Tainted Blood

31

Erlendur left his colleagues in Nordurmyri and went up to Baronsstigur to meet the pathologist. The pathologist was completing his autopsy on Holberg and was covering up the body when Erlendur went up to him. Audur's body was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you found the girl's brain?" the pathologist asked straight out when Erlendur walked in on him.

"No," Erlendur said.

"I talked to a professor, an old girlfriend of mine from the university, and explained it to her, I hope that was all right, and she wasn't surprised about our little discovery. That short story by Halldor Laxness, have you read it?"

"The one about Nebuchadnezzar? It has crossed my mind in the past couple of days," Erlendur said.

"Isn't it called 'Lily', that story? It's a long time since I read it, but it's about some medical students who snatch a body and put rocks in the coffin, and basically that's what happens. No-one kept any real tabs on that in the old days, just as the story describes. People who died in hospital had autopsies unless it was forbidden and of course the autopsy was used for teaching purposes. Sometimes samples were removed and they could be anything really, from whole organs to minor tissue samples. Then everything was wrapped up and the person in question was given a decent burial. These days it's rather different. An autopsy is performed only if the relatives give their consent and organs are removed for research and teaching purposes only if certain conditions are met. I don't think anything is stolen nowadays."

"You don't think so?"

The pathologist shrugged.

"We're not talking about organ transplants, are we?" Erlendur said.

"A completely different matter. People are generally prepared to help others if it's a question of life and death."

"And where's the organ bank?"

"There are thousands of samples in this building alone," the pathologist said. "Here on Baronsstegur. The largest part of it is the Dungal collection, which is the largest bio-sample bank in Iceland."

"Could you show it to me?" Erlendur asked. "Is there a register of where the samples come from?"

"It's all carefully documented. I took the liberty of checking for our sample but I couldn't find it."

"Where is it then?"

"You ought to talk to the professor and hear what she has to say. I think there are some registers up at the university."

"Why didn't you tell me this straightaway?" Erlendur asked. "When you discovered the brain had been removed? You knew about it?"

"Talk to her and come back. I've probably told you far too much already."

"Are the registers for the collection in the university?"

"As far as I know," the pathologist said, gave him the professor's name and told him to let him get on with his work.

"So you know about Jar City then," Erlendur said.

"They used to call one room here Jar City," the pathologist said. "It's closed now. Don't ask me what happened to the jars, I haven't got the faintest idea."

"Do you find this uncomfortable to talk about?"

"Will you stop this."

"What?"

"Stop it."

The professor, Hanna, who was head of the University of Iceland's Faculty of Medicine, stared across the desk at Erlendur as if he were a cancerous growth that needed to be removed from her office at the earliest possible opportunity. She was somewhat younger than Erlendur but extremely firm, spoke fast and was quick to reply, and gave the impression that she couldn't stand any nonsense or unnecessary digressions. She asked Erlendur quite brashly to get to the point when he embarked upon a long speech about his reasons for being in her office. Erlendur smiled to himself. He took an immediate liking to her and knew they'd be at each other's throats before their meeting was over. She was wearing a dark suit, plump, no make-up, short, blond hair, her hands practical, her expression serious and pro-found. Erlendur would have liked to see her smile. His wish was not granted.

He had disturbed her during a lecture. Knocked on the door to ask for her as if he'd lost his way. She came to the door and asked him kindly to wait until the lecture was over. Erlendur stood in the corridor, as if he had been caught playing truant, for a quarter of an hour before the door opened. Hanna strode out into the corridor and past Erlendur and told him to follow her. He had trouble doing so. She seemed to take two steps for every one of his.

"I can't understand what the CID wants of me," she said as she breezed along, turning her head slightly as if to reassure herself that Erlendur was keeping up with her.

"You'll find out," Erlendur panted.

"I certainly hope so," Hanna said and showed him into her office.

When Erlendur told her his business she sat and thought about it for a long time. Erlendur managed to slow her down a little with the account of Audur and her mother and the autopsy, the diagnosis and the brain that had been removed.

"Which hospital did you say the girl was admitted to?" she asked eventually.

"Keflavik. How do you obtain organs for teaching?"

Hanna stared at Erlendur.

"I don't see what you're getting at."

"You use human organs for teaching purposes," Erlendur said. "Bio-samples, I think they're called, I'm no expert, but the question is very simple. Where do you get them from?"

"I don't think I need to tell you anything about that," she said and started to fiddle with some papers lying on her desk as if she was too busy to pay proper attention to Erlendur.

"It's quite important to us," Erlendur said, "to us at the police, to find out if the brain still exists. Conceivably it's in your records. It was studied at the time but not returned to its rightful place. There may be a perfectly straightforward explanation. The tumour took time to examine and the body had to be buried. The university and hospitals are the most likely places for storing organs. You can sit there with your poker face, but I can do a couple of things to cause a bit of aggro for you, the university and the hospitals. Just think what a pain the media can be sometimes, and I just happen to have a couple of friends on the papers."

Hanna took a long look at Erlendur, who stared back.

"A crow starves sitting," she said eventually.

"But finds flying," Erlendur completed the proverb.

"That was really the only rule in this respect, but I can't tell you anything, as you can possibly imagine. These are fairly sensitive issues."

"I'm not investigating it as a criminal act," Erlendur said. "I don't even know whether an organ theft was involved. What you do to dead people is none of my business, if it's kept within reasonable limits."

Hanna's expression turned even more ferocious.

"If this is what the medical profession needs, I'm sure it can be justified to some people. I need to locate a specific organ from a specific individual to study it again and if we can trace its history from the time it was removed until the present day I'd be extremely grateful. This is private information for my own purposes."

"What kind of private information?"

"I'm not interested in letting this go any further. We need to get the organ back if possible. What I was wondering is whether it wouldn't have sufficed to take a sample, whether the whole organ needed to be removed."

"Of course I don't know the specific case to which you're referring but there are stricter rules in force about autopsies now than in the old days," Hanna said after some thought. "If this case was in the '60s it could have happened, I wouldn't rule that out. You say the girl was given an autopsy against her mother's will. It's hardly the first instance of that. Today, the relatives are asked immediately after a death if an autopsy can be performed. I think I can say that their wishes are honoured apart from absolutely exceptional cases. That would have applied in this case. Child mortality is the most terrible of all things to deal with. There's no way to describe the tragedy that strikes people who lose a child and the question of an autopsy can be uncomfortable in such cases."

Hanna paused.

"We have some of this on record on our computers," she continued, "and the rest is in the archive stored in this building. They keep fairly detailed records. The hospitals' largest collection of organs is on Baronsstigur. You realise that little medical teaching takes place here on campus. It's done in the hospitals. That's where the knowledge comes from."

"The pathologist didn't want to show me the organ bank," Erlendur said. "He wanted me to talk to you first. Does the university have any say in the matter?"

"Come on," Hanna said, without answering his question. "Let's see what's in the computers."

She stood up and Erlendur followed her. She used a key to unlock a spacious room and entered a password in a security device on the wall by the door. She went over to a desk and switched on a computer while Erlendur took a look around. There were no windows in the room and rows of filing cabinets stood against the walls. Hanna asked for Audur's name and date of death and entered it in the computer.

"It's not here," she said thoughtfully, glaring at the monitor. "Computer records only go back to 1984. We're digitising all the data from the time the medical faculty was established, but we haven't got any further than that with our records yet."

"So it's the filing cabinets then," Erlendur said.

"I really don't have the time for all this," Hanna said, looking at the clock. "I'm supposed to be in the lecture theatre again."

She went over to Erlendur and took a quick look around, walked between the cabinets and read their labels. She pulled out a drawer here and there and browsed through the documents, but quickly closed them again. Erlendur had no idea what the files contained.

"Have you got medical records in here?" he asked.

Hanna groaned. "Don't tell me you're here for the data privacy committee," she said and slammed yet another drawer shut.

"Only asked," Erlendur said.

Hanna took out a report and read from it.

"Here's something about bio-samples," she said. "1968. There are several names here. Nothing you're interested in." She put the report back in the cabinet, shoved the drawer closed and pulled out another one. "Here are some more," she said. "Wait a minute. Here's the girl's name, Audur, and her mother's name. Here it is."

Hanna read quickly through the report.

"One organ removed," she said, as if to herself. "Taken at Keflavik hospital. Permission of next of kin. . nothing there. There's nothing here about the organ being destroyed."

Hanna closed the file. "It's not around any more."

"May I see that?" Erlendur asked, not attempting to conceal his eagerness.

"You won't learn anything from it," Hanna said, put the file back in the drawer and closed it. "I've told you what you need to know."

"What does it say? What are you hiding?"

"Nothing," Hanna said, "and now I have to get back to my teaching."

"Then I'll get a warrant and come back later today and that report had better be where it belongs," Erlendur said and walked in the direction of the door.

"Do you promise that the information from here won't go any further?" she said when Erlendur had opened the door and was about to leave.

"I've told you that. This is private information, for me."

"Take a look at it then," Hanna said, reopened the cabinet and handed him the file.

Erlendur closed the door, took the file and immersed himself in it. Hanna took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one while she waited for Erlendur to finish reading. She ignored the NO SMOKING sign and soon the room was filled with smoke.

"Who's Eydal?"

"One of our most accomplished medical scientists."

"What was it here that you didn't want me to see? Can't I talk to this man?"

Hanna didn't reply.

"What's going on?" Erlendur said.

Hanna sighed. "I understand he keeps a few organs himself," she said eventually.

"The man collects organs?" Erlendur said.

"He keeps a few organs, a small collection."

"An organ collector?"

"That's all I know," Hanna said.

"It's conceivable that he's got the brain," Erlendur said. "It says here he was given a sample to study. Is this a problem for you?"

"He's one of our leading scientists," she repeated, through clenched teeth.

"He keeps the brain of a 4-year-old girl on his mantelpiece!" Erlendur shouted.

"I don't expect you to understand scientific work," she said.

"What is there to understand about this?"

"I should never have let you in here," Hanna shouted.

"I've heard that one before," Erlendur said.