Reykjavik Nights Read online

  ‘Didn’t they call the fire brigade?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So there was no inquiry into what happened?’

  ‘No. Inquiry? What for? The brothers called me. There was no point in making a big deal out of it. But I didn’t want Hannibal living here any more in case he sent the whole place up in smoke, so I threw him out.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘Badly,’ said Frímann. ‘Swore blind he wasn’t to blame. That someone had done it deliberately – tried to bump him off.’

  ‘And who’s it supposed to have been?’

  ‘Who what?’

  ‘Started it.’

  ‘No one,’ said Frímann. ‘It was bullshit. The ravings of a drunk. He was trying to lie his way out of trouble, as usual. That’s all.’

  * * *

  Their shift was uneventful; a quiet Wednesday night in the city. As they drove west along Miklabraut, Gardar started on about food – or the lack of it – as he usually did when he was hungry.

  ‘For example, why are there no decent pizza places in Reykjavík?’ he asked in an aggrieved tone, as if it were the most ridiculous situation he’d ever heard of. An already thickening waistline testified to the amount of time he devoted to thinking about his stomach. Recently he had spent two weeks in the States with his parents, which had only intensified his obsession with fast food.

  ‘Isn’t there anywhere in town that sells them?’ asked Marteinn.

  ‘A “pisser” place?’ said Erlendur. ‘Do you mean those Italian pies?’

  ‘Pies…? No, seriously,’ said Gardar. ‘It’s hard enough even to find somewhere that does burgers and fries. There are only maybe a couple of places. I’m telling you, it’s so backward.’

  ‘There used to be an all-night truckstop at Geitháls,’ pointed out Marteinn.

  ‘They did pretty good sheep’s heads,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘With mashed swede,’ added Marteinn.

  ‘This is exactly what I’m talking about. What kind of takeaway is that? Mashed swede! Anyway, Geitháls is miles away. Why don’t they get their act together here in town?’

  ‘I quite liked Geitháls,’ said Erlendur with a smile.

  ‘Who buys sheep’s heads at a drive-in?’ asked Gardar indignantly. ‘We need burger joints and proper pizza places. A bit of culture! If I had the money I’d open one myself. God, I’d make a killing.’

  ‘On “pissers”?’ said Erlendur. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Pizzas, Erlendur! At least try to say it right. Fast food tastes great and it’s incredibly convenient. Cheap too. Saves you the bother of having to cook haddock and boiled potatoes all the time. And you don’t have to go to a smart restaurant like Naustid. The Yanks have got it sorted. They get their pizzas delivered to them at home. You don’t even need to go to the restaurant. You just ring and order everything you want and they send it round.’

  An alert came over the radio: a man had been found lying beside the road near Nauthólsvík cove. They responded that they were in the area, and Gardar switched on the flashing lights. They arrived to find a patrol car already there and an ambulance just pulling up. A middle-aged couple walking to Nauthólsvík had spotted the man lying face down in the grass about three metres from the roadside. He had not reacted when they called out to him and, on taking a closer look, they had realised he must be dead, so they had hurried over to Hótel Loftleidir and reported their discovery.

  The ambulance turned out to be unnecessary as the man was indeed dead and had been for some time. A hearse was sent for instead. All the evidence suggested that he had collapsed where he was found. There were no signs of a fight, no visible injuries; the grass nearby had not been flattened. The man had simply clutched at his chest with both hands and crumpled where he stood. The doctor who was called to the scene gave a provisional verdict of heart attack.

  The body was that of a homeless man who had found temporary refuge in a dilapidated Second World War Nissen hut in Nauthólsvík. Erlendur recognised him straight away, though he couldn’t remember his name. A few days earlier they had spoken briefly outside the Fever Hospital. This was the man who had claimed that Hannibal was deliberately drowned in Kringlumýri.

  Erlendur identified him by the thick winter coat and hat, the filthy hands, and, when they turned him over to carry him to the hearse, the lines chiselled in his face, deep as the crevasses in an ice cap.

  * * *

  The cellar door had been fitted with a new padlock. No lights showed on the floor above. A small notice stuck in the window read: For sale. Erlendur took hold of the padlock: it had been snapped shut. Abandoning it, he went in search of a gap to squeeze through and eventually managed to force open a small window round the back of the house. It was dark inside but Erlendur had brought along a little torch and its feeble glow lit up the walls.

  Frímann had done a thorough job of clearing out the rubbish. The cellar was nearly empty and the floor had been swept: it looked almost presentable.

  Erlendur directed the torch beam at the area by the door and hunted for clues as to how the fire could have started. There was no mains supply or fuse box down there, only the wire to the overhead light by the entrance, so it was unlikely that an electrical fault had been the cause. Judging by the soot on the walls and ceiling beams, there must have been quite a blaze by the time the brothers from next door had arrived to put it out.

  Erlendur ran his hand over the soot marks and tapped the tinder-dry wood. Presumably it was too late now to establish how the fire had started and spread to the beams. Although Hannibal had denied all responsibility, he may not have been sober enough to remember.

  But if Hannibal were to be believed, some other person had been at work, had lifted the latch, pushed open the cellar door, tiptoed a foot or two inside and held a candle flame to the litter on the floor. It would have taken no time at all to ignite the rubbish then slip away.

  But what would have been the point? Did the perpetrator know Hannibal was in there? Was the intention to kill him? Or did the arson have nothing whatsoever to do with Hannibal? The cellar was an easy target with its timber partitions and thick wooden beams. If the neighbours had not spotted the blaze straight away, the house would have been reduced to ashes in the blink of an eye.

  The brothers had assumed that the candle stub must have rolled into the doorway from Hannibal’s lair. But Erlendur hadn’t noticed any candles there on his previous visits.

  The second time he had escorted Hannibal back to his cellar, Erlendur had been on the beat in town and had run into the tramp on Hafnarstræti, not far from his home. Hannibal had looked rougher than ever, limping and battered, so Erlendur went over and asked if he was all right.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Clearly Hannibal wanted nothing to do with the cops.

  ‘You’re limping,’ Erlendur pointed out. ‘Let me help you.’

  The other man stared at him bemused, as if unused to such kindness.

  ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’

  ‘I accompanied you home from Arnarhóll the other day. You were lying under the Tin.’

  ‘Oh, that was you, was it, mate?’ said Hannibal. ‘Did I ever thank you properly?’

  ‘Yes, you did. Are you on your way home now?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘Give us a hand then, would you?’ said Hannibal. ‘There’s something wrong with my leg. You haven’t by any chance got any booze on you?’

  ‘No. Come on, I’ll take you. It’s not far.’

  ‘A few krónur, then?’

  Erlendur took his arm, walked him home and saw him safely inside to his mattress. Hannibal kept pestering him for a drink or some spare change, and eventually Erlendur slipped him a few coins. Feeling the tramp’s frozen fingers, he asked if he had any means of warming himself down there – a candle even.

  ‘No,’ Hannibal had answered flatly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m scared to death I’ll burn the bloody house down.’

  13
r />   The name of the tramp found in Nauthólsvík turned out to be Ólafur. The post-mortem had confirmed the cause of death as a heart attack and the police saw no reason to treat the circumstances as suspicious. His closest relative was an elder sister who lived in the countryside and had not been in touch with him for years. She had requested that his body be sent to her for burial in the family plot.

  During his conversation with Erlendur outside the Fever Hospital, Ólafur had mentioned one of Hannibal’s acquaintances, Bergmundur, who had recently fallen off the wagon and could usually be found hanging out in Austurvöllur Square. Not having come across this Bergmundur before, Erlendur wasn’t having much luck as he wandered round town in search of him. The weather was perfect, sunny and still, and the streets were teeming with shoppers. On fine days like this boozers and vagrants gathered to lounge on the benches in the square, knocking back meths, illegally distilled spirits with a variety of mixers, or cardamom extract, basking in the warmth and bickering among themselves or shouting insults at passers-by. If there was a woman among their ranks, she would generally be forced to defend her virtue with foul-mouthed vitriol.

  Erlendur raised his eyes to the statue of the independence hero Jón Sigurðsson, who stood in the middle of the square, back turned to the outcasts. He wondered if that’s how Jón really would have felt about them and smiled at the thought, though in fact he did not believe the man had been a snob. In the grassy hollow behind the statue sat a disreputable-looking young man with a downy beard, wearing a peasant smock, Jesus sandals and a huge pair of what Erlendur took to be women’s sunglasses.

  ‘Seen Bergmundur around?’ Erlendur asked casually, as if he were well acquainted with this crowd.

  ‘Bergmundur?’ repeated the young man, turning the outsize shades towards him.

  ‘Yes, he’s back on the booze.’ It was all Erlendur knew about the man.

  ‘Bergmundur, you mean? He was in town yesterday.’

  ‘Seen him today at all?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Was he dry for long?’

  ‘No, not long; didn’t last,’ said the young man, as if it had been a foregone conclusion.

  ‘Know where I can find him?’

  ‘He lives with a couple of other guys in a condemned house on Hverfisgata.’

  Out of the corner of his eye Erlendur spotted an old friend of the law, a thug and small-time crook called Ellidi. He was mixed up in alcohol smuggling and other minor-league stuff, including burglary, and had also served time at Litla-Hraun for grievous bodily harm. With him was a man Erlendur didn’t recognise. He watched them walking from bench to bench as if searching for someone. Ellidi took a swig from a bottle that he kept inside his jacket, then passed it round. He made a comment and brayed with raucous laughter at his own joke.

  ‘He hangs out on Arnarhóll too sometimes, under the Tin,’ added the young man with the sunglasses.

  Ellidi, catching sight of Erlendur, stopped dead and stared at him. They had already crossed paths twice since Erlendur had joined the police. On the first occasion a fight had been reported at a house in the Breidholt district. Ellidi had put a man in hospital, but the victim had refused to press charges on the grounds that it was his own fault. Ellidi had merely been detained overnight at Hverfisgata. Later Erlendur learned that the victim had owed Ellidi money for a consignment of alcohol. On the second occasion, he and his fellow officers had picked Ellidi up for speeding in the vicinity of the container harbour at Sundahöfn. He had tried to make a break for it but they had pulled him over and found a hundred and fifty cartons of American cigarettes and several gallons of American vodka in his car. Ellidi, who was drunk and high at the time, had first threatened to kill them all, then decked Marteinn. At that point reinforcements had arrived, and they overpowered Ellidi, but only after a considerable struggle.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t the country bumpkin,’ Ellidi said now with a smirk as he approached. He was big and brawny; his lower lip was swollen and he had a plaster over one eye. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Erlendur could smell the spirits on his breath. Ellidi brandished the bottle in his face.

  ‘Looking for a drink, are you?’ he sneered. ‘There’s more where this comes from, if you’re interested.’

  ‘He was asking questions about Bergmundur,’ said the man with the sunglasses, rising to his feet, his gaze fixed on the bottle.

  ‘Bergmundur? What do you want with him? Has he been a bad boy?’

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Wasn’t he on the wagon?’ asked Ellidi.

  ‘Just fallen off,’ said the young man with the shades.

  Ellidi handed him the bottle. ‘Seen Holberg around?’

  ‘No,’ said the young man, taking a long pull.

  ‘Grétar?’

  ‘No, haven’t seen him either.’ He took another large gulp.

  Ellidi snatched the bottle back.

  ‘Hey, don’t hold back, shithead.’ He gave the young man a violent shove.

  ‘I was supposed to meet them here,’ Ellidi announced to Erlendur. ‘If you think I’m a fucking head-case, you should meet Holberg. Grétar and him … they make a lovely couple.’

  This last comment was accompanied by a low, rasping laugh. Erlendur moved on and, watching his progress, Ellidi cackled again.

  ‘Country bumpkin!’ he shouted. ‘Sheep shagger!’

  Erlendur finally found Bergmundur up by the Swedish fish factory. A group of men were sitting with their backs to the perimeter fence, soaking up the sunshine, sharing a bottle they had managed to get hold of and puffing away. One had stripped off his shirt, his corpse-like pallor blindingly white in the sun.

  Erlendur asked if they knew where Bergmundur was. At this, one of them spoke up, saying he was Bergmundur and wanting to know who was asking. He was middle-aged, fairly robust, and looked marginally less disreputable than his companions. Erlendur shook his hand and asked if they could have a word in private. The man had no objection, so he walked with Erlendur to the benches by the statue of Ingólfur Arnarson, Iceland’s first settler. They took a seat overlooking the centre of town. Bergmundur pulled out a bottle of meths and took a slug.

  ‘That was the last of them,’ he remarked. ‘They’re reluctant to sell it to us at the chemist’s nowadays. They’d only let me buy one bottle at the shop on Laugavegur. One per chemist, that’s the new rule. You have to traipse all over town to get enough.’

  ‘Did you know Ólafur – the bloke who died the other day?’ asked Erlendur. ‘He used to bunk down in an old Nissen hut in Nauthólsvík.’

  ‘Óli a friend of yours, was he?’ Bergmundur screwed the cap back on the meths and returned it to his pocket. ‘Didn’t think he had any.’

  ‘I ran into him recently and he told me you used to know Hannibal.’

  ‘Sure, I knew Hannibal. He drowned last year. But maybe you already knew that?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Do you remember when his cellar caught fire? It was shortly before he died.’

  ‘Got him kicked out.’

  ‘Yes, the owner thought it was his fault.’

  ‘Maybe he was right,’ said Bergmundur. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘What did Hannibal think happened?’

  ‘That someone else started it – he was clear about that. Whether it was true, I don’t know.’

  ‘Who’s supposed to have done it?’

  ‘They’d sell more to you,’ Bergmundur said, digressing.

  ‘More what?’

  ‘Bottles.’ He dug out the methylated spirits again.

  ‘You mean you want me to buy you meths?’

  ‘You can buy five at a time if you want. You’re no alky.’

  ‘Do you have the money?’

  ‘Thought you might shell out for a few bottles. Five would do the trick.’

  ‘Did Hannibal tell you who started the fire?’

  ‘He had his suspicions.’

  ‘But did he know the culprit? Was it someone he hung around
with? Another tramp, for example?’

  ‘Culprits, you mean. And they weren’t tramps.’

  ‘So there was more than one person?’

  ‘He reckoned it was the brothers next door.’

  ‘The brothers next door…?’

  ‘Don’t know their names or anything,’ said Bergmundur. ‘All I know is that there were two brothers who lived next door. He insisted they’d started the fire and then blamed it on him.’

  Erlendur thought of the couple who had lived upstairs from Hannibal. They had heard the same story: that the brothers were behind the arson.

  ‘Reckon you could go to the chemist for me?’ Bergmundur persevered.

  ‘Why would they have wanted to burn down the cellar? Did Hannibal have any idea?’

  ‘A few bottles and we’ll be quits. Five’ll do.’

  ‘Quits? I don’t owe you anything.’

  ‘Yeah, well, have it your way.’ Bergmundur made as if to leave. ‘I can’t be doing with this. You’ll just have to find some other sucker to answer your questions.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Erlendur impatiently. ‘I’ll go to the chemist for you. Keep your hair on.’

  ‘They wanted to get rid of him. Used to complain about him to the owner, who was a friend of Hannibal’s and let him sleep there. The brothers wanted him gone. According to Hannibal, anyway. He said he never even dared keep matches down there. Too scared. The brothers set fire to some junk by the door while he was asleep, then pretended they’d saved the day. They wanted Hannibal thrown out there and then, so the owner gave him his marching orders.’

  ‘Did he have any proof of this?’

  ‘Proof! What are you talking about? Proof?’

  ‘I mean –’

  ‘Hannibal was sure,’ said Bergmundur firmly. ‘There was no one else in the picture. You think he went out and bought a magnifying glass? Hunted for clues like a bloody detective?’

  ‘When did he tell you this?’

  ‘Shortly before he died. We were sat up here by the Tin. Hannibal was positive. I reckon they were out to get him and succeeded in the end. Wouldn’t surprise me.’