Reykjavik Nights

41

As was their custom, Erlendur met Rebekka after work, in front of the surgery on Lækjargata. While they were walking towards the lake, he told her about meeting Oddný’s friends and about his conversations with Ísidór and Gústaf.

‘Gústaf’s reaction was the strangest,’ he said. ‘He used to hit Oddný, and it’s obvious she was looking for a way out. He did confirm that the earring was hers but when I pressed him further, he refused to talk to me and kicked me out. Though that doesn’t necessarily tell us anything. Maybe I went too far and made him angry. After all, he had a perfect right ask me to leave.’

Erlendur went on to describe his visit to CID and his discussion with the detective in charge of Oddný’s case. How they’d had her husband in their sights but had been unable to find any evidence against him. For that they required a body, a murder weapon and a clear motive. Her former lover Ísidór had also been a suspect, but they had concluded that suicide was by far the most likely explanation.

They sat down on a bench on Tjarnargata, facing east across the lake to the church and school. The weather was warm, as it had been for most of the summer, one sunny day succeeding another. Rebekka listened without comment. She wore a pair of fashionably large sunglasses and was tastefully dressed, as always, in a pale summer jacket and fetching silk blouse.

‘What about Hannibal?’ she asked finally.

‘They’re not interested in him,’ said Erlendur. ‘They’re treating them as two completely separate incidents.’

‘Did you tell them about the earring?’

‘I decided it wouldn’t do any harm to wait a bit longer. A few days, no more. It’s going to be increasingly difficult for me to come up with an excuse for not alerting CID straight away.’

‘So they haven’t linked Oddný and Hannibal at all?’

‘No.’

‘But they will do the moment you show them the earring.’

‘Yes.’

Rebekka gave a quiet sigh.

‘And Hannibal will be seen as the monster who murdered her.’

‘They might well think that, but they’ll still have to explain how and why he died. They’ll have to realise that there’s a chance he got mixed up in events that had nothing to do with him and lost his life as a result.’

They sat for a long while, warmed by the sun, listening to the rumble of the city and the honking of the birds on the water. People strolled along Tjarnargata in the sunshine. They could hear car horns in the distance above the roar of the traffic, and, further away, a police siren wailed. A crash, Erlendur thought, and hoped it was not serious.

‘Tell me, how did Hannibal himself describe the accident in Hafnarfjördur?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s just that I heard something he’d said to someone else. You said he didn’t like to talk about it?’

‘No,’ said Rebekka. ‘That’s an understatement. He wouldn’t discuss it at all. Not with anyone, as far as I know. What did you hear?’

‘Stands to reason, with an experience that traumatic, that he wouldn’t have talked about it to just anyone, only those closest to him.’

‘I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at,’ said Rebekka.

‘Have you ever heard of a woman called Thurí?’

‘Thurí? No, I don’t think so.’

‘She was a friend of Hannibal’s, another alcoholic.’

‘Oh?’

‘She’s the woman I told you about, who found Oddný’s earring in the conduit. After he died she went to pay a last visit to his camp and discovered the earring by chance under one of the pipes, but didn’t tell anyone. Not until I met her. She hadn’t stopped to wonder why it was there. It didn’t bother her. She just kept it and later traded it for booze.’

‘And she was a friend of Hannibal’s?’

Nodding, Erlendur explained how he had tracked Thurí down to the hostel on Amtmannsstígur. He didn’t know the precise nature of their relationship but it must have been intimate because Hannibal had apparently confided in her to some degree. Nor did he know how their friendship had developed in the first place. Thurí had quite a temper on her and spent time with other drinkers. It was possible she used them to procure booze, pills or whatever she needed. But her heart seemed to be in the right place and she was clever. Beyond this, all Erlendur knew was that she dreamt of travelling and had devised a rather novel method of making her dream come true.

‘It’s the first I’ve heard of her,’ said Rebekka.

‘Once, when Hannibal was “gentle”, as she put it, he started talking about the accident.’

‘Gentle?’

‘That’s right.’

‘If he was prepared to open up like that, they must have been close.’

‘I get the impression they were good friends. It might help you to meet her, if she feels like talking to you.’

‘But do you know what... what he told her? About the accident?’

Erlendur sensed she was apprehensive, unsure that she wanted to dwell any further on an event that had dogged her all her life and had shattered her family, her brother most of all. Erlendur phrased his answer with care, stressing his ignorance of what Thurí meant when she described Hannibal as gentle. Possibly he had been a little drunk, but the word might also have meant that he was in a tender mood. That he had opened up to Thurí when his guard was down. Whatever the circumstances, he had told her that he had intended to save them both. He had gone to free Helena but she had known they couldn’t both survive and waved him away, gesturing to him to put his little sister first. So Helena had in all likelihood sacrificed herself for Rebekka.

‘Apparently he claimed that Helena smiled at him, but for some reason Thurí didn’t set much store by that. She had the impression it was a detail Hannibal had invented for himself. She also stressed that this was the only time he spoke to her about the accident.’

Rebekka sat quietly beside him as he repeated Thurí’s words.

‘Did you know?’ Erlendur asked, turning to her.

She sat deathly still on the bench. Observing her puckered lips and the tears pouring from under the outsize sunglasses, he realised he needn’t have asked. It was the first time she had heard it. He was furious with himself for opening old wounds. He, of all people, should have understood.

‘I expect he did,’ Rebekka said at last, very quietly.

‘Did what?’

‘Invent it. The bit about her smiling.’

Erlendur could sense her pain.

‘He loved his Helena,’ she said. ‘More than anything else in the world.’