Tainted Blood Read Online Free

door.
    They started with the pilot, who answered the door unshaven and wearing a vest and shorts. He was in his thirties, he lived alone and his flat was like a rubbish heap; clothes strewn everywhere, two suitcases open on a newish leather sofa, plastic bags from the duty-free shop on the floor, wine bottles on the tables and open beer cans wherever there was space for them. He looked at the two of them then walked back inside the flat without saying a word and slumped into a chair. They stood in front of him. Couldn't find anywhere to sit. Erlendur looked around the room and thought to himself that he wouldn't even board a flight simulator with this man.
    For some reason the pilot started talking about the divorce he was going through and wondered whether it could become a police matter. The bitch had started playing around. He was away, flying. Came home from Oslo one day to find his wife with his old school-friend. Godawful, he added, and they didn't know which he found more godawful, his wife being unfaithful to him or his having to stay in Oslo.
    "Concerning the murder that was committed in the basement flat," Erlendur said, interrupting the pilot's slurred monologue.
    "Have you ever been to Oslo?" the pilot asked.
    "No," Erlendur said. "We're not going to talk about Oslo."
    The pilot looked first at Erlendur and then at Sigurdur Óli, and finally he seemed to cotton on.
    "I didn't know the man at all," he said. "I bought this flat four months ago, as far as I understand it had been empty for a long while before that. Met him a few times, just outside. He seemed all right."
    "All right?" Erlendur said.
    "Okay to talk to, I mean."
    "What did you talk about?"
    "Flying. Mostly. He was interested in flying."
    "What do you mean, interested in flying?"
    "The aircraft," the pilot said, opening a can of beer that he fished from one of the plastic bags. "The cities," he said, and gulped down some beer. "The hostesses," he said and belched. "He asked a lot about the hostesses. You know."
    "No," Erlendur said.
    "You know. On the stopovers. Abroad."
    "Yes."
    "What happened, were they hot. Stuff like that. He'd heard things get pretty wild . . . on international flights."
    "When was the last time you saw him?" Sigurdur Óli asked.
    The pilot thought. He couldn't remember.
    "It was a few days ago," he said eventually.
    "Did you notice whether anyone had visited him recently?" Erlendur asked.
    "No, I'm not home much."
    "Did you notice any people snooping around in the neighbourhood, acting suspiciously, or just loitering around the houses?"
    "No."
    "Anyone wearing a green army jacket?"
    "No."
    "A young man wearing army boots?"
    No. Was it him? Do you know who did it?"
    "No," Erlendur said, and knocked over a half-full can of beer as he turned to leave the flat.
    The woman had decided to take her children to her mother's for a few days and was ready to leave. She didn't want the children to be in the house after what had happened. Her husband nodded. It was the best thing for them. The parents were visibly shocked. They'd bought the flat four years before and liked living in Nordurmýri. A good place to live. For people with children too. The boys were standing by their mother's side.
    "It was terrible finding him like that," the husband said, in a voice like a whisper. He looked at the boys. "We told them he was asleep," he added. "But . . ."
    "We know he was dead," the elder boy said.
    "Murdered," the younger one said.
    The couple gave embarrassed smiles.
    "They're taking it well," the mother said and stroked the elder boy on the cheek.
    "I didn't dislike Holberg," the husband said. "We sometimes talked together outside. He'd lived in the house for a long time, we talked about the garden and maintenance, that sort of thing. As you do with your neighbours."
    "But it wasn't close," the mother said. "Our contact with him, I mean. I think that's as it should be. I don't think it should be too close. Privacy, you know."
    They hadn't