“Oh, don’t you start,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Why do women always talk about how frustrated men are? As if women aren’t frustrated with all their stuff, “Oh, I can’t find my lipstick”…”

“Blind, frustrated old monks,” Elinborg said.

“What does being a collector mean?” Erlendur asked. “Why do people collect certain objects to have around them and why do they see one item as being more valuable than others?”

“Some items are more valuable than others,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“They must be looking for something unique,” Erlendur said. “Something no one else has. Isn’t that the ultimate goal? Owning a treasure that no one else in the whole wide world has?”

“Aren’t they often pretty strange characters?” Elinborg said.

“Strange?”

“Loners. Aren’t they? Weirdos?”

“You found some records in Gudlaugur’s cupboard,” Erlendur said to her. “What did you do with them? Did you look at them at all?”

“I just saw them in the cupboard,” Elinborg said. “Didn’t touch them and they’re still there if you want to take a look.”

“How does a collector like Wapshott make contact with a man like Gudlaugur?” Elinborg continued. “How did he hear about him? Are there intermediaries? What does he know about recordings of Icelandic choirboys in the 1960s? A boy soloist singing up here in Iceland more than thirty years ago?”

“Magazines?” Sigurdur Oli suggested. “The Internet? Over the phone? Through other collectors?”

“Do we know anything else about Gudlaugur?” Erlendur asked.

“He had a sister,” Sigurdur Oli said. “And a father who’s still alive. They were informed of his death, of course. The sister identified him.”

“We should definitely take a saliva sample from Wapshott,” Elinborg said.

“Yes, I’ll see to that,” Erlendur said.

Sigurdur Oli began gathering information about Henry Wapshott; Elinborg undertook to arrange a meeting with Gudlaugur’s father and sister, and Erlendur headed down to the doorman’s room in the basement. Walking past reception, he remembered that he still had to talk to the manager about his absence from work. He decided to do it later.

He found the records in Gudlaugur’s cupboard. Two singles. One sleeve read: Gudlaugur sings Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. It was the same record that Henry Wapshott had shown him. The other showed the boy standing in front of a small choir. The choirmaster, a young man, stood to one side. Gudlaugur Egilsson sings solo was printed in large letters across the sleeve.

On the back was a brief account of the child prodigy.

Gudlaugur Egilsson has commanded much-deserved attention with Hafnarfjordur Children’s Choir and this twelve-year-old singer definitely has a bright future ahead. On his second recording he sings with unique expression in his beautiful boy soprano under the direction of Gabriel Hermannsson, choirmaster of Hafnarfjordur Children’s Choir. This record is a must for all lovers of good music. Gudlaugur Egilsson proves beyond all doubt that he is a singer in a class of his own. He is currently preparing for a tour of Scandinavia.

A child star, Erlendur thought as he looked at the film poster for The Little Princess with Shirley Temple. What are you doing here? he asked the poster. Why did he keep you?

He took out his mobile.

“Marion,” he said when the call was answered.

“Is that you, Erlendur?”

“Anything new?”

“Did you know that Gudlaugur made song recordings when he was a child?”

“I’ve just found that out,” Erlendur said.

“The record company went bankrupt about twenty years ago and there’s not a trace of it left. A man by the name of Gunnar Hansson owned and ran it. The name was GH Records. He released a bit of hippy stuff but it all went down the plughole.”

“Do you know what happened to the stock?”

“The stock?” Marion Briem said.

“The records.”

“They must have gone towards paying off his debts. Isn’t that usually the case? I spoke to his family, two sons. The company never released much and I drew a total blank at first when I asked about it. The sons hadn’t heard it mentioned for decades. Gunnar died in the mid-eighties and all he left behind was a trail of debts.”

“There’s a man staying here at the hotel who collects choral music, choirboys. He was planning to meet Gudlaugur but nothing came of it. I was wondering whether his records might be worth something. How can I find out?”

“Find some collectors and talk to them,” Marion said. “Do you want me to?”

“Then there’s another thing. Could you locate a man called Gabriel Hermannsson who was a choirmaster in Hafnarfjordur in the sixties? You’re bound to find him in the phone directory if he’s still alive. He may have taught Gudlaugur. I’ve got a record sleeve here, there’s a photo of him and he looks to me as if he was in his twenties then. Of course, if he’s dead then it stops there.”

“That’s generally the rule.”

“What?”

“If you’re dead, it stops.”

“Quite.” Erlendur hesitated. “What are you talking about death for?”

“No reason.”

“Everything’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Thanks for throwing some morsels my way,” Marion said.

“Wasn’t that what you wanted? To spend your wretched old age delving into obscurities?”

“It absolutely makes my day,” Marion said. “Have you checked about the Cortisol in the saliva?”

“I’ll look into it,” Erlendur said and rang off.

The head of reception had a little room of his own in the lobby beside the reception desk and was doing some paperwork when Erlendur walked in and closed the door behind him. The man stood up and began to protest, saying he couldn’t spare the time to talk, he was on his way to a meeting, but Erlendur sat down and folded his arms.

“What are you running away from?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t come to work yesterday, in the hotel’s peak season. You acted like a fugitive when I spoke to you the evening the doorman was murdered. You’re all jittery now. To my mind you’re top of the list of suspects. I’m told you knew Gudlaugur better than anyone else at this hotel. You deny it — say you don’t know a thing about him. I think you’re lying. You were his boss. You ought to be a little more cooperative. It’s no joke spending Christmas in custody.”

The man stared at Erlendur without knowing what to do, then slowly sat back down in his chair.

“You haven’t got anything on me,” he said. “It’s nonsense to think I did that to Gudlaugur. That I was in his room and… I mean with the condom and all that.”

Erlendur was concerned by how the details of the case appeared to have leaked and how the staff were wallowing in them. In the kitchen, the chef knew precisely why they were collecting saliva samples. The reception manager could picture the scene in the doorman’s room. Maybe the hotel manager had blurted it all out, maybe the girl who found the body, maybe police officers.

“Where were you yesterday?” Erlendur asked.

“Off sick,” the reception manager said. “I was at home all morning.”

“You didn’t tell anyone. Did you go to the doctor? Did he give you a note? Can I talk to him? What’s his name.”

“I didn’t go to the doctor. I stayed in bed. I’m better now.” He forced out a cough. Erlendur smiled. This man was the worst liar he had ever encountered.

“Why these lies?”

“You haven’t got a thing on me,” the manager said. “All you can do is threaten me. I want you to leave me alone.”

“I could talk to your wife too,” Erlendur said. “Ask her if she brought you a cup of tea in bed yesterday.”

“You leave her out of it,” the manager said, and suddenly there was a tougher, more serious tone to his voice. He went red in the face.

“I’m not going to leave her out of it,” Erlendur said.