Strange Shores (11 page)

‘In the cupboard . . .’

He stood up.

‘I suppose I’ll have to . . . go to hospital . . .’

Erlendur found a sugar lump and fed it to her, then fetched a cushion from the sofa, placed it under her head and tucked the blanket better around her. He went outside in search of the ambulance. Though the regional hospital was thirty kilometres away in Neskaupstadur, with any luck they would have an ambulance stationed in the village because of the construction work.

Hrund was still in the same position when he came back. She asked him to help her up off the floor and he was hesitant at first, unsure if he should move her. Eventually, at her insistence, he helped her to sit up on a kitchen chair.

‘I should have known. It starts like the flu, then just gets worse. All it takes is the slightest scratch and I end up with blood poisoning.’

‘They should be here shortly. What can I do to help?’

‘Why do you keep coming here?’ she asked, her voice low and breathless, drained of all strength.

‘Perhaps you should lie down till they arrive,’ Erlendur suggested.

‘Tell me what you’ve found out,’ she persisted weakly. ‘You haven’t stopped sniffing around, have you?’

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘Ah . . . I thought not. What’s the latest?’

‘Isn’t there someone I could call?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Don’t you have any family?’

‘They’ve all moved away.’

‘Friends?’

‘There’ll be plenty of time for that. Tell me what else you know.’

Headlights lit up the house and blue flashes bounced off the walls. Erlendur went outside to meet the ambulance. Two men, dressed in thick, reflective overalls, climbed out and followed him into the house.

‘Diabetes again, is it?’ one of them asked Hrund.

‘I’m such a blasted nuisance,’ she said, trying to stand.

‘Easy now,’ said the man. ‘Haven’t you been doing your injections regularly?’

‘Yes, I have, but I think my leg’s infected. I burnt myself on the oven door the day before yesterday, then started feeling very ill, and the next thing I know he’s found me on the kitchen floor,’ she said, gesturing at Erlendur.

The men fetched a stretcher, eased her onto it and carried her out. It had stopped snowing and she lay staring up at the stars until they slid her into the back of the ambulance. Erlendur stood by and watched as they closed the doors, then climbed into the cab and drove off. But they had not gone far before he saw the reversing lights come on as they backed up to the house again. One of the men jumped out.

‘Can I ask who you are?’ he said.

‘Does it matter?’ asked Erlendur.

‘She wants you to come with her.’

‘Really?’

‘There’s plenty of room.’

‘All right,’ said Erlendur and, climbing into the back, perched on a seat beside Hrund who had apparently fallen asleep. When they set off again, however, she opened her eyes and studied his face.

‘Why won’t you give up?’ she asked huskily.

‘Give up what?’

‘Stirring up ghosts that have nothing to do with you.’

‘Do you want me to stop?’

Hrund did not answer.

‘They’ll give me antibiotics,’ she said at last. ‘As soon as I get to hospital. A massive dose to kill all the infection in my body. That’s how they beat it. Otherwise I’ll die. Not that I should care, really. I’m old and tired and ill, and I don’t suppose anyone’ll miss me. But it’s not a tempting thought. Not for me. I may be an old cripple but I don’t want to let go. I really don’t want to let go.’

The ambulance skidded and bumped over a snowdrift that lay across the road. Erlendur was thrown off his seat, almost falling against the rear door.

‘Sorry,’ called the driver from the cab. ‘It’s like a skating rink.’

‘Why are you investigating Matthildur’s story?’ asked Hrund, returning to her theme. ‘What have you found out?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about Ingunn and Jakob?’

‘It was none of your business. Why are you raking up what’s long forgotten? Why can’t people rest in peace?’

‘It’s not my intention to disturb anyone,’ said Erlendur.

‘Who’ve you been talking to?’

‘Matthildur’s friend.’

‘Ninna?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you know? I want to hear.’

‘Nothing you don’t already, I suspect,’ said Erlendur. ‘Ingunn didn’t tell anyone she’d given birth to Jakob’s child and he refused to acknowledge that he was the father. Their son is the man you sent me to see in Egilsstadir. Later, when Ingunn learned that Matthildur had married Jakob, she wrote her a letter telling her the whole story. A year after that Matthildur died.’

‘You
have
been busy,’ Hrund remarked.

‘I sometimes get the feeling . . .’ Erlendur began.

‘What?’

‘I get the impression – though I may be wrong – that you’re on my side, in spite of everything, and that you’ve been guiding me. But you’re in two minds. You find it hard to admit it to yourself, so you react badly because you don’t really feel it’s appropriate for strangers to rummage through your family’s dirty laundry. I think your objections are a pretence, but I understand. I think you’re trying to encourage me to take a second look. You’ve been searching for answers for years and you reckon it’s about time somebody uncovered the truth – which is where I come in.’

‘You think you know it all,’ said Hrund in a faint voice.

‘Well, I know why you sent me to see Kjartan in Egilsstadir, but why did you want me to meet Ezra?’

He thought Hrund had lost consciousness again. Her eyes were closed and her breathing had grown oddly peaceful. The ambulance men were driving with great care through the snowy night. In his ignorance about diabetes, he wondered if he should alert them.

‘You said you were a policeman,’ said Hrund suddenly.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve always . . .’ She drew a deep breath, apparently at the end of her strength.

‘What?’

‘I’ve always . . . felt Matthildur’s disappearance was a matter for the police.’

HRUND SLEPT FOR
the rest of the journey and the ambulance drew up outside the hospital in the small town of Neskaupstadur late that evening. Erlendur accompanied Hrund into a ward and stayed with her until the doctor started the treatment that had been used on her before, administering a dose of strong antibiotics to deal with the infection in her leg. The merest graze could fester and, if unchecked, result in these serious complications.

The doctor informed him that Hrund would need a good night’s sleep, and only now did it dawn on Erlendur that he didn’t have his car. He hadn’t given any thought to how he was to get back to Hrund’s house to retrieve it. It was too late to get a lift to Reydarfjördur, and in any case he wanted to talk to Hrund when she woke up in the morning. He asked if the doctor could recommend a decent guest house and was directed to a cheap B & B near the hospital, with the warning that all the construction work meant it was generally full.

Erlendur was in luck, however: they had a vacancy, and he found himself sharing the place with exhausted engineers, buoyant salesmen up from Reykjavík, American management consultants and Chinese labourers. A middle-aged man, one of the engineers, struck up a conversation, informing him that he had in the past worked on avalanche barriers in the West Fjords and in the remote town of Siglufjördur in the north. His family came from the East Fjords, though, from an ancestral farm with a name that sounded like Strókahlíd. His conversation quickly degenerated into a rant about all the fuss over the dam and the smelter, and he was still grumbling about his brother’s views when Erlendur wished him a curt goodnight.

The following morning he returned to the hospital to see Hrund, who had slept well and was much brighter. She was sitting propped up in bed and the burn on her leg had been properly dressed.

‘The drugs are starting to work,’ she announced as Erlendur took a seat beside her. ‘Thank you for your help. I’m such an ass not to have called the doctor sooner. I must have passed out on the kitchen floor, though I can’t really remember much.’

‘It didn’t look good,’ said Erlendur.

‘You needn’t have come all the way with me.’

‘It was the least I could do.’

She adjusted the blankets on her bed.

‘I remember some of our conversation yesterday evening, but maybe not all.’

‘Well, if I understood you right, you suspect there may have been another explanation for Matthildur’s death than the one Jakob gave at the time.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said, as if with relief. ‘I know it’s terrible to be so cynical but it’s been bothering me for years. I’ve always thought it strange that her body was never found. All the British soldiers were accounted for, even though some of them had wandered way off course. I’ve felt for a long time that she should have been found too.’

‘One of the soldiers had been washed out to sea after falling in the river.’

‘I know – I can’t get that out of my head either. Perhaps she went the same way and was carried out by the tide. Perhaps she did die on the moors after all.’

‘I had a long chat with Ninna yesterday and she mentioned a rumour about suicide. Did that never occur to you?’

‘Of course. But the problem’s the same. Why wasn’t she found? No one’s been able to answer that. And I doubt anyone could after all these years.’

‘You’re not in touch with your nephew Kjartan?’

‘No. He may be my nephew but we’re not close. We’re aware of each other’s existence, but that’s all. Of course, he didn’t grow up around here, just moved out east as a young man and he’s kept pretty much to himself. I’m not in touch with Ingunn’s other children either. They’re all in Reykjavík, as far as I know.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about Ingunn and Jakob?’

Hrund hesitated. ‘Why should I?’ she said eventually. ‘I didn’t know you at all. When you told me you were in the police, it set me off dredging it all up again. But I couldn’t make up my mind, so I’m afraid I lost my temper when you came back. It was uncalled for and I hope you’ll forgive my rudeness.’

‘There’s no need. I know I’m an outsider,’ said Erlendur.

‘You must realise it’s not easy to talk about.’

Erlendur nodded. ‘So you knew about Ingunn and Jakob?’

‘I didn’t grasp what had gone on until I was older,’ said Hrund. ‘My mother didn’t like to talk about it. I only really picked it up from whispered hints much later on. By then both Matthildur and Jakob were dead. I gather she was shattered by Ingunn’s letter. That must explain what happened afterwards.’

‘Do you think she was intending to leave Jakob?’

‘It seems likely.’

‘Is there any reason to believe Ingunn was lying?’

‘Why should she?’

‘It crossed my mind that Jakob might not have been the father. That there was someone else.’

‘I find that highly unlikely. Though I never saw the famous letter. Goodness knows what happened to it.’

‘Ninna’s got it,’ said Erlendur. ‘Maybe you should speak to her. Ingunn claims in it that Jakob’s the father.’

‘So you’ve read it?’

Erlendur nodded.

‘I don’t believe there was anyone else in the picture,’ said Hrund. ‘Then, by complete coincidence, Matthildur went and married him. It was just one of those things. Life’s like that – coincidences happen.’

‘But that doesn’t necessarily mean Jakob was to blame. He didn’t cheat on Matthildur. His relationship with Ingunn, whatever form it took, was over before he and Matthildur moved in together. Everybody has a past.’

‘Of course.’

‘So if she was lying about Jakob being the father, Ingunn must have had some other reason for wanting to destroy the marriage.’

‘Jakob treated her shabbily,’ Hrund pointed out.

‘I know, Ingunn says so in her letter.’

‘I don’t know what she said, but he made all sorts of threats when she told him the news and asked him to acknowledge the baby. He threatened to beat her. Maybe he actually did it. And warned her he’d put it about that she was a . . . was no better than a common tart. It was because of him that she fled to Reykjavík, I’m sure. My mother was convinced he’d hit her, though Ingunn refused to discuss it.’

A nurse came to the door and asked if Hrund needed anything. She shook her head. The woman removed an empty water jug from the bedside table and said she would fill it.

‘Ring the bell if you do need anything,’ she added with a friendly smile.

‘Mother had a go at him when Matthildur didn’t turn up,’ Hrund continued, once the nurse had gone. ‘Asked Jakob straight out if he’d hurt her. If he’d hit Ingunn. He denied everything. Claimed he’d never laid a finger on either of them. There wasn’t much my mother could say to that.’

‘Matthildur must have been stunned when she discovered her nephew was her husband’s son,’ Erlendur remarked.

‘All I know is that Ingunn managed to wreck their marriage with that letter,’ said Hrund. ‘Perhaps that was her intention all along.’

‘What do you mean?’

Hrund did not answer.

‘What happened?’

She looked him in the eye. There was a clacking as someone walked past wearing clogs. Outside a lorry started up noisily.

‘What did you mean when you said that must explain what happened afterwards?’

‘What?’

‘You implied that Ingunn’s letter had an impact on what happened afterwards. Were you referring to Matthildur’s disappearance?’

‘No,’ said Hrund. ‘That was later . . . No. Matthildur turned to Ezra. She had an affair with Jakob’s friend.’

‘Ezra?’

‘Yes. They started meeting in secret. Didn’t you visit him?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And he didn’t tell you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, it’s hardly surprising,’ said Hrund. ‘He’s never opened up about it – except the once. He’s kept it secret all these years and no doubt he’ll take it to his grave.’

ERLENDUR SAT IN
silence while Hrund’s words sank in. The clogs clomped along the corridor again, and gradually the rumble of the lorry’s engine faded away. Hrund stroked the white quilt. Erlendur noticed that someone had brought her a book with a worn brown spine. The title looked like
Man and Dust
.