Reykjavik Nights

by Arnaldur Indridason

  The man coughed again and Erlendur asked if he was all right. The bundle of rags on the bed stirred and raised his head to see who was there. Erlendur recognised him at once: it was Vilhelm. The man fumbled for his glasses and Erlendur pushed them into his hands. He put them on and stared at Erlendur. His eyes, magnified by the lenses, held no recognition.

  ‘You’re Vilhelm, aren’t you?’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked the tramp, racked again by the ugly, rattling cough that Erlendur recalled from their first meeting.

  ‘We met the other day up by the hot-water pipeline in Kringlumýri. Have you moved on?’

  ‘The pipeline? I couldn’t stay there. It’s not fit for humans. It’s a bloody dump. Sorry but I don’t remember you.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Did we meet there?’

  ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘It’s completely slipped my mind.’ As Vilhelm sat up, the smell intensified and Erlendur retreated to the doorway.

  ‘I was asking you about a man I knew called Hannibal who used to sleep in the pipeline. He drowned.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Hannibal, that’s right. He drowned. Drowned, poor fellow. No, no, I’ve moved on, but … I’m telling you, it’s hard to find a place indoors. Though with the weather we’ve been having it’s not been too bad. It’s not so bad sleeping under the trees in the park. Better than the pipeline, at any rate. Like sleeping in a coffin that was. Just like a coffin.’

  ‘Yes, well, anyway.’ Erlendur turned to leave.

  ‘You couldn’t spare a few fags?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Are you going?’ Vilhelm sounded as if he would have liked Erlendur to stick around.

  ‘Yes. Things to do,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Erlendur.’

  ‘It might be coming back to me now.’ Vilhelm was obviously eager to spin out their conversation. ‘Bergmundur came over after you’d left. Wanted to help me get a place at the Fever Hospital. Wouldn’t hear of my camping in the pipeline. Kept going on about his Thurí. Funny how he’s always been so crazy about that miserable cow.’

  Perhaps Vilhelm was lonely and this was the first time he had talked to anyone for ages. Erlendur knew no more about him than any of the other vagrants in the city. The only one he had become acquainted with was Hannibal and he was still dealing with the repercussions.

  ‘Right, well, you take care,’ Erlendur said in parting.

  ‘You gave me some change, didn’t you?’ said Vilhelm, gazing at him through the thick lenses.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you. Took me a while to work it out. You weren’t wearing that get-up then.’ He indicated the police uniform.

  ‘No.’ Erlendur smiled.

  ‘I couldn’t understand what you were doing there. What you wanted from an old sod like me. You were asking about Hannibal, weren’t you? You knew him. I remember you clearly now. I’m no fool. Have you found out what happened to him?’

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’m no closer.’

  45

  They drove slowly through the centre of town. It was almost morning. The night had been quiet: they had answered a few call-outs but for the most part simply patrolled the streets, Marteinn and Gardar chatting away, Erlendur withdrawn and preoccupied. As they passed the entrance to Austurstræti, which had recently been pedestrianised, Gardar observed that it was ridiculous to close a street to traffic. Marteinn, playing devil’s advocate as usual, pointed out that lots of streets were pedestrianised abroad. You had to consider people on foot too sometimes, not just drivers. Gardar said he’d never heard such a load of rubbish in his life.

  On their way to the centre they had driven along Borgartún, where Gardar had shown them a vacant premises, formerly a cycle repair shop, which he reckoned would be perfect for a pizza place. It had two large picture windows facing the street. Gardar’s cousin, who owned a fishing vessel and had plenty of money, was interested: he had eaten pizza in London so the concept wasn’t completely foreign to him. But although Gardar was hopeful about getting him on board, other potential investors seemed to have less faith in fast food.

  ‘You two can come in on it, if you like,’ he offered.

  Marteinn shook his head, full of doubt.

  ‘What about you, Erlendur?’

  ‘No, I’ve no interest in pissers.’

  ‘Pizzas,’ corrected Gardar. ‘Pizzas! How many times do I have to tell you? Are you sure, Marteinn?’

  ‘What are you going to call it?’ asked Marteinn.

  ‘Don’t know yet. Something foreign. Cool and catchy. Something like … something American.’

  ‘So not “Gardar’s Pissers”?’ suggested Erlendur.

  Marteinn snorted with laughter. Gardar said there was no point talking to them. They’d be laughing on the other side of their faces when he rang them from sunny Mallorca once his business had taken off.

  They drove along Pósthússtræti, past the Reykjavík Pharmacy, and turned into the section of Austurstræti that was still open to traffic. Their reflection appeared in the shop windows, undulating from one to the next under the illuminated signs like a flickering film. Twice that night they had been summoned to deal with punch-ups; at one of the parties they’d arrested a drunk, who was spending the rest of the night in the cells.

  Just as they were leaving the centre of town, an alert came through about a domestic incident in the Bústadir district. Erlendur recognised the address immediately. He put his foot down and turned on the flashing lights, though there was no other traffic, and before they knew it they were storming along Miklabraut.

  ‘Weren’t we there not so long ago?’ asked Marteinn.

  ‘Yup,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Wasn’t the woman out cold on the floor?’ said Gardar.

  ‘Right again.’

  ‘What’s the matter with these people?’ Marteinn sighed.

  Erlendur accelerated but his path was soon blocked by two cars travelling side by side. When he switched on the siren, one of them pulled out of the way, and within a few minutes they had reached Bústadavegur. By then Erlendur had turned off the siren to avoid waking the residents. They parked in front of the house and saw the next-door neighbour waiting for them in his dressing gown at the kitchen window. As on the previous occasion, he was the one who had reported the disturbance. Seeing them climbing out of the van, he hurried to his front door.

  ‘It’s stopped now,’ he said. ‘Perhaps they’ve gone to bed. He was making a hell of a racket. Screaming at her like a maniac. I was frightened … I thought he was going to kill her. Otherwise they’ve been fairly quiet since last time. Maybe a bit of shouting once or twice but nothing much apart from that.’

  ‘When did the noise stop?’ asked Gardar.

  ‘Almost as soon as I’d called you. So … maybe it was a waste of time.’

  ‘Can’t be much fun living next door to this,’ said Marteinn.

  ‘Seriously, we’re thinking of moving. But he’s such a nice guy at other times. Works in the garden, chats to us and so on. I simply don’t get it.’

  No one answered the doorbell or when they knocked. Erlendur checked whether the door was locked and then made his way cautiously inside.

  ‘Police!’ he called, but received no reply.

  He called again, to no avail. By now they were all crowded into the entrance hall. A deathly silence reigned in the house. Heavy curtains covered the windows in the sitting room, which lay in semi-darkness. The kitchen door was closed and the passage empty. Erlendur remembered that the couple’s two sons had been sent to the country for the summer.

  ‘Hello, is anybody home?’ he shouted. ‘Police!’

  They listened and after a moment heard muffled sobbing coming from the sitting room. Erlendur followed the sound and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom he made out a figure rocking in a chair by the window. When he drew closer, he recognised her; it was the woman he had found l
ying unconscious on the floor last time.

  Gardar and Marteinn remained in the doorway; her husband was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Erlendur.

  The woman merely carried on her sobbing and rocking.

  ‘Where’s your husband?’ Erlendur knelt down beside her.

  She said nothing, and it was as if she could neither hear nor see him, as if she were alone in the world, alone with her thoughts. She sat hunched up in the chair, rhythmically swaying back and forth.

  Not until Erlendur touched her arm did she become aware of his presence. She flinched and turned her head to look at him. Only then did he see that she had been assaulted. One eye was masked by the swelling and bruising; her upper lip was puffy and split. Her nose had been bleeding too and her arm was obviously sore where he touched her. He wondered if it was broken. Beneath the new wounds the traces of older beatings were still apparent.

  ‘He always took care not to mark my face,’ she whispered into the gloom. ‘But the other day … and now, it just didn’t seem to matter any more.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘They gave him the sack,’ she murmured, so quietly that he could hardly hear her. ‘Said they were restructuring and … there was no room for him any more.’

  ‘Where’s your husband?’

  ‘So they gave him the boot.’

  It was as if she still couldn’t hear Erlendur.

  ‘He didn’t want it to show,’ she whispered. ‘Didn’t want people to know. Hit me where nobody could see. Even the boys. But they knew … they knew what was happening. They’re such sweet boys, both of them. He can be like that too, sometimes. He can be sweet.’

  Erlendur nodded.

  ‘But now he … he’s stopped caring,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter to him where he hits me.’

  ‘Do you feel up to coming with us or would you like us to call an ambulance?’

  ‘He doesn’t care any more.’

  She turned to face Erlendur again.

  ‘I must look terrible.’

  ‘We need to know where he is.’

  ‘Maybe I could go to my sister’s,’ the woman whispered. ‘I can’t live here any longer. Can’t stay in this house. She doesn’t know. I’ll have to talk to her. She … I’ve never told her. Or anyone. I’ve … no one…’

  ‘Do you feel up to coming with us?’ Erlendur repeated. ‘We can take you to Casualty. Can you stand?’

  ‘I can’t live here any longer,’ the woman said again. ‘The boys are coming home tomorrow and … God, they mustn’t … what am I to tell them?’

  ‘Perhaps you should talk to your sister,’ suggested Erlendur. ‘Do you know where your husband is?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your husband.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘In the kitchen here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘Lying on the floor.’

  ‘On the floor? Why?’

  ‘I think he’s dead,’ said the woman. ‘I washed the knife. It was all bloody. I hope that was all right.’

  Erlendur rose slowly to his feet and walked back to the doorway where Marteinn and Gardar were waiting.

  ‘Where’s the husband?’ asked Gardar.

  ‘In here.’ Erlendur opened the door to the kitchen. It was small; the harsh ceiling light illuminated the fridge and cooker, a round table and four chairs. On the floor by the sink lay the man who had been so reluctant to let them in last time. A large pool of blood had collected beneath him. It looked to Erlendur as if he had been stabbed at least three times in the stomach. The knife, newly washed, was lying on the draining board.

  The woman stood behind them, looking at her husband, who lay as she had left him.

  ‘I washed the knife,’ she repeated. ‘I hope that was all right. I must clean the floor as well. I must clean it before the boys come home.’

  Erlendur bent down and felt the man’s neck.

  ‘He’s still alive!’ he exclaimed, his fingers on the weak pulse. ‘He’s still alive. Call an ambulance. And a doctor. Now!’

  He grabbed a tea towel that was hanging by the sink, tore off the man’s shirt and did his best to stop the bleeding. Gardar and Marteinn were rooted to the spot, gaping horrified at the woman in the glare of the kitchen light. She stood beside them, abject, frail, her face disfigured by her husband’s fists. It was the most distressing sight they had ever seen.

  ‘Now!’ yelled Erlendur. ‘For Christ’s sake, call a doctor!’

  46

  They finished their shift and said goodbye in the station yard, still badly shaken from the last call-out of the night. Marteinn had his car and offered to give the others a lift home, but Erlendur said he would walk. He watched them drive out of the gate. The three of them had sat in the coffee lounge for a long time after they came off duty, talking about the woman, her husband and their two sons. About the violence that had gone on in their home, as it did in so many others. About the helplessness of the victims. The shame that must be associated with such incidents. The dirty family secrets.

  It looked as if the husband would live. He had lost a great deal of blood but the stab wounds had not proved fatal, and he had been taken straight to the operating theatre where he was now undergoing emergency surgery. The woman’s injuries had been treated in Casualty and she was being kept in hospital for further tests.

  ‘Can I get a bed?’ Erlendur heard a voice ask behind him, and turning, he saw that Vilhelm had stolen into the yard.

  ‘It’s not a hotel, you know.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Vilhelm.

  ‘I suppose you’d like breakfast in bed too?’

  ‘Wouldn’t mind.’ Vilhelm rolled his eyes behind the thick glasses. ‘Coffee and toast? I wouldn’t turn my nose up at that.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said Erlendur. ‘The cells are all empty apart from one where a prize moron’s sleeping it off. Tried to take a pop at us last night.’

  ‘Didn’t have much luck then.’

  ‘No.’

  He escorted Vilhelm down to the detention unit and showed him into one of the cells. The brothers, Ellert and Vignir, had both been transferred to Sídumúli. There was no sound from the idiot who’d ruined the party last night. Roaring drunk, he had kept swearing at them until finally he went for Gardar. Right now he was sleeping like a lamb but presently he would have to contend with an almighty hangover.

  Vilhelm thanked Erlendur for the favour and got himself ready for bed. He seemed utterly exhausted and grateful for a rest. As he carefully laid aside his broken glasses, Erlendur enquired what had happened to them.

  ‘That was Bergmundur.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Trod on them. Deliberately.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s a dickhead.’

  ‘Did he do it for a laugh?’

  ‘I said something about Thurí that got his goat.’

  ‘So he broke your glasses?’

  ‘He knows I’m blind as a bat without them,’ said Vilhelm. ‘He’s clever that way.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Attacking people’s weak points. He’s a mean bugger. I’ve often said so. In his hearing too. I’m not scared of him. Not scared of anyone.’

  Vilhelm lay down, and, leaving him to his rest, Erlendur went out the back of the police station into the morning sunshine. He decided to walk down to the seafront before heading home. It felt good to purge himself of the night’s sordid experiences, to breathe in the clean salty air and lift his eyes to the faraway horizon as he used to as a boy out east. He had grown up between the highlands, with their moors and mountains that could exact such a cruel price for the slightest mistake, and the fjord. He remembered the heavily laden boats coming in to land at the
little fishing village near his home, the swarm of gulls that attended them, the bustle on the quay, the shouts of the sailors. His mother had worked in the fish factory and he recalled the long shifts, the razor-sharp knives and the big women in their white aprons admonishing him not to get underfoot. He looked back with nostalgia, regretting that he no longer lived beside the sea.

  He had been standing for some time gazing at the sunbeams glittering on Faxaflói Bay, when his thoughts snagged on something Vilhelm had said, both on his last stay in the cells and again just now. He had referred to his stint in the heating conduit and to Bergmundur’s visit. Erlendur began to think about Thurí and why on earth Bergmundur would have broken Vilhelm’s glasses.

  ‘Wanted to help me…’ Erlendur whispered to himself.

  After brooding for a long while, eyes staring, unseeing, over the bay, he turned and walked back up to the police station.

  When he opened the door to the cell, Vilhelm was fast asleep. Erlendur prodded him, but the tramp was dead to the world. Erlendur had to grab hold of him and shake him before he finally began to surface. It took his sleep-fuddled brain some time to work out where he was and who was so insistent on rousing him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, sitting up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Erlendur, ‘but I have to ask you about something you told me yesterday.’

  ‘What … what’s that? Yesterday?’

  ‘Why didn’t Bergmundur want you to stay in the pipeline?’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘You told me yesterday that Bergmundur had been to see you. Around the time I ran into you there.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘You said he wanted to help you get a place at the Fever Hospital. That he didn’t want you to go on sleeping in the pipeline.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Wasn’t that rather strange?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bergmundur being concerned about you like that. Being so considerate. Wasn’t that unusual for him?’