She thought about the man lying in her bed at home and knew that it was on his account that she had hauled herself off to the lake. She did not want to be there when he woke up and hoped that he would be gone when she returned. He had come back to her flat after the dance but was not very exciting. No more than the others she had met since her divorce. He hardly talked about anything except his CD collection and carried on long after she had given up feigning any interest. Then she fell asleep in a living-room chair. When she woke up she saw that he had got into her bed, where he was sleeping with his mouth open, wearing tiny underpants and black socks.

“Emergency services,” a voice said over the line.

“Hello — I’d like to report that I’ve found some bones,” she said. “There’s a skull with a hole in it.”

She grimaced. Bloody hangover! Who says that sort of thing? A skull with a hole in it. She remembered a phrase from a children’s rhyme about a penny with a hole in it. Or was it a shilling?

“Your name, please,” said the neutral emergency-services voice.

She straightened out her jumbled thoughts and stated her name.

“Where is it?”

“Lake Kleifarvatn. North side.”

“Did you pull it up in a fishing net?”

“No. It’s buried on the bed of the lake.”

“Are you a diver?”

“No, it’s standing up out of the bed. Ribs and the skull.”

“It’s on the bottom of the lake?”

“Yes.”

“So how can you see it?”

“I’m standing here looking at it.”

“Did you bring it to dry land?”

“No, I haven’t touched it,” she lied instinctively.

The voice on the telephone paused.

“What kind of crap is this?” the voice said at last, angrily. “Is this a hoax? You know what you can get for wasting our time?”