Strange Shores de-9

by Arnaldur Indridason

  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 amp; 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.

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  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 maca
bre 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.

  Cases where people revived after being certified dead could often be put down to negligence. But it was not from any suspicion of neglect that Erlendur had developed his hunch about Jakob and felt compelled to disinter him. Ezra’s words had played a part, along with Ármann’s tale of the noise he had heard during the funeral. Added to this was Erlendur’s own experience and knowledge of hypothermia. The fact that Ezra had direct access to the ice house had only served to fuel his suspicions. Then there was Thórdur’s story of the three men in the west of Iceland who were written off as dead but had risen from their biers and tried in vain to raise the alarm. Finally, Erlendur’s conviction had been so strong that he had felt compelled to act. Whatever the cost. He wasn’t trying to excuse his action but to find an explanation for what he had done.

  And what had he uncovered? What had all his toiling in the cemetery achieved?

  He had found an answer to the question that had troubled him most: Jakob had indeed been buried alive. A shudder had run down Erlendur’s spine when he realised what he was seeing, recognised the evidence of desperation, the terrible suffering in the skeleton’s attitude — the raised hands, head arched back, mouth gaping. Even though he must have been more dead than alive after his immersion in the icy sea and night in the freezing warehouse, Jakob had found the strength to score splinters from the wood of his coffin lid. His hold on life must have been phenomenal; his death an indescribable ordeal.

  But what Erlendur could not read from the coffin, and would have to seek an explanation for elsewhere, was why Jakob had been buried alive. Had it been accidental or deliberate?

  Although it was never possible to know a person completely, Erlendur reckoned he was pretty well acquainted with men of Ezra’s type. He was confident that the old man had nothing in common with the many criminals who had crossed his path. Ezra was neither amoral nor violent. He was like the vast majority of ordinary citizens Erlendur had encountered, people who had never so much as incurred a parking fine. Was it possible, though, that somewhere inside him lurked the will to commit an atrocity like the one Erlendur had just exposed?

  If all Ezra had said was true — if Jakob had killed Matthildur and consistently refused to reveal where he had hidden her body — then he’d certainly had a grievance to avenge. Seven years later Jakob’s fate had been sealed, quite literally. But what role had Ezra played? Had he known Jakob was alive? Had they exchanged any words? Had Jakob told Ezra what he did with Matthildur’s remains?

  Only one man could lay these questions to rest and Erlendur had every intention of speaking to him at the earliest possible opportunity.

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  Why are you lying here?

  Relentlessly, at intervals, the question is repeated. But then he forgets it until it is asked again, becoming so insistent he can no longer ignore it. He has formed an image of his persecutor, based on the idea that he must be a traveller who has lost his way and by an odd coincidence stumbled onto the strange shores where he himself has washed up. Like Bóas by the crags at Urdarklettur.

  Yet this is not Bóas but a stranger. He has no answers that will satisfy the traveller and is angered by his prying. Moreover, he senses once again the presence of another figure standing in the man’s shadow, hanging back. He feels the presence ever more strongly, without being able to work out who can be lurking there.

  All he knows is that he fears the presence.

  ‘Should you be lying here?’ asks the voice.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Do you really think you should be lying here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’ asks the man.

  ‘Because. .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ Erlendur asks.

  ‘Do you want to meet him?’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s up to you. If you want to meet him, then of course you can.’

  ‘Who is it? Why’s he hiding?’

  ‘He’s not hiding. It’s you who’s keeping him away.’

  The traveller is fading, receding, and only then does he remember where he has seen him before.

  ‘Is it you?’ he asks warily.

  ‘So you remember me?’

  ‘Don’t go,’ he says, though the man frightens him. ‘Don’t go!’

  ‘I’m not going far.’

  ‘Please stay! Tell me who’s with you. Where does he come from? Who is he?’

  Little by little he surfaces into consciousness and becomes aware of the iron grip of the cold. The faint echo of his own silent cries still rings in his ears. It takes him a long time to remember where he is. Not only is his whole body numb but the cold has affected his brain; his thoughts are wandering and irrational. This causes him no particular concern, however. He has ceased to feel concern.

  The cold drives him to seek out warming thoughts. He calls to mind old methods of restoring heat to one’s body, methods he has read about in his books. The most common and effective means, when no other was available, was to use one’s own body heat to warm the victims of hypothermia, whether they were sailors rescued from the sea or people lost in snowstorms. The rescuers would take off every scrap of clothing and lie down beside the victims, sometimes one on either side, using their body heat to revive them.

  His mind goes in search of heat.

  He thinks about balmy sunshine.

  His mother’s smile.

  Her warm touch.

  Hot summer days by the river.

  He turns his face to the sky and basks in the midsummer sun.

  Suddenly he remembers the traveller and recalls where he has seen him before. A memory returns of the day at Bakkasel when they received an unexpected visitor, a passer-by who broke his journey with them before continuing on his way. That spring it was so cold that the hay harvest was almost ruined and the snowdrifts lay far down the slopes well into summer. He recalls the peculiar thing the man said to his mother about Bergur. Recalls her startled reaction.

  He never knew where the man came from or where he was going, though doubtless he had told his parents. After his brief stop, he had vanished from sight over the moor. Perhaps he was heading for Reydarfjördur over the Hraevarskörd Pass, or taking the old path that skirted the glacier, ran northwards under the foot of Mount Hardskafi and from there over to Seydisfjördur. Unexpected guests would turn up at Bakkasel every now and then, passers-by who looked as if they had come a long way. They were always invited to rest and enjoy his parents’ hospitality. Some were alone, like this man; others travelled in twos or threes or larger groups, often in high spirits, bringing an atmosphere of good cheer. Occasionally people would request a night’s lodging and they would be offered a bed in the boys’ room. They even had foreigners turn up, trying to make themselves understood with sign language, asking for a drink of water or permission to camp on their land.

  From his manner and outfit, Erlendur had gathered that this man was an experienced hiker, an impression reinforced by the handsome walking stick he left propped outside the house. He wore thick-soled boots, laced up to the calf, plus fours and a leather jacket buttoned up to his neck. His hands were clad in fingerless gloves and he stroked his beard with his strong fingers as he spoke.

  He seemed curiously at home as he took a seat in Erlendur’s parents’ kitchen and accepted coffee and a bite to eat. He chatted about the weather, especially the bad spring they were having, about the district and the scenery, and enquired after the names of various places as if he had never been there before. Perhaps he came from down south, perhaps even all the way from Reykjavík, the big city that felt as remote as any of the world’s great metropolises. Erlendur didn’t dare speak to the
visitor but loitered by the kitchen table, eavesdropping on the conversation. Bergur stood at his side, hanging on the guest’s words and gazing at him as he drank his coffee and ate the sandwich their mother had prepared.

  Every now and then the man would send a glance and a smile in the boys’ direction. Bergur, unabashed, met his eye, whereas Erlendur was shy and looked away each time, before finally leaving the kitchen to take refuge in the bedroom. He could remember the man’s kindly expression, his sincere eyes, the wisdom in his broad brow. He was as amiable as could be, and yet there was some quality that frightened Erlendur, that meant he could not be comfortable in the same room as the stranger and that eventually drove him from the kitchen. He wanted him to leave. He couldn’t fathom why but he found the man menacing.

  By the time Erlendur emerged the traveller was getting ready to leave. He had thanked them for their hospitality and was now out in the yard, walking stick in hand. He had been talking briefly with Bergur, who was standing with his parents in the crisp air, and in parting the man let fall those peculiar words, addressing them to their mother; smiling at her even as he pronounced Bergur’s fate.

  ‘Your boy has a beautiful soul. I don’t know how long you’ll be allowed to keep him.’

  They never saw the man again.

  He is convinced that the traveller who visits him intermittently in the cold is the same man who came to Bakkasel and delivered that incomprehensible verdict about Bergur, so true and yet so cruel. As his consciousness gradually fades, he begins to have his suspicions about the presence accompanying the man, about who it is that follows him like a shadow but will not come forward into the light.

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