Strange Shores (22 page)

‘How did you know Jakob?’ wrote Erlendur.

‘Used to bump into him out on the town when we were young. Though I never got to know him well. Never had much time for that sort, frankly. He was born in Reykjavík. Thought a lot of himself too. Quite the womaniser, and used to brag about it like young men do. Got into trouble over some of the girls he seduced. Didn’t want anything to do with them once he’d had his wicked way. But woe betide them if they dared look elsewhere. Then he could turn very nasty.’

‘Ármann was one of his pall-bearers,’ wrote Erlendur.

‘Yes, that’s right. They clubbed together for a gravestone later on. One of his friends, Pétur I think his name was, organised a whip-round among the fishermen and boat owners in the village.’

‘Ármann’s supposed to have heard a noise,’ wrote Erlendur, ‘from the coffin.’

‘Ah, so you’ve heard about that, have you?’ said Thórdur, suddenly lowering his voice. ‘It wasn’t widely known. People found it embarrassing. Ármann stopped talking about it after a while, but it gave rise to all sorts of ghost stories linked to Jakob’s late wife. That she’d got into his coffin with him and so on.’

‘People said she haunted him.’

‘That’s right. Caused the accident too. I don’t know why she was supposed to have wanted to take revenge on him, though.’

‘What exactly did Ármann hear?’ wrote Erlendur.

‘I’m really not sure,’ said Thórdur. ‘He was a bit vague.’

‘I gather it was some kind of moaning.’

‘No, that’s nonsense. It was nothing like that. I asked him once, shortly before he died, but he was very unwilling to say. I have a feeling he regretted ever mentioning it. No, it was more like gas.’

‘Gas?’

‘As if the body had some gas left inside, which is quite possible given that the man was buried so soon after he died. That’s what Ármann thought he’d heard. Not moaning. That’s a ghost story that was invented later on. And there were others who claimed the body had shifted in the coffin.’

Erlendur frowned. ‘Ármann’s daughter didn’t seem aware of any of this.’

‘Ármann told me he’d have done better to hold his tongue at the time,’ said Thórdur. ‘Of course she doesn’t want to admit it. She wants to hush it up.’

‘Maybe,’ wrote Erlendur.

‘I’ve never heard about any moaning,’ said Thórdur. ‘It would’ve taken inhuman strength to survive all that.’

‘Yes, it would,’ Erlendur blurted out aloud.

‘Mind you, there are stories of people surviving in cold like that,’ said Thórdur. ‘I once heard of a shipwreck out west, not unlike this one. Three men fell overboard from a rowing boat close to shore. The bodies were hauled out of the sea and locked up overnight in a warehouse in the village. The weather was freezing, but when they went to check on the bodies next day it turned out that two of the men had managed to climb down onto the floor during the night, though that’s as far as they got. But the third, who’d lived longest, had made it all the way to the door before he’d finally frozen stiff.’

ERLENDUR DROVE SLOWLY
back to Eskifjördur. He was so preoccupied that he soon pulled over and stopped on the side of the road, where he sat in the car contemplating what to do. He lit the inevitable cigarette and drank some tepid coffee from the flask. It was virtually the only sustenance he had taken all day but he was not hungry. Instead, he was filled with a restless tension that he knew he would have to satisfy sooner rather than later.

There was one obvious course to take. He didn’t like it, but however much he racked his brains for an alternative, he always came to the same conclusion. He wanted clear answers but he also wished to protect the interests of those who had put their trust in him. He had seen no reason so far to involve the local authorities in his investigation, in spite of the evidence of blackmail and murder he had uncovered. Erlendur had always felt that some crimes might remain hidden, so long as this was not contrary to the public interest, and this was one such occasion. He would avoid making his findings official for as long as possible. After all, it was not a formal inquiry. Innate curiosity and an obsession with missing-persons’ cases had led him to delve more deeply into an ancient incident than he had ever intended, but he hadn’t been seeking out a crime: in this instance the crime had found him. If he hadn’t gone around following up suspicions and rumours, the long-accepted story of Matthildur, Jakob and Ezra would have stood unchallenged, a closed book, to himself and others. Erlendur was only too aware that if he wanted to act on his suspicions and do what he believed was necessary, he would have to pursue the matter through official channels, which would mean persuading one authority after another of what he knew, without any substantive proof. His request would be put before innumerable committees and judges, he would be forced to attend endless meetings and engage in the sort of persistent wrangling that he simply couldn’t face. Even if he informed the local authorities of everything he had uncovered and his request passed unhindered through the system, he was convinced that he was still unlikely to receive an official go-ahead.

Gradually it had dawned on him that he was investigating not one crime but two, and that they differed in two significant respects. Of course they were related, there was no doubt: the first had given rise to the second. The first was based purely on the testimony of one man, Ezra, and would be nigh on impossible to prove. There was no witness to confirm his claim, no tangible evidence, no body had been found and no one knew its whereabouts. The second case was different in that there was no witness testimony, no certainty that a crime had in fact been committed; only a vague suspicion. But in this instance Erlendur believed he knew where the evidence was buried. All he had to do was lay hands on it.

Turning the car round, he headed back to Djúpivogur along the deserted road. As he drove, Erlendur recalled reading about a woman who had been certified dead and sealed in a body bag, only to revive and have to be rushed to A & E. He had heard of people in South America who asked for their wrists to be cut after death, for fear of waking up in their coffin. There was even a medical term for the fear of being buried alive:
taphephobia
. They called it the Lazarus syndrome when someone regained consciousness after being certified dead. People had even been known to wake up during their own post-mortem.

Erlendur parked by the graveyard in Djúpivogur and contemplated the tranquil scene, now barely visible in the gloom. He had brought along the gas lantern and a spade, on the off chance. The cemetery was fairly small, so he knew it wouldn’t take him long to locate Jakob’s grave and he couldn’t think of a better time to tackle the job than now, tonight. His earlier scruples had been laid to rest. He had come too far to start having reservations now.

Little snow had fallen here in the southernmost part of the fjords. The weather had been mild and dry for most of the autumn and the ground was still frost-free which would make his task easier. He looked at his watch. The sooner he started, the sooner he would be finished. And he must finish before first light, and be sure to leave behind as few traces of his deed as possible.

He stepped out of the car with the lantern in his hand, fetched the spade from the back seat and started walking towards the graveyard. He didn’t want to light the lamp until it was needed. The cemetery lay beside the main road, some way above and mercifully out of sight of the village. It was past twelve. Erlendur prepared himself for a long night.

Hearing a dog barking in the distance, he froze for a second and listened, then carried on. The cemetery was surrounded by iron railings, accessed by a lychgate with a bell hanging above it. He glimpsed a tool shed to his right. Tall, handsome conifers stood vigil over the graves, most of which had raised mounds, marked out with headstones or crosses. The plots from the middle of the twentieth century lay towards the back.

Having lit the lantern, he walked along the rows, shining it on the graves to read the inscriptions, and soon came to a small stone lying flat on the ground that was engraved with Jakob’s name and dates. Turning down the flame to leave just enough light, he peered about cautiously, straining for the sound of any more barking, then set to work, driving the spade into the damp turf.

He had disinterred a body once before, in very different circumstances. On that occasion he had gone through all the correct channels and had the services of a small mechanical digger to excavate the grave, in a cemetery on the south coast. What had emerged was the coffin of a very young girl who had succumbed to a rare disease. His thoughts had often returned to her over the years. Countless other investigations had left their mark on him, in differing ways, but none had driven him to visit a graveyard secretly, under cover of darkness, armed with a spade.

With great care, Erlendur laid the turves he had cut to one side, intending to replace them as unobtrusively as he could. The ground offered little resistance, the soft damp earth yielding easily to his shovel, and he worked steadily for around an hour before taking a cigarette break, leaning on a neighbouring gravestone.

Another bout of digging followed before he took a second break. There was enough coffee left in his Thermos for half a cup, but it was insufficient to satisfy the hunger pangs that were now becoming acute. The night was overcast and there was no moon, which was fortunate in the circumstances. He had no idea what excuse he could possibly give if someone were to discover him halfway down the grave but he carried on digging regardless, trying to create as little mess as he could. All of a sudden, the blade of the shovel struck wood with a dull thud. The grave was shallower than he had expected and he dug with increased vigour until he was straddling Jakob’s casket, hurriedly scraping off the dirt. It was a plain wooden box, cheaply made from unpainted timber, but in the weak illumination of the lantern it looked fairly intact.

The lid consisted of four broad planks. Erlendur inserted the blade of the shovel under one and tried to lever it up. The wood gave easily, splitting under the strain. He slid the spade under the next plank and forced that up as well. The nails had loosened over time and the timber was rotten, so the hole in the lid was soon large enough to see inside.

Grabbing the lantern from the lip of the pit, he turned the flame up and shone it into the coffin where Jakob’s skeleton sprang into view. He was struck immediately by the odd attitude of the bones. Judging by the way it was tilted, it looked as if the dead man’s head had been craned back, and the lower jaw had fallen away from the skull as if he had died with his mouth gaping. The upper teeth jutted out but the two front incisors were missing. The skeleton’s hands lay against its head, the fingers clenched and crooked, the bones twisted in different directions. Moving the lamp nearer, he examined them more closely. From what he could see, the middle finger of the right hand had broken off. Moving the lamp down the length of the skeleton, he saw that the legs were splayed apart, rather than lying neatly aligned, side by side.

Bending lower, Erlendur shone his lantern down the inside of the coffin and ran a hand over the wood. Did any of this count as evidence to confirm his suspicions?

Straightening up, he played the light over Jakob’s remains again. His gaze rested on the twisted hands and missing finger. He remembered hearing that Jakob had suffered from severe claustrophobia.

Next he picked up one of the wooden planks of the lid, which had snapped when he broke into the coffin. Turning up the gas flame still higher, he inspected the section that had lain directly over Jakob’s face. His fingers detected grooves in the surface, score marks that should not have been there. Elsewhere, the plank was unmarked. As he peered closer at the strange scratches he could have sworn that some were teeth marks. He illuminated the broken finger again and grimaced as he pictured the desperate battle that had been fought in that little churchyard: the futile scratching, the screams that nobody heard, the air gradually dwindling to nothing.

LESS THAN TWO
hours later, soaked to the skin and covered in mud from head to toe, Erlendur put the spade back in the car and sat down behind the steering wheel. Although he had done his best to hide all signs of despoliation, it was still obvious that the grave had been tampered with. Even after he had shovelled all the earth back into the hole, the small mound had defeated his efforts to beat it flat. It would take time for the soil to subside to its former level. He replaced the turves on top of the heap, hoping that no one would visit the cemetery for a while. With any luck the villagers would remain in the best of health and the snow would fall heavily on Djúpivogur all winter long, lying in deep drifts far into the spring. Ashamed now of what he had done, he didn’t want anyone to discover it, and yet he didn’t really regret it.

He headed back to Eskifjördur. Few people were about that early, so he only met a couple of cars. In some places small drifts had formed over the road but otherwise the going was reasonable. He relished the warmth from the heater and listened to soothing music on the radio while mentally reviewing the grisly tale he had uncovered in the graveyard.

The sky was turning grey when he arrived back at the ruined croft and crawled into his sleeping bag, wrapping the blanket carefully around himself before lying back, exhausted. He didn’t anticipate having any difficulty in getting to sleep, despite the twinges of pain and stiffness from his exertions with the spade. He had worked like a man possessed, terrified of being caught in the act, not easing up until the last sod had been replaced. His arms and legs ached and he had blisters on his palms. It was years since he had last engaged in such intense physical labour.

Yet for all that, sleep would not come. He grew agitated every time he thought about Ezra in the ice house where the bodies were laid out; about Jakob in his coffin, and the mystery of Matthildur’s whereabouts. He was uncertain what to do with the information he had obtained in such a macabre manner. When he woke up, he resolved, he would go and have it out with Ezra, and perhaps that would settle his next move. There were many questions he wanted to put to the old man about what had gone on in that ice house long ago. After all, the indications were that Ezra had known full well Jakob was alive when the lid of the coffin was nailed down.