Tainted Blood

by Arnaldur Indridason

  Hanna took a long look at Erlendur, who stared back.

  "A crow starves sitting," she said eventually.

  "But finds flying," Erlendur completed the proverb.

  "That was really the only rule in this respect, but I can't tell you anything, as you can possibly imagine. These are fairly sensitive issues."

  "I'm not investigating it as a criminal act," Erlendur said. "I don't even know whether an organ theft was involved. What you do to dead people is none of my business, if it's kept within reasonable limits."

  Hanna's expression turned even more ferocious.

  "If this is what the medical profession needs, I'm sure it can be justified to some people. I need to locate a specific organ from a specific individual to study it again and if we can trace its history from the time it was removed until the present day I'd be extremely grateful. This is private information for my own purposes."

  "What kind of private information?"

  "I'm not interested in letting this go any further. We need to get the organ back if possible. What I was wondering is whether it wouldn't have sufficed to take a sample, whether the whole organ needed to be removed."

  "Of course I don't know the specific case to which you're referring but there are stricter rules in force about autopsies now than in the old days," Hanna said after some thought. "If this case was in the '60s it could have happened, I wouldn't rule that out. You say the girl was given an autopsy against her mother's will. It's hardly the first instance of that. Today, the relatives are asked immediately after a death if an autopsy can be performed. I think I can say that their wishes are honoured apart from absolutely exceptional cases. That would have applied in this case. Child mortality is the most terrible of all things to deal with. There's no way to describe the tragedy that strikes people who lose a child and the question of an autopsy can be uncomfortable in such cases."

  Hanna paused.

  "We have some of this on record on our computers," she continued, "and the rest is in the archive stored in this building. They keep fairly detailed records. The hospitals' largest collection of organs is on Barónsstígur. You realise that little medical teaching takes place here on campus. It's done in the hospitals. That's where the knowledge comes from."

  "The pathologist didn't want to show me the organ bank," Erlendur said. "He wanted me to talk to you first. Does the university have any say in the matter?"

  "Come on," Hanna said, without answering his question. "Let's see what's in the computers."

  She stood up and Erlendur followed her. She used a key to unlock a spacious room and entered a password in a security device on the wall by the door. She went over to a desk and switched on a computer while Erlendur took a look around. There were no windows in the room and rows of filing cabinets stood against the walls. Hanna asked for Audur's name and date of death and entered it in the computer.

  "It's not here," she said thoughtfully, glaring at the monitor. "Computer records only go back to 1984. We're digitising all the data from the time the medical faculty was established, but we haven't got any further than that with our records yet."

  "So it's the filing cabinets then," Erlendur said.

  "I really don't have the time for all this," Hanna said, looking at the clock. "I'm supposed to be in the lecture theatre again."

  She went over to Erlendur and took a quick look around, walked between the cabinets and read their labels. She pulled out a drawer here and there and browsed through the documents, but quickly closed them again. Erlendur had no idea what the files contained.

  "Have you got medical records in here?" he asked.

  Hanna groaned. "Don't tell me you're here for the data privacy committee," she said and slammed yet another drawer shut.

  "Only asked," Erlendur said.

  Hanna took out a report and read from it.

  "Here's something about bio-samples," she said. "1968. There are several names here. Nothing you're interested in." She put the report back in the cabinet, shoved the drawer closed and pulled out another one. "Here are some more," she said. "Wait a minute. Here's the girl's name, Audur, and her mother's name. Here it is."

  Hanna read quickly through the report.

  "One organ removed," she said, as if to herself. "Taken at Keflavík hospital. Permission of next of kin . . . nothing there. There's nothing here about the organ being destroyed."

  Hanna closed the file. "It's not around any more."

  "May I see that?" Erlendur asked, not attempting to conceal his eagerness.

  "You won't learn anything from it," Hanna said, put the file back in the drawer and closed it. "I've told you what you need to know."

  "What does it say? What are you hiding?"

  "Nothing," Hanna said, "and now I have to get back to my teaching."

  "Then I'll get a warrant and come back later today and that report had better be where it belongs," Erlendur said and walked in the direction of the door.

  "Do you promise that the information from here won't go any further?" she said when Erlendur had opened the door and was about to leave.

  "I've told you that. This is private information, for me."

  "Take a look at it then," Hanna said, reopened the cabinet and handed him the file.

  Erlendur closed the door, took the file and immersed himself in it. Hanna took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one while she waited for Erlendur to finish reading. She ignored the NO SMOKING sign and soon the room was filled with smoke.

  "Who's Eydal?"

  "One of our most accomplished medical scientists."

  "What was it here that you didn't want me to see? Can't I talk to this man?"

  Hanna didn't reply.

  "What's going on?" Erlendur said.

  Hanna sighed. "I understand he keeps a few organs himself," she said eventually.

  "The man collects organs?" Erlendur said.

  "He keeps a few organs, a small collection."

  "An organ collector?"

  "That's all I know," Hanna said.

  "It's conceivable that he's got the brain," Erlendur said. "It says here he was given a sample to study. Is this a problem for you?"

  "He's one of our leading scientists," she repeated, through clenched teeth.

  "He keeps the brain of a 4-year-old girl on his mantelpiece!" Erlendur shouted.

  "I don't expect you to understand scientific work," she said.

  "What is there to understand about this?"

  "I should never have let you in here," Hanna shouted.

  "I've heard that one before," Erlendur said.

  32

  Elínborg found the woman from Húsavík.

  She had two remaining names on her list so she left Sigurdur Óli behind in Nordurmýri with the forensic team. The first woman's reaction was a familiar one, great but somehow predetermined surprise, she'd heard the story elsewhere, even several times. She said that to tell the truth she'd been expecting the police. The second woman, the last one on Elínborg's list, refused to talk to her. Refused to let her in. Closed the door saying she didn't know what Elínborg was talking about and couldn't help her.

  But the woman was somehow hesitant. It was as if she needed to summon up all the strength she could muster to say what she wanted and Elínborg felt the role was rehearsed. She behaved as if she'd been expecting the police, but, unlike the others, she didn't want to know anything. Wanted to get rid of Elínborg immediately.

  Elínborg could tell she'd found the woman they'd been looking for. She took another look at her documents. The woman's name was Katrín and she was a department manager at Reykjavik City Library. Her husband was the manager of a large advertising agency. She was 60. Three children, all born from 1958 to 1962. She'd moved from Húsavík in '62 and had lived in Reykjavík ever since.

  Elínborg rang the bell a second time.

  "I think you ought to talk to me," she said when Katrín opened the door again.

  The woman looked at her.

  "There's nothing I can he
lp you with," she said at once, in a surprisingly sharp tone of voice. "I know what the case is about. I've heard the rumours. But I don't know about any rape. Hopefully you'll make do with that. Don't disturb me again."

  She tried to close the door on Elínborg.

  "I may make do with that but a detective called Erlendur, who's investigating Holberg's murder, won't. The next time you open the door he'll be standing here and he won't leave. He won't let you slam the door in his face. He could have you brought down the station if things get difficult."

  "Will you please leave me alone," Katrín said as the door shut against the frame.

  I wish I could, Elínborg thought. She took out her mobile phone and called Erlendur, who was just leaving the university. Elínborg described the situation to him. He said he'd be there in ten minutes.

  He couldn't see Elínborg anywhere outside Katrín's house when he arrived, but he recognised her car in the parking space. It was a large detached house in Vogar district, two storeys with a double garage. He rang the bell and to his astonishment Elínborg answered the door.

  "I think I've found her," she said in a low voice and let Erlendur in. "She came out to me just now and apologised for her behaviour. She said she'd rather talk to us here than down the station. She'd heard stories about the rape and she was expecting us."

  Elínborg went inside the house ahead of Erlendur and into the sitting room where Katrín was standing. She shook his hand and tried to smile, but didn't make a very good job of it. She was conservatively dressed, wearing a grey skirt and white blouse, with straight, thick hair down to her shoulders, combed to one side. She was tall, with thin legs and small shoulders, pretty with a mild but anxious expression.

  Erlendur looked around in the sitting room. It was dominated by books shelved in closed, glass-fronted cupboards. A beautiful writing desk stood by one of the book cupboards, an old but well-preserved leather suite was in the middle of the room, a smoking table in one corner. Paintings on the walls. Little watercolours in beautiful frames, photographs of her family. He took a closer look at them. All the photographs were old. The three boys with their parents. The most recent ones had been taken when they were confirmed. They did not seem to have graduated from school or university, or got married.

  "We're going to buy a smaller place," Katrín said almost apologetically when she saw Erlendur looking around. "It's far too big for us, this huge house."

  Erlendur nodded.

  "Your husband, is he at home too?"

  "Albert won't be home until late tonight. He's abroad. I was hoping we could talk about this before he gets back."

  "Shouldn't we sit down?" Elínborg asked. Katrín apologised for her rudeness and invited them to sit down. She sat down on the sofa by herself, with Erlendur and Elínborg in the two leather armchairs facing her.

  "What exactly is it you want of me?" Katrín asked, looking at them each in turn. "I don't really understand how I fit into the picture. The man's dead. That's nothing to do with me."

  "Holberg was a rapist," Erlendur said. "He raped a woman in Keflavík and, as a result, she had a child. A daughter. When we starting checking more closely we were told he'd done this before, to a woman from Húsavík, a similar age to the second victim. Holberg may have raped again, later. We don't know. But we need to track down his victim from Húsavík. Holberg was murdered at his home and we have reason to presume that the explanation may be found in his sordid past."

  Erlendur and Elínborg both noticed how his speech didn't seem to have any effect on Katrín. She wasn't shocked at hearing about Holberg's rapes or his daughter, and she asked neither about the woman from Keflavík nor the girl.

  "You're not shocked to hear that?" he said.

  "No," Katrín said, "what should I be shocked about?"

  "What can you tell us about Holberg?" Erlendur asked after a pause.

  "I recognised him at once from the photos in the papers," Katrín said, and it was as if the last trace of resistance vanished from her voice. Her words turned into a whisper. "Even though he'd changed a lot," she said.

  "We had his photograph on file," Elínborg said by way of explanation. "The photo was from an HGV licence he had recently renewed. Lorry driver. Drove all over the country."

  "He told me at the time he was a lawyer in Reykjavík."

  "He was probably working for the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority at that time," Erlendur said.

  "I'd just turned 20. Albert and I had two children when it happened. We started living together very young. He was at sea, Albert I mean. That didn't happen very often. He ran a little shop and was an agent for an insurance company."

  "Does he know what happened?" Erlendur asked.

  Katrín hesitated for a moment.

  "No, I never told him. And I'd prefer it if you didn't tell him now."

  They fell silent.

  "Didn't you tell anyone what happened?" Erlendur asked.

  "I didn't tell anyone." She fell silent again.

  Erlendur and Elínborg waited.

  "I blame myself for it. My God," she sighed. "I know that isn't right of me. I know it was none of my doing. It was nearly 40 years ago and I'm still accusing myself although I know I shouldn't. Forty years."

  They waited.

  "I don't know how much detail you want me to go into. What matters to you. As I said, Albert was at sea. I was out having fun with some friends and we met these men at the dance."

  "These men?" Erlendur interjected.

  "Holberg and someone else who was with him. I never found out what his name was. He showed me a little camera that he carried around with him. I spoke to him about photography a bit. They went back to my girlfriend's place with us and we went on drinking there. There was a group of four of us girlfriends who went out together. Two of us were married. After a while I said I wanted to go and he offered to walk me home."

  "Holberg?" Elínborg said.

  "Yes, Holberg. I said no and said goodbye to my friends and walked home alone. It wasn't far to walk. But when I opened the door – we lived in a little detached house in a new street they were building in Húsavík – suddenly he was standing behind me. He said something I didn't hear properly, then pushed me inside and closed the door. I was completely taken aback. Didn't know whether to be scared or surprised. The alcohol dulled my senses. Of course I didn't know that man in the slightest, I'd never seen him before that night."

  "So why do you blame yourself?" Elínborg asked.

  "I'd been fooling around at the dance a bit," Katrín said after a while. "I asked him to dance. I don't know why I did it. I'd had a bit to drink and I could never handle alcohol. I was having fun with my friends and let my hair down a bit. Irresponsible. Drunk."

  "But you mustn't blame yourself ..." Elínborg began.