“You haven’t got the faintest idea who he was, have you?” Wapshott said, surprised that Erlendur had never heard of Gudlaugur Egilsson.

“He was a caretaker or a doorman and a Father Christmas,” Erlendur said. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Do you know my specialist field?” Wapshott replied. “I’m not sure how much you know about collecting in general or record collecting in particular, but most collectors specialise in a certain field. People can be rather eccentric about it. It’s incredible what people can be bothered to collect. I’ve heard of a man who has sick bags from every airline in the world. I also know a woman who collects hair from Barbie dolls”

Wapshott looked at Erlendur.

“Do you know what I specialise in?”

Erlendur shook his head. He was not completely convinced that he had understood the part about airline sick bags. And what was all that about Barbie dolls?

“I specialise in boys” choirs.”

“Boys” choirs?”

“Not only boys” choirs. My special interest is choirboys.”

Erlendur hesitated, unsure whether he had misunderstood.

“Choirboys?”

“Yes.”

“You collect records of choirboys?”

“I do. Of course I collect other records, but choirboys are — how should I put it? — my passion.”

“How does Gudlaugur fit in with all this?”

Henry Wapshott smiled. He stretched out for a black leather briefcase that he had with him. Opening it, he took out the sleeve of a 45 single.

He took his glasses out of his breast pocket and Erlendur noticed that he dropped a white piece of paper onto the floor. Erlendur reached for it and saw the name Brenner’s printed on it in green.

“Thank you. A serviette from a hotel in Germany? Wapshott said. “Collecting is an obsession,” he added apologetically.

Erlendur nodded.

“I was going to ask him to autograph this sleeve for me,” Wapshott said, handing it to Erlendur.

On the front of the sleeve was the name’GUDLAUGUR EGILSSON” in a little arc of golden letters, with a black-and-white photograph of a young boy, hardly more than twelve years old, slightly freckled, his hair carefully smoothed down, who smiled at Erlendur.

“He had a marvellously sensitive voice,” Wapshott said. “Then along comes puberty and …” He shrugged in resignation. There was a hint of sadness and regret in his tone. “I’m astonished you haven’t heard of him or don’t know who he was, if you’re investigating his death. He must have been a household name in his day. According to my sources, he could be described as a well-known child star.”

Erlendur looked up from the album sleeve, at Wapshott.

A child star?”

“He performed on two records, singing solo and with church choirs. He must have been quite a name in this country. In his day.”

“A child star,” Erlendur repeated. “You mean like Shirley Temple? That kind of child star?”

“Probably, by your standards, I mean here in Iceland, a small country off the beaten track. He must have been pretty famous even if everyone seems to have forgotten him now. Shirley Temple was of course …”

“The Little Princess,” Erlendur muttered to himself.

“Pardon?”

“I didn’t know he was a child star.”

“It was ages ago.”

“And? He made records?”

“Yes.”

“That you collect?”

“I’m trying to acquire copies. I specialise in choirboys like him. He was a unique boy soprano.”

“Choirboy?” Erlendur said almost to himself. He recalled the poster of The Little Princess and was about to ask Wapshott in more detail about the child star Gudlaugur, when someone disturbed him.

“So here you are,” Erlendur heard someone say above him. Valgerdur was standing behind him, smiling. She no longer carried her sampling kit. She was wearing a thin, black, knee-length leather coat with a beautiful red sweater underneath, and she had put on her make-up so carefully that it hardly showed. “Does the invitation still stand?” she asked.

Erlendur leaped to his feet. But Wapshott had already stood up.

“Sorry,” Erlendur said, “I didn’t realise … Of course.” He smiled. “Of course.”

They moved to the bar next to the dining room when they had eaten their fill of the buffet and drunk coffee afterwards. Erlendur bought them drinks and they sat down at a booth well inside the bar. She said she couldn’t stay long, from which Erlendur read polite caution. Not that he was planning to invite her up to his room — the thought didn’t even cross his mind and she knew that — but he felt a sense of insecurity about her and the same kind of barriers he encountered from people who were sent to him for interrogation. Perhaps she didn’t know herself what she was doing.

Talking to a detective intrigued her and she wanted to know everything about his job, the crimes and how he went about catching criminals. Erlendur told her that it was mostly boring administrative work.

“But crimes have become more vicious,” she said. “You read it in the papers. Nastier crimes”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “Crimes are always nasty”

“You’re always hearing stories about the drug world; debt collectors attacking kids who owe money for their dope, and if the kids can’t pay, their families are attacked instead.”

“Yes,” said Erlendur, who sometimes worried about Eva Lind for precisely that reason. “It’s quite a changed world. More brutal.”

They fell silent.

Erlendur tried to find a topic of conversation but he had no idea how to approach women. The ones he associated with could not prepare him for what might be called a romantic evening like this. He and Elinborg were good friends and colleagues, and there was a fondness between them that had been formed by years of collaboration and shared experience. Eva Lind was his child and a constant source of worry. Halldora was the woman he married a whole generation before, then divorced and whose hatred he earned for doing so. These were the only women in his life apart from the occasional one-night stands that never brought anything more than disappointment and awkwardness.

“What about you?” he asked. “Why did you change your mind?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t had an invitation like that for ages. What made you think to ask me out?”

“No idea. It slipped out over the buffet. I haven’t done this for a long time either.”

They both smiled.

He told her about Eva Lind and his son, Sindri Snaer, and she told him she had two sons, also both grown up. He had the feeling that she didn’t want to talk too much about herself and her circumstances, and he liked that. He didn’t want to poke his nose into her life.

“Are you getting anywhere with the man who was murdered?”

“No, not really. The man I was talking to in the lobby…”

“Did I interrupt you? I didn’t know he was connected with the investigation.”

“That’s all right,” Erlendur said. “He collects records, vinyl that is, and it turns out that the man in the basement was a child star. Years ago.”

“A child star?”

“He made records.”

“I can imagine that’s difficult, being a child star,” Valgerdur said. “Just a kid with all kinds of dreams and expectations that rarely come to anything. What do you think happens after that?”

“You shut yourself up in a basement room and hope no one remembers you.”

“You think so?”

“I don’t know. Someone might remember him.”

“Do you think that’s connected with his murder?”

“What?”

“Being a child star.”

Erlendur tried to say as little as possible about the investigation without appearing standoffish. He hadn’t had time to ponder this question and didn’t know whether it made any difference.

“We don’t know yet,” he said. “But we’ll find out”

They stopped talking.

“So you weren’t a child star,” Valgerdur then said.

“No,” Erlendur said. “Devoid of talent in all fields.”