Tainted Blood - By Arnaldur Indridason Page 0,13

What reports?"

"The question is whether they're actually on file in the computers. Maybe they've been thrown out. Is there any law about when reports become obsolete? Are they destroyed?"

"What are you driving at?"

"Turns out Holberg was no model citizen," Marion Briem said.

"In what way?"

"The chances are that he was a rapist."

"Chances are?"

"He was charged with rape, but never convicted. It was in 1963. You ought to take a look at your reports."

"Who accused him?"

"A woman by the name of Kolbrún. She lived in . . ."

"Keflavík?"

"Yes, how did you know that?"

"We found a photograph in Holberg's desk. It was as if it had been hidden there. It was a photograph of the gravestone of a girl called Audur, in a cemetery we still haven't identified. I woke up one of the living dead from the National Statistics Office and found Kolbrún's name on the death certificate. She was the little girl's mother. Audur's mother. She's dead too."

Marion said nothing.

"Marion?" Erlendur said.

"And what does that tell you?" the voice replied. Erlendur thought.

"Well, if Holberg raped the mother he may well be the father of the girl and that's why the photo was in his desk. The girl was only 4 years old when she died, born in 1964."

"Holberg was never convicted," Marion Briem said. "The case was dropped due to insufficient evidence."

"Do you think she made it up?"

"It would be unlikely in those days, but nothing could be proved. Of course it's never easy for women to press charges for that kind of violence. You can't imagine what she would have gone through almost 40 years ago. It's difficult enough for women to come forward these days, but it was much more difficult then. She could hardly have done it for fun. Maybe the photo's some kind of proof of paternity. Why should Holberg have kept it in his desk? The rape took place in I963. You say Kolbrún had her daughter the following year. Four years later the daughter dies. Kolbrún has her buried. Holberg is implicated somehow. Maybe he took the photo himself. Why, I don't know. Maybe that's irrelevant."

"He certainly wouldn't have been at the funeral, but he could have gone to the grave later and taken a photograph. Do you mean something like that?"

"There's another possibility too."

"Yes?"

"Maybe Kolbrún took the photo herself and sent it to Holberg."

Erlendur thought for a moment.

"But why? If he raped her, why send him a photograph of the little girl's grave?"

"Good question."

"Did the death certificate say what Audur died of?" Marion Briem asked "Was it an accident?"

"She died of a brain tumour. Do you think that could be important?"

"Did they perform an autopsy?"

"Definitely. The doctor's name is on the death certificate."

"And the mother?"

"Died suddenly at her home."

"Suicide?"

"Yes."

"You've stopped calling in to see me," Marion Briem said after a short silence.

"Too busy," Erlendur said. "Too damned busy."

8

Next morning it was still raining and on the road to Keflavík the water collected in deep tyre tracks that the cars tried to avoid. The rain was so torrential Erlendur could hardly see out of the car windows, which were veiled in spray and rattled in the unrelenting south-easterly storm. The wipers couldn't clear the water from the windscreen fast enough and Erlendur gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He could vaguely make out the red rear lights of the car in front and tried to follow them as best he could.

He was travelling alone. Thought this was best after a difficult telephone conversation with Kolbrún's sister earlier that morning. She was listed as next of kin on the death certificate. The sister was not cooperative. She refused to meet him. The papers had printed a photograph of the dead man, along with his name. Erlendur asked whether she'd seen it and was about to ask whether she remembered him when she hung up. He decided to test what she would do if he appeared on her doorstep. He preferred not to have the police bring her in to him.

Erlendur had slept badly that night. He was worried about Eva Lind and feared she would do something stupid. She had a mobile phone, but every time he called a mechanical voice answered saying that the number could not be reached. Erlendur rarely remembered his dreams. It made him uncomfortable when he awoke to snatches of a bad dream passing through his mind before finally vanishing from him completely.

The police had precious little information about Kolbrún. She was born in I934 and