Strange Shores

47

A storm had blown up that morning and most of the fishing boats had returned to harbour shortly after midday. The bad weather was not supposed to have extended that far north — the forecast had been for a strong breeze and light precipitation — but not long after lunchtime conditions deteriorated dramatically and a gale began to lash the coast, whipping up a blizzard. The storm affected the entire region as far north as Vopnafjördur, the wind measuring hurricane-force twelve during the worst squalls and temperatures plummeting.

Ezra had been working at the ice house for several years, though there was no ice there these days. Its original function had been superseded by the new fish factory that had opened two years previously. Instead the building was used to store equipment for the fishing fleet and processing plant, under Ezra’s supervision. He had been tidying away boxes of bait when he was told that one of the boats that had gone out that morning was missing, and that Jakob was on board with another man. People were becoming increasingly concerned and phoned round neighbouring villages to see if the men had put into harbour there, but no one had any news of them. The wind was so ferocious by now that it was barely possible to walk the short distance to the next-door building.

The two men had rarely encountered each other in the years since Jakob had informed Ezra of Matthildur’s fate. From what Ezra heard, Jakob had moved away from Eskifjördur for a period, spending time in Egilsstadir and Höfn in Hornafjördur. According to rumour, he had even made a bit of money in the post-war boom that Reykjavík was enjoying. Then, two years ago, he had moved back to Eskifjördur and rented the same house that he had lived in with Matthildur. He had been offered his old job on the Sigurlína and been going out with the village fishing fleet ever since. On the few occasions he had cause to drop by the ice house, the men had ignored one another. Although he had never remarried, Jakob had been involved with other women. Ezra, single until he met Matthildur, remained alone.

Twice following that first cataclysmic meeting he had visited Jakob to plead with him to reveal what he had done with her body. Both times Jakob had refused, mocking him and humiliating him as a ‘womaniser’. But when it came to reporting the matter to the authorities Ezra lost his nerve, and instead spent his time trying to think up schemes to force Jakob to tell him the truth. He was not by nature violent and knew he could never beat the information out of the bastard. Nor did he have any money with which to bribe him. Besides, it was in Jakob’s interest to protect himself — a fact he did not deny. When they last spoke he had repeatedly pointed out that if Ezra knew where Matthildur was he could use the information to have Jakob charged with murder. But where there was no body, there could be no trial. ‘It would be best for both of us if she was never found,’ he had said. ‘Best for both of us that she died on the moors.’

Ezra locked up the ice house and was plodding home against the wind along Strandgata when a man raced past him, yelling that a boat had gone down on the other side of the fjord. ‘They reckon it’s the Sigurlína!’ He vanished into the falling snow. Ezra didn’t know where the man could be heading and wondered if he should run after him. Then he lowered his head into the storm again and continued on his way. When he got home he took off his outer clothes, which were plastered with snow, and hung them up to dry. He put the coffee pot on the range. It would take time to warm up the house and restore the feeling to his limbs. Sitting by the stove, he began to cram dried fish into his mouth, his thoughts dwelling on the wrecked boat and the fate of her crew. If what he had heard was right and the Sigurlína had gone down, had they lost their lives? Was Jakob dead?

He had finished the hardfiskur and was just beginning to thaw out when he heard a loud banging on the door. When he opened it, a boy called Valdi who worked with him stepped inside, caked with snow. Ezra forced the door shut behind him.

‘You have to open up the ice house,’ the boy told him. ‘They want to put the bodies in there.’

‘The bodies?’

‘Both men from the Sigurlína are goners,’ Valdi said. ‘Drowned.’

‘Jakob’s dead?’

‘Him and Óskar. The engine cut out. There was nothing they could do. Or that’s what I heard.’

Ezra clambered back into his coat, thick gloves and hat as Valdi repeated what little he knew. Later Ezra extracted the whole story from two eyewitnesses who were waiting with the bodies. They had been driving over the ridge from Eskifjördur with a couple of other men when they spotted a light at sea beyond the Hólmaborgir cliffs, at a spot called Skeleyri. In difficulties themselves, they had been about to turn back but guessed immediately that the light meant a boat was dangerously close to land. The men made their way as near as they could to the shore and through the swirling veils of white glimpsed a boat drifting directly towards the rocks by Skeleyri. They could make out two figures on board, who looked as if they were frozen, drenched and fighting for their lives. Then the boat appeared to lose power — at least they could hear no sound of an engine — but by then the screaming of the wind was so deafening they could hardly hear their own voices calling. The boat moved swiftly but inexorably towards land until it crashed into the cliffs and though the men had a rope which they tried in vain to throw to the sailors, it was impossible to get near enough as the cliffs were taking a pounding from tremendous gusts of wind and massive breakers. All at once, the boat, which had begun to break up on the rocks, was snatched away by a wave, raised on high, turned over and flung back at the cliffs where it was broken to matchwood before their eyes. The two men were thrown into the water, hurled against the rocks, then vanished in the retreating wave. A long interval passed before they saw a limp body cast up, first onto the wreckage and then onto the rocks. They reached it by tying the rope round one of their party, who inched his way down, seized hold of the lifeless man and hauled him back up to his companions. He had been so badly battered that there was hardly a bone left unbroken in his body. They judged him to be dead. After this they shouted at length to the other man but received no answer. There was no way he could survive long in a sea that cold. The wreckage of the fishing boat was strewn over the surface. The minutes passed and, wet and shivering themselves now, they had given up all hope of finding the other sailor when one of them noticed a shape at the bottom of the cliffs. The man was lying prone, his face covered in blood and a large gash in his head.

By the time Ezra reached the ice house quite a crowd had gathered, though they could hardly stand upright in the wind. A nervous young locum from Reykjavík had already signed death certificates for both men. The four witnesses had taken the bodies straight to his house and, once he had heard their account, the matter had seemed simple. The owner of the Sigurlína had ordered that the bodies should be kept in the old ice house until the dead men’s next of kin could be informed. Jakob was known to have relatives in Djúpivogur, but his companion, Óskar, came from the other side of the country, from the village of Grindavík in the south-west. He had been an itinerant fisherman, working the seasons in various parts of the country, including Eskifjördur, where he had only recently been taken on. The owner had no idea who to contact.

Ezra immediately set about arranging a place for the bodies. He erected trestles, laid a couple of old filleting boards across them, and had the dead men placed there side by side. They felt like blocks of ice. One man’s face was masked in blood: it appeared to be Jakob.

The crowd soon dispersed, leaving Ezra alone in the now quiet building. It was nearly midnight. He was tired and chilled to the bone after a long day. Should he keep vigil over the bodies, he wondered, or go home and try to sleep? It had not yet sunk in that Jakob was dead. That the man he hated with such passion, the man he had so often plotted vengeance against, was no longer alive. He didn’t know what Jakob’s death would mean for him or for Matthildur’s fate. But one thing was certain: there would be no question of recovering her body now. Slowly the full implications became clear as Ezra stood over the bloodied corpse on the filleting board. He might as well abandon all hope of ever finding her.

‘Hell,’ he whispered.

The storm had lost some of its force but the wind was still raging around the building, whining in the roof and making the rafters creak. The naked light bulb swung on its wire.

‘Hell,’ Ezra whispered again. ‘I should have killed you myself.’

He decided to go home, persuading himself it was not for him to keep vigil: one of the men he didn’t know from Adam; the other he had loathed more than words could express.

When he returned to work early next morning after a short, restless night, he was shocked to see that Jakob had rolled off the filleting board and onto the floor. Ezra hurried over, sat him up and with considerable difficulty hauled him back onto the board. He simply couldn’t understand how he could have fallen off. As he lifted Jakob back up his head banged on the board and Ezra thought the body emitted a faint moan. He examined the other fisherman and tried to move his leg, but the limb was stiff and unyielding: rigor mortis had taken hold of his entire body. He had the feeling Jakob should be equally rigid but he was not. Although he was very cold, there was no sign of stiffness.

Again he thought he heard a faint moan from Jakob. Startled, he put it down at first to the wind. Stooping over the man’s body, he tried in vain to detect any sign of breathing, then pressed an ear to his chest but could hear no heartbeat.

Straightening up again, Ezra stared at the body.

He thought he saw the face twitch. One eye was closed by a clot of blood, and Jakob’s hair was sticky with it. He also had an open wound on his cheek and a deep gash on his chin. Ezra guessed he had sustained these injuries when he was beaten against the rocks at Hólmaborgir.

He must have been mistaken about the movement. But he wasn’t certain.

Ezra was turning away when he glimpsed it again — the slightest twitch around the mouth. This time there was no doubt. As he concentrated on Jakob’s face he clearly saw his lips move.

It looked as if Jakob was breathing.

The door opened.

Ezra’s heart missed a beat: he thought he would die of fright.

The Sigurlína’s owner came in out of the storm and looked Ezra up and down.

‘Hell and damnation,’ he said, stamping his feet to shake the snow from his galoshes.