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might be prepared to work for nothing. He was given study facilities at a ministry in the centre of Oslo, among students who were all much younger than he was. The work was far from exciting and the fact that his command of Norwegian wasn’t as good as he had made out in his application didn’t help make his time there any easier. But when it came to putting together a CV for his application for the mayor’s post, his internship became a job and one month became an unspecified period under the loose heading ‘consultation on parliamentary administration’ that had found its way into the text. This experience in Norway clearly had the desired effect when it came to the decision of who should be the lucky applicant, or so Gunnar heard later.
    He would never have chosen Siglufjördur if a larger municipality had been available. His family wasn’t from the north and he hadvirtually no personal links to the district, although the fact that he was untainted by local tradition, gossip, small-town politics and old feuds was a strong point in his favour.
    He was living in rented property in Siglufjördur, a roomy detached house in the newer part of the town, in the shadow of the town’s avalanche defences. So far he hadn’t seen any huge weight of winter snow, but these imposing defensive walls still gave him a feeling of security. Plenty of people had told him how relaxing it must be to have moved to such a close-knit coastal community with the mountains and the sea as his neighbours. Normally he just smiled his agreement, while inside he failed to understand what was so enchanting about loneliness, isolation and cold.
    He sat naked at the kitchen table, half asleep and drinking black coffee as he stared out of the window. More wind and pouring rain was the only description that fitted the morning’s weather. There was no way to give it a slightly more romantic edge, even here in this bucolic paradise. These were the days when he had no desire to leave the house. There was no way he was staying here for long; the four years between one council election and the next would be about right and then he’d be able to nail down a better job, preferably somewhere closer to the city and ideally somewhere abroad. But that meant keeping his nose clean and making a decent job of things while he was here. Not that there was much he could mess up in a town like this, surely? No, he told himself. That wasn’t where the minefields were. It was his personal life that he needed to take care of; he absolutely could not destroy this fragile success that he had achieved, and there were a few secrets that must never see the light of day. Sometimes he could be his own worst enemy.
    Then that phone call from the police inspector came to mind. He was just the kind of miserable character who could wreck everything for him.

4
     
     
    Ari Thór stood in the corridor of the hospital.
    Herjólfur had been hit by a shotgun blast at short range. The doctor said it was practically a miracle that he had survived. It was impossible to believe that Herjólfur had been shot on duty; that kind of thing never happened, particularly not in such a close community. But it could hardly have been an accident. There was no hunting in that area and any hunter would have called in to let the authorities know if something had gone wrong. This was unreal, disturbing. The media spotlight would undoubtedly shine on the case and that would make the investigation even more complex.
    Ari Thór realised immediately, or at least expected, that someone from outside would have to be brought in to investigate. He was aware that the victim’s subordinate was hardly the best person to handle such a case. An early-morning call to the chief of police in Akureyri had confirmed this.
    ‘You’re right,’ he had said. ‘We’ll need to appoint someone else to lead this, but I want you to be a part of the investigation, Ari Thór.’
    Ari Thór had his own ideas about who would be