Reykjavik Nights

24

After meeting Rebekka, Erlendur headed towards the hostel on Amtmannsstígur. Thurí was not in, nor did he see the three women who had been playing Ludo last time. It turned out that Thurí had not been by for several days, but as far as the warden was aware she was still sober.

Erlendur asked two residents if they knew Thurí or had any news of her. Neither could help. One remembered something about her renting a room with another woman in the west end, but didn’t know the address.

Erlendur walked down to Austurvöllur. A few drinkers had congregated on the benches in the square, screwing up their eyes against the afternoon sun. They varied in age, shabbiness and degrees of intoxication. The youngest was about twenty; long hair, muscular build, the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt revealing tattoos running up his arms. The eldest, clad in a thick, traditional Icelandic jumper, was a frail, bearded, toothless old man. The rest were somewhere on the spectrum between youth and decrepitude. When Erlendur turned up to disturb the peace, they were variously baking in the sun, talking with their neighbours or quietly watching the world go by with knowing expressions.

‘Any of you seen Thurí?’ he asked on the off chance that they might be familiar with the name.

The men appeared for the most part indifferent. But a couple looked up and squinted at him.

‘Who are you?’

‘I need to find her,’ said Erlendur. ‘Any chance you might know where she is?’

‘Thurí who?’ said the young man with the tattoos.

‘She was staying at the hostel on Amtmannsstígur,’ said Erlendur. ‘But she’s gone.’

‘You shagging her then?’ asked the tattooed man.

His companions sniggered. Their interest roused, they watched Erlendur intently.

Erlendur smiled. A troublemaker, he thought.

‘Nope, I just need to get in touch with her.’

‘To shag her?’ the young man persisted.

He was in his element. The older men sitting around him laughed.

‘Do you know where she is?’ asked Erlendur, addressing them instead.

‘Hey, talk to me,’ said the young man, rising to his feet. ‘Why are you asking them? What’s with you and this Thurí anyway? You together or what? She cheating on you? Doesn’t want to shag you any more?’

Erlendur looked him up and down and concluded that he must be high. His eyes were bulging.

‘Reckon I saw her earlier,’ the young man said. ‘She was screwing Stebbi here.’ He pointed at the toothless old man.

There was a chorus of guffawing. The young man jabbed a finger at Erlendur.

‘Why don’t you fuck off?’ he said. ‘And leave us alone. Before I deck you.’

‘You’re not going to deck anyone.’

‘Oh, yeah? Want to bet? Eh?’

‘Take it easy.’

‘Take it easy yourself.’ The man lunged at him. If Erlendur hadn’t been ready, the blow would have caught him right on the jaw. But he danced on his toes and dodged the punch as his training came into play. The young man’s fist met thin air. Fear of losing face in front of his comrades made him even angrier, but as he was bracing himself to take another swing at Erlendur, the man gasped from a heavy blow to his stomach, followed immediately by a second. Two powerful strikes in a row, just as Erlendur had learned to aim at the punch bag, and the man collapsed to his knees, doubled up, gripping his stomach and gasping helplessly. Erlendur steadied him to make sure he didn’t fall flat on his face.

‘So none of you know her?’ he said calmly to the men who had been watching the abrupt end to the hostilities.

‘I do,’ announced the toothless man, eyeing his friend, who was still struggling for breath. ‘Haven’t seen her for ages though. Reckon she must have dried out. Friend of hers runs Póllinn. Name’s Svana. You could try asking after Thurí there.’

‘I’ll do that.’

The others came forward to tend to the winded man, but he shoved them away, watching resentfully as Erlendur walked off down Pósthússtræti.

Erlendur was familiar with Póllinn, ‘The Pole’. It was a pub for hardened drinkers, run by a buxom woman who had once lived in Copenhagen’s notorious Christiania district. She liked to side with her regulars, calling them customers when others labelled them scum. They included homeless men like Hannibal, the women from the hostel and the men who lined the benches of Austurvöllur Square.

The place was empty when Erlendur put his head round the door. He wasn’t even sure it was open, but he caught sight of the owner bending down behind the bar, shifting crates of clinking bottles.

‘Svana?’

The woman looked up from her task.

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m told you know Thurí and might be able to tell me where to find her.’

‘And you are?’

‘I spoke to her at the hostel on Amtmannsstígur a couple of days ago and need to get a message to her.’

‘It’s a while since she’s been in.’ Svana returned to shifting crates. ‘She’s on the wagon. Doesn’t show her face in here when she’s off the booze.’

‘I heard she rented a place on Brádrædisholt. Would you happen to know it?’

‘Why do you need to see her?’

‘It’s personal.’

‘Are you a relative?’

Erlendur thought quickly. Lying would be the simplest option given that the excuse had been handed to him on a plate. The alternative would be sharing information that was none of Svana’s business.

‘Yes.’

‘Poor Thurí. She’s a nice girl but a hopeless alky. I was so pleased when I heard she was trying to quit. She’s tried so often but always ends up back on the bottle. It’s like some demon just takes over. She lives near the fishery. On Brádrædisholt, by the football ground. Tell her I said hi. Hope things are working out for her. Hope she hasn’t lapsed again.’

Having got the house number from Svana, Erlendur tracked Thurí down to a basement room in a two-storey building with bare concrete walls. The room had its own entrance, facing a garden that had completely gone to seed. When Erlendur tapped on the door he was surprised to find it open a crack. Muffled groans were coming from inside. Worried that Thurí might be in trouble, he pushed the door open.

It was more of a broom cupboard than a room, full of rubbish Thurí had accumulated. Old clothes, food containers and plastic bags cluttered the floor. There was a shopping trolley in one corner. The only pieces of furniture were an old armchair and a stained divan bed on which Thurí was now lying, trying to neck a bottle of meths, while Bergmundur, still wearing his filthy coat, was pounding away on top of her, raising loud groans of protest from the springs.