Reykjavik Nights

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘Rebekka?’ he said

  ‘Yes?’ The woman glanced up.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, but I rang earlier –’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No, my name’s Erlendur and –’

  ‘We’re closed,’ she said, ‘but I can make an appointment for you if you like. Who’s your doctor?’

  ‘I’m not here to see a doctor,’ said Erlendur. ‘I rang earlier about your brother, Hannibal.’

  The woman hesitated. ‘Oh,’ she said, then carried on putting things away.

  ‘Sorry to be so persistent. But, as I mentioned on the phone, I was acquainted with your brother and wanted to know if you had time for a chat.’

  ‘Were you on the streets with him?’ she asked in a low voice.

  ‘Good Lord, no,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’ve never been on the streets. In fact, I’m with the police. We had to pick him up from time to time. That’s how I knew him.’

  ‘You’re a policeman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d rather not discuss him with you, if you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘He’s dead. It was a sad story, but it’s over now and I don’t wish to go over it all again with a stranger.’

  ‘I completely understand,’ said Erlendur. ‘That was my impression when we spoke on the phone but I just wanted to be sure. My intentions are good, if that’s what’s worrying you. I’d like to have got to know him better, but he died so suddenly. I was first on the scene and pulled him out. Perhaps that’s why I can’t get him out of my mind.’

  The woman switched off a large electric typewriter. She emerged from the office, locked the door carefully behind her and accompanied Erlendur out onto the pavement.

  ‘Hannibal wasn’t a bad man,’ she said in parting.

  ‘No, I know that.’

  The surgery was on Lækjargata, in the centre of Reykjavík, and the traffic was heavy. Horns blared and people hurried past on their way to the shops or to a cafe or just home after work.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm him?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘You didn’t know him very well, did you?’

  ‘No, sadly, I –’

  ‘There was only one man who wanted to harm him, and that was Hannibal himself.’

  11

  Erlendur was about to take a nap before going on duty when the silence was shattered by his phone.

  Home for him was a small basement flat in Hlídar. When he’d joined the police he was told he could be called out any time, day or night, so he would need to install a telephone. He hadn’t felt the need for one before, but he acquired a clunky black model with a metal dial. In the end, the phone rarely rang in connection with work, unless it was the duty sergeant calling to arrange his shifts, but from time to time some of the other officers would call to invite him along to a film or a night out. Neither really appealed to him, but he sometimes let himself be talked into joining them. He took no pleasure in drinking; at most he might sip at a small glass of green Chartreuse. Occasionally they would stop by his place on their way to a nightclub and try to drag him along, but he was usually reluctant. Staying in to read, listen to the radio or play records was more to his taste. He had purchased a decent hi-fi and built up quite a collection of albums, mostly European and American jazz. He also enjoyed Icelandic folk songs and works by his favourite poets, Tómas Guðmundsson, Davíð Stefánsson and Steinn Steinarr, set to music.

  Similarly, when it came to eating, his preference was for plain, traditional fare: boiled fish – haddock or cod – with potatoes. Or roast lamb on special occasions. In the evenings he usually dined at Skúlakaffi, a cafeteria popular with workmen and lorry drivers, which served Icelandic home cooking. Lamb chops in breadcrumbs had been a staple of the menu ever since the place opened.

  From Erlendur’s flat one could enter the garden via the communal laundry, and there, just outside the door, he preserved traditional delicacies – brisket, liver sausage and whale blubber, supplied by a local shopkeeper – in a small bucket of sour whey. Erlendur topped up the bucket on a regular basis. He often got into arguments about eating habits with Gardar, who was a big fan of American fast food. To Erlendur, all Gardar’s impassioned talk of pizzas and hamburgers was gibberish.

  He answered the phone and was taken aback to hear Rebekka’s voice. Given that she had said a rather curt goodbye before walking off, he had not been expecting to hear from her again.

  ‘I got your number from the police station,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Erlendur replied. ‘I’m ex-directory.’

  ‘So they told me. They were a bit reluctant to pass it on.’

  ‘Thanks for ringing, anyway.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Why did you ask if I knew of anyone who might have wanted to harm my brother? What did you mean by that?’

  ‘Just wondering if he had any enemies that you were aware of.’

  ‘Well, I know his life wasn’t easy,’ said Rebekka, ‘but my brother wasn’t one to make trouble. That would have been out of character. Were you implying that it wasn’t an accident? His death, I mean?’

  ‘Oh, no, it seems more than likely that it was, but the world he was living in can be pretty unforgiving. He may not have made trouble, as you put it, but I get the feeling he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind to people. And I know he never wanted to be beholden to anyone.’

  ‘No, he was always like that. He could be incredibly bloody-minded.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hadn’t had any contact with him over the last few years,’ she said, ‘so I don’t know exactly what he was doing with himself or who he was mixing with. You’d probably know more about that.’

  ‘Not really. He kept himself to himself. Hung out with a few other people in similar circumstances, but I don’t think he saw anyone else. He didn’t stay in touch with his family, then?’

  ‘He just disappeared from our lives,’ said Rebekka. ‘I don’t know how else to describe it. It happened so suddenly. Vanished from our lives and lost himself in some kind of no-man’s-land.’

  She fell silent.

  ‘We tried to help, but he wasn’t having any of it. My other brother, the older one, quickly gave up on him. Said he was a lost cause. I … Hannibal didn’t want to hear from us. We belonged to a world he’d turned his back on – that he was doing his best to avoid.’

  ‘That sort of thing can be hard to cope with,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Well, I refuse to feel guilty about it,’ she said. ‘I tried everything I could think of to help him get his act together. But he said he wasn’t interested. Said I didn’t understand. The last time I managed to get through to him he sobered up for two or three months. That was eight, nine years ago. Then he hit the bottle again and after that he really was a lost cause.’

  ‘So your other brother wasn’t in contact with him either?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They didn’t have any unfinished business?’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘No, I simply –’

  ‘Are you insinuating that he might have attacked Hannibal?’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m simply trying to work out what happened.’

  ‘My brother lives up north. In Akureyri. He wasn’t even in Reykjavík when Hannibal died.’

  ‘I see. Look, I really didn’t mean to insinuate anything.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘You’re the only person who’s ever asked about Hannibal,’ Rebekka said at last. ‘Ever shown the slightest interest in him. I should have been more polite, but you took me by surprise. I was a bit thrown, to be honest. If you like, I could meet you one day after work.’

  ‘That would be great.’

  They said goodbye and a few minutes later the phone rang again. This time it was Halldóra.

  ‘I just wanted to hear your voice,’ she said.<
br />
  ‘Yes, sorry, I’ve been meaning to get in touch.’

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘Yes, you lose track of time on night duty. How are you?’

  ‘Fine. I wanted to tell you … I’ve applied for a new job.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘At the telephone company.’

  ‘That’d be good, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I think so. As an operator on the international switchboard.’

  ‘Think you’ll get it?’

  ‘I reckon I’m in with a chance,’ said Halldóra. ‘Why don’t we meet up? Go into town?’

  ‘Yes, let’s.’

  ‘I’ll give you a call.’

  ‘All right.’

  After they had rung off, Erlendur took a book from the shelf and, hoping to manage a quick snooze before work, settled himself on the sofa. When he was in his teens, and bored with life in the city, he had taken to browsing in antiquarian bookshops. One day he had chanced upon a series of volumes recently acquired from a house clearance, a collection of true stories about people going missing or getting lost on their travels in Iceland. Some had survived to tell of their own ordeals, but there were also second-hand accounts of incredible feats of endurance or of tragic surrender to the forces of nature. Erlendur had not realised that such tales existed in print. He devoured the entire series and ever since then he had been collecting books, and anything else he could find, about human suffering in shipwrecks, avalanches or on the old roads that crossed the Icelandic wilderness. He either tracked these works down in bookshops or was tipped off by dealers when they received books, papers, even private correspondence, reports or eyewitness accounts on the subject. He bought them all without haggling and had built up an impressive library of material from around the country, though he still kept an eye out for new publications. The sheer amount published on the subject surprised him. The stories belonged to an older way of life, before the city began its sprawl and the villages grew at the expense of isolated farming communities; yet clearly they still resonated with Icelanders. The traditional farming society had not vanished entirely, merely found a new home.

  Many of the accounts were of people who lost their way in violent storms and whose remains were not found for months, years, decades even. Some were never found. Rebekka’s words about her brother still echoed in Erlendur’s ears: he just disappeared from our lives. Erlendur understood what she meant. As he thought about Hannibal he reflected that people could just as easily lose themselves on Reykjavík’s busy streets as on remote mountain paths in winter storms.

  Feeling drowsy, he laid aside the book. His thoughts shifted to the Reykjavík nights, so strangely sunny and bright, yet in another sense so dark and desperate. Night after night he and his fellow officers patrolled the city in the lumbering police van, witnessing human dramas that were hidden from others. Some the night provoked and seduced; others it wounded and terrified. As he was far from nocturnal himself, it had been an adjustment to leave the world of day and enter that of night, but once he was there, he found he did not mind it. In those hours, more than at any other time, he became reconciled to the city, when its streets were finally empty and quiet, with no sound but the wind and the low chugging of the engine.

  12

  When Erlendur arrived, the owner of the house was standing by the cellar steps, smoking a battered pipe. A large trailer, hooked to an ancient, beaten-up Soviet jeep, had been reversed up to the door. It was half full of rubbish. The man was sixtyish, red-faced, with small eyes and a sizeable paunch, clad in a grey jumper and threadbare jeans, a grubby flat cap on his head. His pipe was clamped between strong teeth, giving his lips a pale, bluish hue. He looked like a manual labourer. His name, Erlendur knew since Hannibal had mentioned it, was Frímann. Landlord was perhaps too grand a title, since Hannibal had paid no rent in return for dossing in the cellar. On the other hand, benefactor would be putting it too strongly, as the basement was barely habitable, though Hannibal had made himself as comfortable as he could down there. Erlendur greeted the man.

  ‘Come to look round the house?’ asked Frímann, knocking the pipe out in his hand.

  ‘No. Is it for sale?’

  ‘For the right price,’ said Frímann, as if he held the keys to a palace. In fact, his house was little more than a wooden shack, clad with corrugated iron that had once been painted blue. Above the basement were the main living area and a tiny attic, and the whole place was in need of drastic renovation.

  ‘Is the cellar included?’

  ‘Of course. It’s a good size. I just need to clear out this damn rubbish. Lord knows where it all comes from.’

  ‘I’m not looking for a house,’ said Erlendur, surveying the trailer. ‘I’m here to ask about a tramp who used to live in your cellar. Name of Hannibal.’

  ‘Hannibal?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘What’s Hannibal to you?’

  ‘I used to know him,’ explained Erlendur.

  ‘Then you’ll be aware that he’s dead,’ said Frímann, shoving the pipe in the pocket of his shirt under his jumper.

  ‘Yes. He came to a sad end, I know. You let him sleep in your cellar?’

  ‘He wasn’t in anyone’s way.’

  ‘How did you know each other?’

  ‘Used to work on a boat together donkey’s years ago.’ Frímann prepared to descend the steps for another load of junk.

  ‘Can I help with that?’ asked Erlendur.

  Frímann regarded him in surprise.

  ‘Are you really offering?’

  ‘If you like.’

  Frímann hesitated a moment, trying to get the measure of this young stranger.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘I came by with Hannibal while he was living here,’ said Erlendur, ‘so I know you’ve got quite a job on your hands.’

  ‘I’ve made three trips to the tip already,’ said Frímann, ‘but you can hardly see any difference. It’s not all my stuff, mind. I’ve been storing a load of useless junk for people who never came back for it. And some was left by the previous owners – worthless rubbish. Other bits have ended up here; I’ve no idea where from, though I suspect Hannibal hoarded some of it.’

  The cellar was marginally tidier than the last time Erlendur had visited. Hannibal’s mattress was gone, along with the ragged blanket he had used to cover himself; the brennivín and methylated spirits bottles had been cleared away; even the stench had dissipated somewhat, although it still lingered. Beside the entrance, the ceiling beams and part of the door jamb were black with soot.

  Erlendur rolled up his sleeves and started helping to cart things outside. In no time they had filled the trailer.

  ‘He lived in such damn squalor,’ said Frímann when Erlendur brought the conversation back round to Hannibal. ‘That was one of the reasons why I wanted rid of him. Apart from that you’d hardly have known he was there. Not that I came by often.’

  ‘So you don’t live in the house yourself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did the tenants complain about him?’

  ‘Never heard a peep from them. But then they used to hit the bottle fairly hard themselves. A couple, from down south. They didn’t look after the place either, so in the end I chucked them out and decided to sell while I could still get something for it. Haven’t been able to do it up. Can’t afford to.’

  Frímann lit his pipe again, looked over at the trailer and said he’d shifted enough bloody rubbish for one day. He would continue tomorrow and hopefully finish it off then.

  ‘Thanks for your help, young man.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Erlendur. ‘The fishing boat you both worked on – was it harboured here in Reykjavík?’

  ‘No, Grindavík.’

  ‘But Hannibal was from Reykjavík, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘Do you know anything about his family?’

  ‘No. He used to talk about his mother from time to time, but I don’t kn
ow if he had any brothers or sisters.’

  ‘One brother, one sister. His parents died years ago.’

  ‘Well, he never mentioned any brother or sister.’

  ‘Any idea why he ended up like that?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘You mean, why he drowned?’

  ‘No, I meant –’

  ‘Wasn’t he just plastered as usual?’

  ‘Probably,’ conceded Erlendur. ‘I suppose what I’m really asking is if you know why he ended up on the streets?’

  ‘Is there any simple reason why people go off the rails?’ asked Frímann. ‘Obviously, he was an alcoholic. And he could be … Hannibal was a strange mixture. He could be as nice as pie, but his temper often landed him in trouble. I remember when we were on the boat, he drank so heavily he lost his job in the end. He couldn’t be trusted. Got into fights. Missed departures. Gave too much lip. Why are men the way they are? Search me.’

  ‘I see there was a fire.’ Erlendur indicated the scorched beams.

  ‘That’s why I sent him packing in the end,’ said Frímann. ‘I was always scared to death something like that would happen. Told him to take his stuff and get lost. Next thing I heard, he was dead.’

  ‘Know if he had any enemies?’

  ‘The police asked me that at the time and I told them I hadn’t a clue. Surely he was drunk, fell in and couldn’t get out again?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  ‘Well, better be off to the tip,’ said Frímann, knocking out his pipe again.

  ‘How did the fire start?’ asked Erlendur, refusing to give up. ‘Hannibal alleged it was arson, aimed at him.’

  ‘Typical,’ said Frímann, opening the door of the jeep. ‘He claimed he was asleep and woke up all of a sudden to see flames over by the door, so he went and put them out. Swore he’d single-handedly saved the house from burning down. But it wasn’t quite like that. The couple upstairs were out but the brothers next door saw smoke pouring from the cellar window and ran over. They found Hannibal out for the count. It’s mainly thanks to them things didn’t turn out worse. They woke him up and got him out. Said he was smashed out of his skull. They found the remains of a candle stub by the door. He must have kicked it over into some rubbish.’