‘Hell,’ he whispered.
The storm had lost some of its force but the wind was still raging around the building, whining in the roof and making the rafters creak. The naked light bulb swung on its wire.
‘Hell,’ Ezra whispered again. ‘I should have killed you myself.’
He decided to go home, persuading himself it was not for him to keep vigiclass="underline" one of the men he didn’t know from Adam; the other he had loathed more than words could express.
When he returned to work early next morning after a short, restless night, he was shocked to see that Jakob had rolled off the filleting board and onto the floor. Ezra hurried over, sat him up and with considerable difficulty hauled him back onto the board. He simply couldn’t understand how he could have fallen off. As he lifted Jakob back up his head banged on the board and Ezra thought the body emitted a faint moan. He examined the other fisherman and tried to move his leg, but the limb was stiff and unyielding: rigor mortis had taken hold of his entire body. He had the feeling Jakob should be equally rigid but he was not. Although he was very cold, there was no sign of stiffness.
Again he thought he heard a faint moan from Jakob. Startled, he put it down at first to the wind. Stooping over the man’s body, he tried in vain to detect any sign of breathing, then pressed an ear to his chest but could hear no heartbeat.
Straightening up again, Ezra stared at the body.
He thought he saw the face twitch. One eye was closed by a clot of blood, and Jakob’s hair was sticky with it. He also had an open wound on his cheek and a deep gash on his chin. Ezra guessed he had sustained these injuries when he was beaten against the rocks at Hólmaborgir.
He must have been mistaken about the movement. But he wasn’t certain.
Ezra was turning away when he glimpsed it again — the slightest twitch around the mouth. This time there was no doubt. As he concentrated on Jakob’s face he clearly saw his lips move.
It looked as if Jakob was breathing.
The door opened.
Ezra’s heart missed a beat: he thought he would die of fright.
The Sigurlína’s owner came in out of the storm and looked Ezra up and down.
‘Hell and damnation,’ he said, stamping his feet to shake the snow from his galoshes.
48
Ezra rose from his chair: the memory was too much. Unable to sit still any longer, he began to pace around the kitchen. As he listened to his tale, Erlendur noticed that the old man was finding it increasingly difficult to describe events so vivid in his mind’s eye that they might have taken place yesterday. The pauses between his words became prolonged, his voice gruffer. He wrung his hands and avoided Erlendur’s gaze. Erlendur pitied him, as he did all those who could not escape their fates.
‘Would you like me to make some coffee?’ Erlendur asked, standing up too. ‘It looks as if you could do with a cup.’
Ezra was in another world. He didn’t respond until Erlendur had asked him twice. Finally he paused his pacing.
‘What was that?’
‘Coffee?’ asked Erlendur again. ‘Should I make us a cup?’
‘You have some,’ Ezra said. ‘Go ahead. Help yourself.’
He retreated back into his own world, where it was still the frozen, stormy depths of winter. Erlendur had no wish to hurry him. He knew the story would emerge eventually but he had an ever stronger sense of what it cost Ezra to tell it. He had never spoken of these events and wanted to give a conscientious account. It was plain from the way he spoke that far from trying to wipe it from his mind he remembered everything in minute detail. It was too early to judge if he felt unburdened, but Erlendur knew from long experience that the time would come when he did.
Neither man spoke while Erlendur made a strong brew and hunted out some reasonably clean mugs. He handed one to Ezra who took a cautious sip of the scalding black liquid.
‘I can see it’s not easy,’ Erlendur said.
‘It’s not a pretty story.’
‘I realise that.’
Ezra hesitated. ‘Did I show you a picture of Matthildur?’
‘No, I’d remember if you had.’
‘Would you like to see one?’
‘That would be — ’
‘It’s in my bedroom,’ said Ezra. ‘Just a minute.’
While he was gone, Erlendur stepped over to the window that faced onto the moor. The ground was completely white. From this angle he couldn’t see up the valley to Bakkasel, and he was just craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the old farmhouse when Ezra returned.
‘She gave me this,’ he said. ‘It’s the only one I’ve got.’
He handed the photo reverently to Erlendur, as if it were a priceless treasure. Erlendur took it carefully. It was very creased, having once been folded in the middle, and appeared to be half of a larger picture which had been cut in two.
‘It was taken here in Eskifjördur,’ Ezra said, ‘one summer. A photographer came through the village and gave them the photo. Matthildur cut it in half. Jakob was next to her. It was taken outside their house.’
Erlendur looked at the image. Matthildur was standing in front of her home, eyes screwed up against the sun; a lovely smile; dark, shoulder-length hair; arms by her sides; head slightly tilted; her face wearing a friendly but determined expression. Her shadow fell on the door behind her.
‘We hadn’t started seeing each other then,’ said Ezra. ‘That didn’t happen until a year later. But I’d already begun to have feelings for her.’
‘What did you say to the boat owner when he came into the ice house?’ asked Erlendur, passing the picture back.
‘I don’t know why I lied,’ said Ezra. ‘I hadn’t even planned what I was going to do, but after the first lie, the rest came easily. At first all I wanted was to force Jakob to tell me about Matthildur — if he really was alive, that is. I wanted to take advantage of his predicament to make him tell me how he’d disposed of her. But later. .’
‘The desire for revenge got the better of you?’ Erlendur suggested.
Ezra’s eyes dwelt on the photo.
‘I wanted justice,’ he said.
The boat owner, a man in his late seventies, was well kitted out in a thick winter coat, scarf and woollen hat. He lingered by the door as if he did not wish for any closer contact with death. He had lost not only two of his men but his boat, and the personal cost was obvious from his demeanour. Ezra knew him to be a decent fellow. After all, he had worked for him not so long ago, and had nothing but good to say of him. The man owned two other, much larger vessels with bigger crews, and would hang about on the docks if his vessels were out in dirty weather, waiting for their safe return. He had been at sea himself for many years and his luck had for the most part held — he had only once before lost a man overboard, during the herring season. The man had drowned.
‘They’re in good hands, Ezra,’ he said.
‘There’s nothing more anyone can do for them now,’ Ezra replied, trying to pretend all was well. He was still so stunned at seeing Jakob’s lips move that he could scarcely control his features and voice. He tried to appear as relaxed as he could but felt beads of sweat pricking his scalp.
‘I still haven’t got hold of the Grindavík lot,’ the owner said, averting his eyes from the bodies. ‘I don’t know much about the lad. Jakob’s easier. His parents in Reykjavík are both dead and he had no brothers or sisters. His mother’s brother from over Djúpivogur way asked me to have a coffin knocked up for him. He’s going to pick up the body later today. They want to get the funeral over with as quickly as possible. He says there’s no reason to delay, which is fair enough, I suppose. They’re going to dig the grave this morning before the ground freezes any harder.’