Erlendur contemplated the Christmas decorations in the lobby. A sentimental Christmas tune was playing over the sound system. He walked over to the large restaurant to one side of the lobby. The first guests were lining up around a splendid Christmas buffet. He walked past the table and admired the herring, smoked lamb, cold ham, ox tongue and all the trimmings, and the delicious desserts, ice cream, cream cakes and chocolate mousse, or whatever it was.

Erlendur’s mouth watered. He had eaten almost nothing all day.

He looked all around and, almost too fast to be seen, popped a bite of spicy ox tongue into his mouth. He did not think anyone had noticed, and his heart leaped when he heard a sharp voice behind him.

“No, listen, that’s not on. You mustn’t do that!”

Erlendur turned round and a man wearing a large chef’s hat walked up to him glaring.

“What’s that supposed to mean, picking at the food? What kind of manners do you call that?”

“Take it easy,” Erlendur said, reaching for a plate. He began piling an assortment of delicacies onto the plate as if he had always intended to have the buffet.

“Did you know Santa Claus?” he asked to change the subject from the ox tongue.

“Santa Claus?” the cook said. “What Santa Claus? And please don’t put your fingers on the food. It’s not—”

“Gudlaugur,” Erlendur interrupted him. “Did you know him? He was a doorman and jack of all trades here, I’m told.”

“You mean Gulli?”

“Yes, Gulli.” Erlendur repeated his nickname as he put a generous slice of cold ham on his plate and a dash of yoghurt sauce over it. He wondered whether to call in Elinborg to appraise the buffet; she was a gourmet and had been assembling a book of recipes for many years.

“No, I… what do you mean by “did I know him”?” the cook asked.

“You haven’t heard?”

“What? Is something wrong?”

“He’s dead. Murdered. Hasn’t word got around yet?”

“Murdered?” the cook groaned. “Murdered! What, here? Who are you?”

“In his little room. Down in the basement. I’m from the police.”

Erlendur went on choosing goodies to put on his plate. The cook had forgotten the ox tongue.

“How was he murdered?”

“The least said the better.”

“At the hotel?”

“Yes.”

The cook looked all around.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “Won’t there be hell to pay?”

“Yes,” Erlendur said. “There will be hell to pay?

He knew that the hotel would never be able to shake off the murder. It would never wipe away the smear. After this it would always be known as the hotel where Santa was found dead with a condom on his penis.

“Did you know him?” Erlendur asked. “Gulli?”

“No, hardly at all. He was a doorman here and fixed all sorts of stuff?

“Fixed?”

“Yes, mended. I didn’t know him at all.”

“Do you know who knew him best here?”

“No,” the cook said. “I don’t know anything about the man. Who could have murdered him? Here? At the hotel? My God!”

Erlendur could tell that he was more worried about the hotel than about the murdered man. He considered telling him that the murder might boost the occupancy rate. That’s the way people think these days. They could even advertise the hotel as a murder scene. Develop crime-based tourism. But he could not be bothered. He wanted to sit down with his plate and eat the food. Have a moment’s peace.

Sigurdur Oli turned up out of nowhere.

“Did you find anything?” Erlendur asked.

“No,” Sigurdur Oli said, looking at the cook, who hurried off to the kitchen with the news. “Are you eating now?” he added with indignation.

“Oh, don’t give me any crap. There was a compromising situation.”

“That man owned nothing, or if he did, he didn’t keep it in his room,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Elinborg found a couple of old records in his wardrobe. That was the lot. Shouldn’t we shut down the hotel?”

“Shut down the hotel, what kind of nonsense is that?” Erlendur said. “How are you going to go about shutting down this hotel? And how long do you plan to do that for? Are you going to send a search team into every room?”

“No, but the murderer could be one of the guests. We can’t ignore that.”

“That’s absolutely uncertain. There are two possibilities. Either he’s at the hotel, a guest or an employee, or he’s nothing to do with the hotel. What we need to do is to talk to all the staff and everyone who checks out over the next couple of days, especially those who check out earlier than they had planned, although I doubt that the person who did it would try to draw attention to himself like that.”

“No, right. I was thinking about the condom,” Sigurdur Oli said.

Erlendur looked for a vacant table, found one and sat down. Sigurdur Oli sat down with him and looked at the heaped plate, and his mouth began watering too.

“Well, if it’s a woman she’s still of child-bearing age, isn’t she? Because of the condom.”

“Yes, that would have been the case twenty years ago,” Erlendur said, savouring the lightly smoked ham. “Nowadays a condom’s more than just a contraceptive. It’s protection against bloody everything, chlamydia, Aids …”

“The condom might also tell us that he wasn’t very well acquainted with the … the person who was in his room. That it must have been a quickie. If he’d known the person well he may not have used a condom.”

“We must remember that the condom doesn’t rule out that he was with a man,” Erlendur said.

“What kind of implement could it be? The murder weapon?”

“We’ll see what comes out of the autopsy. Obviously there’s no problem getting hold of a knife at this hotel, if it was someone from here who attacked him.”

“Is that nice?” Sigurdur Oli asked. He had been watching Erlendur devouring the food and was sorely tempted to get some for himself but was afraid of causing even more of a scandal: two cops investigating a murder at a hotel, who sat down at the buffet as if nothing had happened.

“I forgot to check whether there was anything in it,” Erlendur said between bites.

“Do you think you ought to be eating at the murder scene?”

“This is a hotel.”

“Yes, but…”

“I told you, I ran into a compromising situation. This was the only way to get out of it. Was there anything in it? The condom?”

“Empty,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“The medical officer thought he’d had an orgasm. Twice in fact, but I didn’t really catch how he came to that conclusion.”

“I don’t know anyone who can work out what he’s talking about”

“So the murder was committed in full swing.”

“Yes. Something happened when everything was hunky dory”

“If everything was hunky dory, why take along a knife?”

“Maybe it was part of the game.”

“What game?”

“Sex has become much more complex than just the old missionary position,” Sigurdur Oli said. “So it could be anyone?”

“Anyone,” Erlendur said. “Why do they always talk about the missionary position? What’s the mission?”

“I don’t know.” Sigurdur Oli sighed. Sometimes Erlendur asked questions that irritated him because they were so simple but at the same time so infinitely complicated and dull.

“Is it something from Africa?”

“Or Catholicism,” Sigurdur Oli said.

“Why missionary?”

“I don’t know.”

“The condom doesn’t rule out either sex,” Erlendur said. “Let’s establish that. The condom doesn’t rule out anything. Did you ask the manager why he wanted rid of Santa Claus?”

“No, did he want rid of Santa?”

“He mentioned it without any explanation. We have to find out what he meant.”

“I’ll jot that down,” said Sigurdur Oli, who always carried around a notepad and pencil.

“And then there’s one group that uses condoms more than other people.”

“Really?” Sigurdur Oli said, his face one huge question mark.

“Prostitutes.”

“Prostitutes?” Sigurdur Oli repeated. “Hookers? Do you think there are any here?”