It was when the police officer asked when he had last seen Björn that Grímur lied, saying that it had been the previous day, in the afternoon, on the stairs. He said he had asked Björn if he was travelling, as he had his passport in one hand and a bag over his shoulder. But he hadn’t heard Björn’s reply. The police officer wrote everything down and thanked Grímur for his help. Grímur asked if he wanted to come inside for coffee. He did this purely to pretend to be the inquisitive neighbour with his nose in everyone else’s business. He was well aware that the policeman wouldn’t come in alone, and on top of that he was too young to be tempted by coffee. Youngsters got their caffeine kick from energy drinks. The policeman shook his head, flushed, and said that he didn’t drink coffee.

Now Grímur sat behind the door and listened to the sounds of the forensics team at work. There seemed to be people carrying boxes and cases up and down the stairs. It was clear that there was a whole load of equipment they needed to use.

‘The luminol’s lighting up half the kitchen,’ a deep voice in the corridor said. ‘Someone’s lost a lot of blood in there.’253

‘Unless someone spilled bleach,’ another voice, much clearer, replied, and Grímur couldn’t be sure if it belonged to a man or a woman. ‘Bleach returns the same results as blood.’

‘And horseradish,’ a third voice added. ‘That’s always likely in a kitchen. If a glass bottle breaks then the sauce goes everywhere.’

‘Isn’t that just a myth?’ asked the first deep voice.

‘What?’

‘All that about horseradish and luminol. Isn’t that just a myth?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Luminol detects all sorts of things, not just blood.’

‘Isn’t it coffee-break time yet?’

‘Yep.’

Grímur heard the clear voice yell ‘coffee’ into the flat, followed by the sound of footsteps.

‘She doesn’t want coffee. She’s on her knees in the bathroom scraping something up with tweezers and a cotton bud,’ the deep voice said.

‘Science is a tough taskmaster,’ the third voice said and others joined in with the laughter.

Grímur stood up as the group trooped past, and opened his door wide. Two police officers in uniform and one in plain clothes with a police ID on a lanyard around his neck went past.

‘How’s it going?’ Grímur asked, his eyes wide open with curiosity. He was determined to be seen as the nosy neighbour, the annoying, inquisitive, interfering one.

‘It’s going,’ said one of the uniformed men, clearly the owner of the deep voice. ‘We won’t be much longer.’

Grímur watched them and could almost see them rolling their eyes at the unpleasant guy who always appeared on the stairs with something to say.