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goodbye as he left. The ‘Reverend’ nickname continued to surface occasionally, having appeared when people had found out about his curtailed theological studies. He still hadn’t got used to it, and sometimes the taunts stung.
    Tómas immediately sniffed the air when Ari Thór sat at the table in the station’s coffee corner and unwrapped his unusual breakfast.
    ‘Not that stuff again, Ari Thór! And now for breakfast? Don’t you ever get tired of it?’
    ‘Even city boys like me can enjoy a traditional breakfast,’ Ari Thór answered, continuing to pick his way through his fish.
    ‘Jokes aside, Ari Thór, there’s something we need to deal with. Hlynur’s on his way and he can take today’s shift,’ Tómas said.
    Tómas had changed after his wife had moved south, he seemed to have aged ten years. His zest for life had faded, and although there hadn’t been much there before, the hair on his head looked even thinner.
    There was no doubt that Tómas was a lonely man. Ari Thór knew that his youngest son had also left home and now lived in the student hall of residence at the college in Akureyri during term time. He had found himself summer work with the local authority there and had rented a place to live with two of his classmates. He visited his father occasionally at weekends, but that was it, so Tómas was pretty much alone in the house in Siglufjörður.
    ‘A body’s been found,’ Tómas announced, when Ari Thór had taken a seat.
    ‘A body?’
    ‘That’s right. In Skagafjörður, on Reykjaströnd, next to a summer house that’s being built there, not far from Grettir’s Pool.’
    ‘Is this any business of Siglufjörður’s?’ Ari Thór asked, and immediately regretted the abrupt question. He was tired after staying up long into the night, having expected to be able to sleep in that morning. He rubbed his eyes.
    ‘Some tourist from America found the body. He drove past it onhis way to the pool,’ Tómas continued, ignoring Ari Thór’s interruption. ‘It looks nasty. They’ve sent me some pictures of the scene.’
    ‘A murder?’
    ‘No doubt about that, Ari Thór, and a brutal one, too. The victim’s practically unrecognisable. He was smashed in the face with a length of timber. It seems there was a nail in it that went right through one eye. The reason we’ve been asked to help with the investigation is because the victim had his “legal residence” here.’ Tómas’s tone indicated that the man hadn’t been born in Siglufjörður.
    ‘An out-of-towner?’
    ‘Exactly. Elías Freysson. I don’t remember ever meeting the man. He was a contractor working on the new tunnel. I said we’d find out what we can about him here, and I want you to manage that.’ His voice was decisive, firm. ‘Of course I’ll work on it with you, but it’s time you took on more responsibility, Ari Thór.’
    Ari Thór nodded his agreement. He liked the idea. His weariness fell away and he was instantly more alert. It occurred to him, and not for the first time, that Tómas was looking at the possibility of moving south to be with his wife, and wanted to leave the Siglufjörður station in safe hands.
    ‘You said Hlynur would be taking the shift today. So he won’t be involved in this investigation?’
    ‘That’s right, my boy,’ Tómas said.
    Ari Thór breathed easier and hoped that his satisfaction at Tómas’s answer wasn’t too obvious. He couldn’t work with Hlynur. They didn’t get on, on top of which, for some unknown reason, Hlynur had been almost useless for the last few months. He always arrived at work tired, often still half asleep and was increasingly absent-minded.
    ‘All right. I’ll get on with it right away,’ Ari Thór said. ‘Who was Elías’s boss at the new tunnel?’
    ‘I know that Hákon is the foreman there, Hákon Halldórsson,’ Tómas said. ‘He’s a Siglufjörður boy,’ he added, and Ari Thór understood from his voice that this was a key item of