Tainted Blood (21 page)

The rain had been gradually letting up and now it stopped. The lantern cast a yellow glow onto the ground and the rain, which ran in little streams down the path by the graves. They stood motionless, facing one another, with the coffin between them, looking each other in the eye.

"He must have been shocked to see you," Erlendur said eventually. He knew the police were on their way to the cemetery and he wanted to make the most of this time he had with Einar before the fuss began. He also knew Einar was almost certainly armed. There was no sign of the shotgun but he couldn't rule out that Einar had it with him. Einar had one hand inside his coat.

"You should have seen his face," Einar said. "It was like he'd seen a ghost from the past, and that ghost was his own self."

*

Holberg stood in the doorway looking at the man who rang the bell. He had never seen him before but still he recognised the face immediately.

"Hello, Dad," Einar said sarcastically. He couldn't hide his rage.

"Who are you?" Holberg said, astonished.

"I'm your son," Einar said.

"What is all this . . . are you the one who's been phoning me? I want to ask you to leave me in peace. I don't know you in the slightest. You're not in your right mind."

They were similar in height and appearance but what Einar found most surprising was how elderly and feeble Holberg looked. When he spoke it was with a wheeze from deep within his lungs after decades of smoking. His face was drawn, sharp-featured, with dark rings under the eyes. His dirty, grey hair stuck down firmly against his head. His skin withered, his fingertips yellow, a slight stoop, his eyes colourless and dull.

Holberg was about to close the door but Einar was stronger and pushed his way into the flat. He sensed the smell immediately. Like the smell of horses, but worse.

"What are you keeping in here?" Einar said.

"Will you get out this minute." Holberg's voice was squeaky when he shouted at Einar and he backed away into the sitting room.

"I've got every right to be here," Einar said, looking around at the bookcase and the computer in the corner. "I'm your son. The prodigal son. Can I ask you one thing, Dad? Did you rape more women besides my mother?"

"I'll call the police!" The wheezing became more noticeable as he got worked up.

"Someone should have done that long ago," Einar said.

Holberg hesitated.

"What do you want from me?" he said.

"You haven't got a clue about what's happened and it's none of your business. You couldn't care less about it. I'm right, aren't I?"

"That face," Holberg said but didn't finish the sentence. He looked at Einar with his colourless eyes and watched him for a long while until it dawned on him what Einar had been saying, that he was his son. Einar noticed him hesitate, saw how he puzzled over what he'd said.

"I've never raped anyone in my life," Holberg said eventually. "It's all a bloody lie. They said I had a daughter in Keflavík and her mother accused me of rape but she could never prove it. I was never convicted."

"Do you know what happened to that daughter of yours?"

"I think the girl died young. I never had any contact with her or the mother. Surely you understand that. She accused me of rape, dammit!"

"Maybe you're aware of child mortality in your family?" Einar asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Have any children died in your family?"

"What's all this about?"

"I know of several cases this century. One of them was your sister."

Holberg stared at Einar.

"What do you know about my family? How . . . ?"

"Your brother, 20 years older than you, died 15 years ago. Lost his young daughter in 1941. You were 11. There were just you two brothers and you were born so far apart."

Holberg said nothing and Einar continued.

"The disease should have died with you. You should have been the last carrier. You're the last in line. Unmarried. Childless. No family. But you were a rapist. A hopeless fucking rapist!"

Einar stopped talking and stared at Holberg with hateful eyes.

"And now I'm the last carrier."

"What are you talking about?"

"Audur got the disease from you. My daughter got it from me. It's as simple as that. I've looked at this in the database. There hadn't been any new cases of the disease in this family since Audur died, apart from my daughter. We're the last ones."

Einar moved a step closer, picked up a heavy glass ashtray and rolled it in his hands.

"And now it's over."

*

"I didn't go there to kill him. He must have thought he was in big danger. I don't know why I picked up the ashtray. Maybe I was going to throw it at him. Maybe I wanted to attack him. He moved first. Attacked me and grabbed me by the throat but I hit him over the head and he fell to the floor. I did it without thinking. I was angry and could just as easily have attacked him. I'd wondered how our meeting would end, but I never foresaw that. Never. He hit his head on the table when he fell and then he hit the floor and started bleeding. I knew he was dead when I bent down to him. I looked around, saw a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote that I was him. It was the only thing I could think of after I saw him at the door. That I was him. That I was that man. And that man was my father."

Einar looked down at the open grave.

"There's water in it," he said.

"We'll fix that," Erlendur said. "If you've got the gun on you, let me have it." Erlendur inched closer to him but Einar didn't seem to care.

"Children are philosophers. My daughter asked me once at the hospital, 'Why have we got eyes?' I said it was so we could see."

Einar paused. "She corrected me," he said as if to himself. He looked at Erlendur. "She said it was so we could cry."

Then he seemed to make a decision.

"Who are you if you're not yourself?" he said.

"Take it easy," Erlendur said.

"Who are you then?"

"Everything will be all right."

"I didn't plan for it to turn out this way but it's too late now."

Erlendur couldn't figure out what he meant.

"It's over."

Erlendur looked at him in the lamplight.

"It ends here," Einar said.

Erlendur saw Einar take the gun out from under his coat and point it at him as he moved closer. Erlendur stopped. In a flash, Einar turned the barrel round and pointed it at his heart. He did it in a split second. Erlendur made a move for him, shouting as he did so. A thundering shot rang out. Erlendur was deafened for a second. He threw himself at Einar and they both fell to the ground.

Sometimes he felt as if his life had deserted him and only his empty body remained, staring with vacant eyes out into the darkness.

Erlendur stood on the edge of the grave and looked down at Einar lying beside it. He picked up the lantern, shone it down and saw that Einar was dead. After putting the lamp down he started to lower the coffin into the ground. He opened it first, put the jar inside and closed it again. He had to struggle to lower the coffin by himself but he managed it in the end. He found a shovel that had been left behind on a pile of dirt. After making the sign of the cross over the coffin he started shovelling dirt over it and it pained him every time the heavy soil slammed onto the white lid with a dark, hollow thud.

Erlendur took the white pegging that lay broken beside the grave, tried to put it back in its place and drew on every ounce of his strength to raise the headstone. He was finishing the job when he heard the first cars and people calling out as they arrived at the cemetery. He heard Sigurdur Óli and Elínborg shouting at him in turn. He heard the voices of people who were lit up by the headlights, their shadows gigantic in the dark night. He saw more and more torch beams approaching him.

He saw Katrín and soon afterwards he noticed Elín. Katrín gave him a questioning look and when she realised what had happened she threw herself on top of Einar, crying, and hugged him. He didn't try to stop her. He saw Elín kneel down beside her.

He heard Sigurdur Óli ask if he was all right and saw Elínborg pick up the shotgun that had dropped to the ground. He saw other policemen arriving and the flash bulbs of cameras in the distance like little bolts of lightning.

He looked up. It had started raining again but he thought the rain was somehow milder.

Einar was buried by his daughter's side in Grafarvogur cemetery. It was a private funeral. Erlendur contacted Katrín. He told her about the meeting between Einar and Holberg. Erlendur talked about self-defence but Katrín knew he was trying to soothe her pain.

It kept on raining but the autumn winds died down. Soon it would be winter and frost and darkness. Erlendur welcomed that.

At his daughter's insistence Erlendur finally went to the doctor. The doctor said the pain in his chest was caused by a bruised costal cartilage which was probably the fault of sleeping on a bad mattress and a general lack of exercise.

*

One day, over a piping bowl of meat stew, Erlendur asked Eva Lind whether he could choose the name if she gave birth to a girl. She said she'd expected him to make some suggestions.

"What do you want to call her?" she asked.

Erlendur looked at her.

"Audur," he said. "I thought it would be nice to call her Audur."

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ARNALDUR INDIRIÐASON

'A fascinating mystery . . . Inðridason is a writer worth seeking out'
Daily Telegraph

Building work in an expanding Reykjavik uncovers a shallow grave. Years before, this part of the city was all open hills, and Erlendur and his team hope this is a typical Icelandic missing person scenario; perhaps someone once lost in the snow, who has lain peacefully buried for decades. Things are never that simple.

Whilst Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, his case unearths many other tales of family pain. The hills have more than one tragic story to tell: tales of failed relationships and heartbreak; of anger, domestic violence and fear; of family loyalty and family shame. Few people are still alive who can tell the story, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever.

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger and the Glass Key Award for Best Noridic Crime Novel

'Here is a new voice that demands to be listened to'
Reginald Hill