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Erlendur went down to the lobby and asked for him. He had given no explanation for his absence, nor phoned in sick or to say he needed the day off to run some errands. A lady in her thirties who worked at reception told Erlendur that it was certainly unusual for the reception manager not to turn up on time, always such a punctual man, and incomprehensible of him not to get in touch if he needed time off.
She told Erlendur this in between pauses while a bio-technician from the National Hospital took a swab of her saliva. Three biotechnicians were collecting samples from the hotel staff. Another group went to the homes of the employees who were not at work. Soon the biotechnicians would have DNA from the hotel's entire staff to compare with the saliva on Santa's condom.
Detectives interrogated the staff about their acquaintanceship with Gudlaugur and the whereabouts of each and every one of them the previous afternoon. The entire Reykjavik CID took part in the murder investigation while information and evidence were being collected.
'What about people who've recently left or worked here a year ago or whatever, and knew Santa?' Sigurdur Óli asked. He sat down beside Erlendur in the dining room and watched him partake of herring and ryebread, cold ham, toast and piping hot coffee.
'Let's see what we discover from this for starters,' Erlendur said, slurping his coffee. 'Have you found out anything about this Gudlaugur?'
'Not much. There doesn't seem to be a lot to say about him. He was forty-eight, single, no children. He'd been working here for the past twenty years or so. I understand he lived in that little room down in the basement for years. It was only supposed to be a temporary solution at the time, that fat manager implied. But he says he's not familiar with the matter. Told us to talk to the previous manager. He was the one who made the deal with Santa. Fatso reckoned Gudlaugur had lost the place he was renting and was allowed to keep his stuff in the room, and he just never left.'
Sigurdur Óli paused, then said: 'Elínborg told me you stayed at the hotel last night.'
'I can hardly recommend it. The room's cold and the staff never give you a moment's peace. But the food's good. Where is Elínborg?'
The dining room was busy and the hotel guests made a din as they indulged in the breakfast spread. Most of them were tourists wearing traditional Icelandic sweaters, hiking boots and thick winter clothing, even though they were going no further than the city centre, ten minutes' walk away. The waiters made sure their coffee cups were refilled and their used plates taken away. Christmas songs were playing softly over the sound system.
'The main hearing starts today. You knew that, didn't you?' Sigurdur Óli asked.
'Yes.'
'Elínborg's down there. How do you think it will turn out?'
'I suppose it will be a couple of months, suspended. Always the same with those bloody judges.'
'Surely he won't be allowed to keep the boy.'
'I don't know,' Erlendur said.
'The bastard,' Sigurdur Óli said. 'They ought to put him in the stocks in the town square.'
Elínborg had been in charge of the investigation. An eight-year-old boy had been committed to hospital after being seriously assaulted. No one had been able to get a word out of him about the attack. The initial theory was that older children had set on him outside the school and beaten him up so badly that he suffered a broken arm, fractured cheekbone and two loose upper teeth. He crawled home in a terrible state. His father notified the police when he got back from work shortly afterwards. An ambulance took the boy to hospital.
The boy was an only child. His mother was in the Kleppur mental hospital when the incident took place. He lived with his father, who owned and ran an internet company, in a big and beautiful two-storey house with a commanding view of the city in Breidholt suburb. Naturally, the father was distressed after the assault and talked about taking vengeance on the boys