Reykjavik Nights Read Online Free PDF Page A

anyway. It transpired that he had hardly even bothered to hide his stash. The goods were wrapped in a pair of jeans inside a brand-new sports bag.
    After his latest escapade, he had given himself up at the police station on Hverfisgata, and now Erlendur and company ushered him out to the van. The man was garrulous; he must have got hold of something good before handing himself in.
    â€˜Why did you run away?’ asked Marteinn as they drove out of town.
    â€˜It was my mum’s birthday. The old girl’s fifty!’
    â€˜Was it a big do?’ asked Gardar.
    â€˜Yeah, hell of a party, man. Loads of booze.’
    â€˜Was she pleased to see you?’ asked Marteinn.
    The police had been watching his mother’s house but had failed to catch him.
    â€˜She was over the moon!’
    â€˜And you had no trouble giving them the slip?’
    â€˜At Hraun? Nah. I more or less walked out.’
    â€˜You know they’ll increase your sentence.’
    â€˜It’ll be bugger all. Anyway, it’s not so bad inside. Mum had an important birthday, man. No way was I going to miss that!’
    â€˜No, of course not,’ said Marteinn.
    The van climbed laboriously over Hellisheidi with the fugitive chatting all the way back to his cell, about life in the nick and the other inmates; about the local football team and the rubbish season they’d been having, and how his English team wasn’t doing much better; about this crap film he’d seen on TV while in hiding; the coffee shop he had visited in Amsterdam; prison food; a steakhouse in Amsterdam. Nothing was off limits.
    They were thoroughly fed up with him by the time they dropped him off at Litla-Hraun. Later, as they were trundling back into town, there was an alert about a young girl who had gone missing. She had left her home in Reykjavík three days earlier and not been heard of since. She was nineteen years old and when last seen had been wearing jeans, a pink peasant blouse, a camouflage jacket, and trainers.
    â€˜Remember the lad who woke up the other side of the country in Akureyri – last year, wasn’t it?’ said Marteinn. ‘He went for a night out in Reykjavík without telling anyone. When they hadn’t heard from him for four days, his parents called the police. They were a respectable family. He was in a newsagent’s when he saw a picture of himself in the papers.’
    â€˜What about the woman who went for a few drinks at Thórskaffi?’ said Gardar. ‘She was never found. That wasn’t so long ago.’
    â€˜Out with friends, wasn’t she?’ said Marteinn. ‘And never came home.’
    â€˜That’s right. She was going to walk back.’
    â€˜Wonder what happened to her.’
    â€˜Threw herself in the sea, surely?’
    â€˜Hey, Erlendur,’ said Marteinn, ‘wasn’t that around the same time as your tramp drowned?’
    â€˜ My tramp?’ Erlendur had not heard that one before, though he had told them of his encounters with Hannibal and the indifference of the investigating officers. ‘Yes, it was around then.’
    Their shift was ending. All they had to do was return the van and go home, when a notification came through about a burglary in Vogar.
    â€˜Shit!’ exclaimed Gardar. ‘Do we have to take it?’
    They were the closest vehicle, so Erlendur swung off the main road into the residential streets. As they approached the house in question they caught sight of a figure sprinting away. The man paused for a split second when he saw the police van, then dodged into the next-door garden. Erlendur braked violently. Gardar hurtled out with Marteinn on his heels. Within minutes they had run the man down, wrestled him to the ground, then bundled him into the van.
    They discovered a watch and some jewellery on him. He had also been observed discarding a large object when he first spotted them. While Gardar and Marteinn were chasing the