Strange Shores

52

Hrund had been discharged from hospital. It was evening as Erlendur drove up to the house and spied her back in her habitual place at the window. She smiled at him and this time came to the front door to welcome him. Joining her in the sitting room, Erlendur asked after her health. She said she had come home that morning and had nothing to grumble about.

‘Any new discoveries?’ she asked, bringing him some freshly made coffee. ‘Any news about Matthildur?’

Erlendur was uncertain how much to share with her about the fates of Matthildur and Jakob, or Ezra’s act of vengeance after the shipwreck of 1949. He would rather gloss over the business of his grave robbery as well. And since he was concealing these facts, he might as well keep quiet about others too. So he gave her a heavily edited account of his meetings with Ezra. Hrund sat and listened without comment until it came to what concerned her most.

‘I hope we can keep this between us,’ said Erlendur. ‘So it doesn’t go any further.’

‘Of course.’

‘Ezra’s convinced Jakob killed Matthildur.’

Hrund regarded him impassively.

‘He has no proof,’ said Erlendur. ‘But he told me that Jakob had confessed to the killing in his hearing. Jakob acted out of jealousy and a desire for revenge. Some would call it a crime of passion. Matthildur was going to leave Jakob for Ezra, but he began to suspect they were up to no good and followed her to Ezra’s house one night. He saw everything and couldn’t take it — couldn’t take the betrayal.’

Hrund’s expression was still unreadable.

‘Jakob invented the story about Matthildur going to your mother’s house in Reydarfjördur and getting caught in the storm. As it was, she never left home.’

‘Oh my God!’ whispered Hrund at last.

‘I have no reason to disbelieve Ezra,’ said Erlendur.

‘The evil bastard.’

Erlendur described how he had gradually coaxed Ezra into telling him what he knew, how he and Matthildur had been in love, how time had stopped for Ezra when she went missing. He told her about Ezra’s encounters with Jakob after she vanished, first in the graveyard, then at Jakob’s house, where he had confessed to killing her.

‘How did you get him to talk?’ Hrund asked.

Erlendur shrugged. ‘He seemed ready to unburden himself,’ he said, hoping this was not too great a lie.

He wouldn’t dream of admitting the pressure he had put on Ezra to make him cooperate. Indeed, he rather regretted it, especially given the cost. Erlendur was not proud of the lengths he had gone to. He was worried about digging up Jakob’s grave but even more about how he had treated Ezra. He had bludgeoned the old man into confessing and now he could only pity him. He might himself be driven by an insatiable compulsion, an obsession with uncovering the truth, but why couldn’t Ezra have been left in peace with his secrets? He was no hardened criminal, no danger to his community. When they parted, Ezra had said it didn’t matter to him what Erlendur chose to do with his discoveries, but Erlendur knew better.

Hard on the heels of revelation came anger.

‘It’s hardly possible to imagine a worse end,’ Erlendur said.

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Ezra snarled back. ‘Do you think it hasn’t preyed on my mind every day? You needn’t start preaching to me on that score.’

He turned to glare at Erlendur.

‘You can leave now,’ he said. ‘Bugger off and leave me alone. I never want to set eyes on you again. I don’t have long left and I don’t want to have to see you.’

‘I can understand — ’ Erlendur was not permitted to finish.

‘Out!’ said Ezra, raising his voice. ‘Get out, I say! For once in your life do as I ask. Get out!’

Erlendur stood up and went to the kitchen door.

‘I don’t want us to part in anger,’ he said.

‘I don’t give a damn what you want,’ said Ezra. ‘Just bugger off!’

So they parted. Erlendur retreated, though he was unhappy leaving him in such a fragile state. There was nothing he could do for Ezra right now, yet in spite of the old man’s pleas he intended to come back the following day to check if he had recovered.

It had taken Hrund some time to grasp the full implications of what Erlendur had said.

‘You mean Jakob admitted this to Ezra?’ she said, aghast. ‘That he’d killed her?’

Erlendur nodded.

‘How?’

‘With his bare hands,’ said Erlendur. ‘Apparently he strangled her.’

Hrund inadvertently clasped her hands over her mouth, as if to stifle the cry that rose to her lips when she pictured her sister’s end.

‘But why didn’t Ezra tell anyone? Why didn’t he go to the police?’

‘It was more complicated than that,’ said Erlendur. ‘Jakob had a hold over Ezra. He fixed it, or at least claimed to have fixed it, so that Ezra would be framed for the murder if he ever told anyone what he had heard. Ezra chose not to take that risk. It wouldn’t have restored Matthildur to him and he was convinced anyway that Jakob would never reveal how he’d disposed of the body. As indeed it turned out.’

‘What did he do? What did Jakob do with her body?’ asked Hrund.

‘He always refused to tell.’

‘So nobody knows?’

‘No.’

‘Not even Ezra?’

‘No.’

‘And you haven’t found out?’

‘No.’

‘So she’ll never be found?’

‘Probably not.’

Hrund reflected on what Erlendur had said. She was profoundly shaken. All the wind seemed to have been knocked out of her.

‘The poor man,’ she said at last.

‘Ezra’s life has been pretty wretched ever since,’ said Erlendur.

‘He’s had to live with this uncertainty all these years.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who would do that — what kind of man?’ she said, rising to her feet in her anguish. ‘What kind of monster was Jakob?’

‘You said he had a bad reputation.’

‘Yes, but this! Who could do such a thing?’

‘He got his just deserts.’

‘Not just enough in my opinion,’ snapped Hrund.

‘Perhaps he had an opportunity to reflect on the suffering he had caused others before he died,’ said Erlendur.

Her gaze sharpened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That would have been punishment enough,’ said Erlendur.