“Can you make anything of the message?”

“Maybe it’s God,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Maybe the murderer, I don’t know. The emphasis on the last word is intriguing. Capital letters for HIM .”

“It doesn’t look hurriedly written to me. The last word’s in block capitals but the first two are cursive. The visitor wasn’t hurried when he was writing this. But he didn’t close the door behind him. What does that mean? Attacks the man and runs out, but writes a cryptic note on a piece of paper and takes pains to emphasise the final word.”

“It must refer to him,” Sigurdur Oli said. “The body, I mean. It can’t refer to anyone else.”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “What’s the point in leaving that sort of message behind and putting it on top of the body? What’s he trying to say by doing that? Is he telling us something? Is the murderer talking to himself? Is he talking to the victim?”

“A bloody nutter,” Elinborg said, reaching down to pick up the message. Erlendur stopped her.

“There may have been more than one of them,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Attackers, I mean.”

“Remember your gloves, Elinborg,” Erlendur said, as if talking to a child. “Don’t ruin the evidence.”

“The message was written out on the desk over there,” he added, pointing at the corner. “The paper was torn out of an exercise book owned by the victim.”

“There may have been more than one of them,” Sigurdur Oli repeated. He thought he had hit on an interesting point.

“Yes, yes,” Erlendur said. “Maybe.”

“A bit cold-hearted,” Sigurdur Oli said. “First you kill an old man and then you sit down to write a note. Doesn’t that take nerves of steel? Isn’t it a total bastard who does that sort of thing?”

“Or a fearless one,” Elinborg said.

“Or one with a Messiah complex,” Erlendur said.

He stooped to pick up the message and studied it in silence.

One huge Messiah complex, he thought to himself.