Tainted Blood by Arnaldur Indridason Page B

details. I thought."
    "Holberg didn't deny they had sex. He was smarter than that. He denied it was rape. He said my sister wanted him. Said she'd enticed him and invited him back to her place. That was his big defence. That Kolbrún had sex with him of her own free will. He played innocent. Played innocent, the bastard."
    "But ..."
    "Kolbrùn didn't care about proving paternity. She didn't want him to have anything to do with her child. Proving that Holberg was Audur's father wouldn't have made any difference to her rape claim so a blood test would have been futile."
    "I hadn't realised."
    "All my sister had was a pair of ripped panties," Elín went on. "She didn't look very roughed up. She wasn't strong, couldn't put up much of a fight, and she told me she was almost paralysed with fright when he started groping at her in the kitchen. He forced her into the bedroom and had his way with her there. Twice. Held her down and groped and talked filth until he was ready to do it again. It took her three days to pluck up the courage to go to the police. The medical examination they gave her later didn't help either. She never understood what made him attack her. She accused herself of provoking what he did. She thought she might have been leading him on at that party they went to after the dancehall closed. That she said something or suggested something that might have aroused him. She blamed herself. I expect that's a common reaction."
    Elín stopped talking for a moment.
    "When she finally acted, she ran into Rúnar," she continued. "I would have gone with her, but she was so ashamed that she didn't tell anyone what had happened until long afterwards. Holberg threatened her. Said that if she did anything about it he'd come back and torture her. When she went to the police she thought she was heading for safety. She'd be helped. They'd look after her. It wasn't until Rúnar sent her back home, after playing around with her and taking her panties and telling her to forget it, that she came to me."
    "The panties were never found," Erlendur said. "Runar denied ..."
    "Kolbrùn said she gave them to him and I never knew my sister to lie. I don't know what that man was thinking of. I see him walking around town here sometimes, in the supermarket or at the fish shop. I shouted at him once. Couldn't control myself. He looked as if he enjoyed it. Grinned. Kolbrún talked about that grin of his once. He said he'd never been given any panties and her statement was so vague he thought she was under the influence. That's why he sent her home."
    "He was given a warning in the end," Erlendur said, "but it didn't have much effect. Rúnar was always getting warnings. He was well known as a thug in the police but someone was protecting him, that is, until he couldn't be protected any more. Then he was dismissed."
    "There were insufficient grounds for bringing charges, that's what they said. What Rúnar said was right, Kolbrún should just have forgotten it. Of course she dithered around for a long time, too long, and she was stupid enough to clean up the whole house from top to bottom, her bedclothes too, removed all the evidence. She kept the panties. After all that she still tried to keep some piece of evidence. As if she felt it would be enough. As if it was enough just to tell the truth. She wanted to wash the incident clean from her life. She didn't want to live with it. And, as I said, she didn't look too roughed up. She had a split lip where he held her mouth and one of her eyes was bloodshot but there were no other injuries."
    "Did she get over it?"
    "Never. She was a very sensitive woman, my sister. A beautiful soul and easy prey for anyone to harm. Like Holberg. Like Rúnar. They sensed that, both of them. They attacked her in their own separate ways. Savaged their prey." She looked down at the floor. "The beasts."
    Erlendur waited for a moment before continuing.
    "How did she react when she discovered she was pregnant?" he asked.
    "Very