Arnaldur Indridason - Strange Shores

Erlendur agreed.

Ezra touched his mitten to his nose and asked if Erlendur would like a coffee while they were settling up. Erlendur thanked him and they went up to the house and into the kitchen where Ezra put on an old percolator that belched and hissed but produced good, strong coffee. The kitchen was neat and tidy, with an old-fashioned fridge and an even more ancient Rafha cooker. From the window the head of the fjord and the brooding swell of Eskifjördur Moor were visible. Ezra fetched two cups and poured the coffee, dropping four sugar lumps into his, then offering the bowl to Erlendur who declined. After they had talked about the tragedy of the British soldiers, the conversation moved on to the young woman who had disappeared the same night.

‘That’s right,’ Ezra said with slow deliberation. ‘Her name was Matthildur.’

‘I gather you were friends with her husband, Jakob.’

‘Yes, we knocked around together. In those days.’

‘So you knew her too, you knew both of them?’

‘I did indeed.’

‘Did they have a good marriage?’

Ezra had been methodically stirring his coffee but now he stopped, tapped his spoon several times against the cup and laid it on the table. ‘I’m not the first person you’ve discussed this with, am I?’

‘No,’ Erlendur admitted.

‘Who did you say you were again?’

Erlendur had not introduced himself but did so now, explaining that he lived in Reykjavík but had been born here and had a special interest in stories of people who got lost in the wilderness and died of exposure, especially people who were never found and whose fates remained a mystery. When Ezra grasped that his visitor had local roots, he immediately wanted to know where Erlendur had lived and the names of his parents. Erlendur duly gave them and Ezra said he certainly recalled Sveinn and Áslaug from the tenant croft which had always been known as Bakkasel.

‘Well, you know all about me then,’ said Erlendur. ‘So, what can you tell me about Matthildur?’

‘They had to move,’ Ezra said, leaning forward over the kitchen table. ‘Sveinn and Áslaug. They couldn’t face staying on in the shadow of the moors. Not after all that. I gather you come here from time to time and go walking up there.’

‘That’s right,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’ve made several visits.’

‘They’re both buried here in the churchyard, aren’t they? Your parents?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine, upstanding people,’ the old man remarked, sipping his coffee. ‘Good people. He taught music at the school — occasionally, anyway, if I’m not mistaken. Played the fiddle too. Dreadful what happened. Someone said you’d become a policeman in Reykjavík. Is that why you’re asking about Matthildur?’

‘No,’ said Erlendur. ‘I’m just curious on my own behalf. I’m interested in that sort of case.’

Ezra sat lost in thought, his eyes on the distant moor. It was still cloaked in the same cloud as when Erlendur had arrived several days earlier, having driven the entire journey from Reykjavík non-stop. He had felt the urge to head out east that autumn after reaching a dead end in his investigation of the alleged suicide of a woman at Thingvellir. The case had hinged on hypothermia and this had had the odd effect of stirring up memories of his brother perishing in the mountains above Eskifjördur.

‘Jakob wasn’t quite what he seemed,’ Ezra said at last. ‘I don’t judge people. I’m in no position to — I’m far from perfect myself. But Jakob had some quality that put people on their guard. I wouldn’t call it dishonesty, exactly, but he was a tricky customer. And people sensed it. They all knew him. But then everybody knows everyone else around here. I suppose Reykjavík’s grown so big you don’t even know your own neighbours.’

Erlendur nodded.

‘Over the years all sorts of rumours circulated,’ Ezra continued. ‘That he’d thrown her out of the house, driven her away and so on. You’ll have heard them, of course.’

‘Some.’

‘Then he drowned in the fjord here and that was that. He didn’t marry again after Matthildur died. Took to drink and let himself go to seed. Then he had the accident — his vessel went down. They managed to drag Jakob and the other man ashore but the boat was smashed to pieces.’

‘And that was here in Eskifjördur?’

‘Over on the other side of the fjord, there. They were coming home in a terrible gale and the boat capsized. It was the middle of winter.’

‘Tell me one thing — is it possible that someone didn’t want Matthildur to be found?’

‘I expect you’d have a better idea about that than me,’ Ezra said, regarding him with small, watery eyes.

Erlendur smiled suddenly. ‘What did people guess had happened?’

‘They didn’t have far to look for an explanation. The rivers were running high — both branches of the Thverá — and the Eskifjördur River had turned into a raging torrent. It’s possible she was washed away. Maybe you know that one of the British soldiers was found in the sea after being carried downstream. They only discovered his body by chance.’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose she must have gone the same way,’ Ezra said, his eyes wet. ‘It seems the most likely explanation to me.’

As Erlendur listened to the old man, he remembered what Hrund had said about him living alone all his life. Erlendur could have guessed as much as soon as he entered the house. The signs of a recluse, which he knew only too well, revealed themselves in the few, spartan possessions, the worn furnishings and lack of ornaments, the absence of everything required to make a place homely. At that moment a cat wended its way into the kitchen and rubbed against Erlendur’s leg, before slipping under the table and jumping onto Ezra’s lap where it made itself comfortable, observing them curiously.

‘So people didn’t approve of Jakob?’ Erlendur said.

‘No, I don’t suppose they did,’ Ezra replied hesitantly, stroking the cat absent-mindedly. ‘There was gossip, as I said. It wasn’t taken seriously. . well, not too seriously, but mud sticks and the rumours dogged him until he died. And still do, I gather,’ he added, glancing up.

‘What did you think?’

‘Me? I don’t know what difference my opinion would make.’

‘Weren’t you friends?’

‘Yes, we were.’

‘Was she going to leave him?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Did you ask him?’

‘No,’ said Ezra. ‘And I don’t know if anyone else did either, because there was no reason to.’

‘I’ve heard it said that she used to haunt him,’ Erlendur continued. ‘Have you any idea what they meant by that?’

‘Well, that’s a load of rubbish, obviously. You’d have to believe in ghosts for a start. An educated man like yourself would hardly do that. Though it’s true he wasn’t the same afterwards. He changed — started avoiding people. Maybe he felt responsible somehow. Maybe he was haunted by her memory. But the idea that she appeared as a ghost in their house and then dragged him to his death in the shipwreck is utter nonsense. Nothing but old wives’ tales.’

‘You mean people implied she caused the shipwreck?’

‘That was one story, yes. You can judge for yourself how much truth there was in that.’

Erlendur nodded again. He knew that despite the popularity of such yarns, few genuinely believed them. They were part of the old Icelandic storytelling tradition that had peopled the landscape with ghosts, elves, trolls, magic stones and unseen beings, linking man to his environment with invisible bonds. In the past people had lived more closely with nature and their lives had depended on it. Respect for the land and the forces latent within it was the theme of many a folk tale, and implicit in them was the warning that no one should underestimate the power of nature. That was also the substance of many of the stories of calamities in the wilderness that he had read and reread until he knew them by heart.