“Have you caught him?” she asked.

“Unfortunately not,” Sigurdur Oli said, shaking his head, “but we’d like to talk to you about…”

“Have they caught him?” said a voice inside the flat and an exact replica of the first woman appeared before them in the doorway. They were aged about 70 and both wore black skirts and red sweaters. They were of stout build with grey, bouffant hair atop round faces with an obvious look of expectation.

“Not yet,” Erlendur said.

“He was a poor wretch,” said woman number one, whose name was Fjola. She invited them in.

“Don’t you go taking pity on him,” said woman number two, whose name was Birna, and she closed the door behind them. “He was an ugly brute who hit you over the head. That’s some wretch for you, eh.”

The detectives sat down in the sitting room, looking first at the women in turn and then at each other. It was a small flat. Sigurdur Oli noticed two adjoining bedrooms. From the sitting room he could see into the small kitchen.

“We read your statement,” said Sigurdur Oli, who had flicked through it in the car on the way to the sisters. “Can you give us any more details about the man who attacked you?”

“Man?” Fjola said. “He was more like a boy.”

“Old enough to attack us though,” Birna said. “He was old enough for that. Pushed me to the floor and kicked me.”

“We haven’t got any money,” Fjola said.

“We don’t keep money here,” Birna said. “And we told him so.”

“But he didn’t believe us.”

“And he attacked us.”

“He was wild.”

“And swore. The things he called us.”

“In that horrible green jacket. Like a soldier.”

“And wearing these sort of boots, heavy, black ones laced up his legs.”

“But he didn’t break anything.”