Reykjavik Nights (6 page)

‘Don't worry, they'll take a look at him.'

‘No, I mean mentally. They'd better keep an eye on him.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He didn't fall.'

‘Oh?'

‘No, it wasn't like that. He did it on purpose. He jumped.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Sure! He was fighting me the whole time, begging me to let him go. Pleading with me to leave him to die.'

10

During their rare encounters Hannibal hadn't mentioned any relatives, and when Erlendur started asking around about the tramp, he learned that Hannibal never used to talk about his family or his former life. If anyone tried to draw him out he would get angry and accuse them of interfering.

Erlendur discovered in a roundabout way that Hannibal's sister was a married mother of three. She had gone back to work once her children had left home and was now a doctor's receptionist in Reykjavík. There was a brother too who was a building contractor up north in Akureyri, married, with no children. Both were sober, respectable citizens, from what Erlendur could ascertain; in fact the brother was an active member of his local temperance movement, perhaps in an attempt to compensate for Hannibal's lifestyle.

After giving it some thought, Erlendur decided to try to find out more about Hannibal's background from his sister. He rang the surgery, was put through, and, having introduced himself as an acquaintance of her brother's, asked if he could have a word.

‘What about?' she asked. He could hear a phone ringing in the background. Reception was obviously busy.

‘Your brother Hannibal.'

‘What about him?'

‘I –'

‘Why do you want to discuss him?' She sounded a little flustered. ‘Why are you asking me about Hannibal?'

‘I knew him slightly. Perhaps I could explain better if you'd spare a minute to meet me.'

‘No, you know what, I really don't have time.'

‘I'd be grateful if –'

‘Look, I'm afraid I don't have time, I've got to take this call.'

‘But –'

‘Sorry, but I'll have to hang up now. Thank you, goodbye.'

She cut him off.

Erlendur was surprised at this reaction but on reflection he guessed that she had taken him for one of her brother's homeless friends and wanted nothing to do with him. Perhaps he should have been more specific, explained who he was and the nature of his business, put more pressure on her to meet him. It dawned on him that he didn't actually know what his business was, or why he had this urge to learn Hannibal's backstory.

Why was he fixated on the fate of some poor tramp, whom he had, let's face it, only met a handful of times? Was it because he had been first on the scene and personally fished him out of the water that the image was etched on his brain? He had been shocked when he saw who it was, but he shouldn't have been all that surprised to come across Hannibal's body. It was bound to happen sooner or later. The man was in poor shape; after all, he had been living rough, in desperate straits, for years. And his mental state had not been much better. The last time they met, in a cell at the station, Hannibal had spoken of his misery and how he lacked the guts to end to it all.

Was it guilt pushing Erlendur to unearth everything he could about the man? Could he have done more for him, despite Hannibal's rejection of any help or sympathy? No one cared if a vagrant, who was on his last legs anyway, wound up dead. It just meant one less bum on the streets. No one else was asking questions about this man who had drowned like a stray dog. Even the tramp at the Fever Hospital, who had seemed sure that Hannibal's death was no accident, had been fairly flippant about his death.

Or could it be that Hannibal had touched a nerve when he exploded, accusing Erlendur of interfering, and demanded to know why he wouldn't leave him alone?

Whatever it was, something about Hannibal's sad story had captured Erlendur's imagination. His fate, yes, but also his dogged determination to withdraw from human society. Where had this need come from? What had caused it? Erlendur sympathised with his loneliness and mental anguish, and yet there was some element of his character – the uncompromising fact of his existence – that was also strangely alluring. The way he had set himself against life and stood, alone and untouchable, beyond all help.

Still lost in this reverie, Erlendur found himself at the doctor's surgery. It was nearly closing time and there were no more patients in the waiting room. A woman of about forty, with backcombed blonde hair, dressed in a green blouse, a tight skirt and a pretty pearl necklace, was tidying up in reception.

‘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.

‘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.