Strange Shores de-9

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘You gave me the soldier and Beggi the car.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘He had the car with him. It was in his glove.’

  11

  He lay awake in the ruined farmhouse for much of the night, reliving the sequence of events that had led up to the brothers’ departure with their father on their ill-fated journey. Now and then he would doze off in his warm sleeping bag but never for very long. He felt stiff and unrested when he got up in the morning. Huddling over the lantern, he ate three oat cakes and poured himself a coffee in the plastic lid of the Thermos. He had acquired the coffee at a convenience store in the village late last night, from a cheery but rather brash young man who had made determined efforts to force him into conversation.

  ‘Here in connection with the smelter, are you?’ he had asked, noticing that Erlendur was not local.

  ‘No,’ Erlendur had answered curtly. ‘And three packets of Viceroy, please.’

  The young man, who was wearing ripped jeans and a slashed T-shirt, had fetched the cigarettes from a drawer and laid them on the counter.

  ‘Working on the dam, then?’

  ‘No. Could I have some coffee for my Thermos?’

  ‘Help yourself,’ the young man had said, gesturing to a coffee machine with a half-full jug that stood on a rather dirty table in the corner. ‘It’s free. What do you do, then?’

  Erlendur had filled his flask and paid for the cigarettes. The shop assistant had followed his every move. Realising more questions were imminent, Erlendur had made his way quickly to the door.

  ‘Are you the bloke up at the deserted. .?’ he had heard the young man ask as the door slammed behind him.

  ‘Pushy little sod,’ Erlendur had muttered as he left.

  After finishing his frugal breakfast, he set out to drive the fifty or so kilometres to Egilsstadir, the administrative centre of east Iceland. To begin with, he followed the coast road around the headland at the foot of Mount Hólmatindur and caught glimpses of the feverish activity around the construction site in Reydarfjördur. Then, leaving the fjords behind, he drove inland where the road clung to the steep, gully-scored mountainside, before descending into the Fagridalur Valley and following the river in its rocky gorge, which brought him down to Egilsstadir in no time at all. Driving conditions were good but the stream of heavy-goods vehicles hammering in both directions, destroying the peace of the morning, meant he kept to a sensible speed.

  He managed to locate the care home and asked the receptionist for Kjartan Halldórsson. He was directed to speak to one of the attendants, who escorted him to a small TV lounge where a man of about seventy sat watching cartoons. The girl bent to his ear.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor, Kjartan,’ she announced in a loud, sing-song voice, as if addressing a small child.

  The man straightened up in his chair, mumbling.

  ‘’E wants a word with you,’ the girl bellowed.

  Erlendur thanked her and greeted the man, who had thick grey hair and bony, work-worn hands. He seemed surprisingly frail and arthritic for his age. In the ensuing small talk Erlendur discovered that the man had a degenerative disease which had cost him the sight in one eye.

  ‘Yes, I’m almost blind on this side,’ Kjartan explained.

  ‘That’s too bad,’ said Erlendur, unsure how to react.

  ‘Yes, it’s a bit of a nuisance,’ agreed Kjartan, ‘especially since the other eye is going too. They thought it would be best to stick me in here in case I had an accident. I can hardly even make out the screen any more.’

  Erlendur assumed he was referring to the television. They talked about visual impairment for a while, before he was finally able to get to his purpose, saying that he was researching cases of people going missing in the mountains, and had heard that Kjartan’s aunt Matthildur had vanished when walking from Eskifjördur to Reydarfjördur in January of 1942.

  A radio was playing somewhere, and the poignant strains of a 1960s pop song — ‘Spring in Vaglaskógur’ — carried to where they were sitting.

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s quite right,’ Kjartan said, apparently pleased to be of assistance, in however minor a way. ‘She was my mother’s sister, you know, though I never met her.’

  ‘Do you have any memory of the incident?’

  ‘No, I can’t say I do. I was very young when it happened and we were living in Reykjavík. But I clearly remember hearing about it. I must have been seven. My mother was the eldest sister. She moved to Reykjavík as a young woman and I was born there.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I left home early myself, you know. Started a family. Went to sea. We used to be able to catch what we liked in those days. Now it’s a rich man’s game, thanks to all these quotas.’

  ‘So you moved out east?’

  ‘Yes, my wife was from these parts. But I’ve never really been in touch with my relatives here. Hardly know them.’

  ‘Matthildur went missing the same night some British soldiers got into difficulties,’ said Erlendur.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Kjartan. ‘There was a terrible storm on the moors — hurricane-force winds, they said. People couldn’t stand upright. Incredibly dangerous conditions.’

  ‘Did the search last long?’

  ‘Several days, from what I heard. But it was hopeless, of course.’

  ‘Do you remember if your mother talked much about the accident? Was there any aspect that struck you as out of the ordinary?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’

  ‘What about Matthildur? Did your mother mention her at all? How she was? Or whether they got on?’

  ‘They didn’t have much contact. My mother was in Reykjavík, and the roads were dire in those days.’

  ‘I was wondering if you had any papers connected to Matthildur that belonged to your mother or aunts,’ said Erlendur. He had put the same question to Hrund, who said she had nothing herself but that Matthildur might have corresponded with her other sisters, though if she did Hrund couldn’t remember hearing about it.

  ‘A few bits and bobs,’ Kjartan said, after wrinkling his brow.

  ‘Did she and your mother write to each other in those days — that you know of?’

  ‘My sister sent me a trunk after our mother died, saying I could chuck it out if I liked. There was all sorts of rubbish in there: rental contracts, old bills, tax returns. As far as I can remember, she’d kept a whole pile of newspapers as well. Our mother never threw anything out. I don’t know why my sister sent it to me. I didn’t have any use for it. There were some letters too but I never did more than glance at them.’

  ‘So you’ve never read them?’

  ‘Good heavens, no. I had quite enough on my plate without wasting time on that sort of thing.’

  ‘Do you still have the trunk?’

  ‘I think so,’ said the old man. ‘My son looks after the few belongings I’ve hung on to. You could talk to him. Are you writing about the storm, then?’

  ‘I may do,’ said Erlendur non-committally.

  12

  It was after midday by the time Erlendur pulled up outside the house belonging to Kjartan’s son, Eythór. It was a large, detached villa, not far from the Egilsstadir sixth-form college. Eythór, who had popped home for lunch, worked for a firm of contractors involved in the dam project in the highlands. Erlendur repeated his spiel about researching stories of accidents in the mountains and mentioned that he had just come from visiting Eythór’s father, who had given him permission to look at some old papers in a trunk his son was keeping for him.

  Intrigued, Eythór asked more about Erlendur’s research and whether he was writing a book. Erlendur managed to dodge the question without telling an outright lie. Eythór said he hardly knew why he was keeping the trunk: he had got rid of lots of his father’s junk when the old man went into the home, and should by rights have binned that too. He had taken a look inside but it contained nothing but papers. Next time he cleared out the garage it would probably go to the dump.

>   ‘How was the old boy, anyway?’ Eythór asked, and it took Erlendur a second or two to realise that he was enquiring after his father.

  ‘Fine, I believe,’ he replied.

  ‘His sight’s not getting any better.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to look in on him for ages. That’s what happens when you’re building the biggest dam in Europe — it takes up all your time. Speaking of which — you couldn’t come back this evening, could you? I’m already late.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to head back to Reykjavík,’ said Erlendur, on the off chance that this ploy might work, ‘so it’ll just have to wait.’

  The man wavered. His phone rang. He checked to see who it was, then ended the call.

  ‘OK, come on then,’ he said.

  The trunk was in the garage, buried under all kinds of junk that Eythór had to push aside: summer tyres, paint pots, garden tools. He didn’t know what the papers related to and had no time to hang around, but if Erlendur needed any help, he said, his youngest son was at home. A sixth-former who was ‘out to lunch’, if Erlendur had heard correctly. He thanked Eythór for being so obliging, apologised for bothering him and said he would not take long.

  The man climbed into his four-wheel drive and departed, leaving Erlendur behind in the garage with the door open and the trunk at his feet. It started to rain. He took out a large brown envelope containing tax returns for the years 1972 to 1977, and placed it on a work bench. Two extremely dog-eared hymn books followed. He flipped through the pages before laying them on top of the envelope. Next he unearthed three copies of Reader’s Digest, together with a sizeable bundle of yellowing newspapers.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he heard a voice behind him ask, and turned to see the sixth-former.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’m researching missing-persons’ cases in the East Fjords.’

  ‘In our garage?’

  ‘One of the stories concerns your aunt who disappeared on the moors.’

  ‘On the moors?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What was she doing up there?’

  ‘She was climbing over a pass and presumably had an accident.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The boy shuffled past him and sauntered off down the street back to school, a gawky figure, his trousers worn deliberately low to reveal his boxer shorts. ‘What is the world coming to?’ Erlendur thought, watching the boy until he vanished round a corner.

  He resumed his task of removing papers and pamphlets from the trunk, and finally came across a sheaf of letters which he stopped to read. Some were from Ingunn’s sisters, others from her mother or friends. Matthildur had last written to her sister about three months before she went missing. She reported the local news and described the weather in some detail: it had been unsettled that autumn and now winter was just round the corner. But she was looking forward to Christmas and was busy making herself a dress for the festive season. The earlier letters also stuck to generalities, giving no hint of her relationship with her husband. Erlendur knew he should not necessarily attach any significance to this. People didn’t always commit their private thoughts to paper.

  I went to a dance with Ninna, she had written in a letter dated two years before her disappearance, and we had a smashing time. The band was local and played a mix of new tunes and old favourites. Ninna and I danced till we dropped. To begin with, the boys were really shy about asking us up. Jakob — the one you used to know — was there and we had a long talk after the dance. He’s living in Eskifjördur these days.

  Having gone through the whole trunk without becoming any better acquainted with either Jakob or Matthildur, Erlendur began to replace the contents, trying to put them back in the same order. It occurred to him that it might be worth looking at the newspapers, so he started turning the pages. He couldn’t imagine why Matthildur’s sister should have kept so many copies of this particular rag, the mouthpiece of the Progressive Party. Reports of heated political squabbles and resolutions passed by the Farmers’ Association were interspersed with news items about the lambing and hay harvest. But one issue contained a story about the disaster that had befallen the British soldiers, as well as a small piece on Matthildur’s disappearance the same night.

  In another issue he found an obituary of Jakob. As far as Erlendur could gather the writer, one Pétur Alfredsson, had been a friend. The article traced Jakob’s family to Hornafjördur in the east and to Reykjavík, where he had been born. After the customary enumeration of his virtues, it was stated that Jakob had lost his young wife in a tragic accident, after which he never remarried. Finally, there was a brief description of how he had drowned in a storm while returning from a fishing trip and how his body and that of his companion had been pulled from the sea and, prior to their funerals, stored in the old ice house in Eskifjördur.

  But it was not the contents of the obituary that attracted Erlendur’s attention so much as the word, still perfectly legible, that had been scrawled across it in thick black pencil:

  BASTARD.

  13

  As before, Hrund was sitting at her window, gazing over to where the pylons would soon be rising. The glare from the floodlit building site brightened the sky behind the house but the smelter itself was hidden from view. She saw Erlendur arrive in his car and this time when he knocked, she rose from her chair, opened the door and invited him in. He followed her into the sitting room where she resumed her customary post.

  ‘The evenings are so lovely at this time of year,’ she said.

  ‘They certainly are,’ Erlendur agreed, taking a seat. There were no lights on. Hrund had been sitting in semi-darkness, wrapped in a blanket. The street lamps cast her shadow on the wall behind her and Erlendur found himself watching her silhouette in fascination. Hrund seemed uninterested in the reason for his visit, as if taking it for granted that they should be sitting there, two strangers, in companionable silence.

  ‘I went over to Egilsstadir today,’ Erlendur said eventually.

  ‘Oh?’ said Hrund. ‘Do you want to tell me about it? You’re welcome to help yourself to coffee, by the way. There’s some in the pot, and you’ll find a cup in the cupboard above the sink.’

  Erlendur went into the kitchen. When he came back, Hrund had turned away from the window and was waiting expectantly.

  ‘I suppose you’re still after information about Matthildur.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then you must have been to see my nephew. Did you go to the home?’

  Erlendur nodded.

  ‘I’ve never really known him well. It just worked out that way.’

  ‘That’s common enough,’ said Erlendur, thinking about his own family. ‘He’s on good form. Well, having said that, he’s lost the sight in one eye. He let me have a poke around in a trunk that belonged to your sister Ingunn, and I found some old letters and stuff like that.’

  ‘Were they useful?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any letters from Matthildur, if that’s what you’re after.’

  ‘No, you told me. Actually, I was wondering if any of Matthildur’s belongings, her personal effects, were still around. Or if you had a photograph.’

  ‘I don’t know about any of her things, but I do have a picture of us sisters, if only I knew where to lay my hands on it.’ Hrund rose and went into her bedroom. Erlendur felt guilty about putting her to this trouble, but consoled himself with the thought that she was lonely and that a bit of company, however unexciting, would probably do her good.

  Hrund returned carrying two shoeboxes, sat down in her chair and started to sift through them.

  ‘It’s not in an album,’ she said. ‘I’ve never bothered to sort these pictures out properly. My husband’s dead — did I tell you that?’

  ‘No,’ said Erlendur. Bóas had informed him that Hrund was a widow with two sons who had gone away to study in Reykjavík and stayed there, o
nly coming home for visits.

  ‘There are photos of him here that I’d forgotten all about. And here’s one of us four sisters during the haymaking.’

  She handed Erlendur a curling, black-and-white picture with a yellowing back, stained with what might have been coffee. The four sisters were standing in a meadow, holding rakes. It was a brilliant summer’s day and they stood there beaming at the camera, all wearing dresses, and two of them headscarves, lined up in a row for the photographer. There was no mistaking their happiness, even so many years on.

  ‘Our mother took the picture,’ said Hrund. ‘The camera belonged to her second husband, Thorbjörn. That’s me on the far left, the baby of the family — the afterthought. Then that’s Ingunn, with the headscarf, and Matthildur beside her and then Jóa — poor old Jóhanna.’

  Their faces were not particularly clear but Erlendur could make out Matthildur’s features: deep-set eyes and a determined expression. He looked for a date but couldn’t see one.

  ‘I think it was taken about eight years before she went missing,’ said Hrund, as if reading his mind. ‘During the Depression.’

  ‘Ingunn and Jóhanna moved to Reykjavík, didn’t they? Did they go at the same time?’

  ‘No, Jóhanna went first, then Ingunn followed. Shortly after the picture was taken, in fact. Everything changed so quickly. One minute we were all living at home, having a whale of a time. Next thing you know, we’d scattered to the four winds. It all seemed to happen at once and nothing was ever the same again.’

  ‘Do you remember a friend of Matthildur’s, known as Ninna?’ Erlendur asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. A sweet girl. I believe she’s still alive. You should check. Ninna’s her real name — not a nickname.’

  ‘Has she lived in the East Fjords all this time?’

  ‘Yes. She and Matthildur were great friends — childhood friends.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll look her up,’ said Erlendur, rising to his feet. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to keep you up all night.’