None of this was new. She had either heard it all before, or read it in news reports.

‘What is strange,’ Gunnar said, ‘is that there were several clear boot marks on his face, which the report says match the boots Pétur was wearing.’

‘They don’t get to wear shoes in the cells,’ Úrsúla said.

‘Exactly,’ Gunnar said, putting aside the pathology report and picking up another folder. ‘The police report – Boris got hold of it for me,’ he said. ‘It says that Pétur wasn’t made to hand over his shoes. It was an error, probably because Ari, who had been picked up at the same time, was making himself difficult. It doesn’t go into any more detail, but according to the court documents, these were police boots, the same as the police used at that time. The investigation found that Pétur had spent a night in the cells some months before, and a police officer had seen how bad his shoes were and had given him a pair of boots.’

‘OK. So the weird part of this is that they forgot to make Pétur hand over his shoes,’ Úrsúla said, lifting her feet onto the coffee table.

Nonni had taken the children to his mother’s so she and Gunnar had peace and quiet to talk, but she missed them and hoped they wouldn’t be long. She could well imagine spending the rest of the day as they had the morning, the four of them 226nestled together in one bed, where they could hug and whisper about anything that came to mind, and she could feel the warmth in her heart that had been absent for so long.

‘That’s right,’ Gunnar said. ‘It’s an odd mistake to make. What’s more, it seems to have been so busy that they didn’t manage the routine twenty-minute check on each cell that they’re supposed to carry out. So it was probably more like two hours that nobody looked in on them. But the really strange thing is that one of the officers on duty that night was Óðinn Th. Jónsson.’

Úrsúla’s throat felt very dry.

‘We have to speak to Pétur,’ she said. ‘We must be clear about what he meant when he called Óðinn Ari’s killer. We have to find out if there’s anything to all this, or if it’s just a wild accusation from a completely crazy man who may simply be trying to clear his name.’

Gunnar swept the documents together into a stack and stood up.

‘I’ll go for a drive and see if I can track him down,’ he said.

102

Marita sat in shock next to Kiddi on the sofa. The police officers from Reykjavík, a man and a woman, were both young and had serious expressions on their faces. The representative of the Agency for Child Protection, a heavily built local man – someone Marita felt it was just as well she didn’t know – sat on a kitchen chair to one side of them with a blank look on his face. It didn’t seem to be these strangers who were making Kiddi nervous, though; rather it was her own presence.