Tainted Blood - By Arnaldur Indridason Page 0,84

Icelander was traced back to the Middle Ages; they called it establishing the Icelandic genetic pool. The main aim was to discover how hereditary illnesses were transmitted, study them genetically and find ways to cure them, and other diseases if possible. It was said that the homogenous nation and lack of miscegenation made Iceland a living laboratory for genetic research.

The Genetic Research Centre and the Ministry of Health, which issued the licence for the database, guaranteed that no outsider could break into the database and announced a complex encryption system for the data which was impossible to crack.

"Are you worried about your paternity?" Erlendur asked. He'd also put on rubber gloves and stepped carefully further into the sitting room. He picked up one of the photo albums and leafed through it. It was old.

"Everyone always said I never resembled my father or mother or anyone else in my family."

"I've always had that feeling too," Erlendur said.

"What do you mean?"

"That you were a bastard."

"Glad you've got your sense of humour back," Sigurdur ?li said. "You've been a little distant recently."

"What sense of humour?" Erlendur said.

He flicked through another of the albums. These were old black-and-white photographs. He thought he recognised Einar's mother in some of them. So the man would be Albert and the boys, their three sons. Einar was the youngest. There were photo-graphs taken at Christmas and on summer holidays, many of them ordinary snapshots taken of the boys in the street or at the kitchen table, wearing patterned, knitted sweaters, which Erlendur remembered from the late '60s. The elder brothers had let their hair grow long.

Further on in the album the boys were older and with longer hair and they were wearing suits with wide lapels and black shoes with stacked heels. Katr铆n with her hair waved. The photos were in colour now. Albert beginning to turn grey. Erlendur looked for Einar and when he compared his features with those of his brothers and his parents he could see how different he looked. The other two boys had strong features from their parents, especially their father. Einar was the ugly duckling.

He put the old album down and picked a more recent one. The photographs seemed to have be taken by Einar himself, showing his own family. They didn't tell such a long story. It was as if Erlendur had dipped into the course of Einar's life when he was getting to know his wife. He wondered if they were honeymoon photos. They had travelled around Iceland, been to Hornstrandir, he thought. Th贸rsm枚rk. Herdubreidarlindir. Sometimes they were on bicycles. Sometimes driving a battered old car. Camping photos. Erlendur presumed they had been taken in the mid-'8os.

He flicked quickly through the album, put it down and picked up what looked to him like the most recent one. In it he saw a little girl in a hospital bed with tubes in her arms and an oxygen mask over her face. Her eyes were closed and she was surrounded by instruments. She seemed to be in intensive care. He hesitated for a moment before going on.

Erlendur was surprised by the sudden ringing of his mobile phone. He put the album down without closing it. It was El铆n from Keflav铆k and she was very agitated.

"He was with me this morning," she said at once.

"Who?"

"Audur's brother. His name's Einar. I tried to get hold of you. He was with me this morning and told me the whole story, the poor man. He lost his daughter, just like Kolbr煤n. He knew what Audur died of. It's a disease in Holberg's family."

"Where is he now?" Erlendur asked.

"He was so terribly depressed," El铆n said. "He might do something stupid."

"What do you mean, stupid?"

"He said it was over."

"What was over?"

"He didn't say, just said it was over."

"Do you know where he is now?"

"He said he was going back to Reykjavik."

"To Reykjav铆k? Where?"

"He didn't say," El铆n answered.

"Did he give any indication of what he was going to do?"

"No," El铆n said, "none at all. You must find him before he does something stupid. He feels so terrible, the poor man. It's awful. Absolutely awful. My God, I've never known anything like it."

"What?"

"He's so like his father. He's the spitting image of Holberg and he can't live with that. He just can't. After he heard what Holberg did to his mother. He says he's a prisoner inside his own body. He says Holberg's blood is running through his veins and he can't stand it."

"What's he talking about?"

"It's as if he