Strange Shores

51

Now that Erlendur had got what he wanted, he was no longer sure if he had been justified in putting such pressure on Ezra. Or whether he had really needed to hear the whole truth. He had sat quietly through the old man’s account, noting that Ezra had decided to leave out nothing but to tell the unvarnished truth at last, however uncomfortable or painful. But it was obvious to look at him that finally confessing to his crime had been one of the most traumatic experiences of his life.

Erlendur waited for him to resume his tale but Ezra sat silently in his wicker chair in the corner, his mind no longer in the kitchen, in the house, or even in this world. He was holding the picture of Matthildur and caressing it with his finger as if he longed to touch her one more time.

‘For what it’s worth — ’ Ezra broke off. ‘For what it’s worth,’ he tried again, ‘I’ve been filled with remorse ever since. As soon as I’d done it I was in two minds about whether to tell. I half hoped they’d leave it a few days before burying him, so he could attract their attention. I did nothing to save him. But I prayed for him — that he wouldn’t suffer. I prayed to God that he wouldn’t have to suffer. I couldn’t bear the thought of him writhing around in his coffin. But that wasn’t on my mind when I shut the lid on him. And I never really had to wrestle with my conscience because I never knew what had happened after I closed the lid. Over the years I’ve become reconciled to my God. All I had left was to die. Then you appeared.’

Ezra looked up.

‘You come in here claiming to have dug him up. You say you’ve seen scratch marks on the coffin lid. You put his teeth on my kitchen counter.’

‘I’m sorry if — ’ But Erlendur was not allowed to finish.

‘That was the first time it really hit home what I’d done.’ Ezra looked back at the picture. ‘You must utterly despise me.’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ said Erlendur.

‘You say that now. But if you hadn’t haunted me like a ghost from the past, I’d never have dredged all this up.’

‘I can believe — ’

Ezra interrupted again. ‘You’re the stubbornest bastard I’ve ever met.’

Erlendur did not know how to take this.

‘Anyway, I’ll be dead soon and that’ll be an end to it,’ said Ezra.

‘I can believe it’s been hard for you to live with,’ said Erlendur. ‘An honest man like yourself.’

‘Yes, well, so much for honesty,’ said Ezra. ‘I’ve tried to do my best, tried to atone for it in my own way. And you mustn’t forget what Jakob did to Matthildur. There are times when I justify my crime. I blame Jakob. Then I feel better for a while. But it never lasts.’

‘As I said, it’s not the first extraordinary story of survival I’ve heard,’ said Erlendur. ‘People who’ve been written off as dead. Man has a phenomenal instinct to live.’

‘I’ve often wished he’d simply died in the shipwreck,’ Ezra went on. ‘It would have been. . it would have been simpler, purer.’

‘Life’s never simple,’ said Erlendur. ‘That’s the first thing we learn. It’s never straightforward.’

‘Are you going to take action?’ asked Ezra.

Their eyes met.

‘Not unless you want me to.’

‘You’ll leave it up to me?’

‘It’s not my concern. I just wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery.’

‘But you’re a policeman. Isn’t it your duty. .?’

‘One’s duty can be complicated.’

‘Not that it really matters to me what you do. Though a few people around here would revise their opinion of me, not that I really care. But I’d be grateful if the story of Matthildur’s fate could be left unchanged. There’s a certain poetry to it. Though it’s a damned lie, there’s something in the idea of her striding over the Hraevarskörd Pass that I’d like to be allowed to live on in people’s memories. Unless they’re all dead by now.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone’s asked after Jakob in all these years?’

‘No. You’re the only one.’

‘And he never told you what he did with her?’

‘No.’

‘So you still have no idea?’

‘No.’

‘If you’d been able to save his life, might he have told you then?’

‘No, it wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Ezra. ‘I’m convinced of that. Even if I’d helped him, he’d never have let on.’

‘Jakob seems to have been rallying when you put him in the coffin,’ Erlendur continued, choosing his words with care.

‘He was dead as far as everyone else was concerned,’ said Ezra. ‘I just put him in his coffin.’

The justification sounded as if it had been rehearsed countless times in the intervening years. Ezra got to his feet and looked out of the window at the moor which loomed against the sky, pristine and untouched.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean him to live, but if he’d shown any remorse, the slightest hint of remorse or regret. . would things have gone differently? Would I have saved his life?’

Erlendur didn’t know what to say.

‘I’ve had to live with it ever since,’ Ezra whispered to the window. ‘At times the shame’s been almost more than I could bear.’