Tainted Blood - By Arnaldur Indridason Page 0,64

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 Óli, 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 Elínborg turned up. Sigurdur Óli 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 Óli's chagrin.

"They're going to do a camera probe," Sigurdur Óli 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," Elínborg 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 Grétar 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 Grétar 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. Elínborg quickly followed him and then Sigurdur Óli. They all got into Erlendur's car. He had told them the previous evening why he suddenly left for Keflavík, 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 Nordurmýri. And if the man Elín saw in Keflavík 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 Óli 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," Elínborg said.

"No-one we've talked to knew Holberg in the first place," Sigurdur Óli 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 Grétar. 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 Elín, Audur's aunt? Doesn't that mean he must also know about Audur, his sister? If he knows about Elín, I presume he knows about Kolbrún 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 Óli said. "Isn't that likely?"

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

"First of all, we don't know whether this man even exists," Erlendur said. "Elín 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 Kolbrún 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