Reykjavik Nights (3 page)

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 how 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.'

‘Do you know if he had, or if there was anyone who might have wanted to harm him?'

Vilhelm stared at Erlendur through the thick lenses.

‘What do you want to know for?' His shoulders shook with another coughing fit.

‘No particular reason.'

‘Come on.'

‘No, honest.'

‘You reckon maybe he didn't drown all on his own?'

‘What do you think?'

‘I haven't the foggiest.' Vilhelm rose to his feet and flexed his back, then came and sat down next to Erlendur on the casing. ‘You couldn't spare a little change?'

‘What do you want it for?'

‘Tobacco. That's all.'

Erlendur took out two fifty-króna pieces. ‘That's all I have on me.'

‘Thanks.' Vilhelm was quick to palm them. ‘That'll do for one packet. Did you know a bottle of vodka's getting on for two thousand krónur these days? I reckon the lot who run this country have lost the plot. Totally lost the plot.'

‘The pools down there aren't very deep,' Erlendur remarked, returning to his theme.

Vilhelm coughed into his gloves. ‘Deep enough.'

‘You'd have to be pretty determined to drown in one, though.'

‘I couldn't say.'

‘Or drunk,' Erlendur persisted. ‘They found a fair amount of alcohol in his blood.'

‘Oh, Hannibal could drink all right. Christ!'

‘Do you remember who he was hanging around with most before he died?'

‘Not with me, at any rate,' Vilhelm replied. ‘Hardly knew him. But I spotted him a couple of times at the Fever Hospital. In fact, that's the last place I saw him; he was trying to get a bed but they said he was drunk.'

No more information was forthcoming. He said he was planning to spend at least one more night by the pipes, then he would see. Erlendur tried to dissuade him, asking if it was really his only option. At this hint of interference, Vilhelm told him to bloody well leave him alone. Erlendur left after that. He was pursued by the sound of coughing as he stepped up onto the conduit and followed it west through the light arctic night as far as Öskjuhlíd, before jumping down and heading home to Hlídar.

Hannibal had no doubt tested the limits of the shelter's ban on alcohol more than once. Perhaps that was why he had taken refuge in the pipeline at last, an outcast, free from all interference, removed from human society.

6

Towards the end of their shift Erlendur, Marteinn and Gardar were sent to escort a runaway prisoner back to jail at Litla-Hraun. Two days earlier the fugitive, who was serving a two-and-a-halfyear sentence for drug smuggling, had felt the urge to nip into town and had escaped without much effort. Although only twenty-five, he was well known to the police in connection with drugs, alcohol smuggling, theft and forgery. At twenty he had spent several months inside for a series of burglaries. Subsequently, he had been caught with a significant quantity of cannabis at Keflavík Airport, high as a kite after four days in Amsterdam. The customs officials had him on a watch list but they would have stopped this gangly hippy, with his beard and long hair, anyway. It transpired that he had hardly even bothered to hide his stash. The goods were wrapped in a pair of jeans inside a brand-new sports bag.

After his latest escapade, he had given himself up at the police station on Hverfisgata, and now Erlendur and company ushered him out to the van. The man was garrulous; he must have got hold of something good before handing himself in.

‘Why did you run away?' asked Marteinn as they drove out of town.

‘It was my mum's birthday. The old girl's fifty!'

‘Was it a big do?' asked Gardar.

‘Yeah, hell of a party, man. Loads of booze.'

‘Was she pleased to see you?' asked Marteinn.