‘You said the oddest things turned up in foxholes.’
‘That’s right,’ said Bóas.
Erlendur showed him the toy.
‘Ezra came across this up on Hardskafi. I believe my brother may have owned one like it.’
‘I see.’
‘In view of what you said, and because you’re a fox-hunter and know the mountains like the back of your hand, it occurred to me to ask if you’ve ever come across any other objects like this? Or any tatters of clothing, that sort of thing?’
Bóas took the toy.
‘You think this belonged to your brother?’ he asked.
‘Not necessarily. I know he had a car like it that my father gave him. I wondered if you could keep your eyes open for me. I don’t mean right this minute, or today or tomorrow, just next time you’re staking out an earth. See if you notice any unusual bits and pieces.’
‘Like this, you mean?’
Erlendur nodded. ‘Or remains,’ he added.
‘Bones?’
Erlendur took the car back and returned it to his pocket. He had tried to banish the thought. Every time it entered his mind, he visualised the disembowelled corpse of a lamb that he had once found on the moors; the empty sockets in its skull where the ravens had pecked out its eyes.
‘Would you get in touch if you find anything of interest, however small?’
‘If that is your brother’s car, there are several possibilities,’ said Bóas. ‘He could have lost it earlier — dropped it outside your house, for example, where a raven snatched it and flew with it up the mountain. That’s one way it could have ended up by the fox’s earth. Or he could have been carrying it with him when he went missing and a fox found it and his body at the same time.’
‘I know he had it with him,’ said Erlendur.
‘How do you know?’
‘I just know. Will you get in touch?’
‘Of course I will, no question,’ said Bóas. ‘Though I’ve seen nothing of the sort so far, if that’s any comfort.’
They sat without speaking until Bóas eventually leaned forward and asked: ‘What are you expecting to find up there?’
‘Nothing,’ said Erlendur.
Back at the ruined farm, trying to warm himself over the lantern, Erlendur took out the newspaper obituary that he had appropriated from the trunk in Egilsstadir. He reread the piece carefully, pausing at the mention of the ice house in Eskifjördur. After Jakob drowned, his body and that of his companion had been stored there. He recalled what Bóas had said about Ezra, who might therefore have been working at the ice house at the time — who might even have taken in and kept vigil over the dead men.
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.’