Strange Shores

by Arnaldur Indridason

  16

  AT NOON THE following day, Erlendur reached the small village in Fáskrúdsfjördur, having driven the long way round via Reydarfjördur Fjord and the headland at the foot of Mount Reydarfjall. He could have taken the new road tunnel, opened that summer, which linked the two fjords, but preferred the old route. The mercury had dropped sharply in the night and the ground was white right down to the shore. It was the first snowfall of the autumn and brought with it the customary alien quietness, muffling the houses and landscape in a soft, white quilt. The flakes continued to fall all morning in the still air, clogging the roads and making for treacherous going.

  He knew that if the wind picked up, causing the temperature to plummet still further and the snow to drift, it would no longer be feasible for him to stay in the abandoned farm. The old house would soon begin to fill with snow. He might as well be sleeping out in the yard for all the shelter it would provide. It crossed his mind to call it a day and go home to Reykjavík. Winter was closing in, after all. But he had a nagging sense of unfinished business, as if there were something he had yet to achieve here, though he wasn’t sure what.

  He drove to a garage, filled the car with petrol and asked the assistant at the till if she knew Gréta Pétursdóttir. There were three girls working behind the counter and even so they could hardly keep up with demand. The shop and café were packed with lorry drivers and labourers, while two men in suits sat hunched over their laptops. Erlendur had read that the volume of traffic using the tunnel connecting Fáskrúdsfjördur to the smelter site in Reydarfjördur had exceeded even the most optimistic expectations. He wanted no part in it.

  ‘Sorry, no,’ said the girl. ‘But hang on a minute while I ask the others.’

  She squeezed a thick line of mustard onto a hot dog laden with all the trimmings, handed it to a customer, did some rapid mental arithmetic, called out to ask another girl if she knew Gréta, received an answer, told the hot-dog customer how much he owed, then turned back to Erlendur.

  ‘Sorry, I was mixing her up with someone else. The Gréta you want works at the swimming pool.’

  Erlendur nodded and thanked her. He drove round the village through the thick curtains of snow until he located the pool. Unusually for Iceland, it was an indoor one, and he was struck by the smell of chlorine as he entered the reception area. A fleshy woman with greying hair, probably in her early sixties, was sitting at the desk, looking at a news site on the Internet. The noise of children screaming carried from the pool. Erlendur was immediately transported back to school swimming lessons.

  ‘For one?’ asked the woman, looking up. She wore a small name badge which said ‘Gréta’.

  ‘What?’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Do you want a swim?’ asked the woman.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m here to see Gréta Pétursdóttir.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  Erlendur introduced himself and explained that he had a special interest in stories of accidents in the interior and was currently researching the incident involving the British servicemen from Reydarfjördur. He had discovered that a young woman from Eskifjördur, called Matthildur, had also died on the moors the same night. She had been married to Jakob, a friend of Gréta’s father Pétur, who had later written his obituary.

  The woman regarded him placidly as he repeated this rigmarole and Erlendur realised she was not following him.

  ‘Who did you say you were?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m researching examples of this kind of incident here in the East Fjords,’ he said, and started again on his explanation about the long-ago events until finally the woman seemed to twig. She served a couple of children who came in; others began to emerge in dribs and drabs from the changing rooms. When it had quietened down again, she asked Erlendur if he would like a coffee, and he accepted. They sat down at a small table in the reception area. A man wearing white trousers and clogs came over and she asked him to stand in for her, using strange words and a good deal of gesturing.

  ‘He’s Polish,’ she explained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Erlendur. ‘I suppose you get a lot of foreigners working out here.’

  ‘Not just here but all over. Reykjavík too. You can’t move for them. I think I know what you’re talking about,’ she went on, pausing to take a sip of watery coffee. ‘But it was before my time, so I don’t know if I can be much help. I’m amazed you were able to track me down.’

  ‘Do you have any memories of Jakob?’

  ‘Not really. He died around 1950, didn’t he? I was just a little girl. But Dad used to talk about him a lot. They were good friends and often worked together – they were both fishermen. I think I’ve got a copy of that obituary you mentioned. Dad wrote several and kept them all. It appeared in the farmers’ paper, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Were they roughly the same age?’

  ‘Yes, my father may have been slightly younger, but not much. He often told the story of Jakob’s shipwreck. There was a violent storm. People watched helplessly from land but in the end all they could do was bring the men’s bodies ashore.’

  ‘I gather they were stored in the ice house,’ Erlendur said. ‘In Eskifjördur.’

  ‘That sounds likely. They were buried only a day or two after they died, according to Dad. It all happened very quickly, but then I think Dad said neither of them had any dependants.’

  ‘Did your father ever mention Matthildur?’

  ‘Not very often.’

  ‘Or their relationship?’

  ‘You mean Jakob and Matthildur? Not that I recall. There were rumours but my father dismissed them as nonsense. That she’d come back to haunt him and even caused the shipwreck.’

  ‘What triggered them, do you think?’

  ‘Search me. Isn’t it typically Icelandic? All that superstitious claptrap about ghosts and elves and trolls. Isn’t it all the same thing?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And of course she was never found – Matthildur, I mean – which only fuelled the gossip.’

  ‘That must have made things worse,’ agreed Erlendur, who had no time for coincidence or superstition.

  ‘You don’t believe in any of that, do you?’ asked Gréta, touching a silver cross that she wore on a chain round her neck.

  ‘Not really,’ said Erlendur.

  The screaming from the pool had abated. Through an open door, Erlendur caught a glimpse of a young female instructor kneeling beside the water, teaching backstroke.

  ‘Not everyone learned to swim in the old days,’ Gréta remarked after he had been watching the lesson for a minute. ‘I seem to recall Dad saying Jakob couldn’t swim.’

  ‘What else did he say about him?’

  ‘Once he said Jakob’s worst fear had come true. He recited those lines from the Hymns of Passion.’

  ‘Which lines?’

  ‘Oh, how do they go again?’ Gréta thought. ‘“The fate he feared most of all / would in time upon him fall.”’

  ‘And he was talking about Jakob?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently he suffered from severe claustrophobia. I don’t even know if they used the word back then, but from the way Dad described it that’s what it was. Apparently you could hardly close the door when he was in the room. Dad didn’t know why but his worst nightmare was to be trapped somewhere and suffocate.’

  ‘Are you saying he actually got locked in somewhere?’

  ‘Yes, at least once. He and Dad worked together when they were young – this was in Reykjavík. They were taken on by the slaughterhouse for a few months, no longer. That’s where they met. Times were hard and they were grateful for any job they could get. Jakob worked in the smokehouse.’

  ‘Smoking meat?’

  ‘Yes. And got locked in.’

  ‘In the smokehouse?’

  Gréta nodded. ‘Dad said it was one of his mates having a laugh – he didn’t know about Jakob’s phobia.’

  ‘Perhaps no one did.’

  ‘No, probably not. Anyway, Dad said he
went completely berserk. When they eventually opened the door he attacked the first man he could lay his hands on and they thought he was going to kill him. They had to hold him down. His fingers were all bloody from where he’d been clawing at the door. It was made of steel, Dad said.’

  ‘Sounds pretty nasty.’

  ‘Dad had never seen anything like it. Jakob refused to discuss it afterwards. Dad once tried to ask him what had happened but he clammed up.’

  ‘Did your father ever learn any more about Matthildur’s disappearance?’ asked Erlendur. ‘Did he mention it at all?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. It was just one of those tragedies.’

  ‘Do you know how Jakob reacted?’

  ‘Well, I gather he was devastated,’ said Gréta. ‘Of course, they organised a big search party, not just for her but for the British soldiers too. Every able-bodied person in the district took part, including Jakob and Dad. Dad spent a lot of time with him afterwards but he felt Jakob had changed. He became very edgy – quick-tempered and difficult to be around. Not the same man.’

  ‘I heard Jakob wasn’t all he seemed,’ said Erlendur, remembering Ezra’s words.

  ‘That’s not the impression I got. At least, Dad never described him like that.’

  ‘It must have been a terrible strain,’ said Erlendur. ‘By the way, do you know a woman called Ninna? She’d be pretty old by now, if she’s still alive. I gather Ninna’s her Christian name, but I can’t find her listed in the phone book.’

  ‘The only Ninna I know around here lives in the nursing home,’ said Gréta. ‘I used to work there. I don’t know if it’s the same woman, but the one I’m thinking of is ancient.’

  17

  THE SNOW WAS coming down ever more heavily as Erlendur parked in front of the nursing home in Fáskrúdsfjördur. Instead of getting out, he lit up and watched the flakes floating lazily to the ground. There was not a breath of wind.

  As he sat there, taking his time over the cigarette, he relived the walks he had been on since arriving in the east. Clad in his old boots, waterproof trousers and a thick down jacket, with a small rucksack on his back, he had hiked from the head of Eskifjördur up to the moor, along the foothills of the mountains, then high up their flanks. It had been returning from one such trip that he had bumped into Bóas by the Urdarklettur crags. His expeditions generally lasted from early in the morning until dusk, though on one occasion he had slept rough on a carpet of moss, alone with the birds. He enjoyed lying on his back, head propped on his rucksack, gazing up at the stars and reflecting on the theory that the universe was expanding into the void. There was something strangely soothing about pondering such incomprehensible distances, as if a reminder of the greater context provided a temporary relief from petty terrestrial concerns.

  It was not the first time he had bedded down in the heather, listened to the birds and contemplated the sky. He had a clear memory of his first trip back east after the family had moved to Reykjavík. It was following the death of his father, whose last wish had been to be laid to rest in his home ground. Erlendur and his mother had flown with his body to Egilsstadir and driven from there to Eskifjördur on rough gravel roads, with the coffin in the back of an open pickup truck. He remembered thinking what an undignified homecoming it was. He and his mother had sat in the cab, listening to the driver gassing away, music blaring from his radio. Erlendur had wanted to ask him to show a little respect, but his mother had seemed indifferent. There was a short ceremony in the church, attended by a handful of locals. It was the middle of the week, the funeral had only been announced once on the radio and there were no obituaries. In the end mother and son had been left standing alone by the open grave. A white cross bearing a black metal plaque lay beside them, waiting to be driven into the ground.

  ‘God bless you,’ he heard his mother whisper.

  Later that day he took her to visit the croft at Bakkasel, which had been standing empty ever since they moved to Reykjavík. The house was already looking very dilapidated, the doors wide open, windows broken and signs of animal activity inside. At first, his mother had wandered from room to room in a daze, as if their life there had belonged to another world, a world that was gone forever. Until now, her resilience had surprised him. She had shown no emotion when his father died long before his time, merely busied herself with organising his funeral the way she knew he would have wanted it. She had not shed a tear on the journey or expressed any irritation at the garrulous driver, and had stood in the graveyard speaking only those three whispered words: ‘God bless you.’ But now, confronted by the evidence of decay and neglect, and remembering the time when they had all lived there together, she seemed to have woken from her stupor. At last a crack appeared in her calm facade.

  ‘What’s happened here?’ she whispered.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, so quietly he could hardly catch the words.

  ‘Come on.’

  That night, after his mother had gone to bed at the guest house, he had hiked up onto the moor. It was summer, the sky still brightened by the midnight sun, and he had walked right to the foot of Mount Hardskafi, where he had stretched out on the moss and gazed up at the heavens. He had been a child when they moved away and it was with mixed emotions that he returned now as an adult. The visit to the abandoned croft had dredged up memories long forgotten or suppressed. Deep down he knew that he had been avoiding this place, not just physically but in his mind. The light Arctic night offered no comfort. On the contrary, it illuminated with painful clarity all that was most difficult and distressing about this homecoming. He was convinced there and then that he would never be a happy man – not that it really mattered in the great scheme of things.

  Erlendur stubbed out a second cigarette. He watched the snow turning the earth a pristine white, like the promise of a new beginning, and inwardly cursed the cruelty of fate.

  Ninna, a tiny old lady of eighty-five, was reading the Bible in her room when Erlendur, with the help of an attendant, tracked her down. He had been keen to avoid any awkward attempts to explain his visit to the staff, but in the event he was directed to her room without query and had no problem finding it.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked in a clear voice.

  ‘My name’s Erlendur and I’d like a word with you, if that’s all right.’

  ‘I rarely get any visitors,’ Ninna said. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, the Bible in her hands and her long grey hair trailing loose down her back. ‘Though a girl came here the other day and started rabbiting on about traditional farming methods. She said she was collecting recordings of old folks like me for the National Museum. I said, look, dear, I have no time for nostalgic twaddle like that and absolutely no intention of being an exhibit in the National Museum. You can put me there when I’m dead!’

  ‘Ninna – it’s an unusual name, isn’t it?’ said Erlendur, testing the waters. She had few personal belongings in her room; no photographs of relatives or ornaments to cheer up her surroundings apart from two old prints on the walls. Her bed was neatly made and a half-full glass of water stood on the bedside table.

  ‘So what if it is?’ said the old woman, closing the Bible with a snap. ‘What do you want with me, young man?’

  Erlendur abandoned the attempt to ingratiate himself.

  ‘I’m investigating what happened on the night in January 1942 when the British soldiers were caught in a storm on Eskifjördur Moor. Do you remember it?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘That night a woman died as well. I believe she was a friend of yours.’

  ‘Yes, Matthildur. Poor, dear Matthildur. Know all about her, do you?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘Matthildur was a wonderful girl,’ said Ninna. ‘We were great friends and it was a terrible loss when she died. Someone spread the rumour that she’d committed suicide but I always regarded that as tosh.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Erlendur. This was new.

 
‘They put it about that she must have thrown herself in the sea – that she’d never been near the moors or the British soldiers would have run into her. Absolute tosh. The soldiers couldn’t see a thing and didn’t have a clue where they were. That was one rumour and a malicious one too.’

  ‘That she’d killed herself, you mean?’

  ‘She’d never have done that in a million years,’ declared Ninna firmly. ‘She had no reason to. None whatsoever. I knew her better than that. The suggestion was ludicrous.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘I expect she died in the storm. It wouldn’t be the first time in this country.’

  ‘Did you know Jakob well?’

  ‘I was with her the first time they met. He came from Reykjavík. Lived in Djúpivogur for a while. They didn’t really know each other that well.’

  ‘What kind of man was he?’

  ‘Frankly, I thought she could have done better,’ said Ninna. ‘Though I never said as much to her face. Or his, for that matter. After all, it was none of my business, even when the truth came out. She was my friend and I’m in no position to judge her. I ended up with a wrong ’un myself – though I don’t wish to speak ill of my Viggó.’

  Ninna’s old eyes regarded him. ‘When those good-for-nothings drink, then you’ve really had it.’

  Erlendur smiled to himself. ‘The truth came out?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What came out?’

  ‘That they’d been with the same man.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Not at the same time, of course. Matthildur met him later.’

  ‘Hang on a minute – Jakob knew her sister.’ Erlendur recalled Matthildur’s letter to Ingunn.