He leaped to his feet and shook him by the hand. Wapshott was wearing the same clothes as the previous day. His hair was more unkempt and he looked tired. He ordered coffee, and so did Erlendur.
“We were talking about collectors,” Erlendur said.
“Yes,” Wapshott said, a wincing smile forming on his face. “A bunch of loners, such as myself!
“How does a collector like you in the UK find out that forty years ago there was a choirboy with a beautiful voice in Hafnarfjordur in Iceland?”
“Oh, much more than a beautiful voice,” Wapshott said. “Much, much more than that. He had a unique voice, that boy.”
“How did you hear about Gudlaugur Egilsson?”
“Through people with the same interest as me. Record collectors specialise, as I believe I told you yesterday. If we take choral music, for example: collectors can be divided into those who collect only certain songs or certain arrangements, and others who collect certain choirs. Others still, like me, choirboys. Some collect only choirboys who recorded 78 rpm glass records, which they stopped manufacturing in the sixties. Others go in for 45 rpm singles, but only from one particular label. There are infinite types of specialisation. Some look for all the versions of a single song, let’s say “Stormy Weather”, which I’m sure you know. Just so you understand what’s involved. I heard about Gudlaugur through a group or association of Japanese collectors who run a big website for trading. No one collects Western music on the scale of the Japanese. They go all over the world like Hoovers, buying up everything that’s ever been released that they can get their hands on. Particularly Beatles and hippy music. They’re renowned in the record markets, and the best thing of all is that they have money.”
Erlendur was wondering whether it was permitted to smoke at the bar and decided to give it a shot. Seeing that he was about to have a cigarette, Wapshott took out a crumpled packet of Chesterfields and Erlendur gave him a light.
“Do you think we can smoke here?” Wapshott asked.
“We’ll find out,” Erlendur said.
“The Japanese had one copy of Gudlaugur’s first single,” Wapshott said. “The one I showed you last night. I bought it from them. Cost me a fortune but I don’t regret it. When I asked about its background they said they’d bought it from a collector from Bergen in Norway at a record fair in Liverpool. I got in touch with the Norwegian collector and found out that he’d bought some records from the estate of a music publisher in Trondheim. He may have had the copy sent from Iceland, possibly even by someone who wanted to promote the boy abroad.”
“A lot of research for an old record,” Erlendur said.
“Collectors are like genealogists. Part of the fun is tracing the origin. Since then I’ve tried to acquire more copies of his records, but it’s very tough. He only made the two recordings.”
“You said the Japanese sold you your copy for a fortune. Are these records worth anything?”
“Only to collectors,” Wapshott said. “And we’re not talking about huge sums”
“But big enough for you to come up here to Iceland to buy more. That’s why you wanted to meet Gudlaugur. To find out if he had any copies”
“I’ve been dealing with two or three Icelandic collectors for some time now. That goes back long before I became interested in Gudlaugur. Unfortunately, virtually none of his records are around any more. The Icelandic collectors couldn’t locate any. I might have a copy on the way through the Internet from Germany. I came here to meet those collectors, to meet Gudlaugur because I adore his singing, and to go to record shops here and look at the market.”
“Do you make a living from this?”
“Hardly,” Wapshott said, chugging on his Chesterfield, his fingers yellow after decades of smoking. “I came into an inheritance. Properties in Liverpool. I manage them, but most of my time goes on collecting records. You could call it a passion.”
“And you collect choirboys”
“Yes.”
“Have you found anything interesting on this trip?”
“No. Nothing. There doesn’t seem to be much interest in preserving anything here. It all has to be modern. Old stuff is rubbish. Nothing is worth keeping. People seem to treat records badly here. They’re just thrown away. From dead people’s estates, for example. No one is called in to examine them. They’re just driven off to the dump. For a long time I used to think that a company in Reykjavik called Sorpa was a collectors” society. It was always being mentioned in correspondence. It turned out to be a recycling plant that runs a second-hand outlet on the side. Collectors here find all kinds of valuables among the rubbish and sell them over the Internet for good money.”
“Is Iceland of special interest to collectors?” Erlendur asked. “On its own.”
“The big plus about Iceland for collectors is the small size of the market. Only a few copies of each record are released and it doesn’t take long for them to disappear and become lost. Like Gudlaugur’s records.”
“It must be exciting to be a collector in a world where people hate everything old and useless. It must make you happy to think you’re rescuing things of cultural value.”
“We’re a few nutters who resist destruction,” Wapshott said.
“And you profit from it.”
“You can.”
“What happened to Gudlaugur Egilsson? What happened to the child star?”
“What happens to all child stars,” Wapshott said. “He grew up. I don’t know exactly what became of him, but he never sang as a teenager or adult. His career was short but beautiful, then he vanished into the crowd and stopped being unique. Nobody championed him any more and he surely missed it. You need strong nerves to withstand admiration and fame at such a young age, and even stronger nerves when people turn their backs on you.”
Wapshott looked at the clock that hung above the bar, then at his watch, and cleared his throat.
“I’m taking the evening flight to London and need to run a few errands before I set off. Was there anything else you wanted to know?”
Erlendur looked at him.
“No, I think that’s all. I thought you were going to leave tomorrow.”
“If there’s anything further I can help you with, here’s my card,” Wapshott said as he took a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to Erlendur.
“It’s changed,” Erlendur said. “Your flight.”
“Because I didn’t meet Gudlaugur,” Wapshott said. “I’ve finished most of what I planned to do on this trip and I’ll save myself the price of a night at the hotel.”
“There’s just one thing,” Erlendur said.
“OK.”
“A biotechnician is coming here to take a saliva sample from you, if that’s all right.”
“A saliva sample?”
“For the murder investigation.”
“Why saliva?”
“I can’t tell you at the moment.”
“Am I a suspect?”
“We’re taking samples from everyone who knew Gudlaugur. For the investigation. That says nothing about you.”
“I understand,” Wapshott said. “Saliva! How queer.”
He smiled, and Erlendur stared at the teeth in his lower jaw, stained black from nicotine.
11
They entered the hotel through the revolving doors: he was old and frail and in a wheelchair; and she followed behind, short and slim, with a thin, hooked nose and tough, piercing eyes that scoured the lobby. The woman was in her fifties, dressed in a thick, brown winter coat and long leather boots, pushing him along in front of her. The man looked about eighty, white straggles of hair stood out from under the brim of his hat and his skinny face was deathly pale. He sat hunched up, white bony hands protruding from the sleeves of a black coat. He had a scarf around his neck and thick black horn-rimmed glasses that magnified his eyes like a fish’s.
The woman pushed him to the check-in desk. The head of reception, who was leaving his office, watched them approach.