Now the daylight had gone from yellow to blue, so maybe it was evening. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her mother had to be asleep still, as gentle snores could be heard from the guest room, and Daníel was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he had gone back up to Engihjalli. She picked up her phone and was about to call him when she saw through the living-room window that he was in the garden. He was barefoot, his trouser legs rolled up to mid-calf, and appeared to be talking to himself. He had one hand on an outcrop of rock at the far end of the garden, and gestured with the other as he spoke, as if he was in the middle of a real conversation and not just muttering to himself.

Áróra opened the door and went out onto the decking. Daníel turned.

‘Are you talking to yourself?’ she asked, and he smiled apologetically.

‘I was,’ he said. ‘I do that sometimes. I was trying to figure out how to get across what I need to tell you.’

Áróra felt herself go weak at the knees, as if all the strength had been drained from her legs.

‘What?’ she asked, and knew the answer before he said anything. She could see in his face that Ísafold was dead.

‘I had a call from the forensics team just now. Initial findings – and I have to emphasise that these are preliminary conclusions – indicate that someone either lost their life or was seriously injured in the flat. It seems that a large amount of blood had been cleaned off the bathroom door, and also from the kitchen units.’

Áróra nodded to show that she had heard and understood, 255because she couldn’t speak. Her throat had constricted so much that she could barely breathe.

‘But he beat her and injured her several times, so could this be old blood?’ she gasped at last, and saw the sadness in Daníel’s face at having to extinguish her last spark of hope.

‘We use something called luminol,’ he said quietly. ‘That gives us preliminary results, and it showed a strong response in Björn’s car. There was a whole pool there that we thought at first was a residue from blood, but it turned out to be urine, in the boot of the car.’

256

106

When the noise in the middle of the night had woken him, Grímur had peered out of the window and known instantly that Ísafold was in the case that Björn dragged behind him out to the car. He saw as Björn struggled to lift it into the boot that the case was heavier than a normal suitcase was supposed to be.