“Nor do I,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Thank you for everything. Thanks for the Drambuie,” she added as she finished her liqueur. He had also ordered a Drambuie for himself to keep her company, but hadn’t touched it.
Erlendur lay stretched out on the bed in his hotel room looking up at the ceiling. It was still cold in the room and he was wearing his clothes. Outside, it was snowing. It was a soft, warm and pretty snow that fell gently to the ground and melted instantaneously. Not cold, hard and merciless like the snow that caused death and destruction.
“What are those stains?” Elinborg asked the father.
“Stains?” he said. “What stains?”
“On the carpet,” Erlendur said. He and Elinborg had just returned from seeing the boy in hospital. The winter sun lit up the stair carpet that led to the floor where the boy’s room was.
“I don’t see any stains,” the father said, bending down to scrutinise the carpet.
“They’re quite clear in this light,” Elinborg said as she looked at the sun through the lounge window. The sun was low and pierced the eyes. To her, the creamy marble tiles on the floor looked as if they were aflame. Close by the stairway stood a beautiful drinks cabinet. It contained spirits, expensive liqueurs, red and white wines rested forward onto their necks in racks. There were two glass windows in the cabinet and Erlendur noticed a smudge on one of them. On the side of the cabinet facing the staircase, a little drip had been spilt, measuring roughly a centimetre and a half. Elinborg put her finger on the drip and it was sticky.
“Did anything happen by this cabinet?” Erlendur asked.
The father looked at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s like something’s been splashed on it. You’ve cleaned it recently.”
“No,” the father said. “Not recently.”
“Those marks on the staircase,” Elinborg said. “They look like a child’s footprints to me.”
“I can’t see any footprints on the staircase,” the father said. “Just now you were talking about stains. Now they’re footprints. What are you implying?”
“Were you at home when your son was assaulted?”
The father said nothing.
“The attack took place at the school,” Elinborg went on. “School was over for the day but he was playing football and when he set off home they attacked him. That’s what we think happened. He hasn’t been able to talk to you, nor to us. I don’t think he wants to. Doesn’t dare. Maybe because the boys said they would kill him if he told the police. Maybe because someone else said they would kill him if he talked to us.”
“Where’s all this leading?”
“Why did you come home early from work that day? You came home around noon. He crawled home and up to his room, and shortly afterwards you arrived and called the police and an ambulance.”
Elinborg had already been wondering what the father was doing at home in the middle of a weekday, but had not asked him until now.
“No one saw him on his way home from school,” Erlendur said.
“You’re not implying that I attacked … that I attacked my own boy like that? Surely you’re not implying that?”
“Do you mind if we take a sample from the carpet?”
“I think you ought to get out of here,” the father said.
“I’m not implying anything,” Erlendur said. “Eventually the boy will say what happened. Maybe not now and maybe not after a week or a month, maybe not after one year, but he will in the end.”
“Out,” the father said, enraged and indignant by now. “Don’t you dare … don’t you dare start… You leave. Get out. Out!”
Elinborg went straight to the hospital and into the children’s ward. The boy was asleep in his bed with his arm suspended from the hook. She sat down beside him and waited for him to wake up. After she had stayed by the bedside for fifteen minutes the boy stirred and noticed the tired-looking policewoman, but the sad-eyed man in the woollen cardigan who had been with her earlier that day was nowhere to be seen now. Their eyes met and Elinborg did her utmost to smile.
“Was it your dad?”
She went back to the father’s house when night had fallen, with a search warrant and forensics experts. They examined the marks on the carpet. They examined the marble floor and the drinks cabinet. They took samples. They swept up tiny grains from the marble. They plucked at the spilt drop on the cabinet. They went upstairs to the boy’s room and took samples from the head of his bed. They went to the laundry room and looked at the cloths and towels. They examined the dirty laundry. They opened the vacuum cleaner. They took samples from the broom. They went out to the dustbin and rummaged around in the rubbish. They found a pair of the boy’s socks in the bin.
The father was standing in the kitchen. He dialled a lawyer, his friend, as soon as the forensics team appeared. The lawyer came round promptly and looked at the warrant from the magistrate. He advised his client not to talk to the police.
Erlendur and Elinborg watched the forensics team at work. Elinborg glared at the father, who shook his head and looked away.
“I don’t understand what you want,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
The boy had not said it was his father. When Elinborg asked him, his only response was that his eyes filled with tears.
The head of forensics phoned two days later.
“It’s about the stains on the stair carpet,” he said.
“Yes,” Elinborg said.
“Drambuie.”
“Drambuie? The liqueur?”
“There are traces of it all over the sitting room and a trail on the carpet up to the boy’s room.
Erlendur was still staring at the ceiling when he heard a knock on the door. He got to his feet, opened the door and Eva Lind darted into his room. Erlendur looked along the corridor, then closed the door behind her.
“No one saw me,” Eva said. “It would make things easier if you could be arsed to go home. I can’t suss out what you’re playing at.”
“I’ll get myself home,” Erlendur said. “Don’t worry about that. What are you doing here? Do you need anything?”
“Do I need a special reason to want to see you?” Eva said. She sat down at the desk and took out a packet of cigarettes. She threw a plastic bag onto the floor and nodded towards it. “I brought you some clothes,” she said. “If you plan to hang around at this hotel you’ll need to change.”
“Thank you,” Erlendur said. He sat down on the bed facing her and borrowed a cigarette from her. Eva lit them both.
“It’s nice to see you,” he said, exhaling.
“How’s it going with Santa?”
“Bit by bit. What’s new with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you seen your mother?”
“Yes. Same as usual. Nothing happens in her life. Work and television and sleep. Work, television, sleep. Work, television, sleep. Is that it? All that awaits you? Am I staying clean so I can slave away until I croak? And just look at you! Hanging round in a hotel room like a dickhead instead of getting your arse back home!”
Erlendur inhaled the smoke and blew it out through his nose.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“No, I know,” Eva interrupted him.
“Are you giving in?” he said. “When you came yesterday …”
“I don’t know if I can stand it.”
“Stand what?”
“This fucking life!”
They sat smoking, and the minutes passed.
“Do you sometimes think about the baby?” Erlendur asked at last. Eva was seven months” pregnant when she miscarried, and sank into a deep depression when she moved in with him after leaving hospital. Erlendur knew that she had nowhere near shaken it off. She blamed herself for the baby’s death. The night that it happened she called him for help and he found her lying in her own blood outside the National Hospital after collapsing on her way to the maternity ward. She came wit
hin a hair’s breadth of losing her life.
“This fucking life!” she said again, and stubbed out her cigarette on the desktop.
The telephone on the bedside table rang when Eva Lind had left and Erlendur had gone to bed. It was Marion Briem.
“Do you know what time it is?” Erlendur asked, looking at his watch. It was past midnight.
“No,” Marion said. “I was thinking about the saliva.”
“The saliva on the condom?” Erlendur said, too lethargic to lose his temper.
“Of course they’ll find it out for themselves, but it might not do any harm to mention Cortisol.”
“I’ve still got to talk to forensics, they’ll surely tell us something about the Cortisol.”
“You can work a few things out from that. See what was going on in that basement room.”
“I know, Marion. Anything else?”
“I just wanted to remind you about the Cortisol.”
“Goodnight, Marion.”
“Goodnight.”
THIRD DAY
9
Erlendur, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg held a meeting early the following morning. They sat at a little round table to one side of the dining room and had breakfast from the buffet. It had snowed during the night, then turned warmer and the streets were clear. The weathermen were forecasting a green Christmas. Long queues of cars built up at every junction and the city swarmed with people.
“This Wapshott,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Who is he?”
Much ado about nothing, Erlendur thought to himself as he sipped his coffee and looked out of the window. Odd places, hotels. He found staying at a hotel a welcome change but it was accompanied by the strange experience of having someone go into his room when he was not in it to tidy everything up. In the morning he left his room and the next time he returned someone had been in and restored it to normal: made the bed, changed the towels, put fresh soap on the sink. He was aware of the presence of the person who put his room back in order but saw no one, did not know who tidied up his life.
When he went downstairs in the morning he asked reception not to have his room cleaned any more.
Wapshott was going to meet him again later that morning and tell him more about his record collecting and Gudlaugur Egilsson’s singing career. They had shaken hands on parting when Valgerdur interrupted them the previous evening. Wapshott had stood to attention, waiting for Erlendur to introduce him to the woman, but when nothing of the sort happened he had held out his hand, introduced himself and bowed. Then he’d asked to be excused; he was tired and hungry and was going up to his room to deal with some business before dining and going to bed.
They did not see him come down to the dining room where they were eating, and talked about how he might have ordered a meal by room service. Valgerdur mentioned that he looked tired.
Erlendur had accompanied her to the cloakroom and helped her put on her smart leather coat, then walked with her to the revolving doors where they stood for a moment before she went out into the falling snow. When he lay on his bed, after Eva Lind had left, Valgerdur’s smile accompanied him into sleep, along with the faint scent of perfume that lingered on his hand from when they had said their goodbyes.
“Erlendur?” Sigurdur Oli said. “Hello! Wapshott, who is he?”
“All I know is that he’s a British record collector,” Erlendur said, after telling them about his meeting with him. “And he’s leaving the hotel tomorrow. You ought to phone the UK and get some details on him. We’re going to meet before noon and I’ll get some more out of him.”
“A choirboy?” Elinborg said. “Who could have wanted to kill a choirboy?”
“Naturally, he wasn’t a choirboy any longer,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“He was famous once,” Erlendur said. “Released some records that are clearly rare collectors” items today. Henry Wapshott comes up here from the UK on account of them, on account of him. He specialises in choirboys and boys” choirs from all over the world.”
“The only one I’ve heard of is the Vienna Boys” Choir,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“Specialises in choirboys” Elinborg said. “What kind of man collects records of choirboys? Shouldn’t we give that some thought? Isn’t there something odd about that?”
Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli looked at her.
“What do you mean?” Erlendur asked.
“What?” Elinborg’s expression turned to one of astonishment.
“Do you think there’s something odd about collecting records?”
“Not records, but choirboys,” Elinborg said. “Recordings of choirboys. There’s a huge difference there, I reckon. Don’t you see anything pervy about that?” She looked at them both in turn.
“I haven’t got a dirty mind like you,” Sigurdur Oli said, looking at Erlendur.
“Dirty mind! Did I imagine seeing Santa Claus with his trousers down in a little basement room and a condom on his willy? Did I need a dirty mind for that? Then a man who worships Santa, but only when he was twelve years old or so, just so happens to be staying at the same hotel and comes over from the UK to meet him? Are you two plugged in?”
“Are you putting this in a sexual context?” Erlendur asked.
Elinborg rolled her eyes.
“You’re like a couple of monks!”
“He’s just a record collector,” Sigurdur Oli said. “As Erlendur said, some people collect airline sick bags. What’s their sex life like, according to your theories?”
“I can’t believe how blind you two are! Or frustrated. Why are men always so frustrated?”
“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?”
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