Reykjavik Nights

27

The night was unusually hectic. They were called out to an altercation at a residential address, followed by another in front of a bar; then they stopped three motorists for speeding. One turned out to be a teenager without a licence, who was driving a stolen car and drunk into the bargain. They had noticed the car’s erratic progress along Miklabraut and sped off after him, lights flashing. The teenager had tried to make a break for it, skidding onto the Breidholt road, where he floored the accelerator. The car, however, was an ageing Cortina with a tiny engine, so they had no trouble overtaking and forcing him to pull over. The boy leapt out and raced south towards Kópavogur. Marteinn was the fastest. With a resigned sigh, he set off after the boy and eventually caught up with him. The boy swore at them as they drove him to the City Hospital for a blood test. With that, the incident was considered closed. As it was a first offence, there were no grounds for keeping him in custody overnight. The owner of the car had been informed but did not wish to press charges against the ‘young fool’. After all, his vehicle wasn’t damaged and he hadn’t even been aware it was missing until the police woke him with the news.

The boy’s father, on the other hand, was so apoplectic that they had to pacify him before releasing the boy into his care.

‘You’re nothing but bloody trouble,’ the father said, shoving his son out of the police station ahead of him.

Erlendur had been even more taciturn than usual that night and as they came off duty Gardar asked if he was all right. Erlendur had not confided in them, or indeed anyone else apart from Rebekka, about his private investigation.

‘All right? Of course.’ All night long he had been puzzling over the fate of the woman from Thórskaffi.

‘There’s something on your mind,’ insisted Gardar.

‘No, there isn’t.’

‘Are Marteinn and I really so boring?’

‘Well, you’re not exactly scintillating company.’

His companions chuckled. They parted outside the station and Erlendur made his way home in the morning sunshine, his mind still preoccupied with a succession of images: Hannibal, the earring, the house in Fossvogur that the missing woman had shared with her husband, her route home from Thórskaffi and what had happened on the way. He couldn’t begin to fathom the implications of her earring turning up in Hannibal’s camp just before he died. The woman had disappeared and Hannibal had drowned the same weekend, yet no one had thought to connect the two incidents, least of all Erlendur himself. They were two completely unrelated events. In fact, so much emphasis had been placed on finding the woman that the inquiry into Hannibal’s death had been brushed aside, as it appeared to be straightforward and not at all urgent.

Erlendur knew he shouldn’t read too much into the coincidence. Not as things stood. It was more likely that the husband had bought the earring for his wife than for another woman, such as his mother or sister — or even a mistress, if he had one. But that didn’t mean his wife had lost it the night she vanished. Living as she did within walking distance of the pipeline, she may well have passed it on a regular basis. There was every chance she’d dropped the earring another time and Hannibal had picked it up.

Alternatively, the woman might have walked along the pipeline one last time before deciding to take her own life. It was not far to Fossvogur or Skerjafjördur, where she could have waded into the sea. The earring could have slipped off without her noticing and fallen into a gap in the casing before she even set off on her final journey. In which case her disappearance and Hannibal’s demise were completely unconnected.

A further possibility was that Hannibal, or a friend who visited him, had found the piece of jewellery somewhere else entirely and later dropped it in the tunnel.

Only after running through all the permutations he could think of did Erlendur permit himself to visualise what might have happened if, after leaving Thórskaffi, the woman had encountered Hannibal. As far as he knew, they were not acquainted; indeed it was hard to imagine any circumstances in which they could have got to know each other. She had mentioned wanting to walk home to clear her head. One route she might have taken passed the pipeline. Something could have happened which caused her earring to fall off. In this version of events, she would have needed to be near Hannibal’s makeshift home, if not actually inside it.

Was it conceivable that he could have harmed her?

Erlendur was reluctant to pursue the thought to its logical conclusion. After all, the woman might have run into someone else and had an argument; perhaps it had turned violent and she had lost her earring and ultimately her life. Hannibal may never have seen the woman, let alone witnessed her fate.

Erlendur wrestled with the problem, repeatedly contradicting himself, until in the end he decided there was nothing for it but to go up to the pipeline again. First, however, he went home to pick up a powerful torch. Then he walked up to Öskjuhlíd, where he clambered onto the conduit and followed it east.

He saw no sign of Vilhelm, the previous occupant. No doubt he had found somewhere better to sleep. His litter remained, though: empty plastic bags, bottles and meths containers. The grass was still flattened around the entrance but the place was clearly deserted. Even the feral cats had gone.

Erlendur lowered himself to the ground, switched on the torch and eased his way inside. A faint warmth emanated from the pipes. The daylight did not extend much beyond the opening: the dark tunnel stretched out on either side, winding its way through miles of countryside. The rough concrete walls were at least a metre high and topped with a series of convex slabs, each three metres long, their joins sealed with mortar. Even a man of Erlendur’s size could fit between the pipes and the wall, and lie there with his back to the warmth if he so desired.

He shone the torch into the gloom to his left, the section that originated in the Mosfell valley, but could see nothing but pipes. The same went for the right-hand side, which ran back towards Öskjuhlíd. It was here, close to the entrance, that Hannibal had set up camp and where Vilhelm too had been sleeping when Erlendur encountered him. Thurí had found the earring under one of the pipes. Trying to master his sense of dread, Erlendur forced himself to crawl what felt like an interminable distance into the tunnel, first on one side, then on the other, looking for further traces of the woman from Thórskaffi.

It was a relief to emerge into the open air: he did not like narrow, enclosed spaces. Outside, he inspected the grass around the entrance, systematically widening the search area.

All he found was a golf ball, half buried in the turf. He doubted that it dated back to the time of the golf club. More likely it was recent; he recalled that the boy he met that evening in Kringlumýri had mentioned someone from Hvassaleiti practising there.

Pocketing the ball, he headed for home. It was mid morning and as so often that summer the sky was cloudless. He had done his best to reject the idea that Hannibal might have met the missing woman, but there was no getting away from the fact: Hannibal had been living in the pipeline when she vanished. And an earring, almost certainly hers, had turned up there.

It was not difficult to put two and two together.

Hard as it was to accept, Erlendur could not entirely dismiss the possibility that Hannibal was responsible for the woman’s disappearance. He no longer knew how to proceed. Should he inform CID of his discoveries? Or would it be premature?

He hurried home wondering what on earth to do. In his mind’s eye he saw Hannibal: on the bench in the square, propped half-frozen against the corrugated-iron fence on Arnarhóll, in the cellar. A crazy tramp. And there was the accident in Hafnarfjördur, the death of his wife. Could he have been blind drunk or off his head on drugs when the woman from Thórskaffi crossed his path?

Erlendur could not rule it out.

It was a relief that he had found no further evidence in the tunnel. The enormity of it was too horrible to contemplate: that Hannibal might have seen the woman passing and dragged her inside, never to escape.

At least he had not left her body in the tunnel: Erlendur had made certain of that.

His last conversation with Hannibal now came back to him: he had talked of his misery. Had Hannibal been on the edge? Should Erlendur have realised then that he might be a danger to himself and others?

He didn’t know. He had no idea what to think any more.