Tainted Blood

29

Sigurdur Oli returned his mobile phone to the holder on his belt and walked back to the house. He'd been inside with several other policemen when the pneumatic drill penetrated the base plate and the stench that came out was so overpowering that he retched. He rushed for the door like everyone else inside and thought he would vomit before he made it out into the fresh air. When they went back in they wore goggles and masks over their mouths, but the horrendous smell still penetrated them.

The drill operator widened the hole over the broken sewage pipe. It was easy going once he was through the floor. Sigurdur Oli dreaded to think how long ago the pipe had been broken. It looked as if waste had been collecting in a large area under the floor. There was a faintly discernable steam rising up from the hole. He shone a torch down at the patch of filth and from what he could see the ground had subsided by at least half a yard from the base plate.

The patch of filth was like a thick, swarming trunk of little black bugs. He jumped back when he saw some kind of creature dart past the beam of light.

"Watch out!" he shouted and strode out of the basement. "There are rats under that bloody thing. Close up the hole and call in pest control. Let's stop here. Stop everything this minute!"

No-one objected. One of the forensic team spread a plastic sheet over the hole in the floor and the basement was empty in a flash. Sigurdur Oli tore off his mask when he came out of the basement and voraciously gulped down the fresh air. They all did.

On his way home from Keflavik, Erlendur heard about the progress of the investigation in Nordurmyri. A pest-control officer had been called out, but the police would take no further action until the following morning when everything that was living in the foundations had been exterminated. Sigurdur Oli had gone home and was getting out of the shower when Erlendur called him for an update. Elinborg had gone home too. A guard was mounted outside Holberg's flat while the pest-control officer did his work. Two police cars stood outside the house all night.

Eva Lind met her father at the door when he got home. It was past 9 p.m. The bride had left. Before she went she had told Eva Lind she was going to talk to her husband and find out how he was feeling. She wasn't sure whether she would tell him the real reason for running out of their wedding. Eva Lind urged her to, said she shouldn't cover up for that bastard of a father of hers. The last thing she should do was cover up for him.

They sat down in the sitting room. Erlendur told Eva Lind all about the murder investigation, where it had led him and what was going through his mind. He did so not least to gain some kind of understanding of the case for his own benefit, a clearer picture of what had been happening over the past few days. He told her almost everything, from the moment they found Holberg's body in the basement, the smell in his flat, the note, the old photograph in the drawer, the pornography on his computer, the epitaph on the gravestone, Kolbrun and her sister, Elin, Audur and her unexplained death, the dreams that haunted him, Ellidi in prison and Gretar's disappearance, Marion Briem, the search for Holberg's other victim and the man in front of Elin's house, conceivably Holberg's son. He tried to give a systematic account and discussed with himself various theories and questions, until he reached a dead end and stopped talking.

He didn't tell Eva Lind the brain was missing from the child's body. He hadn't yet begun to understand how that could have happened.

Eva Lind listened to him without interrupting and she noticed how Erlendur rubbed his chest while he talked. She could feel how the Holberg case was affecting him. She could sense an air of resignation about him that she'd never noticed before. She could sense his weariness when he talked about the little girl. It was as if he withdrew inside himself, his voice went quieter and he became increasingly remote.

"Is Audur the girl you told me about when you were shouting at me this morning?" Eva Lind asked.

"She was, I don't know, maybe some kind of godsend to her mother," Erlendur said. "She loved the girl beyond death and the grave. Sorry if I've been nasty to you. I didn't intend to, but when I see the way you live, when I see your careless attitude and your lack of self-respect, when I see the destruction, everything you do to yourself and then I watch the little coffin coming up out of the ground, then I can't understand anything any more. I can't understand what's happening and I want to …"

Erlendur fell silent.

"Beat the shit out of me," Eva Lind finished the sentence for him.

Erlendur shrugged.

"I don't know what I want to do. Maybe the best thing is to do nothing. Maybe it's best to let life run its course. Forget the whole business. Start doing something sensible. Why should I want to get involved in all this? All this filth. Talking to people like Ellidi. Doing deals with shits like Eddi. Seeing how people like Holberg get their kicks. Reading rape reports. Digging up the foundations of a house full of bugs and shit. Digging up little coffins."

Erlendur stroked his chest even harder.

"You think it won't affect you. You reckon you're strong enough to withstand that sort of thing. You think you can put on armour against it over the years and can watch all the filth from a distance as if it's none of your business, and try to keep your senses. But there isn't any distance. And there's no armour. No-one's strong enough. The repulsion haunts you like an evil spirit that burrows into your mind and doesn't leave you in peace until you believe that the filth is life itself because you've forgotten how ordinary people live. This case is like that. Like an evil spirit that's been unleashed to run riot in your mind and ends up leaving you crippled."

Erlendur heaved a deep sigh. "It's all one great big bloody mire."

He stopped talking and Eva Lind sat silently with him.

Some time passed like this until she got up, sat down beside her father, put her arm round him and sidled up against him. She could hear his heart beating rhythmically, like a soothing clock, and eventually fell asleep with a contented smile on her face.