Tainted Blood

19

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 Runar from Keflavik."

"Yes, Runar from Keflavik," 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 Runar'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 Kolbrun 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 Runar, as you know. It was her word against his in Runar'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. "Kolbrun always claimed it was."

"Did Kolbrun 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 Gretar," Erlendur said in the end.

"You're not hoping to find Gretar 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. Gretar 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 Gretar disappeared? Do you remember?"

"They both said they were at the festival and we could verify that. But of course the exact time of Gretar'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 Gretar?"

"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 Nordurmyri 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 Gretar."

"They were scum. All three of them. You know Ellidi yourself. Gretar 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 Kolbrun. When I started asking about him at the time, people were reluctant to talk. Gretar was the wimp who latched onto them, unassertive, cowardly, but I had the feeling there was more to him than met the eye."

"Did Runar 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 Gretar 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.