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us?’
    ‘We may be talking about a manual worker of some kind, and given that he was found on your doorstep, it was only natural to enquire about your staff. You say you’re not missing anyone, but what about men who used to work for you? Have you had any trouble over the last few months or year? Anyone been given the sack? Anyone issued threats? Any tensions you can recall?’
    ‘No, I can’t remember any problems of that sort,’ said the man.
    The diver reared up out of the water. Steam poured off him and he resembled some creature of the swamp as he waded towards them, his shape distorted by the oxygen tank and mask. He took out his mouthpiece when he reached the shore where they were standing.
    ‘I quit,’ he said. ‘I can’t find a thing in that bloody muck.’
    ‘Difficult to see?’ said Marion.
    ‘Difficult? It’s like diving in soup’
    ‘What’s the matter with him?’ interrupted Erlendur, his attention distracted by the sight of a uniformed officer hastening over the lava field towards them.
    The officer and his partner had been sitting in a patrol car on the Grindavík road, guarding the crime scene, when they received an urgent alert over the radio, and had tossed a coin to decide who should abandon the warm interior and dash over to the lagoon with the message. He had lost.
    Marion and Erlendur watched him scrambling over the jumbled rocks, and wondered what was up. The diver, who had started peeling off his wetsuit, stopped to follow what was going on.
    ‘What now?’ he said.
    ‘They want to talk to you!’ shouted the officer breathlessly when he was finally within earshot, gesturing to the patrol car up by the road.
    ‘What’s he bawling about?’ asked Marion.
    ‘Sounds like someone wants to talk to us,’ said Erlendur.
    ‘A woman rang in,’ called the officer, panting. ‘Her … brother’s missing and she thinks he might be … might be your man.’

8
    THE WOMAN WHO stepped hesitantly into the morgue on Barónsstígur looked somewhat younger than her brother, in her late twenties perhaps. Observing her dismay, Erlendur reassured her that it was all right; she need do nothing that would distress or be too much for her. They could leave whenever she wanted to and she needn’t identify her brother unless she felt up to it. Others could do that now that the police had such a solid lead. She said she had never been here before and Erlendur replied that it was hardly surprising since most people only entered a morgue once and by then they were past caring. She was very grave but smiled faintly at this and he was relieved that his attempt to lighten her mood had not backfired. She had never seen a dead body before either. Erlendur did his best to warn her, since identifying her brother in his present state was bound to be a harrowing experience. But she was resolute, keen to know as soon as possible whether her fears had any basis in fact, desperately hoping they hadn’t. Marion, who was with them, stayed in the background.
    They had already had a conversation at her flat. Nanna had phoned the police that lunchtime after failing to get hold of her brother for the past three days. She had seen the news about the body at Svartsengi but had not connected it to her brother until suddenly she started awake in the middle of the night with the thought: what if it’s him? She hadn’t slept a wink after that and had spent all morning plucking up courage to speak to the police. She had assumed she would have to come down to the station but was asked to wait in for the officers who would be round to see her shortly. A note was taken of her name, address and phone number. The police took her call very seriously: it was their first serious lead.
    Nanna turned out to live in a comfortable basement flat in the Melar district in the west of town. She told them she had moved in after splitting up with the man she’d been living with, and that she was very happy here. She was petite and pretty, with