Tainted Blood rmm-1

by Arnaldur Indridason

  "No. Never. I only knew about those two."

  "Are you lying?"

  "I'm not lying. The other one never pressed charges. It was in the early '60s. He never went back to that place."

  "What place?"

  "Are you going to get me out of here?"

  "What place?"

  "Promise!"

  "I can't promise anything," Erlendur said. "I'll talk to them. What place was it?"

  "Husavik."

  "How old was she?"

  "It was the same sort of job as the one in Keflavik, only more ferocious," Ellidi said.

  "Ferocious?"

  "Don't you want to hear it?" Ellidi said, unable to conceal his eagerness. "Do you want to hear what he did?"

  Ellidi didn't wait for an answer. His voice poured out through the hole in the door and Erlendur stood there, listening to the hoarse confession coming from the darkness.

  Sigurdur Oli was waiting for him in the car. As they drove away from the prison Erlendur gave a short account of his conversation with Ellidi but kept quiet about the monologue at the end. They decided to look at the register of people who lived in Husavik in the years around 1960. If the woman was a similar age to Kolbrun, as Ellidi had implied, it was just possible she could be found.

  "And what about Ellidi?" Sigurdur Oli asked when they were back in the Threngslin Pass on their way to Reykjavik.

  "I asked if they'd reduce his solitary confinement and they refused. There was nothing else I could do."

  "You kept your promise at least," Sigurdur Oli smiled. "If Holberg raped those two, couldn't there have been more?"

  "There could have been," Erlendur said vacantly.

  "What are you thinking about now?"

  "There are two things that bother me," Erlendur said. "I'd like to know precisely what it was that the little girl died of." He could hear Sigurdur Oli heave a sigh beside him. "And I'd like to know if she was definitely Holberg's child."

  "So what's puzzling you about that?"

  "Ellidi told me Holberg had a sister."

  "A sister?"

  "Who died young. We need to find her medical records. Look for them at the hospitals. See what you can come up with."

  "What did she die of? Holberg's sister?"

  "Possibly something similar to Audur. Holberg mentioned something about her head once. Or that was how Ellidi described it. I asked if it could have been a brain tumour, but Ellidi didn't know."

  "And how does that help our case?" Sigurdur Oli asked.

  "I think there could be a kinship connection," Erlendur said.

  "Kinship? What, because of the message we found?"

  "Yes," Erlendur said, "because of the message. Maybe it's a question of kinship and heredity."

  15

  The doctor lived in a town house on the west side of the Grafarvogur suburb. He no longer held a regular medical practice. He welcomed Erlendur at the door himself and showed him into the spacious hallway that he used as an office. He explained to Erlendur that he now did occasional work for lawyers on cases of disability assessment. The office area was simply furnished, tidy, with a little desk and typewriter. The doctor was a short, rather thin man with sharp features. He had a sprightly manner about him. He carried two pens in the breast pocket of the shirt he was wearing. His name was Frank.

  Erlendur had phoned beforehand to arrange an appointment. The afternoon was wearing on and it was beginning to get dark. Back at the station, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg huddled over a photocopy of a 40-year-old register of the inhabitants of Husavk which had been faxed to them by the local government office in the north. The doctor asked Erlendur to sit down.

  "Isn't it just a pack of liars who come to see you?" Erlendur asked, looking around the office.

  "Liars?" the doctor said. "I wouldn't say that. Some of them, undoubtedly. Neck injuries are the most tricky. You really can't do anything but believe patients who complain of neck injuries after a car accident. They're the most difficult to handle. Some feel more pain than others but I don't think there are many who aren't genuinely in a great deal of discomfort."

  "When I phoned you remembered the girl in Keflavik immediately."

  "That sort of thing's difficult to forget. Difficult to forget the mother. Kolbrun, wasn't that her name? I understand she committed suicide."

  "It's a bloody tragedy from start to finish," Erlendur said. He wondered whether to ask the doctor about the pain he felt in his chest when he woke up in the mornings, but decided this was not the time. The doctor was bound to discover he was fatally ill, send him to hospital and he'd be playing the harp with the angels by the weekend. Erlendur tried to avoid bad news whenever possible and, as he didn't expect to hear any good news about himself, he kept quiet.

  "You said it was to do with the murder in Nordurmyri," the doctor said, snapping Erlendur back to reality.

  "Yes, Holberg, the murder victim, may have been the father of the girl in Keflavik," Erlendur said. "The mother claimed so all along. Holberg neither confirmed nor denied it. He admitted having sex with Kolbrun so rape couldn't be proved against him. Often there's very little evidence on which to base that kind of case. We're investigating the man's past. The girl fell ill and died in her fourth year. Can you tell me what happened?"

  "I don't see how that could have anything to do with the murder case."

  "Well, we'll see. Could you answer my question please?"

  The doctor took a good long look at Erlendur.

  "It's probably best for me to tell you straight-away, Inspector," the doctor said, as if steeling himself for something. "I was a different man at that time."

  "A different man?"

  "And a worse one. I haven't touched alcohol for almost 30 years now. I'll be honest about this up front, so you don't need to put yourself to any more bother, I had my GP licence suspended from 1969 to 1972."

  "Because of the little girl?"

  "No, no, not because of her, though that would have been ample reason in its own right. It was because of drinking and negligence. I'd rather not go into that unless it's absolutely necessary."

  Erlendur wanted to let the matter rest there, but couldn't restrain himself.

  "So you were drunk more or less all those years, you mean?"

  "More or less."

  "Was your GP licence reinstated?"

  "Yes."

  "And no other trouble since then?"

  "No, no other trouble since then," the doctor said, shaking his head. "But, as I say, I wasn't in a good state when I looked after Kolbrun's girl. Audur. She had head pains and I thought it was child migraine. She used to vomit in the mornings. When the pain got worse I gave her stronger medication. It's all rather a blur to me. I've chosen to forget as much as I can from that time. Everyone can make mistakes, doctors too."

  "What was the cause of death?"

  "It probably wouldn't have made any difference if I'd acted faster and sent her to hospital," the doctor said thoughtfully. "At least that's what I tried to tell myself. There weren't many paediatricians around then and we didn't have those brain scans. We had to act much more on what we felt and knew and, as I said, I didn't feel anything much except the need to drink in those years. A messy divorce didn't help. I'm not making excuses for myself," he said with a look at Erlendur, although he obviously was.

  Erlendur nodded.

  "After about two months, I think, I started to suspect it could be something more serious than child migraine. The girl didn't get any better. It didn't let up. She just got worse and worse. Withered away, got very skinny. There were a number of possibilities. I thought it might be something like a tubercular infection of the head. At one time the stock diagnosis was to call it a head cold when actually no-one had a clue. Then the hypothesis was meningitis, but various symptoms were absent; it works much faster too. The girl got what they call cafe au lait on her skin and I finally started thinking about an oncogenic disease."

  "Cafe au lait?" Erlendur said, remembering he had heard
this mentioned before.

  "It can accompany oncogenic diseases."

  "You sent her to Keflavik hospital then?"

  "She died there," the doctor said. "I remember what a tragic loss it was for the mother. She went out of her mind. We had to tranquillise her. She flatly refused to let them do an autopsy on the girl. Screamed at us not to do it."

  "But they did an autopsy all the same."

  The doctor hesitated.

  "It couldn't be avoided. There was no way."

  "And what transpired?"

  "An oncogenic disease, like I said."

  "What do you mean by an oncogenic disease?"

  "A brain tumour," the doctor said. "She died of a brain tumour."

  "What kind of brain tumour?"

  "I'm not sure," the doctor said. "I don't know whether they studied it in depth though I expect they probably did. I seem to recall mention of some kind of genetic disease."

  "Genetic disease!" Erlendur said, raising his voice.

  "Isn't that the fashion these days? What does this have to do with Holberg's murder?" the doctor asked.

  Erlendur sat there deep in thought.

  "Why are you asking about this girl?"

  "I have these dreams," Erlendur said.

  16

  Eva Lind wasn't in the flat when Erlendur returned home that evening. He tried to follow her advice not to dwell on where she was, whether she'd come back and what kind of state she'd be in if she did. He'd called in at a takeaway and picked up a bag of fried chicken for dinner. He threw it down on a chair and was taking off his coat when he smelled the familiar old aroma of cooking. He hadn't smelled something being cooked in his kitchen for a very long time. Chicken like that lying on the chair was his food, hamburgers, takeaways from the greasy spoon, ready meals from the supermarket, cold boiled sheep head, tubs of curds, tasteless microwave dinners. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually cooked himself a proper meal in the kitchen. He couldn't remember when he'd last even wanted to.

  Erlendur carefully made his way to the kitchen as if expecting to find an intruder there and saw that the table had been laid for two with beautiful plates that he vaguely recalled owning. Wine glasses on high stalks stood beside each plate, there were serviettes and red candles burning in two candle-holders that didn't match and which Erlendur had never seen before.

  Slowly he made his way further into the kitchen and saw something simmering in a big pot. Lifting the lid, he looked down at a particularly delicious-looking meat stew. A slick of cooking oil was floating above turnips, potatoes, cubes of meat and spices, the whole thing giving off an aroma that filled his flat with the smell of real home cooking. He stooped over the pot and inhaled the smell of boiled meat and vegetables.

  "I needed some more veg," Eva Lind said at the kitchen door. Erlendur hadn't noticed her enter the flat. She was wearing his anorak and holding a bag of carrots.

  "Where did you learn to make meat stew?" Erlendur asked.

  "Mum was always making meat stew," Eva Lind said. "Once when she wasn't bad-mouthing you she said her meat stew used to be your favourite meal. Then she said you were a bastard."

  "Right on both counts," Erlendur said. He watched Eva Lind chop up the carrots and add them to the pot with the other vegetables. The thought occurred to him that he was experiencing proper family life and it made him both sad and happy at the same time. He didn't allow himself the luxury of expecting this joy to last.

  "Have you found the murderer?" Eva Lind asked.

  "Ellidi sends his regards," Erlendur said. The words had escaped before he could entertain the notion that a beast like Ellidi didn't belong in this environment.

  "Ellidi. He's at Litla-Hraun. Does he know who I am?"

  "The scumbags I talk to mention you by name sometimes," Erlendur said. "They think they're scoring points off me."

  "And are they?"

  "Some of them. Like Ellidi. How do you know him?" Erlendur asked cautiously.

  "I've heard stories about him. Met him once years ago. He'd stuck his false teeth in with plastic glue. But I don't really know him."

  "He's an incredible idiot."

  They didn't talk about Ellidi any more that evening. When they sat down to eat, Eva Lind poured water into the wine glasses and Erlendur ate so much that he could barely stagger into the sitting room afterwards. He fell asleep there in his clothes and slept badly until the morning.

  This time he remembered most of the dream. He knew it was the same dream that had visited him in recent nights but which he had failed to get hold of before the waking state turned it into nothing.

  Eva Lind appeared to him as he had never seen her before enveloped in a light coming from somewhere he couldn't tell in a beautiful summer dress reaching down to her ankles and with long dark hair down to her back and the vision was perfect almost scented with summer and she walked towards him or maybe she floated because he thought to himself that she never touched the ground he could not identify the surroundings all he could see was that glaring light and Eva Lind in the middle of the light approached him smiling from ear to ear and he saw himself open his arms to greet her and wait to be able to hold her and he felt his impatience but she never entered his arms but handed him a photograph and the light disappeared and Eva Lind disappeared and he was holding the photo he knew so well that was taken in the cemetery and the photograph came to life and he was inside it and looked up at the dark sky and felt the raining pounding down on his face and when he looked down he saw the tombstone drop back and the grave opened into the darkness until the coffin appeared and it opened and he saw the girl in the coffin cut along the middle of her torso and up to her shoulders and suddenly the girl opened her eyes and stared up towards him and she opened her mouth and he heard her pitiful cry of anguish from the grave

  He woke with a start gasping for breath and stared into space while he collected himself. He called out to Eva Lind but received no reply. He walked to her room but sensed the emptiness there before he even opened the door. He knew she had left.

  After examining the register of the inhabitants of Husavik, Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli had compiled a list of 176 women who were potential victims of rape by Holberg. All they had to go on was Ellidi's word that it had been "the same sort of job", so they used Kolbrun's age as a reference with a ten-year deviation either side. On first examination it emerged that the women could be roughly divided into three groups: a quarter of them still lived in Husavik, half had moved to Reykjavik and the remaining quarter was scattered throughout Iceland.

  "Enough to drive you mad," Elinborg sighed, looking down the list before she handed it to Erlendur. She noticed he was scruffier than usual. The stubble on his face was several days old, his bushy ginger hair stood out in all directions, his tatty and crumpled suit needed dry-cleaning: Elinborg was wondering whether to offer to point this out to him, but Erlendur's expression didn't invite any joking.

  "How are you sleeping these days, Erlendur?" she asked guardedly.

  "On my arse," Erlendur said.

  "And then what?" Sigurdur Oli said. "Should we just walk up to each of these women and ask if they were raped 40 years ago? Isn't that a bit. . brash?"

  "I can't see any other way to do it. Let's start with the ones who've moved away from Husavik," Erlendur said. "We'll start looking in Reykjavik and see if we can't gather any more information about this woman in the process. If that stupid bugger Ellidi isn't lying, Holberg mentioned her to Kolbrun. She may well have repeated it, to her sister, maybe to Runar. I need to go back to Keflavik."

  "Maybe we can narrow the group down a bit," he said, after a moment's thought.

  "Narrow it down? How?" said Elinborg. "What are you thinking?"

  "I just had an idea."

  "What?" Elinborg was impatient already. She'd turned up for work in a new, pale green dress suit that no-one seemed likely to pay any attention to.

  "Kinship, heredity and diseases," Erlendur said.

  "Right," Sig
urdur Oli said.

  "Let's assume Holberg was the rapist. We have no idea how many women he raped. We know about two and actually about only one for certain. Even though he denied it, everything points to the fact that he did rape Kolbrun. He was Audur's father, or, at least, we should work on that assumption, but he could equally have had another child with the woman from Husavik."

  "Another child?" Elinborg said.

  "Before Audur," Erlendur said.

  "Isn't that unlikely?" Sigurdur Oli said.

  Erlendur shrugged.

  "Do you want us to narrow the group down to women who had children just before, what was it, 1964?"

  "I don't think that would be such a bad idea."

  "He could have kids all over the place," Elinborg said.

  "True. He didn't necessarily commit more than one rape either so it's a long shot," Erlendur said. "Did you find out what his sister died of?"

  "No, I'm working on it," Sigurdur Oli said. "I tried to find out about their family, but nothing came out of it."

  "I checked on Gretar," Elinborg said. "He disappeared suddenly, like the ground had opened up and swallowed him. No-one missed him in the slightest. When his mother hadn't heard from him for two whole months she finally phoned the police. They put his picture in the papers and on TV but drew a blank. It was in 1974, the year of the big festival to commemorate the settlement of Iceland. In the summer. Did you go to the festival at Thingvellir then?"

  "I was there," Erlendur said. "What about Thing-vellir? Do you think that's where he went missing?"

  "Perhaps, but that's all I know," Elinborg said. "They made a routine missing-persons investigation and talked to people his mother knew that he knew, including Holberg and Ellidi. They questioned three others too but no-one knew anything. No-one missed Gretar except his mother and sister. He was born in Reykjavik, no wife or children, no girlfriend, no extended family. The case was left open for a few months and then it just died. He was 34."

  "If he was as pleasant as his mates Ellidi and Holberg, I'm not surprised nobody missed him," Sigurdur Oli said.