“Are there many of you?” Erlendur asked.
“A few of us run an escort service,” Stina said. “Really high class.”
Stina gave the impression that she was not as proud of anything as being a prostitute, apart perhaps from her new breasts.
“They don’t run a bloody escort service,” the manager said, breathing normally again. “They hang around the hotel and try to hook guests and take them up to the rooms, and she’s lying about me phoning them. You fucking bitch of a whore!”
Thinking it inadvisable to continue the conversation with Stina at the bar, Erlendur said he needed to borrow the head of receptions office for a moment — otherwise they could all go down to the police station and resume there. The hotel manager let out a groan and gave Stina the evil eye. Erlendur followed her out of the bar and into the office. The hotel manager stayed behind. All the wind seemed to have been knocked out of him, and he shooed the head of reception away when he went over to attend to him.
“She’s lying, Erlendur,” he shouted after them. “It’s all a pack of lies!”
Erlendur sat down at the manager’s desk while Stina stood and lit a cigarette, as if immune to the fact that smoking was prohibited throughout the hotel except conceivably at the bar.
“Did you know the doorman at this hotel?” Erlendur asked. “Gudlaugur?”
“He was really nice. He collected Fatso’s cut from us. And then he got killed.”
“He was—”
“Do you reckon Fatso killed him?” Stina interrupted. “He’s the biggest creep I know. Do you know why I’m not allowed at this shitty hotel of his any more?”
“No.”
“He didn’t only want a cut from us girls, but, you know…”
“What?”
“Wanted us to do stuff for him too. Personal. You know…”
“And?”
“I refused. Put my foot down. Those rolls of fat on the bastard. He’s gross. He could have killed Gudlaugur. I could see him doing that. I bet he sat on him.”
“But what was your relationship with Gudlaugur? Did you do things for him?”
“Never. He wasn’t interested.”
“He certainly was,” Erlendur said, imagining Gudlaugur’s corpse in his little room with his trousers round his ankles. “I’m afraid he wasn’t entirely uninterested.”
“He never took an interest in me anyway,” Stina said, carefully hitching up her breasts. “And none of us girls”
“Is the head waiter in on this with the manager?”
“Rosant? Yeah.”
“What about the man from reception?”
“He doesn’t want us. He doesn’t want any tarts but the other two decide. The man from reception wants to get rid of Rosant, but Fatso makes too much money out of him.”
“Tell me something else. Do you ever chew tobacco? In a kind of gauze, like miniature teabags. People keep it under their lip. Pressed against the gums”
“Yuk, no,” Stina said. “Are you crazy? I take really good care of my teeth.”
“Does anyone you know chew tobacco?”
“No.”
They said nothing more until Erlendur felt compelled to do a spot of moralising. He had Eva Lind in mind. How she had been caught up in drugs and surely went in for prostitution to pay for her habit, although it probably didn’t take place at any of the finer hotels in the city. He thought what a terrible lot it was for a woman to sell her favours to any dirty old man whatever, wherever and whenever.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, trying to conceal the tone of accusation in his voice. “The silicon implants in your breasts. Sleeping with conference guests in hotel rooms. Why?”
“Eva Lind said you’d ask that too. Don’t try to understand it,” Stina said, and stubbed her cigarette out on the floor, “Don’t even try.”
She happened to glance through the open door to the office and into the lobby, and saw Osp walking by.
“Is Osp still working here?” she said.
“Osp? Do you know her?” Erlendur’s mobile began ringing in his pocket.
“I thought she’d quit. I used to talk to her sometimes when I was here.”
“How did you know her?”
“We were just together in—”
“She wasn’t whoring with you, was she?” Erlendur took out his mobile and was about to answer.
“No,” Stina said. “She’s not like her little brother.”
“Her brother?” Erlendur said. “Has she got a brother?”
“He’s a bigger tart than I am.”
23
Erlendur stared at Stina while he tried to puzzle out her comment about Osp’s brother. Stina dithered in front of him.
“What?” she said. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you going to answer the phone?”
“Why did you think Osp had quit?”
“It’s just a shitty job.”
Erlendur answered his phone almost absent-mindedly.
“About time too,” Elinborg said down the line.
She and Sigurdur Oli had gone to Hafnarfjordur to bring Gudlaugur’s sister in for questioning at the police station in Reykjavik, but she refused to go with them. When she asked for an explanation they refused to give one, and then she said she could not abandon her father in his wheelchair. They offered to provide a carer for him and also invited her to talk to a lawyer, who could be present, but she didn’t seem to realise the seriousness of the matter. She would not entertain the notion of going to the police station, so Elinborg suggested a compromise, flatly against Sigurdur Oli’s wishes. They would take her to Erlendur at the hotel and after he had talked to her they would decide the next move. She thought about it. On the verge of losing his patience, Sigurdur Oli was about to drag her off forcibly when she agreed. She phoned a neighbour who came round immediately, clearly accustomed to looking after the old man when needed. Then she began resisting again, which infuriated Sigurdur Oli.
“He’s on his way to you with her,” Elinborg said over the telephone. “He would have much preferred to have had her locked up. She kept asking us why we wanted to talk to her and wouldn’t believe us when we said we didn’t know. Why do you want to talk to her anyway?”
“She came to the hotel a few days before her brother was murdered but told us she hadn’t seen him for decades. I want to know why she didn’t tell us that, why she’s lying. See the look on her face.”
“She might be rather peeved,” Elinborg said. “Sigurdur Oli wasn’t exactly pleased at the way she behaved.”
“What happened?”
“He’ll tell you.”
Erlendur rang off.
“What do you mean, he’s a bigger tart than you?” he said to Stina, who was peering into her bag and wondering whether she could be bothered to light another cigarette. “Osp’s brother. What are you talking about?”
“Eh?”
“Osp’s brother. You said he was a bigger tart than you.”
“Ask her,” Stina said.
“I will, but I mean, what… he’s her little brother, didn’t you say?”
“Yes, and he’s a… bye-bye, baby.”
“A bye-bye baby. You mean a…?”
“Bisexual.”
“And, does he prostitute himself?” Erlendur asked. “Like you?”
“You bet. A junkie. There’s always someone wanting to beat him up because he owes them money”
“And what about Osp? How do you know her?”
“We were at school together. So was he. He’s only a year younger than her. We’re the same age. We were in the same class. She isn’t that bright.” Stina pointed at her head. “Not up there,” she said. “Left school at fifteen. Failed the lot. I passed them all. Finished secondary school.”