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Omar paused.

“One of their priorities was recruitment,” he continued. “Recruiting new spies.”

“You mean training diplomats to spy?” Erlendur said.

“No, recruiting spies from the enemy.” Omar smiled. “Getting staff from other embassies to spy for them. Of course, they tried to get people from all walks of life to spy and gather information, but embassy officials were particularly sought after.”

“And?” Erlendur said.

“Bob might be able to help you with that.”

“With what?” Elinborg asked.

“The diplomats,” Omar said.

“I don’t understand what…” Elinborg said.

“You mean he would know if something unusual or abnormal had gone on in the network?” Erlendur said.

“He certainly wouldn’t tell you anything in detail. He never tells anyone that. Not me and certainly not you. I’ve asked him often enough but he just laughs and jokes about it. But he might tell you something innocent that aroused superficial interest and was difficult to explain, something odd.”

Erlendur and Elinborg looked at Omar with slightly puzzled expressions.

“For instance, if someone came to Iceland but never left,” Omar said. “Bob could tell you that.”

“You’re thinking about the Russian bug?” Erlendur asked.

Omar nodded.

“What about you? The ministry must have kept tabs on who joined the embassies and what kind of people they were.”

“Yes, we did. We were always informed of organisational changes, new staff and the like. But we didn’t have the opportunity or the capacity — or, as a rule, even the desire — to maintain surveillance of the embassies on the scale they did.”

“So that if, for example, a man joined the staff of one of the communist embassies in Reykjavik,” Erlendur said, “and worked here without the American embassy ever noticing him leave the country, would your friend Bob know about that?”

“Yes,” Omar said. “I think Bob could help you with that kind of question.”

Marion Briem lugged the oxygen cylinder back into the sitting room after answering the door to Erlendur. Erlendur followed, wondering if this would be his fate when he grew old, withering away at home on his own, lost to the world and hauling an oxygen cylinder behind him. As far as he knew Marion had no siblings and few friends, yet the old fogey in the oxygen mask had never regretted not starting a family.

“What for?” Marion had said once. “Families are just a nuisance.”

The subject of Erlendur’s family had cropped up, which did not happen often because Erlendur disliked talking about himself. Marion had asked after his children, whether he kept in touch with them. This had been many years ago.

“Aren’t there two of them?” Marion had asked.

Erlendur was sitting in his office writing a report on a fraud case when Marion suddenly appeared and started asking about his family. The scam involved two sisters who had defrauded their mother and left her penniless. This had prompted Marion to label families a nuisance.

“Yes, there are two of them,” Erlendur said. “Can’t we talk about this case here? I think that…”

“And when was the last time you saw them?” Marion asked.

“I don’t think that’s any of your b—”

“No, it’s none of my business, but it’s your business, isn’t it? Isn’t it your business? Having two children?”

The memory ebbed from Erlendur’s mind when he sat down opposite Marion, who slumped into the tatty armchair. There was a reason that Erlendur did not like his ex-boss. He expected it was the same reason why the cancer patient had few visitors. Marion did not attract friends. On the contrary. Even Erlendur, who visited now and again, was no great friend.

Marion watched Erlendur and put on the oxygen mask. Some time went by without a word being said. At last Marion pulled down the mask. Erlendur cleared his throat.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m dreadfully tired,” Marion said. “Always dozing off. Maybe it’s the oxygen.”

“Probably too healthy for you,” Erlendur said.

“Why do you keep hanging around here?” Marion said weakly.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “How was the western?”

“You ought to watch it,” Marion said. “It’s a tale of obstinacy. How’s it going with Kleifarvatn?”

“It’s going,” Erlendur said.

“And the driver of the Falcon? Have you located him?”

Erlendur shook his head but said he had found the car. The current owner was a widow who did not know much about Ford Falcons and wanted to sell it. He told Marion how the man, Leopold, had been a mysterious figure. Not even his girlfriend knew much about him. There was no photograph of him and he was not in the official records. It was as if he had never existed, as if he had been a figment of the imagination of the woman who worked in the dairy shop.

“Why are you looking for him?” Marion asked.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “I’ve been asked that quite a lot. I have no idea. Because of a woman who once worked in a dairy shop. Because a hubcap was missing from the car. Because a new car was left outside the coach station. There’s something in all this that doesn’t fit.”

Marion sank back deeper into the armchair, eyes closed now.

“We have the same name,” Marion said in an almost inaudible voice.

“What?” Erlendur said, leaning forwards. “What was that you said?”

“Me and John Wayne,” Marion said. “The same name.”

“What are you raving about?” Erlendur said.

“Don’t you find it strange?”

Erlendur was about to reply when he saw that Marion had fallen asleep. He picked up the video case and read the title: The Searchers. A tale of obstinacy, he thought to himself. He looked at Marion, then back at the cover, which showed John Wayne on horseback, brandishing a rifle. He looked over at the television in an alcove in the sitting room, put the cassette in the player, switched on the TV, sat back in the sofa and watched The Searchers while Marion slept a gentle sleep.

16

Sigurdur Oli was on his way out of his office when the telephone rang. He hesitated. He would have liked to slam the door behind him, but instead he sighed and answered the call.

“Am I disturbing you?” the man on the phone said.

“You are actually,” Sigurdur Oli said. “I’m on my way home. So…”

“Sorry,” the man said.

“Stop apologising for everything — and stop phoning me, too. I can’t do anything for you.”

“I don’t have many people I can talk to,” the man said.

“And I’m not one of them. I’m just someone who turned up at the scene of the accident. That’s all. I’m not an agony aunt. Talk to the vicar.”

“Don’t you think it’s my fault?” the man asked. “If I hadn’t called…”

They had already gone back and forth through this conversation innumerable times. Neither believed in an inscrutable god who demanded sacrifices such as the man’s wife and daughter. Neither was a fatalist. They did not believe that all things were predetermined and impossible to influence. Both believed in simple coincidences. Both were realists and accepted the fact that had the man not phoned his wife and delayed her, she would not have been at the crossing at the moment that the drunken driver in the Range Rover went through the red light. However, Sigurdur Oli did not blame the man for what happened, and thought his reasoning was absurd.