Reykjavik Nights

by Arnaldur Indridason

  He hadn’t met that many women either, but then that wasn’t really a priority. On his rare forays into the Reykjavík nightlife he had been put off by the noise and rowdiness. Then one evening at Glaumbær, back before the place burnt down, he had met a young woman called Halldóra. She was chatty, knew her own mind, and took a frank interest in him. Sometime later, on a night out at Silfurtunglid with the boys from the force, he ran into her again and she asked him to come home with her. Afterwards she phoned him, they met up, and now they were in a relationship of sorts.

  As Erlendur walked through his own neighbourhood of Hlídar, past Hamrahlíd College, where they offered adult education courses, he wondered yet again whether he should go back to school. He had completed his compulsory education but left before the sixth form. When his family moved to Reykjavík he had been put in the lowest class at his new school. His ability was never even tested; it had simply been assumed that since he came from a poor background, was recalcitrant and uncooperative, he must belong with the slow kids. Unhappy about the move, unhappy with city life, all he had really learned was to hold his tongue. The upshot was that he lost interest in formal education, defied his teachers and any kind of authority, and quit at sixteen. He had already been working during the summers, and after that last winter at school he moved out of the home he shared with his mother and into a rented flat. His mother, Áslaug, earned a pittance, and he himself did little better when he took a job at the fishery.

  Erlendur glanced up at the college building, tempted by the new opportunities for adult education. Twenty-eight was not too old to resume his studies, and anyway he would need to pass his final school exams if he wanted to go to university. He was interested in history, particularly the history of Iceland, and could envisage giving up police work at some point to dedicate himself to research.

  He broke into a jog across busy Kringlumýrarbraut. Every now and then over the past year he had found himself drawn back to the diggings, though he hardly knew why. The water that had collected in the hollows was shallow, brown and devoid of life; ‘ponds’ was too good a name for them. Today there were a couple of rafts out and the place was alive with kids riding bikes up and down the hills. Two small motorcycles tore up the dirt track at the furthest point, the roaring and backfiring of their engines carrying to Erlendur through the quiet evening air.

  The tramp had been found where the water was deepest. They calculated that his body must have been there for two days before it was noticed. Since the pathologist concluded that he had died on the spot, the police inquiry had focused on determining whether there could have been any foul play. The level of alcohol in his bloodstream indicated death by natural causes. There were no signs of a struggle, and no witnesses had come forward. Nor were there any traces of suspicious activity at the scene, such as tyre tracks or footprints, though there had been a delay between his drowning and the start of the investigation, and in the interim the ground had been trampled by children playing. In the absence of new evidence, the inquiry soon ran out of steam and the case was closed.

  During his first months in Traffic, Erlendur had encountered the victim on several occasions. His name was Hannibal and he was a homeless man whom the police had picked up for a variety of reasons, though mainly for being drunk and disorderly. The first time he crossed Erlendur’s path was in the depths of winter. Hannibal had been sitting, hunched forward, on a bench in Austurvöllur Square, his numb fingers cramped around the neck of an empty brennivín bottle. It was bitterly cold. Convinced the man would die of exposure if they left him where he was, Erlendur had said he wasn’t having that on his conscience, and after a bit of dithering the officers had decided to take him back to the cells for the night. They helped him into the police van, where he came to his senses. It took him a while to work out what was going on, though the situation was familiar to both parties, but when he did he began to thank them profusely, the dear boys, for taking such good care of him. He asked for his bottle but was informed that he had emptied it. Could they spare him a drop of booze, then? The question was directed at the rookie, Erlendur, whom Hannibal had not seen before and guessed was more likely to be a soft touch. To begin with, Erlendur ignored him, but when Hannibal kept repeating his question, he told him to shut up. The tramp’s gratitude swiftly evaporated.

  ‘You bloody arseholes, you’re all the same.’

  On the second occasion, Erlendur had come across him lying at the foot of ‘the Tin’, as they called the corrugated-iron fence around the Swedish fish factory on the northern side of Arnarhóll. Tramps used to seek refuge there from life’s hardships and from the bone-piercing frost that accompanied the northerly gales. Hannibal was blue with cold; he sat propped against the corrugated iron, legs outstretched, wearing the usual tattered green anorak, completely dead to the world. Erlendur was on his way home from the centre of town when he caught sight of him. He hadn’t intended to interfere at first, but on closer inspection he grew worried. The frost was tightening its grip and the north wind swept ribbons of snow along the ground to collect at the tramp’s feet. Although well kitted out in a down jacket, hat and scarf, Erlendur was finding it hard enough to keep out the bitter chill himself. He tried calling the man by name but there was no reaction. He called again, louder, but Hannibal might as well have been a statue. Erlendur went right up and poked him with his foot.

  ‘You all right, Hannibal?’

  No response.

  Erlendur knelt down and shook the man until his eyes opened a crack, but Hannibal did not recognise him or know where he was.

  ‘Leave me alone, you bastard,’ he mumbled, trying to beat him off.

  ‘Come on,’ said Erlendur. ‘You can’t lie here in this cold.’

  He hauled the man to his feet, which was no easy task since he was quite a weight and far from cooperative. It took all Erlendur’s strength just to heave him upright before he could help him down the slope. But the movement cleared Hannibal’s head a little and he was able to direct Erlendur through the centre of town to a small building round the back of a house on Vesturgata. There he gestured to a narrow flight of steps leading to the cellar. He could hardly stand, so Erlendur gave him a hand down the stairs. The door was secured only by a simple wooden latch, like on a cowshed. Erlendur lifted this and Hannibal pushed the door open, reached in a hand and, finding the light switch, turned on a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘This is my refuge from a cruel world,’ he said and tripped headlong over the threshold.

  Erlendur restored him to his feet. The refuge was less a flat than a small storeroom for a variety of junk so unremarkable that no one was expected to steal it, judging by the ineffectual latch on the door. Lengths of piping and bald tyres mingled with rusty tubs, plastic containers and tangles of useless netting, while on the floor was the filthiest mattress Erlendur had ever seen. A threadbare blanket lay rumpled on top of it, and strewn all around was an assortment of empty bottles which had once contained alcohol, medicine or cardamom baking extract, along with the kind of small plastic methylated spirits containers you could buy from the chemist’s. There was a throat-catching stench of decaying rubber and urine.

  Once Erlendur had helped the man to bed, he was eager to get out as quickly as possible, but Hannibal rose up on one elbow.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Take care now,’ Erlendur replied, backing out through the storeroom.

  ‘Who are you?’ Hannibal demanded again. ‘Do we know each other?’

  Erlendur hesitated in the doorway. He had no desire to get involved in a conversation but neither did he wish to appear disrespectful.

  ‘The name’s Erlendur. We’ve met before. I’m a policeman.’

  ‘Erlendur,’ repeated Hannibal. ‘Mind’s a blank, mate. Got anything for me?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Could you spare a bit of loose change? Doesn’t have to be much, you know. A few coins would do. I’m sure you could spare some, a flush bloke like you,
who gives a helping hand to the likes of me.’

  ‘Won’t it just go on booze?’ Erlendur asked.

  Hannibal twisted his mouth into a smile of sorts.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Erlendur, my friend,’ he said, very humble now. ‘You may find it hard to believe but it’s not in my nature to lie to people. I just need a tot of gin. That’s all I ask for in this godforsaken world. I know it won’t sound like much to you, and I wouldn’t pester you, my friend, if it wasn’t such a little thing.’

  ‘I’m not giving you money for gin.’

  ‘How about a drop of meths, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, well then,’ said Hannibal, lying back on the mattress. ‘In that case you can bugger off.’

  * * *

  The roar of the motorbikes receded as they vanished in the direction of Hvassaleiti. The kids poled their rafts to shore and dragged them onto dry land. Erlendur looked south towards the pipeline. It had emerged during the inquiry that Hannibal’s presence in Kringlumýri was due to his having found a new home, if you could call it that. The summer he died, he had been evicted from his cellar after being accused of starting a fire, though he had stubbornly protested his innocence. Forced onto the streets, he had sought refuge in the casing around the heating pipeline. A slab of concrete had broken off in one place, leaving an opening large enough for him to crawl inside and warm himself against the hot-water pipes.

  It was to be Hannibal’s last home before his body was discovered in the flooded pit. He had slept there in the company of a few feral cats that were drawn to him much as the birds had once flocked to St Francis of Assisi.

  4

  Erlendur was standing on the brink of the pool where Hannibal had met his end when a boy tore past him on a bicycle, spun round and rode back. Although a year had passed since they had last met, Erlendur recognised him immediately: he was one of the kids who had found the body.

  ‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ said the boy, braking in front of him.

  ‘Yes, hello again.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked the boy. He was as plucky and self-assured as Erlendur remembered; ginger hair, freckles, a look of mischief. But he had grown. In only a year he had gone from being a child to a teenager.

  ‘Just taking a look around.’

  The boy had been the leader of the trio. They had all raced off to his house to inform his mother of their discovery. Realising they were in earnest, however far-fetched their tale, she had completely forgotten to scold them for coming home soaked again, and instead called the police straight away. The other boys had run home for a change of clothes, then they had all cycled back down to the diggings. By then two police cars and an ambulance had arrived. Hannibal’s body had been recovered from the pool and was lying on the ground, covered by a blanket.

  When the report came in, Erlendur had been on traffic duty on Miklabraut. As soon as he reached the scene, he had waded into the water and pulled the body ashore. Only then did he see it was Hannibal. It had given him a turn, yet Hannibal’s death had seemed strangely inevitable. The police had been shooing away the boys, along with the other onlookers who had gathered, when they piped up that they had found the body. After that they were taken to sit in one of the patrol cars and later questioned closely about their discovery.

  ‘My dad says he drowned,’ the boy observed now, leaning on his handlebars and looking over at the place where Hannibal had lain suspended in the water.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Erlendur. ‘I expect he fell in and couldn’t save himself.’

  ‘He was just an old alky.’

  ‘It must have been a bit of a shock for you and your friends to find him like that.’

  ‘Addi had nightmares,’ said the boy. ‘A doctor came round to his house and all. Me and Palli didn’t care.’

  ‘Do you still play here on rafts?’

  ‘Nah, not any more. That’s kids’ stuff.’

  ‘Ah, right. Did you by any chance notice the man down by the pipeline last summer? That you can remember?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anyone else notice him?’

  ‘No. We used to play there sometimes but I never saw him. Maybe he was only there at night.’

  ‘Maybe. What were you doing up by the pipeline?’

  ‘You know. Looking for golf balls.’

  ‘Golf balls?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s a bloke from those houses who’s always practising shots.’ The boy gestured to some rows of terraced houses on Hvassaleiti. Dad says there used to be a golf course by the pipeline, near Öskjuhlíd, and we sometimes find old balls.’

  ‘I see. And what do you do with them when you find them?’

  ‘Nothing.’ The boy prepared to pedal off. ‘Just chuck ’em in the water. I ain’t got any use for them.’

  ‘“I haven’t got any use for them”.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’

  ‘And “OK” isn’t good Icel—’

  ‘I’ve got to go home now,’ interrupted the boy and, climbing onto his saddle, was off before Erlendur could finish his sentence.

  Erlendur followed the track between the old workings and up the hill towards the heating conduit. The pipeline was fifteen kilometres long and ran from the geothermal zone in the Mosfell valley north of the city, skirted the suburbs, then finally discharged into the huge hot-water tanks that crowned Öskjuhlíd. Inside the concrete casing ran two fourteen-inch steel pipes booming with naturally heated water. Although insulated, these had still emitted enough warmth to provide comfort for Hannibal during the last days of his life.

  They had not yet repaired the hole in the casing. Erlendur contemplated the broken-off slab of concrete lying in the grass and wondered what had caused the damage. An earthquake, perhaps, or frost.

  The opening was large enough for a grown man to crawl through with ease. He noticed that the grass around the entrance was flattened, and when he poked his head inside he saw that someone else must have had the same idea as Hannibal. A blanket had been dragged in there. Two empty brennivín bottles and a handful of methylated spirits containers were scattered under the pipes. Not far beyond them he could make out a shabby hat and a mitten.

  The gloom intensified as Erlendur peered further inside. As his eyes adjusted, he was jolted by the sight of a mound deep within the tunnel.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he called.

  There was no answer, but the mound suddenly came to life and began to move in his direction.

  5

  Erlendur nearly jumped out of his skin. Panicking for an instant, he backed out of the opening and stumbled away. A moment later a head popped up, followed by the rest of a man who crawled out of the hole and hunkered down on the grass in front of him. He wore a ragged, dark coat, fingerless gloves, a woolly hat and large rubber galoshes. Erlendur had seen him before in the company of other Reykjavík drinkers, but didn’t know his name.

  The man said good evening as if he were accustomed to receiving visitors there. From his manner, you would think they had met in the street rather than crawling around in a concrete pipeline. Erlendur introduced himself and the man replied that his name was Vilhelm. His age was hard to guess. Possibly not much over forty, though given the missing front teeth and the thick beard that covered his face, he might have been ten years older.

  ‘Do I know you?’ asked the tramp, regarding Erlendur through horn-rimmed glasses. The thick lenses rendered his eyes unnaturally large, giving him a slightly comical look. He had an ugly, hacking cough.

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur, his attention drawn to the glasses. ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘Were you looking for me?’ asked Vilhelm, coughing again. ‘Did you want to talk to me?’

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur, ‘I just happened to be passing. To tell the truth, I didn’t expect to find anyone here.’

  ‘Don’t get many passers-by,’ said Vilhelm. ‘It’s nice and quiet. You don’t have a smoke, do you?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Have you … May I ask ho
w long you’ve been living here?’

  ‘Two or three days,’ said Vilhelm, without explaining his choice of camp. ‘Or … What is it today?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘Oh.’ Vilhelm’s cough rattled out again. ‘Tuesday. Then maybe I’ve been here a bit longer. It’s not bad for the odd night, though it can get a bit nippy. Still, I’ve known worse.’

  ‘Do you think your health can cope with it?’

  ‘What the hell’s that got to do with you?’ asked Vilhelm, his body racked by another spasm.

  ‘Actually, I’m not here completely by chance,’ Erlendur continued, once the man had recovered. ‘I used to know a bloke who dossed down here like you. His name was Hannibal.’

  ‘Hannibal? Oh, yes, I knew him.’

  ‘He drowned down there in one of the ponds.’ Erlendur waved towards Kringlumýri. ‘Ring any bells?’

  ‘I remember hearing about it. Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ said Erlendur. ‘I suppose it was just an unlucky accident.’

  ‘Yes, unlucky all right.’

  ‘Where did you know him from?’ Erlendur took a seat on the concrete casing.

  ‘Oh, just around and about, you know. Used to bump into him on my travels. A really good bloke.’

  ‘You weren’t enemies, then?’

  ‘Enemies? No. I haven’t got any enemies.’