Strange Shores (13 page)

‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll talk to him, tell him the truth. If that’s the way you want it, I won’t object. It’d be for the best. But we’ll do it together. You mustn’t do anything on your own. We’ll face him together.’

‘You know how jealous he is.’

‘I can imagine – especially where you’re concerned.’

There was no sign of her the next day. He hadn’t stirred from the house since waking because of a howling gale that had blown up out of nowhere, but late that evening there was a rapping at his door. It was Jakob, in a frantic state. Ezra expected the worst, but not in the form it took.

‘Matthildur’s out in the storm,’ Jakob gasped. ‘I came to ask if you could help – help me find her.’

Ezra could hardly believe his ears. He had just been thinking how dangerous it would be to go outside in weather like this. Not in all the time he had lived out east had he experienced such ferocity. In the worst gusts he had feared the roof would be torn off.

‘She was going to see her mother,’ Jakob explained. ‘She’s on foot. I’m gathering a search party. Can you come and help?’

‘Of course,’ Ezra replied. ‘Are you saying she’s out in this weather?’

‘You haven’t seen or spoken to her at all?’ Jakob asked.

‘No.’

‘She said she might look in on you.’

‘Really?’ said Ezra, and nearly blurted out that she hadn’t mentioned any Reydarfjördur trip to him. He caught himself in the nick of time.

‘She said she wanted a quick word with you,’ said Jakob.

‘I can’t imagine what about,’ Ezra replied. He gaped at Jakob in feigned surprise, trying to pretend it was out of the ordinary for Matthildur to want a word with him, as if she were not constantly in and out of his house. As if there were nothing between them; she had never talked of leaving Jakob; they were not planning to run away together. As if they had not made love here in the kitchen, right where Jakob was standing.

He forced his features into an expression of puzzlement to conceal all these lies.

‘No, well, perhaps we’ll find out,’ said Jakob.

In desperate haste, Ezra pulled on his waterproofs and left with Jakob. He could detect no sign that Jakob had learned of their relationship. If he knew or suspected, he hid the fact. As far as Ezra could tell, Jakob was genuinely anxious about Matthildur. They were going from door to door, recruiting searchers, when they discovered that a rescue party was already assembling to look for a group of British soldiers from Reydarfjördur who had failed to return from a hike. The farmer at Veturhús had raised the alarm and already rescued a number of the men.

Ezra and Jakob joined the search party, and news soon spread that Jakob believed his wife had been intending to cross the moors by the shortest route to visit her mother in Reydarfjördur. He believed she had been making for the Hraevarskörd Pass and might even have reached it before the storm peaked. The wind was still gusting with hurricane force, and conditions were hazardous for the rescue party, but neither Ezra nor Jakob were deterred.

‘Why didn’t you get in touch sooner?’ Ezra yelled to Jakob once they were staggering up the path to Hraevarskörd. They could hardly make any headway against the wind.

‘I fell asleep. I’ve been dead to the world all day and by the time I woke up this evening the storm was already raging. I’d never have let her go if I’d known the weather was going to turn like this.’

‘Are you sure she hasn’t made it over to the other side?’

‘Yes. I phoned. They’re getting another search party together in Reydarfjördur.’

‘Oh God, we have to find her,’ exclaimed Ezra.

‘I’m sure she’ll make it,’ Jakob shouted back.

They ploughed on through the downpour, their calls lost in the screaming gale. But before long they were driven back by the savagery of the weather, as were the searchers on the other side of the pass. They had managed to struggle only a few hundred metres before realising they would have to wait out the storm if they were not to put their own lives at risk.

The wind had lost much of its force by the time the search parties met on the pass the following day, having seen no sign of Matthildur. They continued combing the highlands for the next few days but to no avail.

Hrund asked Erlendur to help her sit up a little.

‘That’s the story, more or less, as Ezra told it to my mother and she passed it on to me. So it should be pretty accurate. She described how shattered Ezra was by Matthildur’s disappearance and how he suffered from not being able to confide in anyone about what they meant to each other.’

‘Ezra knew Matthildur was planning to leave Jakob at the time she vanished,’ said Erlendur thoughtfully, ‘but no one else was aware that she and Ezra were lovers?’

‘Not a soul. They kept it absolutely secret.’

‘And he never let on?’

‘No, never, according to my mother. He didn’t want to drag Matthildur’s name through the mud by admitting that she’d been having an affair with him before she went missing, and take the risk that people would speak ill of her. Given how things had turned out, he didn’t feel their relationship was anyone else’s business. But it’s possible someone had noticed their visits and heard gossip about the child Ingunn claimed was Jakob’s. Because as time went by Jakob’s reputation took a hammering – not that it had been all that good to start with.’

‘Hence the rumours that she haunted him and caused his shipwreck?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about Ezra? What did he think?’

‘He was convinced she’d died in the storm. In his opinion, there was no other explanation.’

‘And your mother believed him?’

‘Yes. She had no reason to doubt him.’

‘But Matthildur had told him Jakob was jealous. Ezra must have had his suspicions that she’d revealed all to Jakob and that trouble had come of it.’

‘It’s possible. But if so, he didn’t tell my mother,’ said Hrund. ‘For some reason he was positive that Jakob would never have done her any harm. He accepted what had happened and mourned Matthildur. Still mourns her to this day.’

‘How could he be so positive?’

‘I really don’t know. Jakob was the only living soul who could have shed light on Matthildur’s fate. Once he was gone, all hope of solving the mystery was almost certainly lost.’

‘But you’ve never been satisfied with Jakob’s explanation.’

‘Not for a minute.’

HIS MOTHER RETURNS
from the moor in a state of utter exhaustion. The blizzard has intensified again, bringing a complete whiteout, and so much snow has fallen that it is impossible for the searchers to continue. They gather at Bakkasel to wait out the worst of the storm.

The sedative the doctor gave him has worn off but he is quieter now and stays in bed in the room he shares with Bergur. He is still assailed by fits of shivering, as if coming down with the flu. The doctor looks in on him, takes his hand, examines his frostbite and feels his forehead. Then nods, apparently satisfied, and says he will soon be himself again.

His mother enters and sits down on the edge of the bed, her waterproof trousers, thick jumper and lace-up boots still caked with snow and ice. Water drips from her clothes onto the floor. She is ready to head back into the mountains the instant the weather lets up and can’t relax. She has only come to pay him a brief visit before making a meal for the rescue party. She wants to share her knowledge of the land above Bakkasel with the leaders.

‘How are you, dear?’ she asks. She radiates energy, decisiveness and dogged determination, but tries to appear calm so as to avoid making him agitated again.

‘How’s it going?’ he asks in return.

‘Well so far, but we need a rest,’ she answers quickly. ‘Then we’ll be able to carry on with twice the strength. Have you spoken to your father?’

He nods. He spent some time in his father’s room but they barely exchanged a word. He has picked up on the fact that his parents are not speaking. His mother has made little effort to rouse his father from the crushing depression that has him in its grip.

‘You will find Beggi, won’t you?’

‘Yes, we’ll find him,’ his mother reassures him. ‘It’s only a matter of time. We’ll find him, you can rely on that.’

‘He must be cold.’

‘Now, we mustn’t think like that,’ says his mother. ‘I know we’ve asked you a hundred times already but can you remember anything that might help us? Could you see any landmarks? Do you have any idea what direction you were going in?’

He shakes his head. ‘I never saw a thing after we lost Dad. Just snow. I could hardly open my eyes. I don’t know if I was walking uphill or down. Sometimes I had to crawl. I didn’t see any landmarks. I didn’t see anything at all.’

‘They say the position they found you in suggests you might have been heading away from home, driven by the wind. The storm seems to have blown you further than we would have dreamed possible. You were so high up it was sheer luck we found you. Since then we’ve been searching even higher. Do you think Beggi could have gone that way?’

‘He was supposed to stick with me. I was holding his hand all the time but suddenly he wasn’t there any more. I kept shouting and calling his name but I couldn’t even hear my own voice.’

He is struggling to suppress his tears.

‘I know that, dear,’ says his mother. ‘I know. Thank God we found you, my darling.’ She hugs him tight.

‘Beggi took his little car with him,’ he says.

‘What car?’

‘The one Dad gave him.’

‘The little red one?’

‘Yes.’

‘The one you wanted?’

‘I didn’t want it,’ he says quickly.

‘But you two quarrelled over it.’

‘I only asked him to swap it. For some soldiers.’

‘But he didn’t want to?’

‘No.’

‘And he had it with him when you left home?’

‘Yes.’

He is on the verge of telling her what he said to his father before they set out on the fateful journey. He only mentioned the car because he wants to unburden himself, but he can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t know why. Perhaps because there is still hope that all will turn out well. That Beggi will be found and then it won’t matter any more.

‘We’ll find him,’ repeats his mother. ‘Don’t worry. As soon as the storm dies down. They say it’s bound to blow itself out soon. When it does, we’ll be ready and we’ll find Beggi. There are more people coming to help and we’ll be able to organise ourselves better. We’ll find him, you can count on that.’

He nods.

‘Now, try to get some rest, dear. Try to sleep as much as you can. You need it.’

Then she is gone and he is left alone with his thoughts, the roaring of the wind still echoing in his ears. It batters the house as if it wanted to rip it up from its foundations and blow it to kingdom come. He tosses and turns for an eternity, then falls into an indeterminate state between sleep and waking, before fatigue finally overwhelms him and plunges him into evil dreams.

He is alone in the house, unprotected against the elements. He might as well be lying outside on the ground. The doors swing loosely on their hinges, the windows are broken and all life has vanished from within; all furniture, light and colour. Inside it is dark, dreary and dead. Water trickles down the bare, clammy walls as if they were weeping.

Glancing down, he catches sight of a man lying on the floor in a sleeping bag with a blanket over him. He stoops and is about to prod him when the man suddenly turns over and stares right through him. He gets a terrible shock. He has never seen the man before and his heart is filled with fear.

He is woken by the sound of his own screaming. He screams for all he is worth, till his lungs are ready to burst, till his face is scarlet and swollen. Screams and screams as if his life depended on it, until his mother comes in with the doctor and they manage to give him another shot of sedative.

IN THE EVENT,
Erlendur had no trouble arranging a lift from Neskaupstadur back to Hrund’s house. Having retrieved his car, he drove home to the ruined croft as evening fell. As he brought in more blankets, he saw to his satisfaction that his camp in the old sitting room was still dry. He lit the gas lantern and the room soon began to warm up around him. After two cigarettes and a cup of strong coffee, he took out the takeaway he had purchased on his way home. It was wrapped in an insulating bag so should still be lukewarm. To his surprise, he discovered that he was hungry and polished off most of the meal of lamb in thick brown gravy with mashed potato and a small pot of jelly. He washed it down with more coffee and smoked another couple of cigarettes. Then he picked up his book, a history of Icelandic students in Copenhagen in the nineteenth century. From time to time as he read a smile rose to his lips and once he even laughed out loud.

While his eyes were following the words, however, his attention began to stray back to Hrund and to the fate of all those left behind when their loved ones depart this life without warning, leaving the survivors to wrestle with feelings of bereavement and even guilt. When someone disappeared, all the focus was on the lost person, on the circumstances of their life and possible explanations for what had happened. But Erlendur’s interest went further. He had said as much to Marion Briem, his colleague of many years, whom he missed more than he cared to admit. Marion had known how to listen; known, perhaps better than anyone, about loss. Erlendur attributed this to Marion’s childhood experience of tuberculosis, which had led to prolonged sojourns in sanatoria in Iceland and Denmark. On the whole Marion had been reluctant to speak of it, but occasionally over the years, at Erlendur’s prompting, had opened up enough to give an impression of those times: the rows of patients lying in the wards, coughing up blood; the grim surgical procedures like collapsing the infected lung or removing ribs. These accounts had been tinged with a sense of grief that Erlendur guessed was connected to a lost love, though Marion never said so.

‘What exactly do you mean?’ Marion had asked once when he tried to explain this reaction.

‘I’m telling you that as a professional, as a police officer, my main objective is to find out what happened, who disappeared, how and why.’