Tainted Blood rmm-1

by Arnaldur Indridason

  He didn't tell Eva Lind the brain was missing from the child's body. He hadn't yet begun to understand how that could have happened.

  Eva Lind listened to him without interrupting and she noticed how Erlendur rubbed his chest while he talked. She could feel how the Holberg case was affecting him. She could sense an air of resignation about him that she'd never noticed before. She could sense his weariness when he talked about the little girl. It was as if he withdrew inside himself, his voice went quieter and he became increasingly remote.

  "Is Audur the girl you told me about when you were shouting at me this morning?" Eva Lind asked.

  "She was, I don't know, maybe some kind of godsend to her mother," Erlendur said. "She loved the girl beyond death and the grave. Sorry if I've been nasty to you. I didn't intend to, but when I see the way you live, when I see your careless attitude and your lack of self-respect, when I see the destruction, everything you do to yourself and then I watch the little coffin coming up out of the ground, then I can't understand anything any more. I can't understand what's happening and I want to …"

  Erlendur fell silent.

  "Beat the shit out of me," Eva Lind finished the sentence for him.

  Erlendur shrugged.

  "I don't know what I want to do. Maybe the best thing is to do nothing. Maybe it's best to let life run its course. Forget the whole business. Start doing something sensible. Why should I want to get involved in all this? All this filth. Talking to people like Ellidi. Doing deals with shits like Eddi. Seeing how people like Holberg get their kicks. Reading rape reports. Digging up the foundations of a house full of bugs and shit. Digging up little coffins."

  Erlendur stroked his chest even harder.

  "You think it won't affect you. You reckon you're strong enough to withstand that sort of thing. You think you can put on armour against it over the years and can watch all the filth from a distance as if it's none of your business, and try to keep your senses. But there isn't any distance. And there's no armour. No-one's strong enough. The repulsion haunts you like an evil spirit that burrows into your mind and doesn't leave you in peace until you believe that the filth is life itself because you've forgotten how ordinary people live. This case is like that. Like an evil spirit that's been unleashed to run riot in your mind and ends up leaving you crippled."

  Erlendur heaved a deep sigh. "It's all one great big bloody mire."

  He stopped talking and Eva Lind sat silently with him.

  Some time passed like this until she got up, sat down beside her father, put her arm round him and sidled up against him. She could hear his heart beating rhythmically, like a soothing clock, and eventually fell asleep with a contented smile on her face.

  30

  Around 9 a.m. the following day the forensic and CID teams gathered at Holberg's house. There was hardly a glimpse of daylight even at that time in the morning. The sky was gloomy and it was still raining. The radio had said the rain in Reykjavik was approaching the record of October 1926.

  The sewage pipe had been cleaned and there was nothing left alive in the foundations. The hole in the base plate had been widened so that two men could go down through it at once. The owners of the flats above were standing in a group outside the basement door. They had ordered a plumber to mend the pipe and were waiting to call him in as soon as the police gave permission.

  It soon emerged that the hollow area around the sewage pipe was relatively small. It measured about three square yards and was contained because the ground hadn't sunk away from the base plate everywhere. The pipe had broken in the same place as before. The old repair was visible and there was a different kind of gravel underneath the pipe from that around it. The forensic technicians discussed whether to widen the hole even further, dig up the gravel from the foundations and empty it out until they could see everywhere under the base plate. After some argument they decided that the plate might break if what was under it was removed completely, so they opted for a safer and more technically advanced method, drilling holes through the floor here and there and putting a miniature camera down into the foundations.

  Sigurdur Oli watched when they started drilling holes into the floor and then set up two monitors that were connected to the two cameras that forensics were using. The cameras were little more than pipes with a light on the front which were slipped into the holes and could be moved by remote control. Holes were drilled in the floor where it was thought to be hollow underneath, they slipped the cameras inside and switched on the two monitors. The picture came out in black-and-white and seemed of very poor quality to Sigurdur Oli, who owned a German television set costing half a million crowns.

  Erlendur arrived at the basement just as they were starting to probe with the cameras and shortly afterwards Elinborg turned up. Sigurdur Oli noticed Erlendur had shaved and was wearing clean clothes which looked almost as though they'd been ironed.

  "Anything happening?" Erlendur asked and lit a cigarette, to Sigurdur Oli's chagrin.

  "They're going to do a camera probe," Sigurdur Oli said. "We can watch it on the screen."

  "Nothing in the sewage?" Erlendur said, sucking down the smoke.

  "Bugs and rats, nothing else."

  "Filthy stench down here," Elinborg said and took out a perfumed handkerchief that she carried in her handbag. Erlendur offered her a cigarette, but she declined.

  "Holberg could have used the hole the plumber made to put Gretar under the floor," Erlendur said. "He would have seen it was hollow under the base plate and could have moved the gravel around once he'd put Gretar wherever he wanted."

  They gathered around the screen but couldn't make out very much of what they saw. A little glow of light moved back and forth, up and down and to the sides. Sometimes they thought they could see the outline of the base plate and sometimes they appeared to see gravel. The ground had subsided to varying degrees. In some places it was right up to the plate, but elsewhere there was a gap of up to three feet.

  They stood for a good while watching the cameras. It was noisy in the basement because the forensic team was continually drilling new holes and Erlendur soon lost his patience and walked out. Elinborg quickly followed him and then Sigurdur Oli. They all got into Erlendur's car. He had told them the previous evening why he suddenly left for Keflavik, but they hadn't had the opportunity to discuss it any further.

  "Of course it fits in with the message that was left behind in Nordurmyri. And if the man Elin saw in Keflavik looks so much like Holberg, that fits in with the theory about his second child."

  "Holberg may not have had a son after the rape," Sigurdur Oli said. "We've got no evidence as such to support that, except that Ellidi knew about another woman. That's all there is. Besides which, Ellidi's a moron."

  "No-one we've talked to who knew Holberg has mentioned he had a son," Elinborg said.

  "No-one we've talked to knew Holberg in the first place," Sigurdur Oli said. "That's the point. He was a loner, socialised with a few workmates, down-loaded porn from the Internet, went around with jerks like Ellidi and Gretar. No-one knows anything about the guy."

  "What I'm wondering is this," Erlendur said. "If Holberg's son does exist, how does he know about Elin, Audur's aunt? Doesn't that mean he must also know about Audur, his sister? If he knows about Elin, I presume he knows about Kolbrun and the rape as well, and I can't work out how. There haven't been any details about the investigation in the media. Where would he get his information from?"

  "Couldn't he have got this out of Holberg before he bumped him off?" Sigurdur Oli said. "Isn't that likely?"

  "Maybe he tortured him to make him confess," Elinborg said.

  "First of all, we don't know whether this man even exists," Erlendur said. "Elin was very emotional when she saw him. Even assuming he is real, we don't have any idea if he killed Holberg. Nor whether he even knew of his father's existence, having been born under those circumstances, after a rape. Ellidi said there was a woman before Kolbrun who got the same treatment, maybe
worse. If she got pregnant by it, I doubt that the mother would have been too eager to name the father. She didn't notify the police about what happened. We don't have anything about Holberg's other rapes in our files. We still have to find this woman, if she exists …"

  "And we're smashing up the foundations of a house to look for a man who probably has nothing to do with the case," Sigurdur Oli said.

  "Maybe Gretar isn't under the foundations here," Elinborg said.

  "How come?" Erlendur said.

  "Maybe he's still alive, you mean?" Sigurdur Oli said.

  "He knew all about Holberg, I'd imagine," Elinborg said. "He knew about the daughter, other-wise he wouldn't have taken a photograph of her grave. He definitely knew how she came into the world. If Holberg had another child, a son, he would have known about him too."

  Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli looked at her with growing interest.

  "Maybe Gretar's still with us," she continued, "and in touch with the son. That's one explanation for how the son could know about Elin and Audur."

  "But Gretar went missing a good 25 years ago and hasn't been heard of since," Sigurdur Oli said.

  "Just because he went missing doesn't necessarily mean he's dead," Elinborg said.

  "So that …" Erlendur began, but Elinborg interrupted him.

  "I don't think we can rule him out. Why not allow for the possibility that Gretar is still alive? No body was ever found. He could have left the country. It could have been enough for him to move to the countryside. No-one gave a damn. No-one missed him."

  "I don't remember any instance of that," Erlendur said.

  "Of what?" Sigurdur Oli asked.

  "A missing person returning a whole generation later. When people disappear in Iceland it's always for good. No-one ever comes back after an absence of more than 25 years. Never."

  31

  Erlendur left his colleagues in Nordurmyri and went up to Baronsstigur to meet the pathologist. The pathologist was completing his autopsy on Holberg and was covering up the body when Erlendur went up to him. Audur's body was nowhere to be seen.

  "Have you found the girl's brain?" the pathologist asked straight out when Erlendur walked in on him.

  "No," Erlendur said.

  "I talked to a professor, an old girlfriend of mine from the university, and explained it to her, I hope that was all right, and she wasn't surprised about our little discovery. That short story by Halldor Laxness, have you read it?"

  "The one about Nebuchadnezzar? It has crossed my mind in the past couple of days," Erlendur said.

  "Isn't it called 'Lily', that story? It's a long time since I read it, but it's about some medical students who snatch a body and put rocks in the coffin, and basically that's what happens. No-one kept any real tabs on that in the old days, just as the story describes. People who died in hospital had autopsies unless it was forbidden and of course the autopsy was used for teaching purposes. Sometimes samples were removed and they could be anything really, from whole organs to minor tissue samples. Then everything was wrapped up and the person in question was given a decent burial. These days it's rather different. An autopsy is performed only if the relatives give their consent and organs are removed for research and teaching purposes only if certain conditions are met. I don't think anything is stolen nowadays."

  "You don't think so?"

  The pathologist shrugged.

  "We're not talking about organ transplants, are we?" Erlendur said.

  "A completely different matter. People are generally prepared to help others if it's a question of life and death."

  "And where's the organ bank?"

  "There are thousands of samples in this building alone," the pathologist said. "Here on Baronsstegur. The largest part of it is the Dungal collection, which is the largest bio-sample bank in Iceland."

  "Could you show it to me?" Erlendur asked. "Is there a register of where the samples come from?"

  "It's all carefully documented. I took the liberty of checking for our sample but I couldn't find it."

  "Where is it then?"

  "You ought to talk to the professor and hear what she has to say. I think there are some registers up at the university."

  "Why didn't you tell me this straightaway?" Erlendur asked. "When you discovered the brain had been removed? You knew about it?"

  "Talk to her and come back. I've probably told you far too much already."

  "Are the registers for the collection in the university?"

  "As far as I know," the pathologist said, gave him the professor's name and told him to let him get on with his work.

  "So you know about Jar City then," Erlendur said.

  "They used to call one room here Jar City," the pathologist said. "It's closed now. Don't ask me what happened to the jars, I haven't got the faintest idea."

  "Do you find this uncomfortable to talk about?"

  "Will you stop this."

  "What?"

  "Stop it."

  The professor, Hanna, who was head of the University of Iceland's Faculty of Medicine, stared across the desk at Erlendur as if he were a cancerous growth that needed to be removed from her office at the earliest possible opportunity. She was somewhat younger than Erlendur but extremely firm, spoke fast and was quick to reply, and gave the impression that she couldn't stand any nonsense or unnecessary digressions. She asked Erlendur quite brashly to get to the point when he embarked upon a long speech about his reasons for being in her office. Erlendur smiled to himself. He took an immediate liking to her and knew they'd be at each other's throats before their meeting was over. She was wearing a dark suit, plump, no make-up, short, blond hair, her hands practical, her expression serious and pro-found. Erlendur would have liked to see her smile. His wish was not granted.

  He had disturbed her during a lecture. Knocked on the door to ask for her as if he'd lost his way. She came to the door and asked him kindly to wait until the lecture was over. Erlendur stood in the corridor, as if he had been caught playing truant, for a quarter of an hour before the door opened. Hanna strode out into the corridor and past Erlendur and told him to follow her. He had trouble doing so. She seemed to take two steps for every one of his.

  "I can't understand what the CID wants of me," she said as she breezed along, turning her head slightly as if to reassure herself that Erlendur was keeping up with her.

  "You'll find out," Erlendur panted.

  "I certainly hope so," Hanna said and showed him into her office.

  When Erlendur told her his business she sat and thought about it for a long time. Erlendur managed to slow her down a little with the account of Audur and her mother and the autopsy, the diagnosis and the brain that had been removed.

  "Which hospital did you say the girl was admitted to?" she asked eventually.

  "Keflavik. How do you obtain organs for teaching?"

  Hanna stared at Erlendur.

  "I don't see what you're getting at."

  "You use human organs for teaching purposes," Erlendur said. "Bio-samples, I think they're called, I'm no expert, but the question is very simple. Where do you get them from?"

  "I don't think I need to tell you anything about that," she said and started to fiddle with some papers lying on her desk as if she was too busy to pay proper attention to Erlendur.

  "It's quite important to us," Erlendur said, "to us at the police, to find out if the brain still exists. Conceivably it's in your records. It was studied at the time but not returned to its rightful place. There may be a perfectly straightforward explanation. The tumour took time to examine and the body had to be buried. The university and hospitals are the most likely places for storing organs. You can sit there with your poker face, but I can do a couple of things to cause a bit of aggro for you, the university and the hospitals. Just think what a pain the media can be sometimes, and I just happen to have a couple of friends on the papers."

  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."