Apart from the message.

It was written on a sheet of ruled A4 paper that looked as if it had been torn from a spiral-bound exercise book and was the only clue that a premeditated murder had been committed here; it suggested that the visitor had entered the house with the express purpose of killing. The visitor hadn’t been seized suddenly by a mad urge to murder as he stood there on the sitting-room floor. He had entered the flat with the intention of committing a murder. He had written a message. Three words Erlendur could make neither head nor tail of. Had he written the message before going to the house? Another obvious question that needed answering. Erlendur went over to the desk in the corner of the sitting room. It was a sprawl of documents, bills, envelopes and papers. On top of them all lay a spiral-bound exercise book, the corner ripped from one page. He looked for a pencil that could have been used to write the message but couldn’t see one. Looking around the desk, he found one underneath. He did not touch anything. Looked and thought.

“Isn’t this your typical Icelandic murder?” asked Detective Sigurdur Oli who had entered the basement without Erlendur noticing him and was now standing beside the body.

“What?” said Erlendur, engrossed in his thoughts.

“Squalid, pointless and committed without any attempt to hide it, change the clues or conceal the evidence.”

“Yes,” said Erlendur. “A pathetic Icelandic murder.”

“Unless he fell onto the table and hit his head on the ashtray,” Sigurdur Oli said. Their colleague Elinborg was with him. Erlendur had tried to limit the movements of the police, forensics team and paramedics while he strode around the house, his head bowed beneath his hat.

“And wrote an incomprehensible message as he fell?” Erlendur said.

“He could have been holding it in his hands.”