Tainted Blood - By Arnaldur Indridason Page 0,46

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