two o'clock,' Fanney said. 'I always walk past the chemist's and that's when I saw him. He wasn't alone and he wasn't going into the chemist's. He was with some friends, schoolmates I assume.'
    'And what were they doing?'
    'Nothing. Just hanging around behind the chemist's.'
    'Behind it?'
    'Yes, you can see into the yard when you turn the corner there.'
    'How many were there?'
    'Five or six. I don't know who they were. I hadn't seen any of them before.'
    'Are you sure?'
    'Not that I noticed anyway,' Fanney said, putting down