Voices de-5

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Henry Wapshott had returned to the hotel but was not in his room. Erlendur had reception call him, went up to the floor he was staying on and knocked on his door, but met no response. He wondered whether to get the manager to open the room for him, but first he would need a search warrant from a magistrate, which could take well into the night, besides which it was altogether uncertain whether Henry Wapshott was in fact the Henry whom Gudlaugur was supposed to meet at 18.30.

  Erlendur was standing in the corridor weighing up the options when a man probably in his early sixties came around the corner and walked in his direction. He was wearing a shabby tweed jacket, khaki trousers and a blue shirt with a bright red tie; he was balding, with his dark hair fondly combed right across the patch.

  “Is it you?” he asked in English when he reached Erlendur. “I was told someone was asking after me. An Icelander. Are you a collector? Did you want to see me?”

  “Is your name Wapshott?” Erlendur asked. “Henry Wapshott?” His English was not good. These days he could understand the language reasonably well, but spoke it badly. Global crime had forced the police force to organise special English courses, which Erlendur had attended and enjoyed. He was beginning to read books in English.

  “My name’s Henry Wapshott,” the man said. “What do you want to see me about?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t stand out here in the corridor,” Erlendur said. “Can we go in your room? Or…?”

  Wapshott looked at the door, then back at Erlendur.

  “Maybe we should go down to the lobby,” he said. “What is it you want to see me about? Who are you?”

  “Let’s go downstairs,” Erlendur said.

  Hesitantly, Henry Wapshott followed him to the lift. When they were down in the lobby Erlendur went to the smokers” table and seats to one side of the dining room, and they sat down. A waitress appeared at once. Guests were beginning to sit down to the buffet, which Erlendur found no less tempting than the day before. They ordered coffee.

  “It’s very odd,” Wapshott said. “I was supposed to meet someone at precisely this spot half an hour ago, but the man never came. I didn’t get any message from him, and then you’re standing right outside my door and you bring me down here.”

  “What man were you going to meet?”

  “He’s an Icelander. Works at this held. His name’s Gudlaugur.”

  “And you were going to meet him here at half past six today?”

  “Right,” Wapshott said. “What…? Who are you?”

  Erlendur told him he was from the police, described Gudlaugur’s death and how they had found a note in his room referring to a meeting with a man called Henry, who was clearly him. The police wanted to know why they were going to meet. Erlendur did not mention his suspicion that Wapshott may well have been in the room when Santa was murdered. He just mentioned that Gudlaugur had worked at the hotel for twenty years.

  Wapshott stared at Erlendur while he gave this account, shaking his head in disbelief as if he failed to grasp the full implications of what he was being told.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God,” Wapshott groaned.

  “How did you know Gudlaugur?” Erlendur asked.

  Wapshott seemed rather remote, so he repeated the question.

  “I’ve known him for years,” Wapshott said eventually, smiling to reveal small, tobacco-stained teeth, some of the lower ones with black crests. Erlendur thought he must be a pipe smoker.

  “When did you first meet?” Erlendur asked.

  “We’ve never met,” Wapshott said. “I’ve never seen him. I was going to meet him for the first time today. That’s why I came to Iceland.”

  “You came to Iceland to meet him?”

  “Yes, among other things.”

  “So how did you know him? If you never met, what kind of relationship did you have?”

  “There was no relationship,” Wapshott said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s never been any “relationship”,” Wapshott repeated, putting the final word in quotation marks with his fingers.

  “What then?” Erlendur asked.

  “Only one-sided worship,” Wapshott said. “On my part.”

  Erlendur asked him to repeat the last words. He could not understand how this man, who had come all the way from England and had never met Gudlaugur, could worship him. A hotel doorman. A man who lived in a dingy little room in a hotel basement and was found dead with his trousers round his ankles and a knife wound through his heart. One-sided worship of a man who played Father Christmas at children’s parties.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erlendur said. Then he remembered that, in the corridor upstairs, Wapshott had asked him if he was a collector. “Why did you want to know if I was a collector?” he asked. “What did you mean?”

  “I thought you were a record collector,” Wapshott said. “Like me.”

  “What kind of record collector? Records? You mean …?”

  “I collect old records,” Wapshott said. “Old gramophone records. LPs, EPs, singles. That’s how I know Gudlaugur. I was going to meet him here just now and was looking forward to it, so you must understand it’s quite a shock for me to hear that he’s dead. Murdered! Who could have wanted to murder him?”

  His surprise seemed genuine.

  “Did you meet him last night maybe?” Erlendur asked.

  At first, Wapshott didn’t realise what Erlendur meant, until it dawned on him and he stared at the detective.

  “Are you implying… do you think I’m lying to you? Am I …? Are you saying I’m a suspect? Do you think I had something to do with his death?”

  Erlendur watched him, saying nothing.

  “How absurd!” Wapshott raised his voice. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting that man for a long time. For years. You can’t be serious.”

  “Where were you around this time last night?” Erlendur asked.

  “In town,” Wapshott said. “I was in town. I was at a collectors” shop on the high street, then I had dinner at an Indian restaurant not far away.”

  “You’ve been at the hotel for a few days. Why didn’t you meet Gudlaugur before?”

  “But… weren’t you just saying that he’s dead? What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t you want to meet him as soon as you checked in? You looked forward to meeting him, you said. Why did you wait so long?”

  “He decided the time and venue. Oh my God, what have I got myself into?”

  “How did you contact him? And what did you mean by “one-sided worship”?”

  Henry Wapshott looked at him.

  “I mean—” Wapshott began, but Erlendur didn’t allow him to complete the sentence.

  “Did you know he worked at this hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’d found out. I make a point of researching my subjects. For collection purposes”

  “And that’s why you stayed at this hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you buying records from him?” Erlendur continued. “Is that how you knew each other? Two collectors, the same interest?”

  “As I said, I didn’t know him, but I was going to meet him in person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You haven’t got the faintest idea who he was, have you?” Wapshott said, surprised that Erlendur had never heard of Gudlaugur Egilsson.

  “He was a caretaker or a doorman and a Father Christmas,” Erlendur said. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

  “Do you know my specialist field?” Wapshott replied. “I’m not sure how much you know about collecting in general or record collecting in particular, but most collectors specialise in a certain field. People can be rather eccentric about it. It’s incredible what people can be bothered to collect. I’ve heard of a man who has sick bags from every airline in the world. I
also know a woman who collects hair from Barbie dolls”

  Wapshott looked at Erlendur.

  “Do you know what I specialise in?”

  Erlendur shook his head. He was not completely convinced that he had understood the part about airline sick bags. And what was all that about Barbie dolls?

  “I specialise in boys” choirs.”

  “Boys” choirs?”

  “Not only boys” choirs. My special interest is choirboys.”

  Erlendur hesitated, unsure whether he had misunderstood.

  “Choirboys?”

  “Yes.”

  “You collect records of choirboys?”

  “I do. Of course I collect other records, but choirboys are — how should I put it? — my passion.”

  “How does Gudlaugur fit in with all this?”

  Henry Wapshott smiled. He stretched out for a black leather briefcase that he had with him. Opening it, he took out the sleeve of a 45 single.

  He took his glasses out of his breast pocket and Erlendur noticed that he dropped a white piece of paper onto the floor. Erlendur reached for it and saw the name Brenner’s printed on it in green.

  “Thank you. A serviette from a hotel in Germany? Wapshott said. “Collecting is an obsession,” he added apologetically.

  Erlendur nodded.

  “I was going to ask him to autograph this sleeve for me,” Wapshott said, handing it to Erlendur.

  On the front of the sleeve was the name’GUDLAUGUR EGILSSON” in a little arc of golden letters, with a black-and-white photograph of a young boy, hardly more than twelve years old, slightly freckled, his hair carefully smoothed down, who smiled at Erlendur.

  “He had a marvellously sensitive voice,” Wapshott said. “Then along comes puberty and …” He shrugged in resignation. There was a hint of sadness and regret in his tone. “I’m astonished you haven’t heard of him or don’t know who he was, if you’re investigating his death. He must have been a household name in his day. According to my sources, he could be described as a well-known child star.”

  Erlendur looked up from the album sleeve, at Wapshott.

  A child star?”

  “He performed on two records, singing solo and with church choirs. He must have been quite a name in this country. In his day.”

  “A child star,” Erlendur repeated. “You mean like Shirley Temple? That kind of child star?”

  “Probably, by your standards, I mean here in Iceland, a small country off the beaten track. He must have been pretty famous even if everyone seems to have forgotten him now. Shirley Temple was of course …”

  “The Little Princess,” Erlendur muttered to himself.

  “Pardon?”

  “I didn’t know he was a child star.”

  “It was ages ago.”

  “And? He made records?”

  “Yes.”

  “That you collect?”

  “I’m trying to acquire copies. I specialise in choirboys like him. He was a unique boy soprano.”

  “Choirboy?” Erlendur said almost to himself. He recalled the poster of The Little Princess and was about to ask Wapshott in more detail about the child star Gudlaugur, when someone disturbed him.

  “So here you are,” Erlendur heard someone say above him. Valgerdur was standing behind him, smiling. She no longer carried her sampling kit. She was wearing a thin, black, knee-length leather coat with a beautiful red sweater underneath, and she had put on her make-up so carefully that it hardly showed. “Does the invitation still stand?” she asked.

  Erlendur leaped to his feet. But Wapshott had already stood up.

  “Sorry,” Erlendur said, “I didn’t realise … Of course.” He smiled. “Of course.”

  8

  They moved to the bar next to the dining room when they had eaten their fill of the buffet and drunk coffee afterwards. Erlendur bought them drinks and they sat down at a booth well inside the bar. She said she couldn’t stay long, from which Erlendur read polite caution. Not that he was planning to invite her up to his room — the thought didn’t even cross his mind and she knew that — but he felt a sense of insecurity about her and the same kind of barriers he encountered from people who were sent to him for interrogation. Perhaps she didn’t know herself what she was doing.

  Talking to a detective intrigued her and she wanted to know everything about his job, the crimes and how he went about catching criminals. Erlendur told her that it was mostly boring administrative work.

  “But crimes have become more vicious,” she said. “You read it in the papers. Nastier crimes”

  “I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “Crimes are always nasty”

  “You’re always hearing stories about the drug world; debt collectors attacking kids who owe money for their dope, and if the kids can’t pay, their families are attacked instead.”

  “Yes,” said Erlendur, who sometimes worried about Eva Lind for precisely that reason. “It’s quite a changed world. More brutal.”

  They fell silent.

  Erlendur tried to find a topic of conversation but he had no idea how to approach women. The ones he associated with could not prepare him for what might be called a romantic evening like this. He and Elinborg were good friends and colleagues, and there was a fondness between them that had been formed by years of collaboration and shared experience. Eva Lind was his child and a constant source of worry. Halldora was the woman he married a whole generation before, then divorced and whose hatred he earned for doing so. These were the only women in his life apart from the occasional one-night stands that never brought anything more than disappointment and awkwardness.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Why did you change your mind?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t had an invitation like that for ages. What made you think to ask me out?”

  “No idea. It slipped out over the buffet. I haven’t done this for a long time either.”

  They both smiled.

  He told her about Eva Lind and his son, Sindri Snaer, and she told him she had two sons, also both grown up. He had the feeling that she didn’t want to talk too much about herself and her circumstances, and he liked that. He didn’t want to poke his nose into her life.

  “Are you getting anywhere with the man who was murdered?”

  “No, not really. The man I was talking to in the lobby…”

  “Did I interrupt you? I didn’t know he was connected with the investigation.”

  “That’s all right,” Erlendur said. “He collects records, vinyl that is, and it turns out that the man in the basement was a child star. Years ago.”

  “A child star?”

  “He made records.”

  “I can imagine that’s difficult, being a child star,” Valgerdur said. “Just a kid with all kinds of dreams and expectations that rarely come to anything. What do you think happens after that?”

  “You shut yourself up in a basement room and hope no one remembers you.”

  “You think so?”

  “I don’t know. Someone might remember him.”

  “Do you think that’s connected with his murder?”

  “What?”

  “Being a child star.”

  Erlendur tried to say as little as possible about the investigation without appearing standoffish. He hadn’t had time to ponder this question and didn’t know whether it made any difference.

  “We don’t know yet,” he said. “But we’ll find out”

  They stopped talking.

  “So you weren’t a child star,” Valgerdur then said.

  “No,” Erlendur said. “Devoid of talent in all fields.”

  “Same here,” Valgerdur said. “I still draw like a three-year-old.”

  “What do you do when you’re not at work?” she asked after a short silence.

  Unprepared for this question, Erlendur dithered until she began to smile.

  “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy,” she said when he gave no answer.

  “No, it�
��s… I’m not accustomed to talking about myself? Erlendur said.

  He could not claim to play golf or any other sport. At one time he had been interested in boxing, but that had waned. He never went to the cinema and rarely watched television. Travelled alone around Iceland in the summer, but had done less of that in recent years. What did he do when he wasn’t at work? He didn’t know the answer himself. Most of the time he was just on his own.

  “I read a lot,” he said suddenly.

  “And what do you read?” she asked.

  Once more he hesitated, and she smiled again.

  “Is it that difficult?” she said.

  “About deaths and ordeals,” he said. “Death in the mountains. People who freeze to death outdoors. There are whole series of books about that. Used to be popular, once.”

  “Deaths and ordeals?” she said.

  “And plenty of other things, of course. I read a lot. History. Local history. Chronicles.”

  “Everything that’s old and gone,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “But why deaths? People who freeze to death? Isn’t that awful to read?”

  Erlendur smiled to himself.

  “You ought to be in the police force,” he said.

  In that short part of an evening she had penetrated a place in his mind that was carefully fenced off, even to himself. He did not want to talk about it. Eva Lind knew about it but was not entirely familiar with it and did not link it in particular with his interest in accounts of deaths. He sat in silence for a long time.

  “It comes with age,” he said finally, regretting the lie immediately. “What about you? What do you do when you’ve finished sticking cotton wool buds in people’s mouths?”

  He tried to rewind and make a joke but the bond between them had been tarnished and it was his fault.

  “I really haven’t had time for anything other than work,” she said, realising that she had unwittingly struck a nerve. She became awkward and he sensed that.

  “I think we ought to do this again soon,” he said to wind things up. The lie was too much for him.

  “Definitely,” she said. “To tell you the truth I was very hesitant but I don’t regret it. I want you to know that.”