The detective went through to what he assumed was the master bedroom. There was a body-shaped indentation in the bedclothes, on one side. There was a pile of books on the bedside table, with a volume of poetry by Davíd Stefánsson from Fagriskógur on top. Beside them was a small bottle of perfume.

His tour of the cottage was not motivated by mere curiosity. He was searching for signs of a struggle, any clue that the woman had not gone voluntarily into the kitchen, fetched the stool, positioned it under the beam, climbed on to it and put the rope round her own neck. All he found were the signs of a terribly quiet – almost polite – death.

He was interrupted by a colleague from the Selfoss CID.

‘Found anything?’ the man asked.

‘Nothing. It’s suicide. Pure and simple. There’s no indication of anything else. She must have killed herself.’

‘It certainly looks that way.’

‘Hadn’t I better cut down the rope before we leave? She’s got a husband, hasn’t she?’

‘Yes, please take it down. He’ll have to come here at some point.’

The detective picked up the noose from the floor and turned it over in his fingers. It was not a very professional effort: the knot had been tied inexpertly and the rope did not slide smoothly through the loop. It occurred to him that he could have done a better job himself, but perhaps it was unreasonable to expect a superior noose from an ordinary housewife from Grafarvogur. It was not as if she would have made a special study of the method and prepared for her suicide in detail. It had probably been the result of a moment of madness rather than a carefully premeditated act.

He opened the door on to the decking. It was only two steps down and a couple more yards to the edge of the lake. There had been a freeze over the past few days and a thin film of ice covered the water nearest the shore. In some places it had frozen to the rocks, like a paper-thin sheet of glass beneath which the water swirled.