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cheekbones. His eyebrows were knitted together in a twisted furrow in the shape of a question mark, which gave him a pained expression. An uncomfortable couple of seconds passed before he took Magnus’s hand and shook it briefly.
    ‘Darling, this is Sergeant Magnús, the detective from Reykjavík I told you about. I’ve invited him to dinner.’
    ‘Good, good,’ said Davíd.
    ‘You didn’t happen to see Arnór this morning when you were taking Prins for a walk, did you?’ Eyrún asked.
    ‘Yes,’ said the man.
    Magnus smiled encouragingly at him. ‘Oh, good. What time was that?’
    ‘About six-twenty. He was loading up his pickup truck. When I came back ten minutes later he was still at it.’
    ‘Are you sure of the time?’ Magnus asked.
    ‘Quite sure.’ He turned on his heel and disappeared into a room off the hallway and shut the door.
    ‘Yes, well,’ said Eyrún, clearly a little embarrassed by her husband’s brusqueness. ‘That would make sense. Davíd has a routine – he takes the dog out for ten minutes about the same time every day. So he probably did get the time right.’
    ‘That’s very useful,’ said Magnus. Very useful indeed. It meant there was no chance that Arnór was two kilometres away starting a rock fall.
    ‘Come through and join me in the kitchen,’ said Eyrún. ‘It’s only spaghetti, I’m afraid. Would you like some wine?’
    Magnus sat at the dining table while Eyrún poured out two glasses of red wine and busied herself at the stove. While on the outside the house looked like any other in Bolungarvík, inside it was furnished in the ultra cool minimalist fashion of the most stylish houses in the capital. The furniture looked Danish and expensive, and Magnus recognized an abstract seascape at least six-foot wide that adorned one white wall. Magnus’s former girlfriend had run a gallery in Reykjavík, until she had disappeared to Hamburg a couple of months before, and although hers wasn’t Magnus’s world, some of it had sunk in.
    ‘Do you think Gústi was murdered? Couldn’t it just have been an accident?’
    ‘It could have been,’ said Magnus. ‘But we found some objects at the scene, buried under the rocks.’
    ‘What kind of objects?’
    ‘A stuffed toy. A lamp. Some money.’
    ‘Strange,’ said Eyrún. ‘What were they doing there?’
    ‘Could have been bait,’ said Magnus. ‘Or possibly some weird gift for the hidden people. Either way, Gústi went over to take a look.’
    ‘And started the landslide?’
    ‘Or had it started for him,’ said Magnus.
    Eyrún shuddered. ‘Speaking of the hidden people, I saw you talking to Rós.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Magnus. ‘She had a lot to say.’
    ‘Some people in the village listen to her, but I think she’s a fraud,’ said Eyrún. ‘Or she might be kidding herself, as well as everyone else. There was an old lady who lived here called Sigga who people were convinced was a seer. You know, could see into the future?’
    ‘And could talk to the hidden people?’
    ‘That too. She died about a year ago. She was a sweet old woman, and everyone treated her with enormous respect. I think Rós saw herself as her disciple. She claims that Sigga taught her things. Personally, I doubt it. All the dreams about the hidden people started just after Sigga died: I put them down to attention seeking. Although the construction equipment really did break down. It drove the company nuts.’
    ‘Well, I was very polite to her,’ said Magnus. ‘With luck she’ll leave the investigation alone now.’
    ‘It was she who insisted on that apology ceremony on Sunday. She somehow managed to get the pastor involved. I had to be there, as Mayor. You know Gústi tried to ruin it? Drove a digger right into the crowd. I had to persuade him to leave. Gústi didn’t have much time for Rós or the hidden people.’
    ‘I bet he didn’t,’ said Magnus.
    Eyrún shouted to her husband and children and they all gathered around the dinner table.