Strange Shores de-9

by Arnaldur Indridason

‘That’s all right,’ said Hrund. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I just don’t understand why someone who didn’t know the family should be so interested in Matthildur. Are you writing a book?’

  ‘No,’ Erlendur said, smiling. ‘There’ll be no book. By the way, did Ingunn and Jakob know each other before he got together with Matthildur?’

  ‘Ingunn and Jakob? Why do you ask?’

  Erlendur wondered if he should tell her about the letter from Matthildur that he had found in Ingunn’s trunk, and the word ‘bastard’ scrawled across Jakob’s obituary. There was no telling whether Ingunn had written the word herself. The paper may not even have been hers: someone could have sent it to her.

  ‘Just a thought,’ he said. ‘Good-looking girls like you must have had dozens of admirers.’

  ‘What have you found out?’ asked Hrund, brushing aside Erlendur’s attempt at flattery.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said hastily, sensing an abrupt change in her mood.

  ‘You’re not. . spying on our family, are you?’ she asked.

  The conversation was taking a disastrous turn but Erlendur could think of no way of rescuing the situation. After a bad night’s sleep and a long drive he was not at his sharpest.

  ‘No, of course not,’ he assured her, realising how unconvincing he sounded.

  ‘Well, let me tell you that I’m far from happy with your prying. Far from happy. I don’t like the way you come here and start interrogating members of my family like a. . like a policeman. I won’t have it!’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Erlendur repeated. ‘I’m very sorry if I’ve offended you in some way — ’

  ‘What are you up to?’ Hrund asked, thoroughly riled by now. ‘What are you trying to dig up? What’s all this got to do with people going missing?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Erlendur said. ‘Really. You said yourself that rumours had been going around about Jakob — that people used to claim Matthildur haunted him.’

  ‘I told you that was just gossip. Surely you’re not taking it seriously? Gossip from half a century ago?’

  ‘No, but — ’

  ‘And I don’t believe in ghosts.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘I think perhaps you should leave.’

  Erlendur said a hasty goodbye and went out to his car without looking round, aware of her presence at the window, her eyes boring into his back.

  He parked by the aluminium smelter to watch all the activity. The construction of the huge sheds for the reduction pots was well advanced, a crowd of labourers swarming over the site, day and night, racing to finish on time. Floodlights lent the surroundings an unearthly appearance in the dusk. All this relentless progress was such a striking contrast to the tranquillity of the narrow fjord and the snow-capped mountains reflected in its mirror-like surface.

  14

  Again he is overwhelmed by the odd feeling that he is lying on the floor of the derelict farm, haunted by an unseen presence. He must be hallucinating. He knows he is no longer at the old house. He must have left, or he wouldn’t be able to see the stars in the night sky.

  But perhaps that is part of the hallucination.

  He turns his head to where the door should be but sees nothing but inky blackness. Reaching out his arm, he touches the rough, damp render of the wall. He has a torch somewhere. He gropes for it and switches it on. The beam is weak: it casts a feeble glow over the surroundings — the empty doorway to the hall, the broken windows through which the cold air is streaming, the ceiling that has collapsed here and there. He has a powerful sense of a presence but can see no one.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he calls. There is no answer.

  Rising to his feet, he picks his way across the room by the beam of the torch. He can see no sign of the traveller he remembers standing in the doorway, then later lighting a fire on the floor and talking to him as if they were acquainted. The vision has gone, yet he has the bizarre impression that the event has yet to happen.

  He has made up a bed for himself in the sitting room where the couch was in the old days. It consists of a thin mat, two blankets to cover his sleeping bag and a rucksack for a pillow. Next to it are his scuffed hiking boots and a bin bag containing a few scraps of food. He has made an effort to keep the place tidy, helped by the fact that he doesn’t have much luggage. The house may be nothing but a bleak ruin, open to the wind and weather, but he moves around the room with the respect for the home that was instilled in him as a child.

  ‘Is anybody there?’ he asks in a low voice.

  His only answer is the moaning of the wind, accompanied by the squeak of a door still hanging stubbornly from its hinges, and the creaking of two sheets of corrugated iron which cling with extraordinary tenacity to the roof. He steps into the hall and shines his torch outside into the yard before entering the kitchen. As the beam gradually fades, the night closes in around him. The faint circle of light flickers over the bare shelves. The table used to stand under the window facing the byre and barn, and beyond them the moor and mountains. Every new day would begin at that table and end there in the evening.

  ‘Is anybody there?’ he repeats in a whisper.

  He continues his search, out of the kitchen and down the short passage to the bedrooms. He can’t get into his parents’ room because the roof has fallen in over the door and part of the passage. There his father had sat after his descent from the moors, inconsolable, aware that his two sons were still out there; sure that they were lost. He had known better than anyone what conditions up there were like and his collapse had been total. There were ugly patches of frostbite on his face as he sat there while the rescue party gathered in the kitchen.

  ‘Is anybody there?’ he whispers a third time. The torch beam fades still further and begins to gutter. He bangs it on his palm and the light grows momentarily brighter. The battery is almost dead. He proceeds to the room he once shared with his brother and illuminates the place where their beds used to stand, separated by a night table. There was a small wardrobe in the corner and a thick rug to protect their toes from the icy floor. Now the room contains nothing but darkness.

  The realisation finally hits him that there is no one else in the house. The presence he felt was merely an illusion. There is no one left but him. He turns and makes his way back past the kitchen and hall to the sitting room, where the torch conks out. When he thumps it again it sheds a weak light on the wall opposite. The shadow of a man plays over the rough surface and for an instant he sees a figure with back turned and head bowed, as if in defeat. The vision startles him so much that he drops the torch and it goes out again.

  Stooping, he fumbles for it, then knocks it on the floor three times until the bulb comes on, lighting up the room with an instant of brilliance before finally dying for good. He looks around frantically but the man has vanished.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he murmurs into the night.

  He is lying in the cold, eyes half open, unsure how long it is since the involuntary shivering ceased. He can’t feel his hands or feet, is no longer aware of being frozen. He knows he will soon fall asleep but struggles against the drowsiness. It is vital to stay awake as long as possible but his strength is dwindling. He remembers seeing the stars as he lay in the snow.

  Through the brain-numbing cold it occurs to him that he is no longer in his right mind.

  15

  As Erlendur bumped slowly up the track to the farm, he saw Bóas emerge into the yard to greet him. He had not called on him before because they were to all intents and purposes strangers, in spite of the hunting trip. But now he felt he had personal business with this man who had tried to extract milk from a dead vixen.

  Bóas had seen him coming and hurried out in slippers and shirtsleeves, with a stump of pipe in his mouth. He had recognised the blue four-wheel drive from seeing it parked outside the old place at Bakkasel over the last few days. Erlendur got out and they shook hands.

  ‘I don’t understand how you can rough it in that ruin,’ the farmer remarked
as he invited him indoors. ‘The nights are getting damned chilly.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t complain,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘I’m not used to entertaining guests, so I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with coffee.’ Bóas explained that his wife was visiting relatives in Egilsstadir. His tone revealed that he was not sorry to miss them.

  They sat down together in the spotless kitchen. Bóas put two cups on the table, filled them with coffee and added such a generous splash of milk to each that they turned pale brown and tepid. Then he puffed on his pipe and started grumbling about the industrial developments and those bloody capitalists making fools of the politicians.

  ‘Discovered any more about Matthildur?’ The question came from out of the blue. It made it sound as if Erlendur was conducting an official inquiry into her disappearance more than sixty years ago.

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur, lighting a cigarette to keep Bóas company. ‘There’s nothing new to report. She must have died in the storm. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid you’re right there.’ Bóas slurped his milky coffee. ‘Not the first time by a long chalk.’

  ‘Do you know any more about her sisters? Two of them moved to Reykjavík. And there’s the one who lives in Reydarfjördur.’

  ‘I know Hrund quite well,’ said Bóas. ‘A fine woman. Have you spoken to her?’

  Erlendur nodded.

  ‘Oh, so you are interested, then.’

  ‘Did you ever hear any gossip about Matthildur and Jakob’s marriage? About her sisters’ attitude to him, for example?’

  ‘What have you discovered?’ Bóas demanded, with unabashed curiosity.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re lying, of course,’ said Bóas. ‘I don’t remember hearing that. Did they disapprove? Which ones? Why?’

  ‘I’m asking because I don’t know,’ said Erlendur. ‘Are you familiar with the name Pétur Alfredsson? I imagine he’d be dead by now.’

  ‘Yes, I remember him. He was a fisherman. Died years ago. What about him?’

  ‘Pétur wrote an obituary for Jakob in the farmers’ paper. It was the only one printed. I checked at the library in Egilsstadir. He described him as an all-round good bloke and mentioned that he’d lost his wife several years before.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘Did this Pétur have any children?’

  ‘Yes, three, I think. One of his daughters used to live in Fáskrúdsfjördur. Probably still does. She was involved in local politics. I assume his other kids must have moved to Reykjavík because I haven’t heard their names for years.’

  ‘What about a woman called Ninna? It’s not a nickname, by the way. She was Matthildur’s friend, mentioned in one of her letters. They went to a dance together and Jakob was there.’

  ‘I don’t recall any Ninna,’ Bóas said. ‘Is she supposed to have lived in Eskifjördur?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s probably not important — just a name in a letter. But she may have been present the evening Matthildur and Jakob got together. I spoke to an old friend of Jakob’s too — Ezra.’

  ‘You’re obviously not at all interested,’ said Bóas, grinning. ‘I’d be better off asking who you haven’t talked to. Seems I really got you going.’ He sounded pleased with himself.

  ‘Do you know Ezra?’

  ‘Ezra’s getting on, and his health’s not what it was. You’d never guess to look at him now but in his day he was a titan: hardy, brave and good in a fight, as they used to say in the sagas. And never beholden to anyone.’

  There was no mistaking Bóas’s admiration. Sitting up eagerly, he embarked on a long speech about how they didn’t make them like Ezra any more: the last of his breed, indomitable, a man of true grit. He was the best hunter and fisherman Bóas had ever known: fox, reindeer, ptarmigan and geese, cod and haddock — none of them stood a chance. Finally breaking off his eulogy, he asked: ‘What sort of welcome did he give you?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Erlendur. ‘I bought some first-rate dried fish off him.’

  ‘No one makes better hardfiskur,’ said Bóas. ‘Did he mention the dam business at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, that’s just it. I don’t know where he stands on it. He’s not one for showing his hand, Ezra. Never has been.’

  ‘Did he ever go out fishing with Jakob?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘I don’t know — I’d have to ask around. Ezra’s done so many jobs. He was foreman at the ice house in Eskifjördur for years. Started work there during the war, I believe.’

  Erlendur vacillated for some time before changing the subject. Now that it came to it, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to find the answers he had been seeking for so long. Noticing his preoccupation, Bóas held his tongue for once. In the end, Erlendur took from his pocket the scrap of metal that Ezra had found by a fox’s earth on the slopes of Mount Hardskafi.

  ‘You said the oddest things turned up in foxholes.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bóas.

  Erlendur showed him the toy.

  ‘Ezra came across this up on Hardskafi. I believe my brother may have owned one like it.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘In view of what you said, and because you’re a fox-hunter and know the mountains like the back of your hand, it occurred to me to ask if you’ve ever come across any other objects like this? Or any tatters of clothing, that sort of thing?’

  Bóas took the toy.

  ‘You think this belonged to your brother?’ he asked.

  ‘Not necessarily. I know he had a car like it that my father gave him. I wondered if you could keep your eyes open for me. I don’t mean right this minute, or today or tomorrow, just next time you’re staking out an earth. See if you notice any unusual bits and pieces.’

  ‘Like this, you mean?’

  Erlendur nodded. ‘Or remains,’ he added.

  ‘Bones?’

  Erlendur took the car back and returned it to his pocket. He had tried to banish the thought. Every time it entered his mind, he visualised the disembowelled corpse of a lamb that he had once found on the moors; the empty sockets in its skull where the ravens had pecked out its eyes.

  ‘Would you get in touch if you find anything of interest, however small?’

  ‘If that is your brother’s car, there are several possibilities,’ said Bóas. ‘He could have lost it earlier — dropped it outside your house, for example, where a raven snatched it and flew with it up the mountain. That’s one way it could have ended up by the fox’s earth. Or he could have been carrying it with him when he went missing and a fox found it and his body at the same time.’

  ‘I know he had it with him,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just know. Will you get in touch?’

  ‘Of course I will, no question,’ said Bóas. ‘Though I’ve seen nothing of the sort so far, if that’s any comfort.’

  They sat without speaking until Bóas eventually leaned forward and asked: ‘What are you expecting to find up there?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Erlendur.

  Back at the ruined farm, trying to warm himself over the lantern, Erlendur took out the newspaper obituary that he had appropriated from the trunk in Egilsstadir. He reread the piece carefully, pausing at the mention of the ice house in Eskifjördur. After Jakob drowned, his body and that of his companion had been stored there. He recalled what Bóas had said about Ezra, who might therefore have been working at the ice house at the time — who might even have taken in and kept vigil over the dead men.

  16

  At noon the following day, Erlendur reached the small village in Fáskrúdsfjördur, having driven the long way round via Reydarfjördur Fjord and the headland at the foot of Mount Reydarfjall. He could have taken the new road tunnel, opened that summer, which linked the two fjords, but preferred the old route. The mercury had dropped sharply in the night and the ground was white right down to the shore. It was the first snowfall o
f the autumn and brought with it the customary alien quietness, muffling the houses and landscape in a soft, white quilt. The flakes continued to fall all morning in the still air, clogging the roads and making for treacherous going.

  He knew that if the wind picked up, causing the temperature to plummet still further and the snow to drift, it would no longer be feasible for him to stay in the abandoned farm. The old house would soon begin to fill with snow. He might as well be sleeping out in the yard for all the shelter it would provide. It crossed his mind to call it a day and go home to Reykjavík. Winter was closing in, after all. But he had a nagging sense of unfinished business, as if there were something he had yet to achieve here, though he wasn’t sure what.

  He drove to a garage, filled the car with petrol and asked the assistant at the till if she knew Gréta Pétursdóttir. There were three girls working behind the counter and even so they could hardly keep up with demand. The shop and café were packed with lorry drivers and labourers, while two men in suits sat hunched over their laptops. Erlendur had read that the volume of traffic using the tunnel connecting Fáskrúdsfjördur to the smelter site in Reydarfjördur had exceeded even the most optimistic expectations. He wanted no part in it.

  ‘Sorry, no,’ said the girl. ‘But hang on a minute while I ask the others.’

  She squeezed a thick line of mustard onto a hot dog laden with all the trimmings, handed it to a customer, did some rapid mental arithmetic, called out to ask another girl if she knew Gréta, received an answer, told the hot-dog customer how much he owed, then turned back to Erlendur.

  ‘Sorry, I was mixing her up with someone else. The Gréta you want works at the swimming pool.’

  Erlendur nodded and thanked her. He drove round the village through the thick curtains of snow until he located the pool. Unusually for Iceland, it was an indoor one, and he was struck by the smell of chlorine as he entered the reception area. A fleshy woman with greying hair, probably in her early sixties, was sitting at the desk, looking at a news site on the Internet. The noise of children screaming carried from the pool. Erlendur was immediately transported back to school swimming lessons.