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Sigurdur Óli said.
    'Well, I shouldn't really talk about individual pupils but of course this is a special case. He doesn't seem interested in learning the language. Can hardly read Icelandic. Doesn't understand it too well. It's difficult for those poor kids when the languages are so different. They speak a tonal language and the meaning of words changes with the pitch. Icelandic's completely different, of course.'
    'You say Elías was a good pupil,' Sigurdur Óli said.
    'He was,' Agnes said. 'His mother clearly knows what she wants. She wants her sons to get an education and they are sharp, despite being different in many ways.'
    'Different how?'
    'I know Elías much better,' Agnes said, 'but I've taught his brother a bit as well. Elías is charming and tries to please everyone, he's always smiling and friendly, although I don't feel he has many friends, poor boy'
    'They've just moved into this neighbourhood,' Sigurdur Óli said.
    'His brother's quite different,' Agnes said.
    'How?'
    'I don't know him that well, like I said, but I get the impression
    that he's much tougher. He's not afraid to stand up for himself and he's proud
    of his origins, proud of being Thai. You don't find that among the children
    very often, not among any of them really; they seem to know precious little
    about their origins. I noticed that about him once when he was talking about
    his great-grandfather. Niran had great respect for him. And for his other
    relatives in Thailand.'
     
    Sunee's next-door neighbour was a man of about seventy who lived alone. He had not heard the news and said he was shocked to see the police cars and people milling around the block of flats when he came home. He wrangled with the police officers at the entrance when they wanted to know who he was and where he lived, because he did not like that kind of interrogation. The police would not tell him what had happened. So he was rather distraught when Erlendur greeted him on the landing below the top floor and introduced himself as a detective with the Reykjavík CID.
    'What's going on here?' the man asked, short of breath from climbing the stairs. He held a plastic bag in one hand, was of average height and wore a shabby suit and a tie that did not match, underneath a green anorak. Erlendur thought he looked haggard, like many of the solitary individuals he encountered. The man was thin, with a receding hairline, fairly large protruding eyes and delicate eyebrows below a high, intelligent forehead.
    Erlendur explained the situation to him and saw that he took the news badly.
    'Elías!' he groaned, looking over at the door to Sunee's flat. 'What are you saying? The poor child! Who did it? Have you found the person who did it?'
    Erlendur shook his head. 'Do you know the family?' he asked.
    'I don't believe it. All those police cars ... because of Elías ... What does his mother say, the poor woman? She must be devastated.'
    'They've been your next-door neighbours for . . . ?' Erlendur began.
    'Who could do a thing like that?'
    'You must have got to know them,' Erlendur said.
    'Eh? Oh yes, I've got to know them. Elías sometimes pops out to the shop for me, such a dear boy. He's up and down these stairs in a flash. I just can't believe this.'
    'I need to ask you a couple of questions, if you don't mind,' Erlendur said. 'As their neighbour.'
    'Me?'
    'It won't take a moment'
    'Come in then,' the man said, taking out a bunch of keys. He switched on the light inside his flat. Erlendur noticed a large bookcase, an old three-piece suite and a worn carpet. Two walls of the sitting room were decorated with white ribbed wallpaper, which was swollen in places and beginning to turn very yellow. The man, whose name was Gestur according to the small copper plate on the door, closed the door behind them and offered Erlendur a seat on the sofa. He sat down in the chair facing him. He had taken off his thick green anorak, put the plastic bag in the kitchen and turned on the coffee