“Good Lord, no! He was such a pussy cat, he would never have harmed a fly. I don’t know who could have done it. The poor man, going like that. Are you getting anywhere in your enquiries?”
“No,” Sigurdur Oli said. “Did you ever listen to his records, or do you have them?”
“You bet,” the man said. “He was absolutely brilliant. It’s wonderful the way he sang. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a child sing so well.”
“Was he proud of his singing when he was older? When you knew him?”
“He never listened to himself Didn’t want to hear his records. Never. No matter how I tried.”
“Why not?”
“It was just impossible to get him to. He never gave any explanation, he just didn’t listen to his own records.”
Baldur stood up, went to a cupboard in the sitting room, fetched Gudlaugur’s two records and put them on the table in front of Sigurdur Oli.
“He gave them to me after I helped him move.”
“Move?”
“He lost his room on the west side of town and asked me to help him move. He got himself another room and put all his stuff in there. He never really owned anything apart from records.”
“Did he have a lot?”
“Tons of them.”
“Was there anything special that he listened to?”
“No, you see,” Baldur said, “they were all the same records. These ones here,” he said, pointing to Gudlaugur’s two records. “He had loads of these. He said he’d acquired all the copies.”
“So, he had boxes full of these?” Sigurdur Oli said, unable to conceal his eagerness.
“Yes, at least two.”
“Do you know where they might be?”
“Me? No, I haven’t the foggiest. Are they a hot number these days?”
“I know of someone who might be prepared to kill for them,” Sigurdur Oli said.
Baldur’s face was now a huge question mark.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Sigurdur Oli said, looking at his watch. “I must be going. I might need to contact you again to fill in a few details. It would also be helpful if you phoned me if you remember anything, no matter how trivial it may seem.”
“To tell the truth we didn’t have much choice in those days,” the man said. “Not like today when half the population is gay and the other half pretends it is.”
He smiled at Sigurdur Oli, who choked on his tea.
“Excuse me,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“It is a little strong.”
Sigurdur Oli stood up and so did Baldur, who followed him to the door.
“We know that Gudlaugur was bullied at school,” Sigurdur Oli said when he was about to leave, “and they called him names. Do you remember if he ever mentioned that to you?”
“It was quite obvious that he’d been bullied for being in a choir and having a beautiful voice and not playing football, and being a bit girlish. He gave the impression of being a little unsure of himself with other people. He talked to me as if he understood why they teased him. But I don’t remember him mentioning any names …”
Baldur hesitated.
“Yes,” Sigurdur Oli said.
“When we were together, you know…”
Sigurdur Oli shook his head vacantly.
“In bed…”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes he wanted me to call him “my Little Princess”,” Baldur said, a smile playing across his lips.
Erlendur stared at Sigurdur Oli.
“My Little Princess?”
“That’s what he said.” Sigurdur Oli stood up from Erlendur’s bed “And now I really must be going. Bergthora will be going bananas. So you’ll be home for Christmas?”
“And what about the boxes of records?” Erlendur said. “Where could they be?”
“The guy didn’t have any idea.”
“The Little Princess? As in the Shirley Temple film? How does that all fit together? Did that man explain it?”
“No, he didn’t know what it meant.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything in particular,” Erlendur said, as if thinking out loud. “Some gay patois no one else understands. Maybe no stranger than a lot of other things. So, he hated himself then?”
“Not much self-confidence, his friend said. He was indecisive.”
“About his homosexual feelings or something else?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“We can always talk to him again, but he didn’t really seem to know that much about Gudlaugur.”
“And nor do we,” Erlendur said languidly. “If he wanted to hide the fact that he was gay twenty or thirty years ago, do we assume he went on hiding it?”
“That’s the question.”
“I haven’t met anyone else who mentioned that he was gay.”
“Yes, well, I’m off anyway” Sigurdur Oli said, moving to the door. “Was there anything else for today?”
“No,” Erlendur said. “That’s fine. Thanks for the invitation. Give my regards to Bergthora, and try to treat her decently.”
“I always do,” Sigurdur Oli said and hurried out. Erlendur looked at his watch and saw that it was time to meet Valgerdur. He took the last tape from the bank out of the video player and put it on the top of the stack. Immediately his mobile began to ring.
It was Elinborg. She told him she had spoken to the State Prosecutor’s office about the father who assaulted his son.
“What do they reckon he’ll get?” Erlendur asked.
“They think he might even get off, Elinborg said. “He won’t be convicted if he stands firm. If he just denies it. Won’t spend a minute inside.”
“What about the evidence? The footprints on the stairs? The bottle of Drambuie? Everything suggests that—”
“I don’t know why we bother. A case of assault came up for sentence yesterday. A man was repeatedly stabbed with a knife. The attacker got eight months in prison, four of them suspended, which means that he goes to jail for two months. Where’s the justice in that?”
“Will he get the boy back?”
“He’s bound to. The only positive thing, if it can be called positive, is that the boy seriously seems to miss his father. That’s what I don’t understand. How can he feel attached to his father if the man beats the shit out of him? I just can’t figure this case out. Something must be missing. Something we’ve overlooked. It just doesn’t add up.”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Erlendur said and looked at his watch. He was late for his meeting with Valgerdur. “Can you do one thing for me? Stefania Egilsdottir said she was with a friend at the hotel the other day. Would you talk to the woman and confirm it?” Erlendur gave her the woman’s name.
“Aren’t you going to get yourself back home from that hotel?” Elinborg asked.
“Stop nagging me,” Erlendur said and rang off.
28
When Erlendur went down to the lobby he saw Rosant, the head waiter. He hesitated, uncertain whether to make a move. Valgerdur was bound to be waiting for him. Erlendur looked at his watch, pulled a face and went up to the head waiter. This shouldn’t take long.
“Tell me about the whores,” he said without preamble. Rosant was talking courteously to two hotel guests. They were clearly Icelandic, because they looked at him in astonishment.
Rosant smiled, raising his little moustache. He apologised politely to the guests, bowed and took Erlendur aside.
“A hotel is just people and our job is to make them feel good, wasn’t it some kind of crap like that?” Erlendur said.
“It’s not crap. They taught us that at catering college.”
“Did they also teach head waiters to be pimps?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll tell you then. You run a little knocking shop at this hotel”
Rosant smiled.
“A knocking shop?”
“Has it got anything to do with Gudlaugur, your pimping?”
Rosant shook his head.
“Who was with Gudlaugur when he was murdered?”
They fixed each other’s gaze until Rosant backed off and stared down at the floor.
“There was no one I know of,” he finally said.