Tainted Blood by Arnaldur Indridason Read Free Book Online Page B

He didn't look up until Erlendur had been standing watching him for a long time as he toiled away with the slow movements of an old man. He wiped a drip from the end of his nose. It didn't seem to matter that it was raining and the leaves were stuck together and awkward to deal with. He did nothing hurriedly, hooked the leaves with his rake and tried to scrape them into little piles. He still lived in Keflavík. Born and bred there.
    Erlendur had asked Elinborg to collect information about him and she'd dug up the main details about the old man whom Erlendur now watched in the garden; his police career, the numerous criticisms of his conduct and procedures during his many years in the force, the handling of Kolbrún's case and how he had been specifically reprimanded over it. She phoned back with the information while Erlendur was sitting over a meal, still in Keflavík. He considered saving the visit until the following day, then thought to himself that he couldn't be bothered driving there and back in a raging storm so he would just go direct.
    The man was wearing a green parka and a baseball cap. His white, bony hands held the shaft of the rake. He was tall and had obviously once been sturdier and cut a more authoritative figure but he was old, wrinkled and runny-nosed now. Erlendur watched him, an old man pottering around in his garden. The man looked up from his leaves, but paid no particular attention to his observer. A good while passed like this until Erlendur decided to make a move.
    "Why doesn't her sister want to talk to me?" he said and the old man looked up with a start.
    "Eh? What was that?" The man stopped what he was doing. "Who are you?" he asked.
    "How did you treat Kolbrún when she came to you to press charges?" Erlendur asked.
    The old man looked at this stranger who had entered his garden, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He looked Erlendur up and down.
    "Do I know you?" he said. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"
    "My name's Erlendur. I'm investigating the murder of a man from Reykjavik by the name of Holberg. He was accused of rape almost 4 o years ago. You were in charge of the investigation. The woman who was raped was called Kolbrún. She's dead. Her sister won't talk to the police for reasons I'm trying to establish. She said to me, 'After what you did to her.' I'd like you to tell me what she's referring to."
    The man looked at Erlendur without saying a word. Looked him in the eye and remained silent.
    "What did you do to her?" Erlendur repeated.
    "I can't remember . .. what right have you got? What kind of an insult is this anyway?" His voice was trembling slightly. "Get out of my garden or I'll call the police."
    "No, Rúnar, I am the police. And I don't have time for any of this bollocks."
    Rúnar thought it over. "Is this the new method? Attacking people with accusations and abuse?"
    "Good of you to mention methods and abuse," Erlendur said. "At one time you ran up eight charges for breaches of duty, including brutality. I don't know who you had to serve to keep your job, but you didn't do him well enough towards the end because eventually you left the police in disgrace. Dismissed ..."
    "You shut up," said Rúnar, looking around shiftily. "How dare you."
    "... for repeated sexual harassment."
    His white, bony hands tightened their grip on the rake, stretching his pallid skin until the knuckles stood out. His face closed up, hateful lines around his mouth, his stare narrowed until his eyes were half closed. On his way to see him, while the information from Elinborg was running through his mind like an electric shock, Erlendur had wondered whether Rúnar should be condemned for what he'd done in another life, when he was a different man. Erlendur had been in the police force long enough to have heard the stories about him, about the trouble he caused. He had in fact met Rúnar a couple of times many years before, but the man he now saw in the garden was so old and