Sigurdur Oli nodded. To him, America was paradise on earth. He was impressed on meeting the couple and discussing baseball and American Christmas preparations with them, until Erlendur had had enough and gave him a prod.

Sigurdur Oli explained the death of the doorman and told them about the note in his room. Mr and Mrs Henry Bartlet stared at the detectives as if they had suddenly been transported to a different planet.

“You didn’t know the doorman, did you?” Sigurdur Oli said when he saw their expressions of astonishment.

“A murder?” Henry groaned. At this hotel?”

“Oh my God,” his wife said and sat down on the double bed.

Sigurdur Oli decided not to mention the condom. He explained how the note implied that Gudlaugur had arranged to meet a man called Henry, but they did not know what day, whether the meeting had taken place or whether it was supposed to be after two days, a week, ten days.

Henry Bartlet and his wife flatly denied all knowledge of the doorman. They hadn’t even noticed him when they arrived at the hotel four days before. Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli’s questions had clearly upset them.

“Jesus,” Henry said. “A murder!”

“You have murders in Iceland?” his wife — Cindy, she had told Sigurdur Oli her name when they greeted each other — asked, glancing over at the Icelandair brochure on the bedside table.

“Rarely? he said, trying to smile.

“This Henry character is not necessarily a guest at the hotel,” Sigurdur Oli said while they waited for the lift back down. “He doesn’t even have to be a foreigner. There are Icelanders by the name of Henry.”

Sigurdur Oli had located the former hotel manager, so he said goodbye to Erlendur when they got to the lobby and went off to meet him. Erlendur asked for the head of reception but he had still not turned up for work and had not phoned in. Henry Wapshott had left the key card to his room at reception early that morning without anyone noticing him. He had spent almost a week at the hotel and was expected to stay for two more days. Erlendur asked to be notified as soon as Wapshott reappeared.

The hotel manager plodded past Erlendur.

“I hope you’re not disturbing my guests,” he said.

Erlendur took him to one side.

“What are the rules about prostitution at this hotel?” Erlendur asked straight out as they stood next to the Christmas tree in the lobby.

“Prostitution? What are you talking about?” The hotel manager heaved a deep sigh and wiped his neck with a scruffy handkerchief.

Erlendur looked at him in anticipation.

“Don’t you go mixing up any bloody nonsense in all this,” the manager said.

“Was the doorman involved with tarts?”

“Come off it,” the manager said. “There are no tar-no prostitutes at this hotel.”

“There are prostitutes at all hotels.”

“Really?” the manager said. “Are you talking from experience?”

Erlendur didn’t answer him.

“Are you saying that the doorman was a pimp?” the manager said in a shocked tone. “I’ve never heard such rubbish in my life. This isn’t a strip joint. This is one of the largest hotels in Reykjavik!”

“No women in the bars or lobby who stalk the men? Go up to their rooms with them?”

The manager hesitated. He acted as though he wanted to avoid antagonising Erlendur.

“This is a big hotel,” he said eventually. “We can’t keep an eye on everything that goes on. If it’s straightforward prostitution and there’s no question about it, we try to prevent it, but it’s a difficult matter to deal with. Otherwise the guests are free to do what they like in their rooms.”

“Tourists and businessmen, regional people, isn’t that how you described the guests?”

“Yes, and much more besides, of course. But this isn’t a doss-house. It’s a quality establishment and as a rule the guests can easily afford the accommodation. Nothing smutty goes on here and for God’s sake don’t go spreading that kind of rumour around. The competition is tough enough as it is; it’s terrible to shake off a murder.”

The hotel manager paused.

“Are you going to continue sleeping at this hotel?” he asked. “Isn’t that highly irregular?”

“The only thing that’s irregular is the dead Santa Claus in your basement” Erlendur smiled.

He saw the biotechnician from the kitchen leaving the bar on the ground floor with her sampling kit in her hand. With a nod to the manager he walked over to her. She had her back to him and was walking towards the cloakroom by the side door.

“How’s it going?” Erlendur asked.

She turned and recognised him at once, but kept walking.

“Is it you who’s in charge of the investigation?” she asked, going into the cloakroom where she took a coat from a hanger. She asked Erlendur to hold her sampling kit.

“They let me tag along,” Erlendur said.

“Not everyone was pleased with the idea of saliva samples,” she said, “and I don’t just mean the chef?

“Above all we were eliminating the staff from our enquiries, I thought you were told to give that explanation.”

“Didn’t work. Got any others?”

“That’s an old Icelandic name, Valgerdur, isn’t it?” Erlendur said, without answering her question. She smiled.

“So you’re not allowed to talk about the investigation?”

“No.”

“Do you mind? Valgerdur being an old name, I mean?”

“Me? No, I…” Erlendur stammered.

“Was there anything in particular?” Valgerdur said, reaching out for her bag. She smiled at this man standing in front of her in a cardigan buttoned up under a tattered jacket with worn elbows, looking at her with sorrowful eyes. They were of a similar age, but she looked ten years younger.

Without completely realising it, Erlendur blurted it out. There was something about this woman.

And he saw no wedding ring.

“I was wondering if I could invite you to the buffet here tonight, it’s delicious.”

He said this without knowing a thing about her, as if he had no chance of a reply in the affirmative, but he said it all the same and now he waited, thinking to himself that she would probably start laughing, was probably married with four children, a big house and a summer chalet, confirmation parties and graduation parties and had married off her oldest child and was waiting to grow old in peace with her beloved husband.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s nice of you to ask. But … unfortunately. I can’t. Thanks all the same.”

She took her sampling kit from him, hesitated for a moment and looked at him, then walked away and out of the hotel. Erlendur was left behind in the cloakroom, half stunned. He hadn’t asked a woman out for years. His mobile starting ringing in his jacket pocket and he eventually took it out, absent-mindedly, and answered. It was Elinborg.

“He’s entering the courtroom,” she almost whispered into the telephone.

“Pardon?” Erlendur said.

“The father, he’s coming in with his two lawyers. That’s the minimum it will take to whitewash him.”

“Is anyone there?” Erlendur asked.

“Very few. It looks like the boy’s mother’s family, and the press are here too.”

“How’s he looking?”

“Unruffled as usual, in a suit and tie like he’s going out to dinner. He doesn’t have a shred of conscience.”

“Not true,” Erlendur said. “He definitely has a conscience.”

Erlendur had gone to the hospital with Elinborg to talk to the boy as soon as the doctors gave permission. By then he had undergone surgery and was in a ward with other children. There were children’s drawings around the walls, toys in their beds, parents by their bedsides, tired after sleepless nights, endlessly worried about their children.

Elinborg sat down beside him. The bandaging around the boy’s head left little of his face visible apart from his mouth and his eyes, which looked full of suspicion at the police officers. His arm was in a plaster cast, suspended by a small hook. The dressings after his operation were hidden by his quilt. They had managed to save his spleen. The doctor said they could talk to the boy, but whether the boy would talk to them was a different matter.