Strange Shores de-9

by Arnaldur Indridason

  ‘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.’

  21

  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 amp; 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 ab
out 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.’

  22

  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.

  ‘I suppose you want to know more,’ Hrund said, after an awkward pause.

  ‘You call the shots,’ said Erlendur. ‘At least you have so far.’

  To the best of Hrund’s knowledge, Ezra and Matthildur had been acquainted — though no more than that — before Matthildur received her sister’s letter. Ezra used to work on a fishing boat with Jakob. They got on well enough, having first met several years earlier in Djúpivogur, though Hrund didn’t know the circumstances and had no idea what had brought them both to Eskifjördur after the war. Ezra had never married, nor, as far as Hrund was aware, had he ever been involved with a woman before. Jakob was clearly much more experienced.

  Ezra was a loner. He had been that way as a young man and had never changed. People knew next to nothing about him except that he was not local but came originally from the other side of the country. Before meeting Jakob in Djúpivogur he had been living out west, in Stykkishólmur and Borgarnes, where he may well have been born and brought up, though it had never occurred to anyone to ask. It was the fishing that had drawn him to the East Fjords, where he had settled down to work on the sea.

  Although he was a solitary man, little given to talking about himself, showing his feelings or getting involved much in local affairs, he was by no means unpopular. He was hard-working and always ready to oblige if asked for help. Clean-living and abstemious too. Despite his powerful frame, though, he had never been considered much of a looker, with his low brow, small eyes, prematurely wrinkled face and the odd blemish on his lower lip that might have been from a fight — not that anyone had ever asked him. Some joker had once quipped that his face looked like a rug that had been kicked into a corner. Maybe that accounted for his shyness and diffidence where women were concerned. Until, that is, he met Matthildur.

  Their acquaintance had begun when she and Jakob first started seeing each other. In his shy way Ezra had noticed her before, but only got to know her properly when he and Jakob started crewing a three-tonne motor vessel whose owner ran a fish-processing factory in the village. The boat was christened Sigurlína after the man’s wife. They used to head out at the crack of dawn and return to the harbour in the afternoon or early evening, sometimes manning the boat on their own when the captain had other business. Ezra would wake up in the early hours and drop by to fetch Jakob, by which time Matthildur would be up and about, and they would exchange a few words while Jakob was getting ready. Then the two men would set off down to the harbour while she stood watching from the doorway. Jakob never looked back but Ezra would sometimes snatch an unobtrusive glance over his shoulder, capturing the image of Matthildur to take with him out to sea.

  Once when they came ashore, Jakob announced that he had to go over to Djúpivogur for a few days. He did not explain his business, merely told Ezra that he would have to man the boat with the owner in the meantime. The following morning, as he walked past the house, Ezra noticed that Matthildur was up and about. Jakob had made an early start and she had woken to say goodbye to him but couldn’t get back to sleep. The door was open, so Ezra greeted her and they had a brief chat as usual.

  The next day Ezra passed the house again and saw that Matthildur had the door open, as if waiting for him. She came out and said hello, and he lingered longer than the day before, enjoying a more leisurely conversation. Matthildur was just as much in the dark about what had taken Jakob to Djúpivogur. He had discussed buying a share in a fishing boat and she thought he might be looking into opportunities. Ezra nodded. Jakob had once suggested they club together to buy a stake in a vessel, but Ezra had poured cold water on the idea because he was broke. ‘We’ll take a loan, mate,’ Jakob had said. ‘Who do you think would lend money to the likes of us?’ Ezra had retorted.

  He and Matthildur stood by the door in the early-morning quiet and he asked if she needed anything. She did not.

  ‘Thanks, anyway,’ she said.

  The third morning he dawdled even longer and the owner was fuming by the time he finally turned up to work. Matthildur had not been up when he passed the house, so he had hung around until he heard a noise inside and plucked up the courage to tap on the door. She had smiled as she opened it, still in her nightie.

  ‘I prepared some lunch for you last night,’ she said, handing him a small parcel. ‘It’s so kind of you to drop by in the mornings.’

  He accepted the food in surprise.

  ‘There was really no need,’ he said, without wishing to sound ungrateful.

  ‘Oh, no, it’s nothing special,’ she said, amused at his astonishment.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ He put the packet in his bag. ‘Jakob’s back tomorrow, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m expecting him this evening,’ Matthildur replied. ‘He’ll go out with you in the morning.’

  On the fourth day he walked up to Matthildur’s house. He had not heard from Jakob but assumed he would have returned home the night before, so he knocked on the door as usual. He turned towards the harbour: fog lay over the fjord but he hoped it would disperse during the morning. The door opened and Matthildur appeared. It was immediately clear that she had been crying.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Has something happened to Jakob? I
s he here?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s not here. I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Wasn’t he meant to come back yesterday evening?’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t show up, and I don’t know when he’s going to.’

  She seemed extremely agitated and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a letter that she brandished in his face.

  ‘Did you know about this?’ she demanded.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What sort of man he is,’ she retorted and slammed the door in his face. Ezra stood there at a loss. He hesitated, wondering if he should knock again. The boat was waiting: he could not stay. In the neighbouring houses people were waking up. He vacillated for a while longer before eventually setting off down the hill, but kept pausing in case the door opened again. Nothing happened. He had never seen her so distressed and couldn’t bear to think of her alone in that state.

  When Ezra came ashore later that day his eyes went straight to the house but it was dark and appeared empty. He walked home, preoccupied, and opened his door which, like everyone else in the village, he always left unlocked. As he put down his bag he was startled to see Matthildur sitting at his kitchen table in the gloom. He reached for the light switch.

  ‘Do you mind not turning it on?’ she asked.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the way I behaved this morning,’ she said. ‘I’ve been worrying about it all day.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, looking around to see if Jakob was with her. ‘I hope you’re feeling a bit better.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes, I’m alone. I wanted to talk to you. Is that all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Ezra. ‘Of course. Are you hungry? Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘Don’t go to any trouble. That’s not why I’m here.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  Matthildur did not answer immediately. He joined her at the table. He was glad she was there, glad she had been waiting for him when he came home, though he had no idea what was going on.