Erlendur nodded.

“They do a lot of missionary work at hotels.”

Sigurdur Oli stood up and dawdled in front of Erlendur, who had finished his plate and was eyeing up the buffet again.

“Ehmmm, where will you be spending Christmas?” Sigurdur Oli asked awkwardly.

“Christmas?” Erlendur said. “I’ll be … what do you mean, where will I be spending Christmas? Where should I spend Christmas? What business of yours is that?”

Sigurdur Oli hesitated, then took the plunge.

“Bergthora was wondering if you’d be on your own.”

“Eva Lind has some plans. What did Bergthora mean? That I should visit you?”

“I don’t know,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Women! Who ever understands them?” Then he sauntered away from the table and down to the basement.

Elinborg was standing in front of the murdered man’s room, watching the forensics team at work, when Sigurdur Oli came walking down the dim corridor.

“Where’s Erlendur?” she asked, throttling her little bag of peanuts.

“At the buffet,” Sigurdur Oli said peevishly.

A preliminary test made that evening revealed that the condom was covered with saliva.

Forensics contacted Erlendur as soon as the biopsy results were available. He was still at the hotel. For a while the scene of the crime looked like a photographer’s studio. Flashes lit up the dim corridor at regular intervals. The body was photographed from all angles, along with everything found in Gudlaugur’s room. The corpse was then transported to the morgue on Baronsstigur where the postmortem would be performed. Forensics had combed the doorman’s room for fingerprints and found many sets, which would be checked against the police records. All the hotel staff were to be fingerprinted and the forensics team’s discovery also meant that saliva samples would have to be taken.

“What about the guests?” Elinborg asked. “Won’t we have to do the same with them?”

She yearned to get home and regretted the question; she wanted to finish her shift. Elinborg took Christmas very seriously and missed her family. She hung up fir branches and decorations all around her home. She baked delicious cookies, which she stored in her Tupperware boxes, carefully labelled by variety. Her Christmas roast was legendary, even outside her extended family. The main course every Christmas was a Swedish-style leg of pork, which she kept outside on the balcony to marinate for twelve days, and tended it just as carefully as if it had been the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes.

“I think we have to assume, initially, that the murderer is an Icelander,” Erlendur said. “Let’s keep the guests in reserve. The hotel is filling up for Christmas now and few people are checking out. We’ll talk to the ones who do, take saliva samples, even fingerprints. We can’t prevent them from leaving the country. They would have to be prime suspects for us to do that. And we need a list of the foreigners staying at the hotel at the time of the murder, we’ll forget about the ones who check in afterwards. Let’s try to keep it simple.”

“But what if it isn’t that simple?” Elinborg asked.

“I don’t think any of the guests know there was a murder,” said Sigurdur Oli, who wanted to get home too. Bergthora, his partner, had phoned him towards evening and asked if he was on his way. It was exactly the right time now and she was waiting for him, she had said. Sigurdur Oli knew immediately what she meant by “the right time”. They were trying to have a baby but nothing was happening and he had told Erlendur that they were beginning to talk about IVF.

“Don’t you have to give them a jarful?” Erlendur asked.

“A jarful?” Sigurdur Oli said.

“In the mornings?”

Sigurdur Oli looked at Erlendur until he realised what he meant.

“I should never have told you,” he growled.

Erlendur sipped his foul-tasting coffee. The three of them were sitting by themselves in the staff coffee room in the basement. All the commotion was over, the police officers and forensics team had left, the room was sealed off. Erlendur was in no hurry. He had no one to go to, only his gloomy apartment in a block of flats. Christmas meant nothing to him. He had a few days holiday owing and nothing to do with them. Perhaps his daughter would visit him and they would boil smoked lamb. Sometimes her brother came with her. And Erlendur sat and read, which he always did anyway.

“You ought to get yourselves home,” he said. “I’m going to potter around a little longer. Find out whether I can’t talk to that head of reception who never has the time.”

Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli stood up.

“Will you be OK?” Elinborg asked. “Why don’t you just go home? Christmas is coming and—”

“What’s with you and Sigurdur Oli? Why don’t you leave me in peace?”

“It’s Christmas,” Elinborg said with a sigh. Dithered. Then she said, “Forget it.” She and Sigurdur Oli turned round and left the coffee room.

Erlendur sat for a good while, sunk in thought. He pondered Sigurdur Oli’s question about where he was going to spend Christmas, and mulled over Elinborg’s thoughtfulness. He saw an image of his flat, the armchair, the battered old television set and the books lining the walls.

Sometimes he bought a bottle of Chartreuse at Christmas and had a glass beside him while he read about ordeals and death in the days when people travelled everywhere on foot and Christmas could be the most treacherous time of the year. Determined to visit their loved ones, people would battle with the forces of nature, go astray and perish; for those awaiting them back home, Christmas turned from a celebration of salvation to a nightmare. The bodies of some travellers were found. Others were not. They were never found. These were Erlendur’s Christmas carols.

The head of reception had taken off his hotel jacket and was putting on his raincoat when Erlendur located him in the cloakroom. He said he was exhausted and wanted to get home to his family like everyone else. He had heard about the murder, yes, terrible, but did not know how he could be of assistance.

“I understand you knew him better than most people at the hotel,” Erlendur said.

“No, I don’t think that’s right,” the head of reception said as he wrapped a thick scarf around his neck. “Who told you that?”

“He worked for you, didn’t he?” Erlendur replied, ignoring the question.

“Worked for me, yes, probably. He was a doorman, I’m in charge of the reception, the check-in, as you may know. Do you know how long the shops are open tonight?”

He gave the impression of not being particularly interested in Erlendur and his questions, which irritated the detective. And it irritated him that no one seemed to care in the slightest about the fate the man in the basement had met.

“Round the clock, I don’t know. Who could have wanted to stab your doorman in the chest?”

“Mine? He wasn’t my doorman. He was the hotel’s doorman.”

“And why did he have his trousers round his ankles and a condom on his todger? Who was with him? Who normally came to visit him? Who were his friends at the hotel? Who were his friends outside the hotel? Who were his enemies? Why was he living at this hotel? What was the deal? What are you hiding? Why can’t you answer me like a decent human being?”

“Hey, I, what…?” The man fell silent. “I just want to get home,” he said eventually. “I don’t know the answers to all those questions. Christmas is coming. Can we talk tomorrow? I haven’t had a moment’s rest all day.”

Erlendur looked at him.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said. As he left the cloakroom he suddenly remembered the question that had been vexing him ever since he met the hotel manager. He turned round. The man was on his way out through the door when Erlendur called to him.

“Why did you want to get rid of him?”

“What?”

“You wanted to get rid of him. Santa. Why?”