Strange Shores

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.’