“Well,” he said.

“He could have fallen over in the boat and broken his skull,” his colleague said.

“It’s full of sand,” said the first one.

“Shouldn’t we notify CID?” the other asked.

“Aren’t most of them in America?” his colleague said, looking up into the sky. “At a crime conference?”

The other officer nodded. Then they stood quietly over the bones for a while until one of them turned to her.

“Where’s all the water gone?” he asked.

“There are various theories,” she said. “What are you going to do? Can I go home now?”

After exchanging glances they took down her name and thanked her, without apologising for having kept her waiting. She didn’t care. She wasn’t in a hurry. It was a beautiful day by the lake and she would have enjoyed it even more in the company of her hangover if she had not chanced upon the skeleton. She wondered whether the man in the black socks had left her flat and certainly hoped so. Looked forward to renting a video that evening and snuggling up under a blanket in front of the television.

She looked down at the bones and at the hole in the skull.

Maybe she would rent a good detective film.

2

The police officers notified their duty sergeant in Hafnarfjordur about the skeleton in the lake; it took them some time to explain how it could be out in the middle of the lake yet still on dry land. The sergeant phoned the chief inspector at the Police Commissioner’s office and informed him of the find, wanting to know whether or not they would take over the case.

“That’s something for the identification committee,” the chief inspector said. “I think I have the right man for the job.”

“Who’s that?”

“We sent him off on holiday — he’s got about five years” leave owing to him, I think — but I know he’ll be pleased to have something to do. He’s interested in missing persons. Likes digging things up.”