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miscarriage.'
    'Shouldn't we try to meet up tomorrow?' Valgerdur asked him.
    'Yes, let's meet up then,' Erlendur agreed, and they said goodbye.
    'Was that her?' Elínborg asked, aware that Erlendur was in some kind of relationship with a woman.
    'If you mean Valgerdur, yes, it was her,' Erlendur said.
    'Is she worried about Eva Lind?'
    'What did forensics say about that transmitter?' Erlendur asked, to change the subject.
    'They don't know much,' Elínborg said. 'But they do think it's Russian. The name and serial number were filed off but they can make out the outline of the odd letter and think it's Cyrillic.'
    'Russian?'
    'Yes, Russian.'
     
    There were a couple of houses at the southern end of Kleifarvatn and Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli gathered information about their owners. They telephoned them and asked in general terms about missing persons who could be linked to the lake. It was fruitless.
    Sigurdur Óli mentioned that Elínborg was busy preparing for the publication of her book of recipes.
    'I think it'll make her famous,' Sigurdur Óli said.
    'Does she want to be?' Erlendur asked.
    'Doesn't everyone?' Sigurdur Óli said.
    'Cobblers,' Erlendur said.

6
    Sigurdur Óli read the letter, the last testimony of a young man who had walked out of his parents' house in 1970 and had never come back.
    The parents were now both aged 78 and in fine fettle. They had two other sons, both younger, now in their fifties. They knew that their eldest son had committed suicide. They did not know how he went about it, nor where his remains were. Sigurdur Óli asked them about Kleifarvatn, the radio transmitter and the hole in the skull, but they had no idea what he was talking about. Their son had never quarrelled with anyone and had no enemies; that was out of the question.
    'It's an absurd idea that he was murdered,' the mother said with a glance at her husband, still anxious after so many years about the fate of their son.
    'You can tell from the letter,' the husband said. 'It's obvious what he had in mind.'
    Sigurdur Óli reread the letter.
    dear mum and dad forgive me but i can't do anything else it's unbearable and i can't think of living any longer i can't and i won't and i can't
    The letter was signed Jakob .
    'It was that girl's fault,' the wife said.
    'We don't know anything about that,' her husband said.
    'She started going out with his friend,' she said. 'Our boy couldn't take it.'
    'Do you think it's him, it's our boy?' the husband asked. They were sitting on the sofa, facing Sigurdur Óli and waiting for answers to the questions that had haunted them ever since their son went missing. They knew that he could not answer the toughest question, the one they had grappled with during all those years, concerning parental actions and responsibilities, but he could tell them whether or not he had been found. On the news they had only said that a male skeleton had been found in Kleifarvatn. Nothing about a radio transmitter and a smashed skull. They did not understand what Sigurdur Óli meant when he started probing about. They had only one question: Was it him?
    'I don't think that's likely,' Sigurdur Óli said. He looked back and forth at them. The incomprehensible disappearance and death of a loved one had left its mark on their lives. The case had never been closed. Their son had still not come home and that was the way it had been all those years. They did not know where he was or what had happened to him, and this uncertainty spawned discomfort and gloom.
    'We think he went into the sea,' the wife said. 'He was a good swimmer. I've always thought that he swam out to sea until he knew he had gone too far out or until the cold took him.'
    'The police told us at the time that because the body couldn't be found, he'd most probably thrown himself in the sea,' the husband said.
    'Because of that girl,' the wife said.
    'We can't blame her for it,' the husband said.
    Sigurdur Óli could tell that they had slipped into an old routine.