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best suited to deal with the case and took the liberty of putting forward a suggestion.
    A police officer from a neighbouring town had been called in to keep watch at the crime scene until reinforcements could arrive.
    Herjólfur wasn’t dead. At least not yet. Ari Thór searched the doctor’s face as he explained the severity of the injuries. An emergency medical flight to Reykjavík had been requested.
    The chief of police in Akureyri had given Ari Thór an important assignment to carry out; a job he was dreading. He stood indecisivelyin the hospital corridor, telling himself that he should wait for more news of Herjólfur’s condition, but deep down he knew that he couldn’t put this off any longer. Tales would find their way around the town quickly enough and he must not allow Herjólfur’s wife to hear dreadful gossip first.
    He wondered about contacting his friend, the Reverend Eggert, the local priest. He almost had the phone in his hand when he changed his mind. Herjólfur was still alive and the priest’s presence would send every kind of wrong message to the family.
    As he left the hospital the town was just starting to come to life, although the weather was so foul that nobody was likely to be in a hurry to leave home. The all-too-familiar northerly wind was blowing, bitterly cold, something Ari Thór would probably never get used to, with heavy rain to add to the discomfort. Just a few degrees colder and this would have been the recipe for a blizzard.
    Ari Thór was almost ashamed that he knew so little about Herjólfur’s family. He remembered his wife’s name, Helena, but hadn’t met her. This morning was the first time he had spoken to her, and under such strange circumstances. How many children did Herjólfur have? He had mentioned children, but Ari Thór had no idea if there were two of them or more, or what their ages might be. He guessed they might be teenagers. Herjólfur wasn’t the talkative type but Ari Thór had to admit that he could have made a better effort to get to know him. He knew it wasn’t Herjólfur’s fault that the promotion hadn’t come his way. But Ari Thór had somehow decided, unconsciously rather than deliberately, to keep his dealings with him formal and professional; never discourteous, but equally, not too friendly.
    He hesitated by the front door, waiting for a moment before ringing the doorbell. The rain was hammering down with even greater force and the storm had gathered strength. It was on days like this that the undisputed beauty of the fjord and the mountains gave way to forces of nature, and the town looked bleak and very, very wet.
    Suddenly he felt overwhelmed and was transported back fifteen years to another wet, windy day. A little boy, Ari Thór had returnedhome from school to find a police car in the drive. He had stood and stared at it in the rain, buying himself time, just as he was doing now. The thought had crossed his mind that the police would be bringing him bad news, and he had been right about that. There were two officers, one young and quiet, the other older and clearly the man with experience, with a deep voice and a serious expression on his face, a pair who could just as easily have been Ari Thór and Tómas. Already soaked by the rain, Ari Thór hadn’t been able to hold back the tears.
    The memories came back to him and flashed past like a film, frame after frame, and he recalled it all with uncomfortable clarity.
    Sometimes it was better just to forget.
    He had been sitting on the sofa when he was given the news. Ari Thór had been expecting something like this, ever since his father had disappeared without trace, but what he heard next confused and stunned him. Not his father. His mother. His mother had lost her life in a car crash. The shock was indescribable, and everything he knew and was changed in a flash. Still a child at thirteen years old, he had grown up in a matter of moments. From that point on, he had been an orphan. It was an