He knelt down and examined the exposed part of the skeleton. He put his finger in the hole in the skull and rubbed one of the ribs.

“He’s been hit over the head,” he said and stood up again.

“That’s rather obvious,” Elinborg said sarcastically. “If it is a he,” she added.

“Rather like a fight, isn’t it?” Sigurdur Oli said. “The hole’s just above the right temple. Maybe it only took one good punch.”

“We can’t rule out that he was alone on a boat here and fell against the side,” Erlendur said, looking at Elinborg. “That tone of yours, Elinborg, is that the style you use in your cookery book?”

“Of course, the smashed piece of bone would have been washed away a long time ago,” she said, ignoring his question.

“We need to dig out the bones,” Sigurdur Oli said. “When do forensics get here?”

Erlendur saw more cars pulling up by the roadside and presumed that word about the discovery of the skeleton had reached the newsdesks.

“Won’t they have to put up a tent?” he said, still eyeing the road.

“Yes,” Sigurdur Oli said. “They’re bound to bring one.”

“You mean he was fishing on the lake alone?” Elinborg asked.

“No, that’s just one possibility,” Erlendur said.

“But what if someone hit him?”

“Then it wasn’t an accident,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“We don’t know what happened,” Erlendur said. “Maybe someone hit him. Maybe he was out fishing with someone who suddenly produced a hammer. Maybe there were only the two of them. Maybe they were three, five.”

“Or,” Sigurdur Oli chipped in, “he was hit over the head in the city and brought out to the lake to dispose of his body.”

“How could they have made him sink?” Elinborg said. “You need something to weight a body down in the water.”

“Is it an adult?” Sigurdur Oli said.