Erlendur phoned an ambulance and while they waited for it he found out what the men wanted from Eva Lind. The man was reluctant at first, but when Erlendur offered to take a look at his knee he immediately became more talkative. They were debt collectors. Eva Lind owed both money and dope to some man Erlendur had never heard of before.
Erlendur didn’t explain his plaster to anyone when he went to work the next day, and no-one dared ask him about it. The door had almost knocked him out when it bounced back off the debt collector’s leg and hit him on the head. His forehead still ached, he was anxious about Eva Lind and hadn’t been able to sleep much that night, dozing in the chair for the odd hour and hoping his daughter would come back before the situation got out of hand. He stopped in his office just long enough to find out that Grétar had had a sister and his mother was still alive, living at Grund old people’s home.
As he’d told Marion Briem, he wasn’t looking for Grétar in particular, any more than for the lost girl from Gardabaer, but he didn’t think it would do any harm to know more about him. Grétar had been at the party the night Kolbrún was raped. Maybe he’d left behind a memory of that night, a stray detail he’d blurted out. Erlendur didn’t expect to find out anything new about his disappearance, Grétar could rest in peace for all he cared, but he’d been interested in missing persons for a long time. Behind each and every one was a horror story, but to his mind there was also something intriguing about people vanishing without trace and no-one knowing why.
Grétar’s mother was 90 and blind. Erlendur spoke briefly to the director of the home, who had difficulty in taking her eyes off his forehead, and told him that Theodóra was one of the oldest and longest-standing residents there, a perfect member of the community in all respects, loved and admired by the staff and everyone else.
Erlendur was led in to see Theodóra and introduced to her. The old woman was sitting in a wheelchair in her room, wearing a dressing gown, covered with a woollen blanket, her long grey hair in a plait running down the back of the chair, her body hunched up, her hands bony and her face kindly. There were few personal belongings there. A framed photograph of John F. Kennedy hung above her bed. Erlendur sat in a chair in front of her, looked into the eyes that could no longer see, and said he wanted to talk about Grétar. Her hearing seemed to be fine and her mind was sharp. She showed no sign of surprise but got straight to the point. Erlendur could tell she was from Skagafjödur. She spoke with a thick northern accent.
“My Grétar wasn’t a perfect lad,” she said. “To tell you the truth he was an awful wretch. I don’t know where he got it from. A cheap wretch. Going around with other wretches, layabouts, riff-raff the lot of them. Have you found him?”
“No,” Erlendur said. “One of his friends was murdered recently. Holberg. Maybe you’ve heard about it.”
“I didn’t know. He got bumped off, you say?”
Erlendur was amused and for the first time in a long while he saw reason to smile.
“At home. They used to work together in the old days, Holberg and your son. At the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority.”
“The last I saw of my Grétar, and I still had decent sight then, was when he came home to see me the same summer as the national festival and stole some money from my purse and a bit of silver. I didn’t find out until he’d left again and the money had disappeared. And then Grétar disappeared himself. Like he’d been stolen too. Do you know who stole him?”
“No,” Erlendur said. “Do you know what he was up to before he went missing? Who he was in touch with?”
“No idea,” the old woman said. “I never knew what Grétar was up to. I told you so at the time.”
“Did you know he took photographs?”
“Yes. He took photographs. He was always taking those pictures. I don’t know why. He told me once that photos were the mirrors of time, but I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.”
“Wasn’t that a bit highbrow for Grétar?”
“I’d never heard him talk like that.”
“His last address was on Bergstadastraeti where he rented a room. Do you know what happened to his belongings, the camera and films, do you know that?”
“Maybe Klara knows,” Theodóra said. “My daughter. She cleaned out his room. Threw all that rubbish away, I think.”
Erlendur stood up and she followed his movements with her head. He thanked her for her assistance, said she’d been very valuable and he wanted to praise her for how well she looked and how sharp her mind was, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to patronise her. He looked up along the wall above her bed at the photograph of Kennedy and couldn’t restrain himself from asking.
“Why have you got a photograph of Kennedy above your bed?” he said, looking into her vacant eyes.
“Oh,” Theodóra sighed, “I was so fond of him while he was alive.”
21
The bodies lay side by side on the cold slabs in the morgue on Barónsstígur. Erlendur tried not to think about how he had brought the father and daughter together in death. An autopsy and tests had already been performed on Holberg’s body, but it was awaiting further studies which would focus on genetic diseases and whether he was related to Audur. Erlendur noticed that the body’s fingers were black. He’d been fingerprinted after his death. Audur’s body lay wrapped in a white canvas sheet on a table beside Holberg. She was still untouched.
Erlendur didn’t know the pathologist and saw little of him. He was tall, with large hands. He wore thin plastic gloves, wearing a white apron over a green gown, tied at the back, and wearing green trousers of the same material. He had a gauze over his mouth and a blue plastic cap on his head and white trainers.
Erlendur had been to the morgue often enough before and always felt equally bad there. The smell of death filled his senses and settled in his clothes, the smell of formalin and sterilising agents and the horrifying stench of dead bodies that had been opened. Bright fluorescent lamps were suspended from the ceiling, casting a pure white light around the windowless room. There were large white tiles on the floor and the walls were partly tiled, the upper half painted with white plastic paint. Standing up against them were tables with microscopes and other research equipment. On the walls were many cupboards, some with glass doors, revealing instruments and jars that were beyond Erlendur’s comprehension. However, he did understand the function of the scalpels, tongs and saws that were spread out in a neat row on a long instrument table.
Erlendur noticed a scent card hanging down from a fluorescent lamp above one of the two operating tables. It showed a girl in a red bikini running along a white sandy beach. There was a tape recorder on one of the tables and several cassettes beside it. It was playing classical music. Mahler, Erlendur thought. The pathologist’s lunch box was on a table beside one of the microscopes.
“She stopped giving off any scent long ago, but her body’s still in good shape,” the pathologist said and looked over to Erlendur, who was standing by the door as if hesitant about entering the brightly lit chamber of death and decay.
“Eh?” Erlendur said, unable to take his eyes off the white heap. There was a tone of gleeful anticipation in the pathologist’s voice that he could not fathom.
“The girl in the bikini, I mean,” the pathologist said with a nod at the scent card. “I need to get a new card. You probably never get used to the smell. Do come in. Don’t be afraid. It’s just meat. He waved the knife over Holberg’s body. No soul, no life, just a carcass of meat. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Eh?” Erlendur said again.
“Do you think their souls are watching us? Do you think they’re hovering around the room here or do you think they’ve taken up residence in another body? Been reincarnated. Do you believe in life after death?”
“No, I don’t,” Erlendur replied.
“This man died after a heavy blow to the head that punctured his scalp, smashed his skull and forced its way through to the brain. It looks to me as if the person who deliver
ed the blow was standing facing him. It’s not unlikely that they looked each other in the eye. The attacker is probably right-handed, the wound’s on the left side. And he’s in good physical shape, a young man or middle-aged at most, hardly a woman unless she’s done manual labour. The blow would have killed him almost instantaneously. He would have seen the tunnel and the bright lights.”
“It’s quite probable he took the other route,” Erlendur said.
“Well. The intestine is almost empty, remains of eggs and coffee, the rectum is full. He suffered, if that isn’t too strong a word, from constipation. Not uncommon at that age. No-one has claimed the body, I understand, so we’ve applied for permission to use it for teaching purposes. How does that grab you?”
“So he’s more use dead than alive.”
The pathologist looked at Erlendur, walked up to a table, took a red slice of meat from a metal tray and held it up with one hand.
“I can’t tell whether people were good or bad,” he said. “This could just as easily be the heart of a saint. What we need to find out, if I understand you correctly, is whether it pumped bad blood.”
Erlendur looked in astonishment at the pathologist holding Holberg’s heart and examining it. Watched him handling the dead muscle as if nothing could be more natural in the world.
“It’s a strong heart,” the pathologist went on. “It could have gone on pumping for a good few years, could have taken its owner past a hundred.”
The pathologist put the heart back on the metal tray.
“There’s something quite interesting about this Holberg, though I haven’t examined him particularly in that respect. You probably want me to. He has various mild symptoms of a specific disease. I found a small tumour in his brain, a benign tumour which would have troubled him a little, and there’s café au lait on his skin, especially here under his arms.”
“Café au lait?” Erlendur said.
“Café au lait is what it’s called in the textbooks. It looks like coffee stains. Do you know anything about it?”
“Nothing at all.”
“I’ll undoubtedly find more symptoms when I look at him more closely.”
“There was talk of café au lait on the girl. She developed a brain tumour. Malignant. Do you know what the disease is?”
“I can’t say anything about it yet.”
“Are we talking about a genetic disease?”
“I don’t know.”
The pathologist went over to the table where Audur lay.
“Have you heard the story about Einstein?” he asked.
“Einstein?” Erlendur said.
“Albert Einstein.”
“What story?”
“A weird story. True. Thomas Harvey? Never heard of him? A pathologist.”
“No.”
“He was on duty when Einstein died,” the pathologist continued. “A curious chap. Performed the autopsy, but because it was Einstein he couldn’t resist and opened up his head and looked at the brain. And he did more than that. He stole Einstein’s brain.”
Erlendur said nothing. He couldn’t make head or tail of what the pathologist was talking about.
“He took it home. That strange urge to collect things that some people have, especially when famous people are involved. Harvey lost his job when the theft was discovered and over the years he became a mysterious figure, a legend really. All kinds of stories circulated about him. He always kept the brain in his house. I don’t know how he got away with it. Einstein’s relatives were always trying to recover the brain from him, but in vain. Eventually in his old age he made his peace with the relatives and decided to return the brain to them. Put it in the boot of his car and drove right across America to Einstein’s grandchild in California.”
“Is this true?”
“True as daylight.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Erlendur asked.
The pathologist lifted up the sheet from the child’s body and looked underneath it.
“Her brain’s missing,” he said, and the look of nonchalance vanished from his face.
“What?”
“The brain,” the pathologist said, “isn’t where it belongs.”
22
Erlendur didn’t immediately understand what the pathologist had said and looked at him as if he hadn’t heard. He couldn’t fathom what he was talking about. For a moment he looked down at the body, then looked up quickly again when he saw a bone from a little hand protruding from beneath the sheet. He didn’t think he could handle the image of what was lying underneath it. He didn’t want to know what the girl’s earthly remains looked like. Didn’t want that image to appear every time he thought about her.
“She’s been opened up before,” the pathologist said.
“Is the brain missing?” Erlendur groaned.
“An autopsy was performed before.”
“Yes, at Keflavík hospital.”
“When did she die?”
“1968,” Erlendur said.
“And, if I understand correctly, Holberg was her father, but they didn’t live together, her parents?”
“The girl only had her mother.”
“Was permission given to use her organs for research purposes?” the pathologist continued. “Do you know about that at all? Did the mother give her permission?”
“She wouldn’t have done,” Erlendur said.
“It could have been taken without her permission. Who was looking after her when she died? Who was her doctor?”
Erlendur named Frank. The pathologist was silent for a while.
“I can’t say that I’m entirely unfamiliar with such incidents. Relatives are sometimes asked whether organs may be removed for research purposes. All in the name of science, of course. We need that. For teaching, too. I know of instances when, if there is no next of kin, certain organs are removed for research before the body is buried. But I don’t know many cases of organs being stolen outright when the relatives have been consulted.”
“How could the brain be missing?” Erlendur went on asking.
“The head’s been sawn in half and it was removed in one piece.”
“No, I mean…”
“A neat job,” the pathologist continued. “A skilled person at work. You cut through the spinal cord, through the neck from the rear here and take the brain out.”
“I know the brain was studied in connection with a tumour,” Erlendur said. “Do you mean that it wasn’t put back?”
“That’s one explanation,” the pathologist said, covering up the body. “If they removed the brain to study it they would hardly have been able to return it in time for the funeral. It needs to be fixed.”
“Fixed?”
“To make it better to work on. It turns like cheese. Brains take a while to fix.”
“Wouldn’t it have been enough just to take samples?”
“I don’t know,” the pathologist said. “All I know is that the brain isn’t in place, which makes it difficult to determine the cause of death. Maybe we can see with DNA tests on the bones. That could tell us something.”
There was no mistaking the look of astonishment on Frank’s face when he opened the door and saw Erlendur standing on the steps again in a torrential downpour.
“We exhumed the girl”, Erlendur said without any preamble, “and the brain’s missing. Do you know anything about it?”
“Exhumed her? The brain?” the doctor said and showed Erlendur into his office. “What do you mean, the brain’s missing?”
“What I say. The brain’s been removed. Probably to study it in connection with the cause of death, but it wasn’t returned. You were her doctor. Do you know what happened? Do you know anything about the matter?”
“I was her general practitioner, as I think I explained to you the last time you came. She was under the supervision of Keflavík hospital and the doctors there.”
“The person who performed the autopsy is dead. We were given a copy of his pathologist’s report, whi
ch is very curt and mentions only a brain tumour. If he did any more studies of it, there’s no record of them. Wouldn’t it have been enough just to take samples? Did they need to remove the whole brain?”
The doctor shrugged. “I’m not sure.” He hesitated for a moment. “Were more organs missing?” he asked.
“More organs?” Erlendur said.
“Besides the brain. Was that all that was missing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing else was touched?”
“I don’t think so. The pathologist didn’t mention anything. What are you getting at?”
Frank looked at Erlendur, thoughtfully. “I don’t expect you’ve ever heard Jar City mentioned, have you?”
“What Jar City?”
“It’s now been closed, I believe, not so very long ago in fact. The room was called that. Jar City.”
“What room?”
“Upstairs on Barónsstígur. Where they kept the organs.”
“Go on.”
“They were kept in formalin in glass jars. All kinds of organs that were sent there from the hospitals. For teaching. In the faculty of medicine. They were kept in a room the medical students called Jar City. Preserved innards. Hearts, livers and limbs. Brains too.”
“From the hospitals?”
“People die in hospitals. They’re given autopsies. The organs are examined. They’re not always returned, some are kept for teaching purposes. At one time the organs were stored in Jar City.”
“What are you telling me this for?”
“The brain needn’t be lost for ever. It might still be in some Jar City. Samples that are preserved for teaching purposes are all documented and classified, for example. If you need to locate the brain there’s a chance that you still can.”
“I’ve never heard about this before. Are the organs taken without permission or do they obtain the relatives’ consent…what’s the arrangement?”
The doctor shrugged. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. Naturally it all depends. Organs are extremely important for medical teaching. All university hospitals have large collections of organs. I’ve even heard that some doctors, medical researchers, have their own private collections, but I can’t vouch for that.”
Jar City Page 12