Strange Shores (27 page)

‘Yes, well, so much for honesty,’ said Ezra. ‘I’ve tried to do my best, tried to atone for it in my own way. And you mustn’t forget what Jakob did to Matthildur. There are times when I justify my crime. I blame Jakob. Then I feel better for a while. But it never lasts.’

‘As I said, it’s not the first extraordinary story of survival I’ve heard,’ said Erlendur. ‘People who’ve been written off as dead. Man has a phenomenal instinct to live.’

‘I’ve often wished he’d simply died in the shipwreck,’ Ezra went on. ‘It would have been . . . it would have been simpler, purer.’

‘Life’s never simple,’ said Erlendur. ‘That’s the first thing we learn. It’s never straightforward.’

‘Are you going to take action?’ asked Ezra.

Their eyes met.

‘Not unless you want me to.’

‘You’ll leave it up to me?’

‘It’s not my concern. I just wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery.’

‘But you’re a policeman. Isn’t it your duty . . .?’

‘One’s duty can be complicated.’

‘Not that it really matters to me what you do. Though a few people around here would revise their opinion of me, not that I really care. But I’d be grateful if the story of Matthildur’s fate could be left unchanged. There’s a certain poetry to it. Though it’s a damned lie, there’s something in the idea of her striding over the Hraevarskörd Pass that I’d like to be allowed to live on in people’s memories. Unless they’re all dead by now.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone’s asked after Jakob in all these years?’

‘No. You’re the only one.’

‘And he never told you what he did with her?’

‘No.’

‘So you still have no idea?’

‘No.’

‘If you’d been able to save his life, might he have told you then?’

‘No, it wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Ezra. ‘I’m convinced of that. Even if I’d helped him, he’d never have let on.’

‘Jakob seems to have been rallying when you put him in the coffin,’ Erlendur continued, choosing his words with care.

‘He was dead as far as everyone else was concerned,’ said Ezra. ‘I just put him in his coffin.’

The justification sounded as if it had been rehearsed countless times in the intervening years. Ezra got to his feet and looked out of the window at the moor which loomed against the sky, pristine and untouched.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean him to live, but if he’d shown any remorse, the slightest hint of remorse or regret . . . would things have gone differently? Would I have saved his life?’

Erlendur didn’t know what to say.

‘I’ve had to live with it ever since,’ Ezra whispered to the window. ‘At times the shame’s been almost more than I could bear.’

HRUND HAD BEEN
discharged from hospital. It was evening as Erlendur drove up to the house and spied her back in her habitual place at the window. She smiled at him and this time came to the front door to welcome him. Joining her in the sitting room, Erlendur asked after her health. She said she had come home that morning and had nothing to grumble about.

‘Any new discoveries?’ she asked, bringing him some freshly made coffee. ‘Any news about Matthildur?’

Erlendur was uncertain how much to share with her about the fates of Matthildur and Jakob, or Ezra’s act of vengeance after the shipwreck of
1949
. He would rather gloss over the business of his grave robbery as well. And since he was concealing these facts, he might as well keep quiet about others too. So he gave her a heavily edited account of his meetings with Ezra. Hrund sat and listened without comment until it came to what concerned her most.

‘I hope we can keep this between us,’ said Erlendur. ‘So it doesn’t go any further.’

‘Of course.’

‘Ezra’s convinced Jakob killed Matthildur.’

Hrund regarded him impassively.

‘He has no proof,’ said Erlendur. ‘But he told me that Jakob had confessed to the killing in his hearing. Jakob acted out of jealousy and a desire for revenge. Some would call it a crime of passion. Matthildur was going to leave Jakob for Ezra, but he began to suspect they were up to no good and followed her to Ezra’s house one night. He saw everything and couldn’t take it – couldn’t take the betrayal.’

Hrund’s expression was still unreadable.

‘Jakob invented the story about Matthildur going to your mother’s house in Reydarfjördur and getting caught in the storm. As it was, she never left home.’

‘Oh my God!’ whispered Hrund at last.

‘I have no reason to disbelieve Ezra,’ said Erlendur.

‘The evil bastard.’

Erlendur described how he had gradually coaxed Ezra into telling him what he knew, how he and Matthildur had been in love, how time had stopped for Ezra when she went missing. He told her about Ezra’s encounters with Jakob after she vanished, first in the graveyard, then at Jakob’s house, where he had confessed to killing her.

‘How did you get him to talk?’ Hrund asked.

Erlendur shrugged. ‘He seemed ready to unburden himself,’ he said, hoping this was not too great a lie.

He wouldn’t dream of admitting the pressure he had put on Ezra to make him cooperate. Indeed, he rather regretted it, especially given the cost. Erlendur was not proud of the lengths he had gone to. He was worried about digging up Jakob’s grave but even more about how he had treated Ezra. He had bludgeoned the old man into confessing and now he could only pity him. He might himself be driven by an insatiable compulsion, an obsession with uncovering the truth, but why couldn’t Ezra have been left in peace with his secrets? He was no hardened criminal, no danger to his community. When they parted, Ezra had said it didn’t matter to him what Erlendur chose to do with his discoveries, but Erlendur knew better.

Hard on the heels of revelation came anger.

‘It’s hardly possible to imagine a worse end,’ Erlendur said.

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Ezra snarled back. ‘Do you think it hasn’t preyed on my mind every day? You needn’t start preaching to me on that score.’

He turned to glare at Erlendur.

‘You can leave now,’ he said. ‘Bugger off and leave me alone. I never want to set eyes on you again. I don’t have long left and I don’t want to have to see you.’

‘I can understand –’ Erlendur was not permitted to finish.

‘Out!’ said Ezra, raising his voice. ‘Get out, I say! For once in your life do as I ask. Get out!’

Erlendur stood up and went to the kitchen door.

‘I don’t want us to part in anger,’ he said.

‘I don’t give a damn what you want,’ said Ezra. ‘Just bugger off!’

So they parted. Erlendur retreated, though he was unhappy leaving him in such a fragile state. There was nothing he could do for Ezra right now, yet in spite of the old man’s pleas he intended to come back the following day to check if he had recovered.

It had taken Hrund some time to grasp the full implications of what Erlendur had said.

‘You mean Jakob admitted this to Ezra?’ she said, aghast. ‘That he’d killed her?’

Erlendur nodded.

‘How?’

‘With his bare hands,’ said Erlendur. ‘Apparently he strangled her.’

Hrund inadvertently clasped her hands over her mouth, as if to stifle the cry that rose to her lips when she pictured her sister’s end.

‘But why didn’t Ezra tell anyone? Why didn’t he go to the police?’

‘It was more complicated than that,’ said Erlendur. ‘Jakob had a hold over Ezra. He fixed it, or at least claimed to have fixed it, so that Ezra would be framed for the murder if he ever told anyone what he had heard. Ezra chose not to take that risk. It wouldn’t have restored Matthildur to him and he was convinced anyway that Jakob would never reveal how he’d disposed of the body. As indeed it turned out.’

‘What did he do? What did Jakob do with her body?’ asked Hrund.

‘He always refused to tell.’

‘So nobody knows?’

‘No.’

‘Not even Ezra?’

‘No.’

‘And you haven’t found out?’

‘No.’

‘So she’ll never be found?’

‘Probably not.’

Hrund reflected on what Erlendur had said. She was profoundly shaken. All the wind seemed to have been knocked out of her.

‘The poor man,’ she said at last.

‘Ezra’s life has been pretty wretched ever since,’ said Erlendur.

‘He’s had to live with this uncertainty all these years.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who would do that – what kind of man?’ she said, rising to her feet in her anguish. ‘What kind of monster was Jakob?’

‘You said he had a bad reputation.’

‘Yes, but this! Who could do such a thing?’

‘He got his just deserts.’

‘Not just enough in my opinion,’ snapped Hrund.

‘Perhaps he had an opportunity to reflect on the suffering he had caused others before he died,’ said Erlendur.

Her gaze sharpened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That would have been punishment enough,’ said Erlendur.

AT THE END
of that long day Erlendur drove up to a small, wooden house, clad in corrugated iron, situated in the town of Seydisfjördur. After leaving Hrund, he had driven straight along the Fagridalur Valley, pausing briefly in Egilsstadir to replenish his supplies of petrol, cigarettes and coffee, before taking the road east over the high mountain pass to Seydisfjördur which lay at the head of the fjord of the same name. He had one remaining call to make and wanted to get it out of the way that evening. He had found the address in the phone book. The man he was on his way to visit was called Daníel Kristmundsson and his name had cropped up in conversation with Bóas’s nemesis, Lúdvík. Daníel used to work as a guide for hunters from Reykjavík. ‘An old rascal,’ Lúdvík had called him.

There was a faint gleam of light in one window of the house, which stood on a secluded, badly lit street at the eastern end of the little town. After vainly fumbling for a bell, Erlendur knocked on the door. Nothing happened. He knocked again. After a long interval he finally heard movement within. He waited patiently until the door opened and a man in his early fifties, unshaven and tousled, squinted at him dubiously.

‘What can I do for you?’

He could hardly be described as an old rascal, so assuming he was the wrong man, Erlendur asked if this was Daníel Kristmundsson’s house.

‘That Daníel’s dead,’ said the man.

‘Oh?’ said Erlendur. ‘Has he been dead long?’

‘Six months.’

‘I see,’ said Erlendur. ‘Well, that’s that then. He’s still listed at this address in the phone book.’

‘Yes, I suppose I should give them a call.’

The man inspected him. A glint of curiosity appeared in his eyes. ‘Why did you want to see him? Are you selling something?’

‘No,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’m not a salesman. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’

He said goodbye and was about to return to his car when the man came out onto the step.

‘What did you want with Daníel?’ he asked.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’m too late. Did you know him?’

‘Quite well,’ the man replied. ‘He was my father.’

Erlendur smiled. ‘I wanted to talk to him about fox-hunting – in the old days. Specifically about fox behaviour, and about their earths. That was all. I was told he was an expert.’

‘What did you want to know?’

The dim light spilled out into the darkness where they stood. Erlendur felt awkward and unsure about his errand now it transpired that the man he had come to see was dead. But his son’s interest had been piqued by the visitor who had disturbed his nap.

‘Nothing important,’ replied Erlendur. ‘Just whether he’d ever found any unusual objects on the moors to the south of here. In the mountains above Reydarfjördur or Eskifjördur – on Andri or Hardskafi, for example. I don’t suppose you’d know?’

‘Are you working on the dam?’ asked the man.

‘No.’

‘The smelter, then?’

‘No, I’m just passing through,’ explained Erlendur. ‘I’m not working out here.’

‘He found all sorts of stuff, my dad,’ said the man. ‘All kinds of rubbish. Kept some of it too.’

‘Objects found in nests or foxholes, you mean?’

‘That’s right. And from the shore. He used to beach-comb for shells, pebbles and animal bones. I expect you’d have enjoyed meeting him.’

‘I’m sorry to hear he’s passed away.’

‘Ah, well, he’d had a good innings. Bedbound towards the end. It didn’t suit him. He was glad to go. Maybe you’d like to see the junk he collected? The garage is bursting with it. I haven’t got round to throwing any of it away yet though I’ve sometimes thought of setting light to the lot.’

Erlendur paused. It had been a gruelling day.

‘Well, it’s up to you,’ the man said, waiting for an answer.

‘It wouldn’t hurt to have a look,’ said Erlendur. The man was so eager to help that he didn’t want to appear ungrateful.

‘My name’s Daníel too,’ said the man, offering him his hand. ‘Daníel Daníelsson. There aren’t many of us around.’

Unsure how to take this, Erlendur followed him in silence round the back of the house, where the darkness was even more impenetrable, to a concrete building that might once have been intended as a garage. Daníel opened the door, felt for the light switch and turned on the naked bulb that hung from the ceiling.

Unfortunately, no one could have claimed that the old rascal had been tidy or arranged his collection in any sort of order. The garage was crammed with objects, some useful, others worthless, that old Daníel had evidently picked up and then put down wherever he happened to be standing. Erlendur hung back in the doorway: there was no point going any further.

‘See what I mean?’ said Daníel. ‘Wouldn’t it be simplest to torch the lot?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t think there’s anything here for me,’ said Erlendur politely. ‘I shouldn’t take up any more of your time. I’d better be going.’

‘You mentioned foxholes,’ said Daníel.

‘Yes, but it’s all right. I’m a bit pressed for time actually.’

‘I know there are some crates in here somewhere – three of them, I think – full of smaller boxes and envelopes that he kept his bones in. He often used to show them to me in the old days, tell me where he’d found them and so on. He had quite a collection. Foxes’ bones too. A fair number. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?’