Tainted Blood

28

The connection broke off and Erlendur started the engine. Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg watched him reverse through the crowd and disappear off down the street. They looked at each other and shrugged as if they’d given up trying to figure him out ages ago.

Before he was even out of the street he had already contacted the Keflavik police and sent them off to Elin’s house to apprehend a man in the vicinity who was wearing a blue anorak, jeans and white trainers. Elin had described the man. He told the sergeant not to switch on the sirens or flashing lights, but to approach as quietly as possible so as not to scare him off.

“Stupid old bag,” Erlendur said to himself and hung up his phone.

He drove out of Reykjavik as fast as he could, through Hafnarfjordur and onto the Keflavik road. The traffic was heavy and visibility was poor, but he zig-zagged between the cars and even onto a traffic island to overtake. He disregarded all the traffic lights and made it to Keflavik in half an hour. It helped him that the CID had recently been issued with blue police lights that they could put on the roofs of their unmarked cars in emergencies. He’d laughed at the time. Recalled the apparatus on a detective programme on television and thought it was ridiculous to go around using thriller props in Reykjavik.

Two police cars were parked outside Elin’s house when he pulled up. Elin was waiting for him inside with three policemen. She said the man had vanished into the dark just before the police cars pulled up at the house. She pointed out where he’d been standing and the direction he ran, but the police could not find any trace of him. The police were baffled about how to deal with Elin, who refused to tell them who the man was and why he was dangerous; his only crime, apparently, was that he had been standing outside her house in the rain. When they put their questions to Erlendur, he told them the man was connected with a murder inquiry in Reykjavik. He told them to inform the Reykjavik police if they came across anyone matching the man’s description.

Elin was fairly agitated and Erlendur decided the wisest move would be to get the police out of her house as quickly as possible. He managed without much effort. They said they had better things to do than chase around after figments of an old woman’s imagination, though they made sure Elin didn’t hear them say it.

“I swear it was him outside,” she said to Erlendur when they were alone in the house. “I don’t know how, but it was him!”

Erlendur looked at her and heard what she was saying and could see that she meant it in all seriousness. He knew she’d been under great strain recently.

“It just doesn’t make sense, Elin. Holberg’s dead. I saw him in the morgue.” He paused to think, then added, “I saw his heart.”

Elin looked at him.

“You think I’m nuts. You think I’m imagining it all. That it’s a way of getting attention because…”

“Holberg’s dead,” Erlendur interrupted her. “What am I supposed to think?”

“Then it was the spitting image of him,” Elin said.

“Describe this man to me in more detail.”

Elin stood up, went to the sitting-room window and pointed out at the rain.

“He was standing there, by the path that leads out to the street between the houses. Stood completely still and looked in at me. I don’t know if he saw me. I tried to hide from him. I was reading and I got up when it started to get dark in the sitting room and I was going to switch on the light when I happened to look out of the window. His head was bare and it was like he couldn’t care less if he got soaked through. Even though he was standing just there, somehow he still seemed miles away.”

Elin thought for a moment. “He had black hair and looked around 40. Average height.”

“Elin,” Erlendur said. “It’s dark outside. Pouring rain. You can hardly see out of the window. The path isn’t lit. You wear glasses. Are you telling me that…”

“It was only just starting to get dark then and I didn’t run for the phone straightaway. I had a good look at the man out of this window and the kitchen window. It took me quite a while to realise it was Holberg, or someone like him. The path isn’t lit, but there’s a fair amount of traffic in the street and every time a car went past it lit him up so I could see his face clearly.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“He was the image of Holberg when he was younger,” Elin said. “Not the old bloke in the photo in the papers.”

“Did you see Holberg when he was younger?”

“Yes, I saw him. Kolbrun was called down to the CID once, out of the blue. They told her they needed a more detailed explanation about some part of her statement. All bloody lies. Someone called Marion Briem was handling the case. What kind of a name is that anyway? Marion Briem? They told Kolbrun to go to Reykjavik. She asked me to go with her and I did. She had an appointment, I think it was in the morning. We went in there and that Marion met us and showed us into a room. We’d been sitting there a while when the door suddenly opened and Holberg walked in. That Marion was standing behind him by the door.”

Elin paused.

“And what happened?” Erlendur asked.

“My sister had a breakdown. Holberg was grinning and he made some obscene gesture with his tongue and Kolbrun grabbed me like she was drowning. She couldn’t breathe. Holberg started laughing and Kolbrun had a fit. She rolled her eyes, started foaming at the mouth and fell on the floor. Marion took Holberg back out but I saw that beast there for the first and only time and I’ll never forget that ugly mug of his.”

“And you saw that same face outside your window tonight?”

Elin nodded.

“I was shocked, I admit that, and of course it can’t have been Holberg in person, but the man looked exactly like him.”

Erlendur wondered whether he should tell Elin about his recent train of thought. He weighed up how much he could tell her and whether there was any certainty that what he would say had any foundation in reality. They sat in silence while he thought it over. It was late evening and Erlendur’s thoughts turned to Eva Lind. He felt the pain in his chest again and stroked it as if that would make it go away.

“Are you all right?” Elin asked.

“We’ve been working on something recently, but I haven’t got a clue if there’s anything behind it,” Erlendur said. “But what happened here supports the theory. If Holberg had another victim, if he raped another woman, there’s a chance she had his child just like Kolbrun did. I’ve been wondering about that possibility because of the note we found with Holberg’s body. It’s possible he had a son. If the rape took place before I964 that son would be close to 40 today. And it could have been him standing outside your house here tonight.”

Elin looked at Erlendur, thunderstruck.

“Holberg’s son? Could that be?”

“You said he was the spitting image of him.”

“Yes, but…”

“I’m sort of turning it over in my mind. Somewhere in this case there’s a missing link and I think this man could well be it.”

“But why? What’s he doing here?”

“Don’t you think that’s obvious?”

“What’s obvious?”

“You’re his sister’s aunt,” Erlendur said and watched the expression on Elin’s face change as it gradually dawned on her what Erlendur meant.

“Audur was his sister,” she said. “But how could he know about me? How could he know where I live? How could he link Holberg with me? There’s been nothing about his past in the papers, nothing about his rapes or him having a daughter. No-one knew about Audur. How does that man know who I am?”

“Maybe he’ll tell us that when we find him.”

“Is he Holberg’s killer, do you reckon?”

“Now you’re asking me if he murdered his own father,” Erlendur said.

Elin thought. “My God,” she said.

“I don’t know,” Erlendur said. “If you see him outside again, call me.”

Elin had stood up and gone to the window facing the path as if expecting to see him there again.

“I know I was a bit hysterical when I phoned you and said Holberg was here because I felt for a moment that it could be him. It was such a terrible shock seeing him. But I didn’t feel scared. I was angry more than anything, but there was something about the man, the way he was standing, the way he bowed his head. There was something sad about him, in his face, some kind of sorrow. I thought to myself that he couldn’t be feeling well. He can’t feel well. Was he in touch with his father? Do you know?”

“I don’t know for sure that he actually exists,” Erlendur said. “What you saw supports one theory. We have no leads on that man. There aren’t any photos of him at Holberg’s flat if that’s what you mean. But someone did phone Holberg several times shortly before he was murdered and he was nervous about those calls. We don’t know any more than that.”

Erlendur took out his mobile phone and asked Elin to excuse him for a moment.

“What the bloody hell have you got us into now?” Sigurdur Oli shouted in a clearly furious voice. “They hit the shit pipe and it was swarming with filthy bugs, millions of disgusting little bugs under the sodding floor. It’s disgusting. Where the hell are you?”

“Keflavik. Any sign of Gretar?”

“No, there’s no sodding sign of any fucking Gretar,” Sigurdur Oli said and rang off.

“There’s one more thing, Inspector,” Elin said, “I just realised it when you talked about him being related to Audur. I can see now that I was right. I didn’t understand it then, but there was another look on his face that I thought I’d never see again. It was a face from the past that I’ve never forgotten.”

“What was it?” Erlendur said.

“That was why I didn’t feel scared of him. I didn’t realise at first. He reminded me of Audur too. There was something about him that reminded me of Audur.”