Tainted Blood (9 page)

Sigurdur Óli saw the car headlights approaching in the rain and knew it was Erlendur. The hydraulic digger rumbled as it took up a position by the grave, ready to start digging when the signal was given. It was a mini-digger that had chugged between the graves with jerks and starts. Its caterpillar tracks slid in the mud. It spewed out clouds of black smoke and filled the air with a thick stench of oil.

Sigurdur Óli and Elínborg stood by the grave with a pathologist, a lawyer from the Public Prosecutor's office, a minister and churchwarden, several police-men from Keflavík and two council workers. The group stood in the rain, envying Elínborg, who was the only one with an umbrella, and Sigurdur Óli, who had been allowed to stand half under it. They noticed Erlendur was alone when he got out of his car and slowly walked towards them. They had papers authorising the exhumation, which was not to begin until Erlendur gave his permission.

Erlendur surveyed the area, silently rueing the disruption, the damage, the desecration. The grave-stone had been removed and laid on a pathway near the grave. Beside it was a green jar with a long point on the base that could be stuck down into the soil. The jar contained a withered bunch of roses and Erlendur thought to himself that Elín must have put it on the grave. He stopped, read the epitaph once again and shook his head. The white wooden pegging to mark out the grave, which had stood barely eight inches up from the ground, now lay broken beside the headstone. Erlendur had seen that kind of fencing around children's graves, and it pained him to see it discarded this way. He looked up into the black sky. Water dripped from the brim of his hat onto his shoulders and he squinted against the falling rain. He scanned the group standing by the digger, finally looked at Sigurdur Óli and nodded. Sigurdur Óli made a sign to the digger operator. The bucket rose into the air then plunged deep into the porous soil.

Erlendur watched the digger tear up 30-year-old wounds. He winced at each thrust of the bucket. The pile of soil steadily grew and the deeper the hole became, the more darkness it consumed. Erlendur stood some distance away and watched the bucket digging deeper and deeper into the wound. Suddenly he felt a sensation of déjá-vu, as if he had seen this all before in a dream, and for an instant the scene in front of him took on a dreamlike atmosphere: his colleagues standing there looking into the grave, the council workers in their orange overalls leaning forward onto their shovels, the minister in the big black overcoat, the rain that poured down into the grave and came back up in the bucket as if the hole were bleeding.

Had he dreamt it exactly like this?

Then the sensation disappeared and as always when something like that happened he couldn't begin to understand where it had come from; why he felt he was reliving events that had never happened before. Erlendur didn't believe in premonitions, visions or dreams, nor reincarnation or karma, he didn't believe in God although he'd often read the Bible, nor in eternal life or that his conduct in this world would affect whether he went to heaven or hell. He felt that life itself offered a mixture of the two.

Then sometimes he experienced this incomprehensible and supernatural déjá-vu, experienced time and place as if he'd seen it all before, as if he stepped outside himself, became an onlooker to his own life. There was no way he could explain what it was that happened or why his mind played tricks on him like this.

Erlendur came back to his senses when the bucket struck the lid of the coffin and a hollow clunk was heard from inside the grave. He moved a step closer. Through the rainwater pouring down into the hole he saw the vague outline of the coffin.

"Careful!" Erlendur shouted at the digger operator, throwing his hands up in the air.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw car headlights approaching. They all looked up in the direction of the lights and saw a car crawling along in the rain until it stopped by the cemetery gate. An old lady in a green coat got out. They noticed the taxi sign on the car roof. The taxi drove off and the lady stormed towards the grave. As soon as Erlendur was within earshot she started shouting and waving her fist at him.

"Grave-robber!" he heard Elín shout. "Grave-robbers! Body-snatchers!"

"Keep her back," Erlendur said calmly to the policemen who walked over to Elín and stopped her when she was only a few yards from the grave. She tried to fight them off in her frenzy of rage but they held her arms and restrained her.

The two council workers climbed into the grave with their shovels, dug around the coffin and put ropes around the ends of it. It was fairly intact. The rain pounded on the lid with a hollow thudding, washing the soil from it. Erlendur imagined it would have been white. A tiny white casket with brass handles and a cross on the lid. The men tied the ropes to the bucket of the digger which very carefully lifted Audur's coffin out of the ground. It was still in one piece but looked extremely fragile. Erlendur saw Elín had stopped struggling and shouting at him. She'd started to cry when the white casket emerged and hung motionless in the ropes above the grave before being lowered to the ground. The minister went up to it, made the sign of the cross over it and moved his lips in prayer. A small van backed slowly along the path and stopped. The council workers untied the ropes, lifted the coffin into the van and closed the doors. Elínborg got into the front seat beside the driver, who set off out of the cemetery, through the gate and down the road until the red rear lights disappeared in the rain and the gloom.

The minister went over to Elín and asked the policemen to let her go. They did so at once. The minister asked if there was anything he could do for her. They clearly knew each other well and spoke together in whispers. Elín appeared calmer. Erlendur and Sigurdur Óli exchanged glances and looked down into the grave. The rainwater had already started to collect in the bottom.

"I wanted to try to stop this repulsive desecration," Erlendur heard Elín say to the minister. He was somewhat relieved to see that Elín had collected herself. He walked over to her with Sigurdur Óli following close behind.

"I'll never forgive you for this," Elín said to Erlendur. The minister was standing by her side. "Never!"

"I do understand," Erlendur said, "but the investigation takes priority."

"Investigation? Bugger your investigation," Elín shouted. "Where are you taking the body?"

"To Reykjavik."

"And when are you bringing it back?"

"Two days from now."

"Look what you've done to her grave," Elín said in a puzzled tone of resignation, as if she hadn't yet completely taken in what had happened. She walked past Erlendur towards the headstone and what remained of the fencing, the vase of flowers and the open grave.

Erlendur decided to tell her about the message that was found in Holberg's flat.

"A note was left behind at Holberg's place when we found him," Erlendur said, walking after Elín. "We couldn't make much of it until Audur entered the picture and we talked to her old doctor. Icelandic murderers generally don't leave anything behind but a mess, but the one who killed Holberg wanted to give us something to rack our brains over. When the doctor talked about the possibility of a hereditary disease the message suddenly took on a certain meaning. Also after what Ellidi told me in the prison. Holberg has no living relatives. He had a sister who died at the age of nine. Sigurdur Óli here", Erlendur said, pointing to his colleague, "found the medical reports about her – Ellidi was right. Like Audur, Holberg's sister died of a brain tumour. Very probably from the same disease."

"What is it you're saying? What was the message?" Elín asked.

Erlendur hesitated. He looked at Sigurdur Óli who looked first at Elín and then back at Erlendur.

"I am him," Erlendur said.

"What do you mean?"

"That was the message: 'I am him' with the final word, 'him', in capitals."

"I am him," Elín repeated. "What does that mean?"

"It's impossible to say really but I've been wondering if it doesn't imply some kind of relation," Erlendur said. "The person who wrote 'I am him' would have felt he had something in common with Holberg. It could be a fantasy by some nutcase who didn't even know him. Just nonsense. But I don't think so. I think the disease will help us. I think we have to find out exactly what it was."

"What kind of relation?"

"According to the records, Holberg didn't have any children. Audur wasn't named after him. Her last name was Kolbrúnardóttir. But if Ellidi's telling the truth when he says Holberg raped more women besides Kolbrún, women who didn't come forward, it could be just as likely that he's had other children. That Kolbrún wasn't the only victim who had his child. We've narrowed down the search for a possible victim in Húsavík to the women who had children over a certain period and we're hoping something will come out of this soon."

"Húsavík?"

"Holberg's previous victim was from there, apparently."

"What do you mean by a hereditary disease?" Elín said. "What sort of disease? Is it the one that killed Audur?"

"We have to examine Holberg, confirm that he was Audur's father and piece everything together. But if this theory is correct, it's probably a rare, genetically transmitted disease."

"And did Audur have it?"

"She may have died too long ago to give a satisfactory result but that's what we want to find out."

By now they had walked to the church, Elín by Erlendur's side and Sigurdur Óli following behind them. Elín led the way. The church was open; they went in out of the rain and stood in the vestibule looking out at the gloomy autumn day.

"I think Holberg was Audur's father," Erlendur said. "Actually I have no reason to doubt your word and what your sister told you. But we need confirmation. It's vital from the point of view of the police investigation. If a genetic disease is involved which Audur got from Holberg, it could be somewhere else too. It's possible that the disease is linked to Holberg's murder."

They didn't notice a car driving slowly away from the cemetery along the rough old track of a road, its lights switched off and barely visible in the darkness. When it reached Sandgerdi it picked up speed, the headlights were switched on and it had soon caught up with the van carrying the body. On the Keflavík road the driver made sure he kept two or three cars behind the van. In this way, he followed the coffin all the way to Reykjavík.

When the van stopped in front of the morgue on Barónsstígur he parked the car some distance away and watched as the coffin was carried into the building and the doors closed behind it. He watched the van drive away and saw when the woman who'd accompanied the coffin left the morgue and got into a taxi.

When everything was quiet again, he drove away.

Marion Briem opened the door for him. Erlendur hadn't said he was coming. He'd come straight from Sandgerdi and decided to talk to Marion before going home. It was 6 p.m. and it was pitch dark outside. Marion invited Erlendur in and asked him to excuse the mess. It was a small flat, a sitting room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, and it was an example of how careless people can be when they live alone, not unlike Erlendur's flat. Newspapers, magazines and books were spread all over, the carpet was worn and dirty, unwashed dishes were piled up beside the kitchen sink. The light from a table lamp made a feeble attempt to illuminate the dark room. Marion told Erlendur to sweep the newspapers on one of the chairs onto the floor and take a seat.

"You didn't tell me you were involved in the case at the time," Erlendur said.

"Not one of my great achievements," Marion said, taking a cigarillo from a box, with small, slight hands, a pained expression, a large head on what was in other respects a delicately built body. Erlendur declined the offer of one. He knew that Marion still kept an eye on interesting cases, sought information from colleagues who still worked for the police and even occasionally chipped in on them.

"You want to know more about Holberg," Marion said.

"And his friends," Erlendur said and sat down after sweeping the pile of newspapers aside. "And about Rúnar from Keflavík."

"Yes, Rúnar from Keflavík," Marion said. "He was going to kill me once."

"He's not likely to today, the old wreck," Erlendur said.

"So you met him," Marion said. "He's got cancer, did you know that? A question of weeks rather than months."

"I didn't know," Erlendur said, and visualised Rúnar's thin and bony face. The drip on the end of his nose while he raked up the leaves in his garden.

"He had incredibly powerful friends at the ministry. That's why he hung on. I recommended dismissal. He was given a warning."

"Do you remember Kolbrún at all?"

"The most miserable victim I've seen in my life," Marion said. "I didn't get to know her well, but I do know she could never tell a lie about anything. She made her accusations against Holberg and described the treatment she got from Rúnar, as you know. It was her word against his in Rúnar's case, but her statement was convincing. He shouldn't have sent her home, panties or no panties. Holberg raped her. That was obvious. I made them confront each other, Holberg and Kolbrun. And there was no question."

"You made them confront each other?"

"It was a mistake. I thought it would help. That poor woman."

"How?"

"I made it look like a coincidence or an accident. I didn't realise . . . I shouldn't be telling you this. I'd reached a dead-end in the investigation. She said one thing and he said something else. I called them both in at once and made sure they'd meet."

"What happened?"

"She had hysterics and we had to call a doctor. I'd never seen anything like it before, or since."

"What about him?"

"Just stood there grinning."

Erlendur was silent for a moment.

"Do you think it was his child?"

Marion shrugged. "Kolbrún always claimed it was."

"Did Kolbrún ever talk to you about another woman that Holberg raped?"

"Was there another one?"

Erlendur repeated what Ellidi had said and had soon outlined the whole investigation. Marion Briem sat smoking the cigarillo, listening. Staring at Erlendur with small eyes, alert and piercing. They never missed anything. They saw a tired middle-aged man with dark lines under his eyes, several days' stubble on his cheeks, thick eyebrows that stuck out, his bushy ginger hair that was all in a tangle, strong teeth that sometimes showed behind pallid lips, a weary expression that had witnessed all the worst dregs of human filth. Marion Briem's eyes revealed clear pity and a sad certainty that they were looking at their own reflection.

Erlendur had been under Marion Briem's guidance when he joined the CID and everything he had learned in those first years, Marion taught him. Like Erlendur, Marion had never been a senior officer and always worked on routine investigations but had enormous experience. An infallible memory that hadn't deteriorated in the slightest with age. Everything seen and heard was classified, recorded and saved in the infinite storage space of Marion's brain, then called up without the slightest effort when needed. Marion could recall old cases in the minutest detail, a fountain of wisdom about every aspect of Icelandic criminology. Sharp powers of deduction and a logical mind.

To work with, Marion Briem was an intolerably pedantic, stringent and insufferable old bastard, as Erlendur once put it to Eva Lind when the topic arose. A deep rift had developed between him and his old mentor for many years which reached the point where they hardly said a word to each other. Erlendur felt that in some inexplicable way he had disappointed Marion. He thought this was becoming increasingly obvious until his mentor eventually retired, much to Erlendur's relief.

After Marion left work it was as if their relationship returned to normal. The tension eased and the rivalry more or less disappeared.

"So that's why it occurred to me to drop in on you and see what you remembered about Holberg, Ellidi and Grétar," Erlendur said in the end.

"You're not hoping to find Grétar after all these years?" Marion said in a tone of astonishment. Erlendur discerned a look of worry.

"How far did you get with it?"

"I never got anywhere, it was only a part-time assignment," Marion said. Erlendur cheered up for a moment when he felt he could sense a hint of apology. "He probably disappeared over the weekend of the national festival at Thingvellir. I talked to his mother and friends, Ellidi and Holberg, and his workmates. Grétar worked for Eimskip as a stevedore. Everyone thought he'd probably fallen into the sea. If he'd fallen into the cargo hold they said they couldn't have failed to find him."

"Where were Holberg and Ellidi around the time Grétar disappeared? Do you remember?"

"They both said they were at the festival and we could verify that. But of course the exact time of Grétar's disappearance was uncertain. No-one had seen him for two weeks when his mother contacted us. What are you thinking? Have you got a new lead on Grétar?"

"No," Erlendur said. "And I'm not looking for him. So long as he hasn't appeared out of the blue and murdered his old friend Holberg in Nordurmýri then he can be gone for ever for all I care. I'm trying to work out what kind of a group they were, Holberg, Ellidi and Grétar."

"They were scum. All three of them. You know Ellidi yourself. Grétar wasn't a bit better. More of a wimp. I had to deal with him once over a burglary and it looked to me like the start of a pathetic small-time criminal career. They worked together at the Harbour and Lighthouse Authority. That's how they met. Ellidi was the dumb sadist. Picked fights whenever he got the chance. Attacked weaker people. Hasn't changed either, so I believe. Holberg was a kind of ringleader. The most intelligent one. He got off lightly over Kolbrún. When I started asking about him at the time, people were reluctant to talk. Grétar was the wimp who latched onto them, unassertive, cowardly, but I had the feeling there was more to him than met the eye."

"Did Rúnar and Holberg know each other previously?"

"I don't think so."

"We haven't announced it yet," Erlendur said, "but we found a note on top of the body."

"A note?"

"The murderer wrote 'I am him' on a piece of paper and left it on top of Holberg."

"I am him?"

"Doesn't that suggest they were related?"

"Unless it's a Messiah complex. A religious maniac."

"I'd rather put it down to kinship."

" 'I am him'? What's he saying by that? What's the meaning?"

"I wish I knew," Erlendur said.

He stood up and put on his hat, saying he had to get home. Marion asked how Eva Lind was, Erlendur said she was dealing with her problems and left it at that. Marion accompanied him to the door and showed him out. They shook hands. When Erlendur went down the steps, Marion called out to him.

"Erlendur! Wait a minute, Erlendur."

Erlendur turned around and looked up to Marion standing in the doorway and he saw how age had left its mark on that air of respectability, how rounded shoulders could diminish dignity and a wrinkled face bear witness to a difficult life. It was a long time since he'd been to that flat and he had been thinking, while he sat facing Marion in the chair, about the treatment that time hands out to people.

"Don't let anything you find out about Holberg have too much effect on you," Marion Briem said. "Don't let him kill any part of you that you don't want rid of anyway. Don't let him win. That was all."

Erlendur stood still in the rain, unsure of what this advice was supposed to mean. Marion Briem nodded at him.

"What burglary was it?"

"Burglary?" Marion asked opening the door again.

"That Grétar did. What did he burgle?"

"A photographic shop. He had some kind of fixation with photographs," Marion Briem said. "He took pictures."

Two men, both wearing leather jackets and black leather boots laced up to their calves, knocked at Erlendur's door and disturbed him as he was nodding off in his armchair later that evening. He'd come home, called out to Eva Lind without getting a reply and sat down on the chicken portions that had lain on the chair ever since he'd slept sitting on them the night before. The two men asked for Eva Lind. Erlendur had never seen them before and hadn't seen his daughter since she had cooked him the meat stew. Their expressions were ruthless when they asked Erlendur where they could get hold of her and they tried to see inside the flat without actually pushing past him. Erlendur asked what they wanted his daughter for. They asked if he was hiding her inside his flat, the dirty old sod. Erlendur asked if they'd come to collect a debt. They told him to fuck off. He told them to bugger off. They told him to eat shit. When he was about to close the door, one of them stuck his knee in past the doorframe. "Your daughter's a fucking cunt," he shouted. He was wearing leather trousers.

Erlendur sighed. It had been a long, dull day.

He heard the knee crack and splinter when the door slammed against it with such force that the upper hinges ripped out of the frame.