Strange Shores

by Arnaldur Indridason

  The village street lights lit up the harbour and the mountainsides above the highest houses. Like other settlements in the East Fjords, Eskifjördur was little more than a cluster of buildings round the docks with a main street running along the seafront, yet it had a long history and over the generations its inhabitants had experienced great changes. The most radical transformation of all was taking place now, with the building of the giant dam in the highlands to provide electricity for the aluminium smelter in the neighbouring fjord. The past was once more giving way irreversibly to the present.

  He resumed his excavation. Every now and then he glanced around to check for anyone who might demand an explanation. But he never saw a soul.

  He drove the spade into the ground again. The hole was no more than half a metre deep. Flinging the soil over the top, he pushed the blade down again and felt resistance, as if it had struck a stone. There was a small click. He shone the lamp over the spot but could see nothing, so he started digging again and now there was no doubt of the impediment. Using the blade, he scraped away the dirt, then illuminated the pit again.

  This time he immediately spotted something in the soil that he couldn’t identify. By sliding the spade underneath it, he managed to lever it up, then he put down his tool, felt around with his fingers and held the object up to the light. He hadn’t a clue what it was until he had cleaned off some of the dirt. Then it became clear: he was holding a knife. The blade was rusty and notched; the wooden handle had almost rotted away. Recalling what Ezra had said about Jakob hiding some possession of his with the body, Erlendur guessed that the knife must have belonged to him.

  Laying it aside, he picked up the shovel again and continued his excavation. After another spadeful, he met further resistance.

  At first he could see nothing, but when he strained his eyes he began to perceive a shape in the soil, like one of those trick images that gradually reveals itself to the observer: familiar lines, an outline he recognised. Lying down, he reached into the hole to scrape more earth off his discovery. A little water had collected in the bottom but he could see no splinters of broken wood or any other trace of a coffin.

  Finally he lowered the gas lantern down the hole and now at last he came face to face with what lay hidden above the last resting place of Thórhildur Vilhjálmsdóttir. The old woman was not alone in her grave. Under cover of night, an uninvited and unwilling guest had been laid down there with her and hastily covered with earth.

  The first thing he made out distinctly, half submerged in the muddy water, was a row of teeth. Then a segment of skull took shape, complete with lower jaw and molars, and Erlendur knew that he had found the earthly remains of Matthildur Kjartansdóttir, who had purportedly died of exposure on her way over the Hraevarskörd Pass in the great January storm of 1942.

  57

  HE OPENS HIS eyes. That insufferable question again.

  ‘I know who you are,’ he says.

  ‘Yes?’ says the traveller.

  ‘You once came to our house and talked to Bergur.’

  ‘You remember.’

  ‘You said we wouldn’t have him with us for long.’

  The traveller makes no reply to this.

  ‘Because he was that kind of soul. It was you. I remember it clearly. Who are you? Why are you here?’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Where are we?’

  He has been under the impression that he was lying on his sleeping mat in the ruined farmhouse and that the man has come to visit him there. But that can’t be right because he now recalls leaving the house. He left behind his belongings and the car, and set out, unencumbered, for the mountain, for the north flank of Hardskafi. Although he barely surfaces into consciousness for more than a few seconds at a time, and the cold that is gradually killing him has addled his brain, he is fairly sure of this fact at least. He can’t be speaking to the man in the old croft because there is nobody there, not even himself.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ asks the traveller.

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  No reply.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asks.

  Again he senses that the traveller who once enjoyed his parents’ hospitality at Bakkasel is not alone. He is accompanied by that invisible being whose presence he has felt so strongly, never more so than now.

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ he asks yet again.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The person with you? Who is he?’

  ‘You needn’t be afraid of him.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you think the time has come to meet him?’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘You’re holding him at arm’s length, but you know who he is. Deep down. You know who’s come with me to see you. He says you have nothing to fear. Do you believe him? Do you believe him when he says you have nothing to fear?’

  Silence.

  ‘You know who he is.’

  ‘Not . . .’

  ‘It’s you who’s keeping him away.’

  When the traveller disappears he thinks he hears a child’s voice. Faint, remote. He can’t distinguish the words. But he knows who the voice belongs to, knows now who is with the man. He hasn’t heard that voice for many a long year and had believed he would never hear it again.

  Briefly he recovers his wits, to find that the cold has intensified.

  His consciousness fades once more.

  58

  HE HAD FOUND Matthildur’s earthly remains but experienced no sense of triumph, no satisfaction with what he had achieved. Instead, he was filled with sadness and an urgent desire to go and tell Ezra that his quest was over at last. He shovelled the earth back into the hole in frantic haste, replaced the square of turf and threw a few spadefuls of snow over the broken soil, praying that no one would notice immediately. Then, picking up the lantern and spade, he hurried back to the car.

  Ezra’s house lay in darkness. His headlamps illuminated it before he switched them off and stepped out onto the drive. No light was visible inside and the bulb by the front door was broken. Erlendur had noticed this on his first visit a few days earlier and had meant to mention to Ezra that he needed to replace it.

  He knocked on the door and, receiving no response, tried the handle. The door swung open and he walked inside.

  ‘Ezra!’ he called. ‘Are you home?’

  There was no answer, so he groped his way along to the kitchen doorway where he found a light switch. Nothing happened when he flicked it. He tried it several times, to no avail.

  ‘Ezra!’ he called again.

  Maybe he had gone out. Perhaps a fuse had blown and he had gone to buy a replacement. Erlendur stood in the kitchen, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He could hardly see a thing apart from the outline of the kitchen table, but recalled that the sink was behind him.

  ‘Ezra!’

  He heard a creaking noise from one corner.

  Peering over to where he knew the wicker chair to be, he perceived a figure rising from it, but only as a black shadow.

  ‘Ezra?’ Erlendur whispered.

  A dark shape showed against the grey square of the window, advanced a step, then another, and he felt a cold object pushed gently under his chin. He didn’t dare move. There was a whiff of metal and cordite. With infinite slowness, he gave way before the pressure of what he guessed was the muzzle of a shotgun.

  ‘Have you come to arrest me?’ he heard a low voice ask in the darkness.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then get out.’

  ‘Ezra?’ whispered Erlendur.

  ‘I don’t want to see you here again. Get out before I do something stupid.’

  ‘I came to . . . Ezra, I’ve found her.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m trying to tell you.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What have you found?’

  ‘I’ve found her. I’ve found Matthildur. I know where she is.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know what Jakob
did with her, Ezra. I’ve discovered where he hid her body.’

  His head was still tilted back by the pressure of the gun and he could only see Ezra indistinctly, as a black silhouette against the window.

  ‘Are you making fun of me?’ asked Ezra.

  ‘I think I can prove it,’ said Erlendur. ‘Could you turn on the lights?’

  ‘Prove it? How?’

  ‘I found something with her that I believe belongs to you.’

  ‘What? What have you found?’

  ‘You’ll have to turn on the light,’ repeated Erlendur.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ said Ezra.

  ‘Have you got a torch then?’

  Ezra did not answer.

  ‘I can’t show you in the dark.’

  ‘There’s a torch on the table.’

  ‘Bring it over to the sink,’ said Erlendur. ‘I need to rinse the dirt off.’

  Ezra didn’t relinquish his grip on the gun as they made their way over to the sink. Finding the torch with one hand, he switched it on and for a moment Erlendur was blinded as the glare struck him full in the face.

  ‘Don’t do anything you’ll regret, Ezra,’ he warned.

  ‘I told you to leave me alone,’ he heard Ezra mutter.

  Erlendur had wrapped the knife in a small plastic bag that he had found in the car. He removed it warily from his pocket, took it out of the bag and, turning on the cold tap, washed off the soil. Ezra shone the torch on the knife as the clods of earth fell away.

  ‘Recognise it?’ asked Erlendur.

  Ezra did not answer immediately.

  ‘Do you recognise the knife?’

  Still no reaction.

  ‘It was buried on top of the body,’ said Erlendur. ‘Jakob wasn’t lying. He put the knife in her grave to implicate you in her killing. He may even have stabbed her once or twice with it after she died. Was it yours?’

  ‘It’s my knife,’ said Ezra’s disembodied voice from behind the torch.

  ‘I expect he stole it when he came round to tell you Matthildur was out in the storm.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the cemetery,’ said Erlendur. ‘She’s buried in the cemetery. Jakob worked as a gravedigger and had just dug one for an old woman whose funeral took place at around the time Matthildur went missing. He must have hidden her body at home, and after half filling the old woman’s grave, sneaked back, fetched Matthildur’s body and laid it on top.’

  ‘In the cemetery?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I noticed the woman’s death date by chance and put two and two together. All I needed was to dig a small hole in her grave. I found Matthildur’s remains, Ezra. I found her. The uncertainty’s over.’

  Ezra’s hold on the gun did not waver.

  ‘She’s not coming back, Ezra. She’s gone forever,’ Erlendur continued. ‘She’s dead. I’ve seen her bones.’

  ‘How can you be so sure it’s her?’

  ‘It’s her all right.’

  ‘But how can you be so sure?’

  ‘Believe me,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’ve found Matthildur. Your knife was buried with her, Ezra. It’s her.’

  Ezra’s reaction took him by surprise at first, but on reflection he understood. He had been overwhelmed with the same feeling when confronted by the small bones in Daníel’s cardboard box. He realised that he had broken some unwritten law of immutability. He had cut its fetters and set the mechanism of life in motion again. Naturally it would take Ezra a little while to make sense of this new, altered reality. One couldn’t expect it to happen in an instant.

  ‘Can’t we turn on the lights?’ asked Erlendur.

  ‘No,’ Ezra said.

  ‘What are you going to do with the gun, Ezra?’

  ‘You’ve really found her?’

  ‘Jakob hid her in an open grave in the cemetery.’ Erlendur attempted again to explain. ‘It was easy for him. The grave would still have been recent when you met him there two months later and he started dropping hints. Perhaps he thought he was being clever – to use that of all places. He was confident she’d never be found. He may already have dug the grave when he killed her. Then he used the storm to invent a lie about her journey and seized the opportunity to dispose of her body in the hole. It can’t be anyone else. He didn’t need to dig far. She’s hardly more than a spade length down.’

  The pressure of the muzzle eased a little against Erlendur’s chin.

  ‘The bloody bastard!’ Ezra whispered.

  ‘Jakob knew what he was doing.’

  Acting quickly, Erlendur grabbed the barrel of the gun and twisted it easily out of Ezra’s hands, sending the old man reeling backwards. The torch fell on the floor and went out. Erlendur laid down the gun at his feet.

  ‘What’s wrong with your lights?’ he asked.

  ‘The electricity went.’

  ‘What were you doing sitting here in the dark with a gun?’

  ‘Are you lying to me?’

  ‘It’s as true as I’m standing here.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Enough. It’s up to you to decide what to do about her grave.’

  ‘He put her in an open grave?’ Ezra repeated. ‘The gravedigger – I should’ve guessed. It’s obvious once you think about it. Of course he used the cemetery. I was sure he’d sunk her body in the sea, or thrown her into a fissure. It never occurred to me that he’d used the graveyard.’

  A long silence followed his words.

  ‘Would there be any point in reburying her?’ Ezra asked at last.

  ‘Are you still afraid of being found out?’ Erlendur asked. ‘That the whole sad story will come to light?’

  ‘I’m not thinking of myself,’ Ezra said. ‘I should probably thank you for all you’ve done. I’ve . . . I’ve never encountered such pig-headed obstinacy.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone what I know. You can count on that,’ Erlendur assured him. ‘What you do now is entirely up to you. Now you know where she is, you know the full story of her fate and can finally say goodbye to her after all these years, in whatever manner you choose.’

  ‘I should . . . I should probably thank you.’

  ‘It’s really not necessary.’

  ‘I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you. I’ve –’

  ‘I quite understand,’ Erlendur interrupted. ‘It’s no fun receiving a visit from someone like me. I’m well aware of the fact.’

  He could sense in the lightless kitchen that Ezra was now leaning on the table.

  ‘Would you like me to drive you over there?’ asked Erlendur. ‘It’s pretty late.’

  ‘Thank you, I would. Of course, I always knew she was dead. I never let myself dream of the alternative. But it’s good to know where she is. It’s good to know she’s in a place like that.’

  59

  ERLENDUR DROVE THE old man through the night to the cemetery. Neither was in the mood to talk. Ezra slumped, shoulders hunched, in the passenger seat and Erlendur wondered what he had been doing, sitting there alone with a shotgun in the darkened house. He had asked if there was any friend he should call to keep him company, but Ezra had said no with such vehemence and resentment at his interference that Erlendur abandoned the subject. He couldn’t tell how it had affected Ezra to resolve the doubt that had been consuming him for decades, for most of his life. Any relief he felt must be tempered by a profound grief over Matthildur’s fate. At long last he knew the entire story, from beginning to end, but time had done little to mitigate its horror.

  Erlendur parked by the cemetery and switched off the engine. The two men remained in the car for several minutes without speaking until finally Erlendur broke the silence.

  ‘Well, shall we get out?’

  Ezra was in another world.

  ‘Ezra?’ said Erlendur.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shall we go?’

  As the old man turned to him, Erlendur realised he was fighting to hold back the t
ears.

  ‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ he stammered.

  ‘No, of course. I can take you home again. You can come back tomorrow. Or whenever you feel up to it. As I said before, you can keep the information to yourself or tell anyone who’ll listen, as you see fit.’

  They sat there, unmoving. The moon, finding a rift in the thick cloud cover, cast a pale light over the graveyard. This seemed to galvanise Ezra. He raised his head to look at the serried ranks of stones and crosses, many of them belonging to people he had known. He had even attended funerals here, never suspecting how close he was to his lost love.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said at last, opening the door.

  They climbed out and Erlendur escorted him through the gate and over to Thórhildur’s grave.

  ‘Matthildur is down there,’ he said. ‘The fresh spoil’s my doing.’

  Ezra squinted at the headstone, trying to make out Thórhildur’s name and dates by the light of the moon. Then he got down stiffly on one knee.

  Erlendur turned aside to give him privacy and strolled over to his parents’ plot. There was one more task he had to perform before the night was over. He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the old man kneeling on the grave of the woman he had loved so many years ago. He had managed to unite them again, though death still stood between them. He had managed to draw a line under the story of Ezra and Matthildur.

  Ezra rose and made the sign of the cross. Erlendur walked back to join him.

  ‘Could you take me home?’ Ezra asked.

  ‘Of course. I can’t imagine how difficult this must be.’

  Ezra gave him a look. ‘I suppose I deserve it after what I did to Jakob.’

  ‘Do you remember Thórhildur at all?’ Erlendur asked.

  Ezra nodded. ‘Yes, I remember seeing her around the village – a very old lady. But I didn’t really know her. She was a good woman, though. Matthildur’s been in good hands.’

  ‘So you’re going to let her stay?’ said Erlendur.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘If she’s in good hands . . .’

  ‘At least I know where she is,’ said Ezra. ‘It’s quite a relief, a tremendous relief to know where she is at last. I don’t think I should disturb her. I can’t think who’d benefit.’