Strange Shores

35

A hollow silence fell: the birds had departed from the garden. Dusk deepened around the two men in the kitchen while the cat slept on in its basket. Ezra’s strength seemed to have dwindled with the daylight, his body to have shrunk in the chair.

‘So you kept your mouth shut,’ Erlendur said.

‘Yes,’ said Ezra. ‘I never told anyone. That’s the sort of lily-livered coward I was.’

‘You shouldn’t have kept quiet about a crime like that, however involved you were. A cover-up does no one any good.’

‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’

‘And so the years passed?’

‘Yes, they passed.’

Erlendur realised how traumatic this must have been for the old man after a lifetime of guarding his secret. For sixty years he had concealed Jakob’s crime, even after the man died, for fear of being incriminated. He had chosen the easy course and saved his own skin, and yet Erlendur felt some sympathy for his plight. Had Jakob followed his threat through, things might have gone badly for Ezra. He was, after all, in a vulnerable position, having betrayed his friend and stolen his wife. A vengeful man like Jakob could have pointed the finger at any time and forced Ezra to defend himself against serious charges.

‘I lost my nerve,’ Ezra said. ‘I was frightened. Terrified, I should say. I couldn’t bear the thought of our affair being exposed and judged as dirty and squalid. I was so scared Jakob would spread stories about me, accuse me, brand me a murderer. He bullied me into silence. He told me the truth, but only after making sure I’d feel so guilty I’d hush it up. Well, he got what he wanted.’ Ezra broke off briefly. ‘He won. He defeated us both.’

‘What did he do with her body?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me. Claimed he’d planted something on Matthildur to frame me and said he could notify the authorities any time he liked. I didn’t know what it was and still can’t work out if he was lying. But that’s what he said and I was in such a state that I believed him.’

‘So you still don’t know where she is?’

‘I’ve never known.’

‘So first you lose Matthildur, then this is flung in your face?’

‘Jakob. . was an evil bastard.’

‘And you had to go on living so near him.’

‘Yes, it was hard. Of course I had nothing to do with him, or as little as I could help, and he moved away for a while. Perhaps he was just as scared that I’d go to the police as I was that he’d spread lies about me. It was like a Cold War between us. He said. .’ Ezra hesitated.

‘What?’

‘He said he’d make sure I suffered too. Make sure I was punished. And he succeeded.’

‘You weren’t tempted to move away, back to the west, or to Reykjavík? It would have been easy during the war. You could have lost yourself in the crowd — as far as that’s possible in this country.’

‘I couldn’t bring myself to move.’ Ezra’s voice had sunk to a mumble again. ‘Not while I knew Matthildur was here somewhere. I couldn’t bear to leave her. Because her body was never found, it’s as if she never really left. Can you understand that? I know it sounds like gibberish but it feels as if she’s still here with me. I sense her presence every time I go about the streets, or look out to sea or up at the mountains. She’s everywhere. She’s all around me.’ He paused, then added: ‘I’ll be dead soon anyway, and then it’ll all be over.’

‘You have no inkling where she is?’ asked Erlendur again.

Ezra shook his head.

‘Are you sure?’

‘You think I’m lying?’

‘No,’ said Erlendur. ‘I don’t think you’re lying. But since you said yourself that Jakob threatened to frame you, it would be in your interest that she was never found.’

‘You policemen!’ exclaimed Ezra. ‘You’re so used to suspecting everyone, doubting everything. I bet you think I’ve been lying all along — that I did away with Matthildur myself and I’m just using Jakob as a scapegoat. Is that what’s going through your mind? That I’ve turned the story on its head?’

‘You’re reacting — ’ began Erlendur, but got no further.

‘There was nothing I could do,’ interrupted Ezra. ‘Until Jakob died it hung over me like a death sentence. But what he’d done couldn’t be undone. Matthildur was dead, gone. Involving the police wouldn’t have changed that.’

‘So you accepted Jakob’s story?’

‘Yes.’

‘You told me earlier that you were sure he could never have harmed Matthildur. Was that part of the deception?’

Ezra nodded.

‘And you’ve never doubted his account?’

‘Doubted? Doubted what? That he killed Matthildur? Not for one second. I know he told the truth about that at least.’

‘But you never had any proof. Maybe she died in the storm and he used the fact to torment you for the affair. Has that occurred to you?’

‘I’m certain he told the truth,’ repeated Ezra obstinately, scowling at Erlendur.

‘You felt guilty. Did you have your eye on Matthildur before she made a move? Was that why?’

‘My eye on her?’

‘Did you drop hints?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you flirt with her? Let her know you were interested?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘So you did nothing about it?’

‘No,’ said Ezra slowly. ‘If she sensed it — ’

‘But you weren’t exactly averse when she did turn to you?’

‘No.’

‘Was that it? You had a guilty conscience about enticing her away from her husband and Jakob played on that?’

Ezra did not answer.

‘It must have come as quite a relief when he died,’ said Erlendur.

Ezra refused to be provoked.

‘Or perhaps the opposite? Because he was the only one who knew where Matthildur was?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And he took the secret to his grave.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Were you here when it happened — when Jakob drowned?’

‘Yes, I remember it well.’

‘His body was stored in the ice house in the village.’

‘Yes, before he was taken to Djúpivogur for the funeral. Then it was over.’

‘Did you see his body?’

‘Yes, I was working at the ice house at the time.’

‘And you never found out what he did with Matthildur?’

‘I couldn’t get it out of him. That’s all I ever wanted to know, but I don’t suppose I will now.’

Erlendur looked in the direction of the moor, now shrouded in darkness.

‘At the end of the day it was my fault she died,’ whispered Ezra. ‘I’m to blame. I’ve had to live with that ever since.’