Voices

by Arnaldur Indridason

  'Won't we have to close down the hotel?' Elínborg asked, and noticed the manager gasp at her question. 'Stop all traffic in and out. Question everyone staying here and all the staff? Close the airports. Stop ships leaving port...'

  'For God's sake,' the manager groaned, squeezing his handkerchief with an imploring look at Erlendur. 'It's only the doorman!'

  Mary and Joseph would never have been given a room here, Erlendur thought to himself.

  'This ... this ... filth has nothing to do with my guests,' the manager spluttered with indignation. 'They're tourists, almost all of them, and regional people, businessmen and the like. No one who has anything to do with the doorman. No one. This is one of the largest hotels in Reykjavík. It's packed over the holidays. You can't just close it down! You just can't!'

  'We could, but we won't,' Erlendur said, trying to calm the manager down. 'We'll need to question some of the guests and most of the staff, I expect.'

  'Thank God,' the manager sighed, regaining his composure.

  'What was the man's name?'

  'Gudlaugur,' the manager said. 'I think he's around fifty. And you're right about his family, I don't think he has any.'

  'Who visited him?'

  'I haven't got a clue,' the manager puffed.

  'Has anything unusual happened at the hotel involving this man?'

  'No.'

  'Theft?'

  'No. Nothing's happened.'

  'Complaints?'

  'No.'

  'He hasn't become embroiled in anything that could explain this?'

  'Not as far as I know.'

  'Was he involved in any conflicts with anyone at this hotel?'

  'Not that I know of

  'Outside the hotel?'

  'Not that I know of but I don't know him very well. Didn't,' the manager corrected himself.

  'Not after twenty years?'

  'No, not really. He wasn't very sociable, I don't think. Kept himself to himself as much as he could.'

  'Do you think a hotel is the right place for a man like him?'

  'Me? I don't know ... He was always very polite and there were never really any complaints about him.'

  'Never really?'

  'No, there were never any complaints about him. He wasn't a bad worker really?

  'Where's the staff coffee room?' Erlendur asked.

  'I'll show you.' The hotel manager mopped his brow, relieved that they would not close the hotel.

  'Did he have guests?' Erlendur asked.

  'What?' the manager said.

  'Guests,' Erlendur repeated. 'It looks like someone who knew him was here, don't you think?'

  The manager looked at the body and his eyes dwelled on the condom.

  'I don't know anything about his girlfriends,' he said. 'Nothing at all.'

  'You don't know very much about this man,' Erlendur said.

  'He's a doorman here,' the manager said, and felt that Erlendur should accept that by way of explanation.

  They left the room. The forensics team went in with their equipment and more officers followed them. It was difficult for them all to squeeze their way past the manager. Erlendur asked them to examine the corridor carefully and the dark alcove further down. Sigurdur Óli and Elinborg stood inside the little room observing the body.

  'I wouldn't like to be found like that,' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'It's no concern of his any more,' Elínborg said.

  'No, probably not,' Sigurdur Óh said.

  'Is there anything in it?' Elínborg asked as she took out a little bag of salted peanuts. She was always nibbling at things. Sigurdur Óli thought it was because of nerves.

  'In it?' Sigurdur Óli said.

  She nodded in the direction of the body. After staring at her for a moment, Sigurdur Óli realised what she meant. He hesitated, then knelt down by the body and stared at the condom.

  'No,' he said. 'It's empty'

  'So she killed him before his orgasm,' Elínborg said. 'The doctor thought—'

  'She?' Sigurdur Óli said.

  'Yes, isn't that obvious?' Elínborg said, emptying a handful of peanuts into her mouth. She offered some to Sigurdur Óli, who declined. 'Isn't there something tarty about it? He's had a woman in here,' she said. 'Hasn't he?'

  'That's the simplest theory,' Sigurdur Óli said, standing up.

  'You don't think so?' Elínborg said.

  'I don't know. I don't have the faintest idea.'

  2

  The staff coffee room had little in common with the hotel's splendid lobby and well-appointed rooms. There were no Christmas decorations, no Christmas carols, only a few shabby kitchen tables and chairs, linoleum on the floor, torn in one place, and in one corner stood a kitchenette with cupboards, a coffee machine and a refrigerator. It was as if no one ever tidied up there. There were coffee stains on the tables and dirty cups all around. The ancient coffee machine was switched on and burped water.

  Several hotel employees were sitting in a semicircle around a young girl who was still traumatised after finding the body. She had been crying and black mascara was smudged down her cheeks. She looked up when Erlendur entered with the hotel manager.

  'Here she is,' the manager said as if she were guilty of intruding upon the sanctity of Christmas, and shooed the other staff out. Erlendur ushered him out after them, saying he wanted to talk to the girl in private. The manager looked at him in surprise but did not protest, muttering about having plenty of other things to do. Erlendur closed the door behind him.

  The girl wiped the mascara off her cheeks and looked at Erlendur, uncertain what to expect. Erlendur smiled, pulled up a chair and sat facing her. She was around the same age as his own daughter, in her early twenties, nervous and still in shock from what she had seen. Her hair was black and she was slim, dressed in the hotel chambermaid's uniform, a light blue coat. A name tag was attached to her breast pocket. Ösp.

  'Have you been working here long?' Erlendur asked.

  'Almost a year,' Ösp said in a low voice. She looked at him. He did not give the impression that he would give her a hard time. With a snuffle she straightened up in her chair. Finding the body had clearly had a strong effect on her. She trembled slightly. Her name Ösp – meaning aspen – suited her, Erlendur thought to himself. She was like a twig in the wind.

  'And do you like working here?' Erlendur asked.

  'No,' she said.

  'So why do you?'

  'You have to work.'

  'What's so bad about it?'

  She looked at him as if he did not need to ask.

  'I change the beds,' she said. 'Clean the toilets. Vacuum. But it's still better than a supermarket.'

  'What about the people?'

  'The manager's a creep.'

  'He's like a fire hydrant with a leak.'

  Ösp smiled.

  'And some of the guests think you're only here for them to grope.'

  'Why did you go down to the basement?' Erlendur asked.

  'To fetch Santa. The kids were waiting for him.'

  'Which kids?'

  'At the Christmas ball. We have a Christmas party for the staff. For their children and any kids who are staying at the hotel, and he was playing Santa. When he didn't show up I was sent to fetch him.'

  'That can't have been pleasant.'

  'I've never seen a dead body before. And that condom.' Ösp tried to drive the image out of her mind.

  'Did he have any girlfriends at the hotel?'

  'None that I know of?

  'Do you know about any contacts of his outside the hotel?'

  'I don't know anything about that man, though I've seen more of him than I should of!

  'Should have,' Erlendur corrected her.

  'What?'

  'You're supposed to say "should have", not "should of".'

  She gave him a pitying look.

  'Do you think it matters?'

  'Yes, I do,' Erlendur said.

  He shook his head, a remote expression on his face.
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  'Was the door open when you found him?'

  Ösp thought

  'No, I opened it. I knocked and got no reply, so I waited and was just going to leave when it occurred to me to open the door. I thought it was locked but then it suddenly opened and he was sitting there naked with a rubber on his...'

  'Why did you think it would be locked?' Erlendur hurried to say. 'The door.'

  'I just did. I knew it was his room.'

  'Did you see anyone when you went down to fetch him?'

  'No, no one.'

  'So he'd got ready for the Christmas party, but someone came down and disturbed him. He was wearing his Santa suit.'

  Ösp shrugged.

  'Who did his bed?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Who changed the linen? It hasn't been done for a long time.'

  'I don't know. He must have done it himself?

  'You must have been shocked.'

  'It was a revolting sight,' Ösp said.

  'I know,' Erlendur said. 'You should try to forget it as quickly as possible. If you can. Was he a good Santa?'

  The girl looked at him.

  'What?' Erlendur said.

  'I don't believe in Santa.'

  The lady who organised the Christmas party was smartly dressed, short and, Erlendur thought, around thirty. She said she was the hotel's marketing and PR manager, but Erlendur could not have been less interested; most of the people he met these days were marketing-somethings. She had an office on the second floor and Erlendur found her on the phone there. The media had got wind of an incident at the hotel and Erlendur imagined she was telling lies to a reporter. The conversation came to a very abrupt end. The woman slammed down the phone with the words that she had absolutely no comment to make.

  Erlendur introduced himself, shook her dry hand and asked her when she had last spoken to the, aahemm, man in the basement. He did not know whether to say doorman or Santa, he had forgotten his name. He felt he could hardly say Santa.

  'Gulli?' she said, solving the problem. 'It was just this morning, to remind him of the Christmas party. I met him by the revolving doors. He was working. He was a doorman here as you perhaps know. And more than a doorman, a caretaker really. Mended things and all that.'

  'Easy-going?'

  'Pardon?'

  'Helpful, easy-going, didn't need much nagging?'

  'I don't know. Does that matter? He never did anything for me. Or rather, I never needed his help.'

  'Why was he playing Santa? Was he fond of children? Funny? Fun?'

  'That goes back before I started here. I've been working here for three years and this is the third Christmas party I've organised. He was the Santa the other two times and before that too. He was OK. As Santa. The kids liked him.'

  Gudlaugur's death did not seem to have had the slightest effect on the woman. It was none of her business. All that the murder did was to disturb the marketing and PR for a while. Erlendur wondered how people could be so insensitive and boring.

  'But what sort of person was he?'

  'I don't know. I never got to know him. He was a doorman here. And the Santa. That was really the only time I ever spoke to him. When he was the Santa.'

  'What happened to the Christmas party? When you found out that Santa was dead?'

  'We called it off. Nothing else for it. Also out of respect for him,' she added, as if to show a hint of feeling at last. It was futile. Erlendur could tell that she could not care less about the body in the basement.

  'Who knew this man best?' he asked. 'Here at the hotel, I mean.'

  'I don't know. Try talking to the head of reception. The doorman worked for him.'

  The telephone on her desk rang and she answered it. She gave Erlendur a look implying that he was in her way, and he stood up and walked out, thinking that she could not go on telling lies over the phone for ever.

  The reception manager had no time to deal with Erlendur. Tourists swarmed around the front desk and even though three other employees were helping to check them in, they could hardly handle the crowd. Erlendur watched them looking at passports, handing over key cards, smiling and moving on to the next guest. The crowd stretched back to the revolving doors. Through them Erlendur saw yet another tourist shuttle stop outside the hotel.

  Policemen, most of them in plain clothes, were all over the building questioning the staff. A makeshift incident centre had been set up in the staff coffee room in the basement, from where the investigation was managed.

  Erlendur contemplated the Christmas decorations in the lobby. A sentimental Christmas tune was playing over the sound system. He walked over to the large restaurant to one side of the lobby. The first guests were lining up around a splendid Christmas buffet. He walked past the table and admired the herring, smoked lamb, cold ham, ox tongue and all the trimmings, and the delicious desserts, ice cream, cream cakes and chocolate mousse, or whatever it was.

  Erlendur's mouth watered. He had eaten almost nothing all day.

  He looked all around and, almost too fast to be seen, popped a bite of spicy ox tongue into his mouth. He did not think anyone had noticed, and his heart leaped when he heard a sharp voice behind him.

  'No, listen, that's not on. You mustn't do that!'

  Erlendur turned round and a man wearing a large chef's hat walked up to him glaring.

  'What's that supposed to mean, picking at the food? What kind of manners do you call that?'

  'Take it easy,' Erlendur said, reaching for a plate. He began piling an assortment of delicacies onto the plate as if he had always intended to have the buffet.

  'Did you know Santa Claus?' he asked to change the subject from the ox tongue.

  'Santa Claus?' the cook said. 'What Santa Claus? And please don't put your fingers on the food. It's not—'

  'Gudlaugur,' Erlendur interrupted him. 'Did you know him? He was a doorman and jack of all trades here, I'm told.'

  'You mean Gulli?'

  'Yes, Gulli.' Erlendur repeated his nickname as he put a generous slice of cold ham on his plate and a dash of yoghurt sauce over it. He wondered whether to call in Elínborg to appraise the buffet; she was a gourmet and had been assembling a book of recipes for many years.

  'No, I... what do you mean by "did I know him"?' the cook asked.