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Ari Thór hesitated. ‘But I never qualified. Took a break to go to the police college instead.’
    Hearing himself say the word “break” took him by surprise. Deep inside he knew that he would probably never finish the theology degree.
    ‘Well! That’s quite something!’ said Hlynur, a colleague who had worked alongside Tómas for several years.
    Ari Thór knew that Hlynur was in his mid-thirties, but he looked older. His hair was starting to thin and he wondered if Hlynur was in good enough physical shape to meet the police force’s fitness standards. He also came across as distant, as if to discourage anyone from getting too close to him.
    ‘A priest in the making among us!’ Hlynur went on.
    Ari Thór forced himself to smile, although he was far from amused.
    ‘Are you going to solve the cases we mortals can’t handle?’ Hlynur asked. ‘With a little help from upstairs?’
    He and Tómas laughed.
    ‘The Reverend Ari,’ Hlynur said. ‘The Reverend Ari Thór solves the mystery!’
    After that the most unlikely people took to calling him “the priest” or “the Reverend Ari Thór”. He played along with it, even though he had never liked nicknames, least of all a nickname created on the basis of studies that he had started only half-heartedly, and then given up.
    That first day at work he had tried to call Kristín, but she hadn’t answered. He sent her an email describing the trip to the north, providing details about Tómas and the house. He left out anything about how he felt; he didn’t mention that this isolated place had greeted him with gloom and darkness, that he was still unhappy with her reaction to his getting a job there, or his disappointment that she hadn’t seen fit to take some time off to go with him – or at least spend a weekend together there. Maybe she didn’t want to make things too easy for him? Or maybe she was hoping he’d be back in Reykjavík in a few weeks, having given up on the snow and isolation of the north.
    Ari Thór had read her reply the following day. She wrote about work and her studies, mentioning as well that her father had lost his job at the bank where he had been for years, one among many who had been let go. He knew that she would be feeling distraught over this, and that her mother worked at an architect’s practice where the financial crash would doubtless also make itself felt soon enough. Kristín didn’t seem inclined to discuss anything in detail. It was a short message, lacking in any kind of emotion. As was his to her.
    The next day he was able to reach her on the phone. He was just home from a long shift and not as ready as he would have liked to discuss what was troubling him. They talked for while about superficial things, but nothing in any real depth. Kristín had always been calm and quiet, and was rarely inclined to let minor, everyday thingsupset her. So he wasn’t able to decide if he was the only one unwilling to delve into things that affected them both.
    As the weeks went on, they talked every day, but Ari Thór still avoided bringing up his disappointment that she wasn’t supportive enough of his new job, and Kristín seemed to avoid the subject as well, probably still annoyed that he had left Reykjavík. Still, it didn’t seem fair, he thought. She had her parents and her friends in Reykjavík. He was all alone in a new place and would certainly have appreciated some reassurance. But instead of tackling these issues, they kept their conversations short – friendly but trivial.
    But now he needed to call her. It was already mid-December, he had been in Siglufjördur for over a month, and Christmas was approaching. He was going to have to let her know about Tómas’s decision to assign him shifts over the holiday period, and it wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to. Tómas had actually phrased it as a request, but, realistically, Ari Thór couldn’t say no: he was in no position to refuse and he wanted to prove