“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 within 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.”

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?”