‘Rebekka?’
‘She gave a good account of you. Get in touch with me if you’re interested in doing more of this kind of sleuthing.’
With that, Marion disappeared into the throng. Erlendur gave his collar another tug, thinking how good it would be to shed his uniform once he came off duty. Not that he would be free of it for long, since all next week he would be back on the Reykjavík night shift.
52
He halted in front of the house and stared up at it before continuing on his way through the lightly falling rain. He had often retraced these steps, lingering briefly in this street. The girl’s family no longer lived here; they had moved out more than ten years before. He was not sure which room had been hers but liked to imagine that it was the one with the pretty attic window, that it was there she had awoken to a new day and got ready for school, before yelling a quick goodbye to her parents because she was running late. Cheerful as ever, according to their account.
The house had changed owners twice since then. A young couple lived there now and Erlendur wondered if they were aware that it had been home to the girl who had disappeared on her way to school. He doubted it. People came and went without dwelling too much on the past; they built new lives, shaped a new future. The cycle of life. Time waited for no man.
He was filled with the old sense of sadness as he followed the girl along the street for the last time. They walked towards the site where Camp Knox had once stood, like a bleak memorial to the occupation and the nation’s impoverished past. There he stopped and watched her go on, her outline fading into the softly falling rain.
ALSO BY ARNALDUR INDRIDASON
STRANGE SHORES
BLACK SKIES
OUTRAGE
OPERATION NAPOLEON
HYPOTHERMIA
ARCTIC CHILL
THE DRAINING LAKE
VOICES
SILENCE OF THE GRAVE
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
REYKJAVIK NIGHTS. Copyright © 2012 by Arnaldur Indridason. English translation copyright © 2014 by Victoria Cribb. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
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First published in Iceland under the title Reykjavíkurnætur by Forlagid
Previously published in Great Britain by Harvill Seeker, a Penguin Random House company
First U.S. Edition: April 2015
eISBN 9781466849419
First eBook edition: February 2015