‘People said she haunted him.’
‘That’s right. Caused the accident too. I don’t know why she was supposed to have wanted to take revenge on him, though.’
‘What exactly did Ármann hear?’ wrote Erlendur.
‘I’m really not sure,’ said Thórdur. ‘He was a bit vague.’
‘I gather it was some kind of moaning.’
‘No, that’s nonsense. It was nothing like that. I asked him once, shortly before he died, but he was very unwilling to say. I have a feeling he regretted ever mentioning it. No, it was more like gas.’
‘Gas?’
‘As if the body had some gas left inside, which is quite possible given that the man was buried so soon after he died. That’s what Ármann thought he’d heard. Not moaning. That’s a ghost story that was invented later on. And there were others who claimed the body had shifted in the coffin.’
Erlendur frowned. ‘Ármann’s daughter didn’t seem aware of any of this.’
‘Ármann told me he’d have done better to hold his tongue at the time,’ said Thórdur. ‘Of course she doesn’t want to admit it. She wants to hush it up.’
‘Maybe,’ wrote Erlendur.
‘I’ve never heard about any moaning,’ said Thórdur. ‘It would’ve taken inhuman strength to survive all that.’
‘Yes, it would,’ Erlendur blurted out aloud.
‘Mind you, there are stories of people surviving in cold like that,’ said Thórdur. ‘I once heard of a shipwreck out west, not unlike this one. Three men fell overboard from a rowing boat close to shore. The bodies were hauled out of the sea and locked up overnight in a warehouse in the village. The weather was freezing, but when they went to check on the bodies next day it turned out that two of the men had managed to climb down onto the floor during the night, though that’s as far as they got. But the third, who’d lived longest, had made it all the way to the door before he’d finally frozen stiff.’
42
Erlendur drove slowly back to Eskifjördur. He was so preoccupied that he soon pulled over and stopped on the side of the road, where he sat in the car contemplating what to do. He lit the inevitable cigarette and drank some tepid coffee from the flask. It was virtually the only sustenance he had taken all day but he was not hungry. Instead, he was filled with a restless tension that he knew he would have to satisfy sooner rather than later.
There was one obvious course to take. He didn’t like it, but however much he racked his brains for an alternative, he always came to the same conclusion. He wanted clear answers but he also wished to protect the interests of those who had put their trust in him. He had seen no reason so far to involve the local authorities in his investigation, in spite of the evidence of blackmail and murder he had uncovered. Erlendur had always felt that some crimes might remain hidden, so long as this was not contrary to the public interest, and this was one such occasion. He would avoid making his findings official for as long as possible. After all, it was not a formal inquiry. Innate curiosity and an obsession with missing-persons’ cases had led him to delve more deeply into an ancient incident than he had ever intended, but he hadn’t been seeking out a crime: in this instance the crime had found him. If he hadn’t gone around following up suspicions and rumours, the long-accepted story of Matthildur, Jakob and Ezra would have stood unchallenged, a closed book, to himself and others. Erlendur was only too aware that if he wanted to act on his suspicions and do what he believed was necessary, he would have to pursue the matter through official channels, which would mean persuading one authority after another of what he knew, without any substantive proof. His request would be put before innumerable committees and judges, he would be forced to attend endless meetings and engage in the sort of persistent wrangling that he simply couldn’t face. Even if he informed the local authorities of everything he had uncovered and his request passed unhindered through the system, he was convinced that he was still unlikely to receive an official go-ahead.
Gradually it had dawned on him that he was investigating not one crime but two, and that they differed in two significant respects. Of course they were related, there was no doubt: the first had given rise to the second. The first was based purely on the testimony of one man, Ezra, and would be nigh on impossible to prove. There was no witness to confirm his claim, no tangible evidence, no body had been found and no one knew its whereabouts. The second case was different in that there was no witness testimony, no certainty that a crime had in fact been committed; only a vague suspicion. But in this instance Erlendur believed he knew where the evidence was buried. All he had to do was lay hands on it.
Turning the car round, he headed back to Djúpivogur along the deserted road. As he drove, Erlendur recalled reading about a woman who had been certified dead and sealed in a body bag, only to revive and have to be rushed to A amp; E. He had heard of people in South America who asked for their wrists to be cut after death, for fear of waking up in their coffin. There was even a medical term for the fear of being buried alive: taphephobia. They called it the Lazarus syndrome when someone regained consciousness after being certified dead. People had even been known to wake up during their own post-mortem.
Erlendur parked by the graveyard in Djúpivogur and contemplated the tranquil scene, now barely visible in the gloom. He had brought along the gas lantern and a spade, on the off chance. The cemetery was fairly small, so he knew it wouldn’t take him long to locate Jakob’s grave and he couldn’t think of a better time to tackle the job than now, tonight. His earlier scruples had been laid to rest. He had come too far to start having reservations now.
Little snow had fallen here in the southernmost part of the fjords. The weather had been mild and dry for most of the autumn and the ground was still frost-free which would make his task easier. He looked at his watch. The sooner he started, the sooner he would be finished. And he must finish before first light, and be sure to leave behind as few traces of his deed as possible.
He stepped out of the car with the lantern in his hand, fetched the spade from the back seat and started walking towards the graveyard. He didn’t want to light the lamp until it was needed. The cemetery lay beside the main road, some way above and mercifully out of sight of the village. It was past twelve. Erlendur prepared himself for a long night.
Hearing a dog barking in the distance, he froze for a second and listened, then carried on. The cemetery was surrounded by iron railings, accessed by a lychgate with a bell hanging above it. He glimpsed a tool shed to his right. Tall, handsome conifers stood vigil over the graves, most of which had raised mounds, marked out with headstones or crosses. The plots from the middle of the twentieth century lay towards the back.
Having lit the lantern, he walked along the rows, shining it on the graves to read the inscriptions, and soon came to a small stone lying flat on the ground that was engraved with Jakob’s name and dates. Turning down the flame to leave just enough light, he peered about cautiously, straining for the sound of any more barking, then set to work, driving the spade into the damp turf.
He had disinterred a body once before, in very different circumstances. On that occasion he had gone through all the correct channels and had the services of a small mechanical digger to excavate the grave, in a cemetery on the south coast. What had emerged was the coffin of a very young girl who had succumbed to a rare disease. His thoughts had often returned to her over the years. Countless other investigations had left their mark on him, in differing ways, but none had driven him to visit a graveyard secretly, under cover of darkness, armed with a spade.
With great care, Erlendur laid the turves he had cut to one side, intending to replace them as unobtrusively as he could. The ground offered little resistance, the soft damp earth yielding easily to his shovel, and he worked steadily for around an hour before taking a cigarette break, leaning on a neighbouring gravestone.