Strange Shores de-9

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘Jakob Ragnarsson didn’t have an easy time of it,’ Hrund said, taking up the subject again after her digression.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, as the months went by, various rumours started to do the rounds. People even claimed she haunted him — persecuted him until he died. Such a pack of nonsense. As if my sister would come back as a ghost.’

  ‘What did your family think? Was there any reason to doubt his story?’

  ‘There was never any investigation,’ said Hrund. ‘But when Matthildur’s body failed to turn up, people became suspicious that Jakob was hiding something, as you might expect. There were dark mutterings that she’d been running away from him when she went out in that storm — that she’d never meant to go to Reydarfjördur. That he’d driven her out of the house. I expect Bóas probably laid it on a bit thick to you.’

  Erlendur shook his head. ‘He didn’t mention that. What happened to Jakob? He was killed in an accident, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He drowned and was buried in Djúpivogur. That was several years after Matthildur vanished. His boat capsized in Eskifjördur Fjord during a storm and both men on board died.’

  ‘So that was the end of that.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Hrund. ‘Matthildur was never found. And years later a young boy went missing on the moor. He was never found either. It’s an unforgiving country.’

  ‘Yes,’ Erlendur said. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Are you looking into that case as well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘People said she haunted Jakob and dragged him to his death — they even blamed her for his accident. Utterly absurd. But Icelanders love making up ghost stories. Things went so far that one of the pall-bearers at Jakob’s funeral claimed to have heard him moaning as he was lowered into the grave. Complete codswallop, of course. And that wasn’t all.’

  ‘I once heard some talk about the British,’ Erlendur prompted.

  ‘Yes, there were rumours that she’d been involved with them. That she was pregnant — she’d been having an affair with a soldier and secretly fled the country with him. She was supposedly so ashamed that she never even wrote home.’

  ‘And died abroad?’

  ‘Yes, or died shortly after leaving the country. They questioned the troops stationed in the area but no one had heard a thing. Because it was rubbish, of course — preposterous.’

  ‘Are there any surviving friends or relatives of Jakob that I could talk to?’

  ‘They’re pretty thin on the ground. He came from Reykjavík, you know; lived with his mother’s brother in Djúpivogur to begin with, but the uncle died years ago of course. Maybe you should have a word with Ezra. He was a friend of Jakob’s.’

  6

  He is enveloped by cold and darkness, assailed by a flood of images of people and past events that he cannot hold back. There is no distinguishing time and place — he is everywhere and nowhere at once.

  He lies in his room, a strange sense of serenity easing through his body after the injection. Although he tries to resist, it is futile; his blood has ceased to flow and a mist has shrouded his thoughts.

  The doctor tells him what he is going to do but he can’t take it in, and continues to writhe and thrash his limbs until hands seize him and subdue him. The doctor consults his mother and she nods dully. He sees the syringe in the man’s hands, feels a sharp prick in his arm, then little by little the fight goes out of him.

  His mother sits on the edge of the bed, stroking his forehead, her expression infinitely sad. He would give the world to change it.

  ‘Is there anything you can tell us about your brother?’ she whispers.

  The minor patches of frostbite on his hands and feet do not trouble him unduly. He can remember nothing before waking up in the arms of a member of the search party, who was trying to pour hot milk down his throat. They took it in turns to carry him home from the moor, desperate to get him into the warmth as soon as possible. His mother took over for the final stretch and delivered him to the doctor, who examined him and tended to his frostbite. They told him that his father was safe. Why shouldn’t he be? he wondered. His mind was blank. He gazed around at the strangers who filled the house, the men milling around in the yard, armed with walkie-talkies and long poles. They stared back at him as if they had seen a ghost. Gradually he regained full consciousness and snatches of what had happened after they left home began to reassemble themselves in his mind, fragmentary at first, then merging to form a coherent picture. He gripped his mother’s arm.

  ‘Where’s Beggi?’

  ‘He wasn’t with you,’ she replied. ‘We’re searching the area where they found you.’

  ‘Hasn’t he come home?’

  His mother shook her head.

  It was then that he went berserk. Reared up and fought to get out of bed while she tried to hold him down. This only made him more determined and he succeeded in tearing himself from her grasp and running out into the passageway, straight into the doctor and the two men who had carried him down to Bakkasel. Despite his frenzied struggles they hung on to him, trying to talk sense into him, to calm him. His mother clasped him in her arms and explained that a large group was out looking for his brother Bergur; he would soon be found and all would be well. Ignoring her, he bit and scratched, straining to reach his boots and anorak. When they prevented him from going outside he lost his head completely. In the end the doctor had no choice but to sedate him.

  ‘Can you give us any clues about Beggi?’ his mother asks again as he lies in bed, too weak to resist any more. ‘It’s urgent, darling.’

  ‘I was holding Beggi’s hand,’ he whispers. ‘I held on to it as long as I could, then suddenly he wasn’t there any more. I was alone. I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘When? At what point?’

  He senses the effort she is making to maintain her composure, in spite of the terrible strain. She has recovered two out of three alive from the storm but the thought that Beggi might be lost is unendurable.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says.

  ‘Was it still light?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. I don’t know. I was so cold.’

  ‘Have you any idea which way you were heading? Were you going uphill or down?’

  ‘No, none. I kept falling over and everything was white and I couldn’t see. I remember Dad saying we must turn back at once. Then he vanished.’

  ‘That was more than twenty-four hours ago,’ his mother tells him. ‘I’m going back up to the moors, dear. They could do with more helpers. You rest. It’ll be all right — we’ll find Beggi. Try not to worry too much.’

  The drug is taking effect and his mother’s words soothe him a little. He falls asleep and for several hours is dead to the world. When he stirs again it is strangely quiet; a sinister silence has fallen on the house. He feels as if he is waking from a long, harrowing nightmare but understands at once that this is wrong; he has a sudden vivid memory of the events of the last thirty-six hours. Still groggy from the sedative, he climbs out of bed and staggers into the passage. The door to his parents’ room is shut. When he opens it, he finds his father alone on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t see the boy but sits motionless, his head sunk on his chest, hands in his lap. Perhaps he is asleep. The room is dark. He doesn’t know of his father’s terrifying ordeal; how he crawled the last few metres to Bakkasel on hands and knees, frostbitten, hatless and almost out of his mind after his battle with the elements.

  ‘Aren’t you out looking?’ he asks.

  His father doesn’t answer, just stares down at his lifeless hands. Moving closer, he puts a hand on his father’s knee and repeats his question. His father seems to have aged many years: the lines in his face have deepened, the light in his eyes has been extinguished, leaving them cold, remote and indifferent. He has never seen his father so far gone before, so desolate and alone, as there in that shadowy room. He stands before him, filled with dread and horror, and offers up the feeblest excuse of all:
r />   ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he whispers. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  7

  Erlendur found Ezra outside in a shed that stood diagonally down the slope from his house. After knocking in vain at his front door, Erlendur had followed the sound of hammering to a ramshackle shelter with slatted sides, built from offcuts of timber and corrugated iron. The door, from which hung a piece of string to fasten it, was standing ajar when Erlendur approached, revealing a bowed figure sitting on a stool with a heavy mallet in his hand. Ezra had placed a fillet of dried haddock, or hardfiskur, on a grimy stone slab and, holding it by the tail, was beating it rhythmically to tenderise the flesh, sending up a puff of crumbs with each blow. The old man did not look up from his task or notice Erlendur, who waited in the doorway, watching him work. Drips kept forming at the end of Ezra’s nose and every now and then he wiped them away with the back of his hand. He was wearing woollen mittens with double thumbs, an oversized leather hat with ear flaps that covered his cheeks, brown overalls and a traditional Icelandic jumper. A straggly beard sprouted from his unshaven jowls and he was muttering under his breath through a swollen lower lip, scarred from an ancient injury. His eyebrows jutted in tufts over small, grey eyes that seemed to be perpetually watering. Ezra was certainly no looker: his face was abnormally wrinkled, with a massive, powerful chin and fleshy nose, yet he had obviously once been a man of presence.

  When he finally took a rest from beating the fish, he glanced up and saw Erlendur standing in the doorway.

  ‘Have you come to buy hardfiskur?’ he asked in a hoarse, threadbare voice.

  ‘Have you got any to spare?’ Erlendur felt as if he had briefly stepped back into the nineteenth century.

  ‘Yes, a little,’ Ezra replied. ‘Some of this is headed for the shop but it’s cheaper to buy direct from me.’

  ‘Is it good?’ Erlendur asked, moving closer.

  ‘I should say so,’ said Ezra, his voice gaining strength. ‘You won’t find better anywhere in the East Fjords.’

  ‘You still use a mallet?’

  ‘For small quantities like this it’s not worth investing in machinery. Anyway, there’d be no point as I’m bound to kick the bucket any day now. I should have gone a long time ago.’

  They agreed on an amount and exchanged small talk about the weather, the fishing season and, inevitably, the dam and smelter — a subject that clearly bored Ezra.

  ‘For all I care they can destroy the environment,’ he said.

  Hrund had told Erlendur that Ezra had always been a recluse, never married or had children — at least not as far as she knew. He had lived in the village for longer than the oldest residents could remember, largely keeping himself to himself and respecting other people’s privacy. He had done a variety of jobs on land and sea, mostly working in solitary occupations. Recently he had slowed down a bit; it was unsurprising, given that he was nearly ninety. Well-meaning neighbours wanted him to go into a home but he was having none of it. Ezra had no qualms about discussing his imminent death with all and sundry, and gave the impression that he looked forward to meeting his end. He had been trotting out the same old excuse for putting things off for years — that he would die soon, so it would all be a waste of time. Hrund said it was the oddest form of apathy she had ever come across.

  Erlendur gradually steered the conversation round to tales of ordeals in the wilderness as Ezra resumed his pounding of the hardfiskur.

  ‘I’ve been doing a bit of research into stories about people who’ve got into difficulties in the mountains around here.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Ezra. ‘Are you a historian?’

  ‘No, it’s just a hobby really,’ Erlendur replied. ‘I was reading about the British servicemen who were planning to cross the Hraevarskörd Pass. I suppose that would be, what, more than sixty years ago now?’

  ‘I remember it well,’ said Ezra. ‘I met some of them. Fine lads. They got caught in a freak storm. Some of them died but they were all found in the end, dead or alive. Which is not always the case, I can tell you.’

  Erlendur agreed.

  Ezra touched his mitten to his nose and asked if Erlendur would like a coffee while they were settling up. Erlendur thanked him and they went up to the house and into the kitchen where Ezra put on an old percolator that belched and hissed but produced good, strong coffee. The kitchen was neat and tidy, with an old-fashioned fridge and an even more ancient Rafha cooker. From the window the head of the fjord and the brooding swell of Eskifjördur Moor were visible. Ezra fetched two cups and poured the coffee, dropping four sugar lumps into his, then offering the bowl to Erlendur who declined. After they had talked about the tragedy of the British soldiers, the conversation moved on to the young woman who had disappeared the same night.

  ‘That’s right,’ Ezra said with slow deliberation. ‘Her name was Matthildur.’

  ‘I gather you were friends with her husband, Jakob.’

  ‘Yes, we knocked around together. In those days.’

  ‘So you knew her too, you knew both of them?’

  ‘I did indeed.’

  ‘Did they have a good marriage?’

  Ezra had been methodically stirring his coffee but now he stopped, tapped his spoon several times against the cup and laid it on the table. ‘I’m not the first person you’ve discussed this with, am I?’

  ‘No,’ Erlendur admitted.

  ‘Who did you say you were again?’

  Erlendur had not introduced himself but did so now, explaining that he lived in Reykjavík but had been born here and had a special interest in stories of people who got lost in the wilderness and died of exposure, especially people who were never found and whose fates remained a mystery. When Ezra grasped that his visitor had local roots, he immediately wanted to know where Erlendur had lived and the names of his parents. Erlendur duly gave them and Ezra said he certainly recalled Sveinn and Áslaug from the tenant croft which had always been known as Bakkasel.

  ‘Well, you know all about me then,’ said Erlendur. ‘So, what can you tell me about Matthildur?’

  ‘They had to move,’ Ezra said, leaning forward over the kitchen table. ‘Sveinn and Áslaug. They couldn’t face staying on in the shadow of the moors. Not after all that. I gather you come here from time to time and go walking up there.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’ve made several visits.’

  ‘They’re both buried here in the churchyard, aren’t they? Your parents?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine, upstanding people,’ the old man remarked, sipping his coffee. ‘Good people. He taught music at the school — occasionally, anyway, if I’m not mistaken. Played the fiddle too. Dreadful what happened. Someone said you’d become a policeman in Reykjavík. Is that why you’re asking about Matthildur?’

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’m just curious on my own behalf. I’m interested in that sort of case.’

  Ezra sat lost in thought, his eyes on the distant moor. It was still cloaked in the same cloud as when Erlendur had arrived several days earlier, having driven the entire journey from Reykjavík non-stop. He had felt the urge to head out east that autumn after reaching a dead end in his investigation of the alleged suicide of a woman at Thingvellir. The case had hinged on hypothermia and this had had the odd effect of stirring up memories of his brother perishing in the mountains above Eskifjördur.

  ‘Jakob wasn’t quite what he seemed,’ Ezra said at last. ‘I don’t judge people. I’m in no position to — I’m far from perfect myself. But Jakob had some quality that put people on their guard. I wouldn’t call it dishonesty, exactly, but he was a tricky customer. And people sensed it. They all knew him. But then everybody knows everyone else around here. I suppose Reykjavík’s grown so big you don’t even know your own neighbours.’

  Erlendur nodded.

  ‘Over the years all sorts of rumours circulated,’ Ezra continued. ‘That he’d thrown her out of the house, driven her away and so on. You’ll have heard them, of
course.’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Then he drowned in the fjord here and that was that. He didn’t marry again after Matthildur died. Took to drink and let himself go to seed. Then he had the accident — his vessel went down. They managed to drag Jakob and the other man ashore but the boat was smashed to pieces.’

  ‘And that was here in Eskifjördur?’

  ‘Over on the other side of the fjord, there. They were coming home in a terrible gale and the boat capsized. It was the middle of winter.’

  ‘Tell me one thing — is it possible that someone didn’t want Matthildur to be found?’

  ‘I expect you’d have a better idea about that than me,’ Ezra said, regarding him with small, watery eyes.

  Erlendur smiled suddenly. ‘What did people guess had happened?’

  ‘They didn’t have far to look for an explanation. The rivers were running high — both branches of the Thverá — and the Eskifjördur River had turned into a raging torrent. It’s possible she was washed away. Maybe you know that one of the British soldiers was found in the sea after being carried downstream. They only discovered his body by chance.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose she must have gone the same way,’ Ezra said, his eyes wet. ‘It seems the most likely explanation to me.’

  8

  As Erlendur listened to the old man, he remembered what Hrund had said about him living alone all his life. Erlendur could have guessed as much as soon as he entered the house. The signs of a recluse, which he knew only too well, revealed themselves in the few, spartan possessions, the worn furnishings and lack of ornaments, the absence of everything required to make a place homely. At that moment a cat wended its way into the kitchen and rubbed against Erlendur’s leg, before slipping under the table and jumping onto Ezra’s lap where it made itself comfortable, observing them curiously.