Tainted Blood

38

Erlendur looked at Katrin.

“Is that how he got the information about his real father?” he asked.

“He discovered that he couldn’t be Albert’s son,” Katrin said in a low voice.

“How?” Erlendur asked. “What was he looking for? Why was he looking himself up in the data-base? Was it a coincidence?”

“No,” Katrin said. “It wasn’t a coincidence.”

Elinborg had had enough. She wanted to stop the questioning and give Katrin a break. She stood up saying she needed to fetch a glass of water and gestured to Erlendur to come with her. He followed her into the kitchen. Elinborg told him she thought the woman had been through enough for the time being and that they should leave her alone and tell her to consult a lawyer before she said anything else. They ought to save further questioning until later in the day, talk to her family and ask someone to stay with her and help her. Erlendur pointed out that Katrin hadn’t been arrested, wasn’t suspected of anything, that this wasn’t a formal interrogation, just collecting information, and that Katrin was very cooperative at the moment. They ought to continue.

Elinborg shook her head.

“Strike while the iron’s hot,” Erlendur said.

“What a thing to say!” Elinborg hissed.

Katrin appeared at the kitchen door and asked if they should continue. She was ready to tell them the truth and not conceal anything this time.

“I want to get it over with,” she said.

Elinborg asked whether she wanted to contact a lawyer, but Katrin said no. She said she didn’t know any lawyers and had never had occasion to consult one. Didn’t know how to go about it.

Elinborg looked accusingly at Erlendur. He asked Katrin to continue. When they had all sat down Katrin resumed her story. She wrung her hands and sadly began her story.

Albert was going abroad that morning. They got up very early. She made coffee for them both. They talked yet again about selling the house and buying somewhere smaller. They’d often talked about this, but had never got round to it. Maybe it seemed like too big a step, as if underlining how old they were. They didn’t feel old, but it seemed an increasingly pressing matter for them to buy a smaller place. Albert said he would talk to an estate agent when he came back, and then he left in his Cherokee.

She went back to bed. She didn’t have to go to work for two hours, but she couldn’t get back to sleep. She lay there tossing and turning until eight o’clock. Then she got up. She was in the kitchen when she heard Einar come in. He had a key to the house.

She could tell at once that he was upset but she didn’t know why. He said he’d been up all night. Paced the sitting room and went into the kitchen but refused to sit down.

“I knew there was something that didn’t fit,” he said, and gave his mother an angry look. “I knew it all the time!”

She couldn’t understand what he was angry about.

“I knew something didn’t bloody fit,” he repeated almost shouting.

“What are you talking about, love,” she said, unaware of why he was angry. “What doesn’t fit?”

“I cracked the code,” he said. “I broke the rules to crack the code. I wanted to see how the disease is passed on through families — and it is passed on through families, I can tell you that. It’s in several families, but it’s not in our family. Not in Dad’s family and not in yours. That’s why it doesn’t fit. Do you understand? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Erlendur’s mobile phone rang in his coat pocket and he asked Katrin to excuse him. He went into the kitchen to answer it. It was Sigurdur Oli.

“The old girl from Keflavik’s looking for you,” he said, without introducing himself.

“The old girl? Do you mean Elin?”

“Yes, Elin.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Yes,” Sigurdur Oli said. “She said she needed to talk to you straightaway.”

“Do you know what she wants?”

“She flatly refused to tell me. How are you doing?”

“Did you give her my mobile number?”

“No.”

“If she calls again give her my number,” Erlendur said and hung up. Katrin and Elinborg were waiting for him in the sitting room.

“Sorry,” he said to Katrin. She continued her story.

Einar paced the sitting room. Katrin tried to calm him down and work out what had made her son so upset. She sat down and asked him to sit beside her, but he wouldn’t listen. Walked back and forth in front of her. She knew he’d been having problems for a long time and that the separation didn’t help. His wife had left him. She wanted a fresh start. She didn’t want to be overwhelmed by his sorrow.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

“So much, Mum, just so much.”

And then came the question she’d been waiting for all these years.

“Who’s my dad?” her son asked and stopped in front of her. “Who’s my real father?”

She looked at him.

“We haven’t got any secrets any more, Mum,” he said.

“What have you found out?” she asked. “What have you been up to?”

“I know who isn’t my father,” he said, “and that’s Dad.” He roared with laughter. “Did you hear that? Dad isn’t my dad! And if he isn’t my dad, who am I then? Where did I come from? My brothers. Suddenly they’re just half-brothers. Why haven’t you ever told me anything? Why have you lied to me all this time? Why? Why?”

She stared at him and her eyes filled with tears.

“Did you cheat on Dad?” he asked. “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone. Did you cheat on him? No-one need know except the two of us but I have to hear it from you. You have to tell me the truth. Where do I come from? How was I made?”

He stopped talking.

“Am I adopted? An orphan? What am I? Who am I? Mum?”

Katrin burst into tears with heavy sobs. He stared at her, just beginning to calm down, while she wept on the sofa. It took him some time to register how much his words had upset her. Eventually he sat down and put his arm around her. They sat for a while in silence until she started to tell him about the night in Husavik when his father was at sea. She was out with her girlfriends and met some men, including Holberg, who burst into her house. He listened to her story without interruption.

She told him how Holberg had raped her and threatened her and she’d decided for herself to have the baby and never tell anyone what had happened. Not his father and not him. And that had been fine. They’d lived a happy life. She hadn’t allowed Holberg to rob her of her happiness. He hadn’t managed to kill her family.

She told him that, though he was the son of the man who raped her, that didn’t prevent her from loving him as much as her other two sons and she knew Albert was particularly fond of him. So Einar had never suffered for what Holberg did. Never.

It took him a few minutes to digest what she’d said.

“Sorry,” he said at last. “I didn’t mean to get angry with you. I thought you’d been cheating and that’s where I came from. I had no idea about the rape.”

“Of course not,” she said. “How could you have known? I’ve never told anyone until now.”

“I should have seen that possibility too,” he said. “There was another possibility, but I didn’t consider it. Sorry. You must have felt terrible all these years.”

“You shouldn’t think about that,” she said. “You shouldn’t suffer for what that man did.”

“I’ve already suffered for it, Mum,” he said. “Endless torment. And not just me. Why didn’t you have an abortion? What stopped you?”

“Oh Lord, God, don’t say that, Einar. Never talk like that.”

Katrin stopped.

“Didn’t you ever consider an abortion?” Elinborg asked.

“All the time. Always. Until it was too late. I thought about it every day after I found out I was pregnant. Anyway, the child could well have been Albert’s. That probably made all the difference. And then I got depressed after the birth. Postnatal depression, isn’t it? I was sent for psychiatric treatment. After three months I was well enough again to look after the boy and I’ve loved him ever since.”

Erlendur waited a moment before he continued his questioning.

“Why did your son start looking up genetic diseases in the Research Centre’s database?” he asked eventually.

Katrin looked at him.

“How did that girl from Keflavik die?” she asked.

“Of a brain tumour,” Erlendur said. “The disease is called neurofibromatosis.”

Katrin’s eyes filled with tears and she heaved a deep sigh.

“Didn’t you know?” she said.

“Didn’t I know what?”

“Our little love died three years ago,” Katrin said. “For no reason. Absolutely no reason.”

“Your little love?” Erlendur said.

“Our little sweetheart,” she said. “Einar’s daughter. She died. The poor, sweet child.”