Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason

Author:Arnaldur Indridason [Indridason, Arnaldur]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-35942-1
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2011-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

18

The man observed Elínborg as she stood at his door in a block of flats in Kópavogur. He was unwilling to invite her in, so she had to explain what she wanted out on the landing and she was not handling it particularly well. She had acquired a list of over a dozen individuals who had spent time at the Isolation Clinic in Reykjavík. They were the last patients to have contracted polio before the introduction of the immunisation programme in the 1950s.

The man seemed wary, standing half-hidden behind his front door, so Elínborg could not tell whether he was wearing a leg brace. She told him that the police were trying to trace a group of people who had been in the Isolation Clinic in their youth. The enquiry concerned a crime that had been committed in Reykjavík – in fact, in Thingholt.

The man listened, then asked exactly what they were looking for. She told him: a man who might still need a leg brace.

‘Then I can’t help you,’ he said, opening the door wide so that both his legs were visible. He wore no brace.

‘Do you remember any other boy at the Isolation Clinic who might have had to use a brace? In later life, I mean.’

‘None of your business, my dear,’ said the man. ‘Goodbye now.’

That was the end of the interview. The man was the third one that Elínborg had spoken to who had been in the Isolation Clinic. Hitherto she had received friendly responses but had got nowhere.

The next name on Elínborg’s list was that of a man who lived in a townhouse in the eastern suburbs. When he heard what Elínborg wanted he was more helpful than her last interviewee had been. He welcomed her warmly and invited her in. He wore no brace, but she noticed that his left arm was withered.

‘People all over the country caught polio in that epidemic,’ said the man, whose name was Lúkas. He was in his sixties, slim and lithe.

‘I was fourteen, living in Selfoss. I shall always remember how terribly ill I was, you know. My whole body ached, like with a bad case of flu, and I was paralysed from head to toe. I couldn’t move a muscle. I’ve never felt worse in my life.’

‘It must have been an awful illness,’ said Elínborg.

‘It didn’t occur to anyone that it could be polio,’ Lúkas explained. ‘Never even considered it. They assumed it was just the usual flu epidemic. But it turned out to be much, much worse.’

‘And they took you to the Isolation Clinic?’

‘Yes, they put me in quarantine once they realised what was really going on, and they took me to that house, the one they called the Isolation Clinic. There were people there from all over the country, mostly children and youngsters. I think I was lucky. I made a pretty good recovery, thanks to the rehabilitation at the clinic, but my arm’s been useless ever since.’

‘Do you remember any man or boy at

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