that the forensic pathologist would calculate the exact time of death by correlating the degrees of frost with the body temperature. On first impression the doctor could not identify a cause of death. Possibly a fall, he said, looking up at the gloomy block.
The body had not been disturbed. The pathologist was on his way. If possible he preferred to visit the crime scene and examine the surroundings with the police. Erlendur was concerned at the ever-growing crowd gathering at the corner of the block, who could see the body lit up by the flashing cameras. Cars cruised slowly past, their passengers absorbing the scene. A small floodlight was being erected to enable a closer examination of the site. Erlendur told a policeman to cordon off the area.
From the garden, none of the doors appeared to open out onto a balcony from which the boy might have fallen. The windows were all shut. This was a large block of flats by Icelandic standards, six storeys high with four stairwells. It was in a poor state of repair. The iron railings round the balconies were rusty. The paint was faded and in some places it had flaked off the concrete. Two sitting-room windows with a single large crack in each were visible from where Erlendur stood. No one had bothered to replace them.
'Do you suppose it's racially motivated?' Sigurdur Óli said, looking down at the boy's body.
'I don't think we should jump to conclusions,' Erlendur said.
'Could he have been climbing up the wall?' Elínborg asked as she, too, looked up at the apartment block.
'Kids do the unlikeliest things,' Sigurdur Óli remarked.
'We need to establish whether he might have been climbing up between the balconies,' Erlendur said.
'Where do you think he's from?' Sigurdur Óli wondered.
'Shouldn't we say he's an Icelander until we find out otherwise?' Erlendur said.
They stood in silence in the cold, watching the drifting snow pile up around the boy. Erlendur looked at the curious bystanders at the corner where the police cars were parked. Then he took off his coat and draped it over the body.
'Is it safe doing that?' Elínborg asked with a glance in the direction of the forensics team. According to procedure they were not even supposed to stand over the body until forensics had granted permission.
'I don't know,' Erlendur said.
'Not very professional,' Sigurdur Óli said.
'Has no one reported the boy missing?' Erlendur asked, ignoring his remark. 'No enquiries about a lost boy of this age?'
'I checked that on the way here,' Elínborg said. 'The police haven't been notified of any.'
Erlendur glanced down at his coat. He was cold.
'Where's the person who found him?'
'We've got him in one of the stairwells,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'He waited for us. Called from his mobile. Every kid carries a mobile phone these days. He said he'd taken a shortcut through the garden on his way home from school and stumbled across the body.'
'I'll talk to him,' Erlendur said. 'You check whether they can find the boy's tracks through the garden. If he was bleeding he might have left a trail. Maybe he didn't fall.'
'Shouldn't forensics handle that?' Sigurdur Óli mumbled to deaf ears.
'He doesn't appear to have been attacked here in the garden,' Elínborg said.
'And for God's sake, try to find his boot,' Erlendur said as he walked off.
'The boy who found him ...' Sigurdur Óli began.
'Yes,' Erlendur said, turning round.
'He's also col...' Sigurdur Óli hesitated.
'What?'
'An immigrant kid,' Sigurdur Óli said.
The boy sat on a step in one of the stairwells of the block of flats, a policewoman sat with him. He had his sports kit wrapped up in a yellow plastic bag and eyed Erlendur with suspicion. They had not wanted to make him sit in a police car. That could have led people to conclude that he was implicated in the boy's death, so someone had suggested that he wait in the stairwell instead.
The corridor was dirty. An unhygienic odour pervaded the air, mingling with cigarette smoke and cooking smells from the flats. The floor was covered in worn linoleum and the graffiti on the wall seemed illegible to Erlendur. The boy's parents were still at work. They had been notified. He was dark-skinned with straight jet-black hair that was still damp after his shower, and big white teeth. He was dressed in an anorak and jeans, and holding a woollen hat in his hands.