Reykjavik Nights Read Online Free Page B

here like you. His name was Hannibal.’
    â€˜Hannibal? Oh, yes, I knew him.’
    â€˜He drowned down there in one of the ponds.’ Erlendur waved towards Kringlumýri. ‘Ring any bells?’
    â€˜I remember hearing about it. Why?’
    â€˜No reason,’ said Erlendur. ‘I suppose it was just an unlucky accident.’
    â€˜Yes, unlucky all right.’
    â€˜Where did you know him from?’ Erlendur took a seat on the concrete casing.
    â€˜Oh, just around and about, you know. Used to bump into him on my travels. A really good bloke.’
    â€˜You weren’t enemies, then?’
    â€˜Enemies? No. I haven’t got any enemies.’
    â€˜Do you know if he had, or if there was anyone who might have wanted to harm him?’
    Vilhelm stared at Erlendur through the thick lenses.
    â€˜What do you want to know for?’ His shoulders shook with another coughing fit.
    â€˜No particular reason.’
    â€˜Come on.’
    â€˜No, honest.’
    â€˜You reckon maybe he didn’t drown all on his own?’
    â€˜What do you think?’
    â€˜I haven’t the foggiest.’ Vilhelm rose to his feet and flexed his back, then came and sat down next to Erlendur on the casing. ‘You couldn’t spare a little change?’
    â€˜What do you want it for?’
    â€˜Tobacco. That’s all.’
    Erlendur took out two fifty-króna pieces. ‘That’s all I have on me.’
    â€˜Thanks.’ Vilhelm was quick to palm them. ‘That’ll do for one packet. Did you know a bottle of vodka’s getting on for two thousand krónur these days? I reckon the lot who run this country have lost the plot. Totally lost the plot.’
    â€˜The pools down there aren’t very deep,’ Erlendur remarked, returning to his theme.
    Vilhelm coughed into his gloves. ‘Deep enough.’
    â€˜You’d have to be pretty determined to drown in one, though.’
    â€˜I couldn’t say.’
    â€˜Or drunk,’ Erlendur persisted. ‘They found a fair amount of alcohol in his blood.’
    â€˜Oh, Hannibal could drink all right. Christ!’
    â€˜Do you remember who he was hanging around with most before he died?’
    â€˜Not with me, at any rate,’ Vilhelm replied. ‘Hardly knew him. But I spotted him a couple of times at the Fever Hospital. In fact, that’s the last place I saw him; he was trying to get a bed but they said he was drunk.’
    No more information was forthcoming. He said he was planning to spend at least one more night by the pipes, then he would see. Erlendur tried to dissuade him, asking if it was really his only option. At this hint of interference, Vilhelm told him to bloody well leave him alone. Erlendur left after that. He was pursued by the sound of coughing as he stepped up onto the conduit and followed it west through the light arctic night as far as Öskjuhlíd, before jumping down and heading home to Hlídar.
    Hannibal had no doubt tested the limits of the shelter’s ban on alcohol more than once. Perhaps that was why he had taken refuge in the pipeline at last, an outcast, free from all interference, removed from human society.

6
    Towards the end of their shift Erlendur, Marteinn and Gardar were sent to escort a runaway prisoner back to jail at Litla-Hraun. Two days earlier the fugitive, who was serving a two-and-a-halfyear sentence for drug smuggling, had felt the urge to nip into town and had escaped without much effort. Although only twenty-five, he was well known to the police in connection with drugs, alcohol smuggling, theft and forgery. At twenty he had spent several months inside for a series of burglaries. Subsequently, he had been caught with a significant quantity of cannabis at Keflavík Airport, high as a kite after four days in Amsterdam. The customs officials had him on a watch list but they would have stopped this gangly hippy, with his beard and long hair,