Erlendur didn’t see how he could help her. She was like a child, unaware of how big and complicated and difficult it is to deal with the world.

“Was he caught at the terminal?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t do anything,” Erlendur said. “And I don’t feel inclined to. You don’t keep particularly good company. Dope smuggling and prostitution. What about a straightforward office job?”

“Won’t you just try?” Stina said. “Talk to someone. He mustn’t get three years!”

“To get this perfectly straight,” Erlendur said with a nod, “you’re a prostitute?”

“Prostitute, prostitute,” Stina said, producing a cigarette from a little black handbag over her shoulder. “I dance at The Marquis. She leaned forwards and whispered con-spiratorially to Erlendur: “But there’s more money in the other business.”

“And you’ve had customers at this hotel?”

“A few,” Stina said.

“And you’ve been working at this hotel?”

“I’ve never worked here.”

“I mean do you pick up the customers here or bring them over from town?”

“Whatever I please. They used to let me be here until Fatso threw me out”

“Why?”

Stina started itching under her breasts again and gave the spot a cautious rub. She winced and forced a smile at Erlendur, but clearly didn’t feel particularly well.

“A girl I know went for a boob job that went wrong,” she said. “Her tits are like empty bin liners”

“Do you really need all that breast?” Erlendur couldn’t refrain from asking.

“Don’t you like them?” she said, thrusting them forward but grimacing as she did. “These stitches are killing me,” she groaned.

“Well, they are … big,” Erlendur admitted.

“And straight off the shelf? Stina boasted.

Erlendur saw the hotel manager enter the bar with the head of reception and stride over to them in all his majesty. Looking around to make sure no one else was in the bar, he hissed at Stina when he was still a few metres away from her.

“Out! Get out, girl! This minute! Out of here!”

Stina looked over her shoulder at the hotel manager, then back at Erlendur and rolled her eyes.

“Christ,” she said.

“We don’t want whores like you at this hotel!” the manager shouted.

He grabbed her as if to throw her out

“Leave me alone,” Stina said. “I’m talking to this man here.”

“Watch her tits!” Erlendur shouted, not knowing what else to say. The hotel manager looked at him, dumbfounded. “They’re new,” Erlendur added by way of explanation.

He stood up, blocked the hotel manager’s path and tried to push him away, but with little success. Stina did her utmost to protect her breasts, while the head of reception stood at a distance, watching the goings-on. Eventually he came to Erlendur’s aid and they managed to shuffle the furious hotel manager out of reach of Stina.

“Everything … she … says about … me is … fucking lies!” he wheezed. The effort was almost too much for him; his face poured with sweat and he was panting for breath after the struggle.

“She hasn’t said anything about you,” Erlendur said to calm him down.

“I want … her … to … get out … of here.” The hotel manager slumped down in a chair, took out his handkerchief and started mopping his face.

“Cool it, Fatso,” Stina said. “He’s a meat merchant, you know that?”

“A meat merchant?” Erlendur didn’t immediately grasp the meaning.

“He takes a slice from all of us who work at this hotel,” Stina said.

“A slice?” Erlendur said.

“A slice. His commission! He takes a cut from us.”

“It’s a lie!” the hotel manager shouted. “Get out, you fucking whore!”

“He wanted more than half a share for himself and the head waiter,” Stina said as she carefully rearranged her breasts, “and when I refused he told me to fuck off and never come back.”

“She’s lying,” the hotel manager said, slightly calmer. “I’ve always thrown those girls out, and her too. We don’t want whores at this hotel.”

“The head waiter?” Erlendur said, visualising the thin moustache. Rosant, he thought the name was.

“Always thrown them out,” Stina snorted as she turned to Erlendur. “He’s the one who phones us. If he knows one of the guests is up for it or has money he phones to let us know and plants us in the bar. Says it makes the hotel more popular. They’re conference guests and the like. Foreigners. Lonely old men. If there’s a big conference on, he phones”

“Are there many of you?” Erlendur asked.

“A few of us run an escort service,” Stina said. “Really high class.”

Stina gave the impression that she was not as proud of anything as being a prostitute, apart perhaps from her new breasts.

“They don’t run a bloody escort service,” the manager said, breathing normally again. “They hang around the hotel and try to hook guests and take them up to the rooms, and she’s lying about me phoning them. You fucking bitch of a whore!”

Thinking it inadvisable to continue the conversation with Stina at the bar, Erlendur said he needed to borrow the head of receptions office for a moment — otherwise they could all go down to the police station and resume there. The hotel manager let out a groan and gave Stina the evil eye. Erlendur followed her out of the bar and into the office. The hotel manager stayed behind. All the wind seemed to have been knocked out of him, and he shooed the head of reception away when he went over to attend to him.

“She’s lying, Erlendur,” he shouted after them. “It’s all a pack of lies!”

Erlendur sat down at the manager’s desk while Stina stood and lit a cigarette, as if immune to the fact that smoking was prohibited throughout the hotel except conceivably at the bar.

“Did you know the doorman at this hotel?” Erlendur asked. “Gudlaugur?”

“He was really nice. He collected Fatso’s cut from us. And then he got killed.”

“He was—”

“Do you reckon Fatso killed him?” Stina interrupted. “He’s the biggest creep I know. Do you know why I’m not allowed at this shitty hotel of his any more?”

“No.”

“He didn’t only want a cut from us girls, but, you know…”

“What?”

“Wanted us to do stuff for him too. Personal. You know…”

“And?”

“I refused. Put my foot down. Those rolls of fat on the bastard. He’s gross. He could have killed Gudlaugur. I could see him doing that. I bet he sat on him.”

“But what was your relationship with Gudlaugur? Did you do things for him?”

“Never. He wasn’t interested.”

“He certainly was,” Erlendur said, imagining Gudlaugur’s corpse in his little room with his trousers round his ankles. “I’m afraid he wasn’t entirely uninterested.”

“He never took an interest in me anyway,” Stina said, carefully hitching up her breasts. “And none of us girls”

“Is the head waiter in on this with the manager?”

“Rosant? Yeah.”

“What about the man from reception?”

“He doesn’t want us. He doesn’t want any tarts but the other two decide. The man from reception wants to get rid of Rosant, but Fatso makes too much money out of him.”

“Tell me something else. Do you ever chew tobacco? In a kind of gauze, like miniature teabags. People keep it under their lip. Pressed against the gums”

“Yuk, no,” Stina said. “Are you crazy? I take really good care of my teeth.”

“Does anyone you know chew tobacco?”

“No.”

They said nothing more until Erlendur felt compelled to do a spot of moralising. He had Eva Lind in mind. How she had been caught up in drugs and surely went in for prostitution to pay for her habit, although it probably didn’t take place at any of the finer hotels in the city. He thought what a terrible lot it was for a woman to sell her favours to any dirty old man whatever, wherever and whenever.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, trying to conceal the tone of accusation in his voice. “The silicon implants in your breasts. Sleeping with conference guests in hotel rooms. Why?”