When Erlendur went back down to the lobby on his way to the kitchen he saw Marion Briem standing at the reception desk in a shabby coat, wearing a hat and fidgeting. He noticed how badly his old boss had aged in the years since they had last met, but still had the same watchful and inquisitive eyes, and never wasted time on formalities.

“You look awful,” Marion said, sitting down. “What’s getting you down?” A cigarillo appeared from somewhere in the coat and a box of matches with it.

“This is a smoke-free zone, apparently,” Erlendur said.

“You can’t smoke anywhere any more,” Marion said, lighting up. Marion wore a pained expression, the skin grey, slack and wrinkled. Pallid lips puckered around the cigarillo. Anaemic nails stood out from bony fingers that reached for the cigarillo again once the lungs had taken their fill.

For all the long and eventful history of their acquaintance, Marion and Erlendur had never got along particularly well. Marion had been Erlendur’s boss for years and tried to teach him the profession. Erlendur was surly and did not accept guidance willingly; he couldn’t stand his superiors in those days and nothing had changed. Marion would take umbrage at this and they often clashed, but Marion knew that a better detective was difficult to find, if only because Erlendur was not tied down by family and the time-consuming commitments that entailed. Erlendur did nothing but work. Marion was the same, a lifelong recluse.

“What’s new with you?” Marion asked, puffing on the cigarillo.

“Nothing,” Erlendur said.

“Does Christmas annoy you?”

“I’ve never understood this Christmas business,” Erlendur said vaguely as he peered into the kitchen, on the lookout for the chef’s hat.

“No,” Marion said. “Too much cheer and joy, I would imagine. Why don’t you get yourself a girlfriend? You’re not that old. There are plenty of women who could take a fancy to an old fart like you.”

“I’ve tried that,” Erlendur said. “What did you find out about—”

“Do you mean your wife?”

Erlendur didn’t intend to spend the time discussing his private life.

“Stop it, will you?”

“I heard that—”

“I told you to stop it,” Erlendur said angrily.

“All right,” Marion said. “It’s none of my business how you live your life. All I know is that loneliness is a slow and painful death.” Marion paused. “But of course you’ve got your children, haven’t you?”

“Can’t we just skip all this?” Erlendur said. “You are—” He got no further.

“What am I?”

“What are you doing here? Couldn’t you have phoned?”

Marion looked at Erlendur and the hint of a smile played across that old face.

“I’m told you’ve been sleeping at this hotel. That you won’t go home for Christmas. What’s happening to you? Why don’t you go home?”

Erlendur didn’t answer.

“Are you that fed up with yourself?”

“Can’t we talk about something else?”

“I know the feeling. Being fed up with yourself. With the bastard that happens to be you and which you can’t get out of your own head. You can get rid of it for a while but it always comes back and starts on the same old bollocks. You can try to drink it away. Have a change of scenery. Stay at hotels when it gets really bad.”

“Marion,” Erlendur pleaded, “give me a break.”

“Anyone who owns Gudlaugur Egilsson’s records,” Marion said, suddenly getting to the point, “is sitting on a goldmine.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They’re a treasure trove today. Admittedly not many people own them or know about them, but people in the know are prepared to pay incredible sums for them. Gudlaugur’s records are a rarity in the collectors” world and very sought-after.”

“What kind of incredible sums? Tens of thousands?”

“Could be hundreds of thousands,” Marion said. “For a single copy.”

“Hundreds of thousands? You’re kidding.” Erlendur sat up in his seat. He thought about Henry Wapshott. Knew why he came to Iceland in search of Gudlaugur. In search of his records. It was not only admiration for choirboys that kindled his interest, as Wapshott would have him believe. Erlendur realised why he had given Gudlaugur half a million on the off-chance.

“As far as I’ve been able to find out, the boy made only two records,” Marion Briem said. “And what makes them valuable, besides the boy’s incredible singing, is that very few copies were cut and they hardly sold at all. There aren’t many people who own those records today.”

“Does the actual singing matter?”

“It seems to, but the rule is still that the quality of the music, the quality of what is on the record, is less important than its condition. The music might be bad but if it’s the right performer with the right song and the right label at the right time, it can be priceless. No one is interested solely in artistic value.”

“What happened to the copies? Do you know?”

“They’ve gone missing. They’ve been lost over the course of time or simply thrown away. That happens. Probably there weren’t more than a couple of hundred to start with. The main reason that the records are so valuable is that there only seems to be a handful in the world. The short career helps too. I understand he lost his voice and never sang again.”

“It happened at a concert, the poor boy Erlendur said. “A wolf in your voice, it’s called. When your voice breaks”

“Then decades later he’s found murdered.”

“If those records are worth hundreds of thousands …?”

“Well?”

“Isn’t that ample motive for killing him? We found one copy of each record in his room. There was really nothing else in there.”

“Then the person who stabbed him can’t have realised how much they are worth,” Marion Briem said.

“Because otherwise he would have stolen the records?”

“What were the copies like?”

“Pristine,” Erlendur said. “Not a spot or crease on the sleeves and I can’t see that they’ve ever been played…”

He looked at Marion Briem.

“Could Gudlaugur possibly have acquired all the copies?” he said.

“Why not?” Marion said.

“We found some keys in his room that we can’t figure out. Where might he have kept others?”

“It needn’t be the whole lot,” Marion said. “Maybe some of them. Who else would own them other than the choirboy himself?”

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “We’ve detained a collector who came over from the UK to meet Gudlaugur. A mysterious old sod who tried to run away from us and worships the ex-choirboy. He seems to be the only person around here who realises how much Gudlaugur’s records are worth.”

“Is he a nutter?” Marion Briem asked.

“Sigurdur Oli’s looking into that,” Erlendur said. “Gudlaugur was the hotel Santa,” he added, as if Santa was an official appointment there.

A smile passed over Marion’s grey old face.

“We found a note in Gudlaugur’s room saying Henry and the time 18.30, as if he’d been to a meeting or was supposed to go at that time. Henry Wapshott says he met him at half past six on the day before the murder.”

Erlendur fell silent, deep in thought.

“What are you brooding over?” Marion asked.

“Wapshott told me he paid Gudlaugur half a million kronur to prove he meant business, or words to that effect. In buying the records. That money could have been in the room when he was attacked.”

“Do you mean someone knew about Wapshott and his dealings with Gudlaugur?”

“Possibly.”

“Another collector?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Wapshott’s odd. I know he’s hiding something from us. Whether it’s about him or about Gudlaugur I don’t know.”

“And of course the money was gone when you found him.”

“Yes.”

“I must be going,” Marion said, standing up. Erlendur got to his feet too. “I can barely last half a day any more,” Marion said. “I’m dying of exhaustion. How’s your daughter doing?”