Strange Shores (2 page)

‘You find the oddest things in foxholes,’ remarked Bóas, keeping up a brisk pace. ‘They certainly don’t go hungry. They’ll wander down to the shore and scavenge for drowned guillemots or shellfish and crabs. The cubs will even eat crowberries, as well as the odd field mouse. And once in a while, if a fox gets lucky, it’ll find a dead ewe or lamb. But there’s the odd sheep-worrier that gets a taste for live meat and then you’re done for. Then it’s up to Bóas to track the little blighter down and destroy it. But not with any pleasure, mind.’

Uncertain whether the farmer was addressing him or merely thinking out loud, he did not reply. He followed in the other man’s footsteps as they waded through deep beds of heather, and enjoyed the sensation of the cool rain pricking his face. He knew the moors well but had put all his faith in the farmer and was no longer sure of their exact whereabouts. Bóas trudged on, carefree and confident, chatting away, apparently unconcerned whether his new companion was listening.

‘We’ve seen a fair few changes around here since the construction work began,’ he said, stopping to take a pair of binoculars from his satchel. ‘It’s had an impact on the environment and maybe the fox has realised. Maybe it doesn’t dare go down to the shore any longer because of the factory and all the shipping. What do I know? We should be getting close now.’ He replaced the binoculars.

‘I saw work under way on the new smelter as I drove up from Reykjavík,’ remarked Erlendur.

‘That eyesore!’ exclaimed Bóas.

‘I went and had a look at the dam too. I’ve never seen anything so huge.’

He could hear Bóas muttering grumpily under his breath as they continued their climb. It sounded like: ‘Can you believe they let this happen?’ As he toiled along behind, he thought about the foundations that were being sunk for a vast aluminium smelter in the picturesque setting of Reydarfjördur Fjord, and the giant freighters that docked there, transporting construction materials for the plant and the controversial hydroelectric dam at Kárahnjúkar in the highlands. He couldn’t understand how on earth an unaccountable multinational, based far away in America, had been permitted to put its heavy industrial stamp on a tranquil fjord and tract of untouched wilderness here in the remote east of Iceland.

BÓAS HALTED IN
the middle of an expanse of scree and gestured to him to do likewise. Emulating the farmer, he dropped to his knees and peered into the fog.

Minutes passed without his being aware of any movement, until quite suddenly he found himself looking into the eyes of a fox. It stood about fifteen metres away, staring at them with ears pricked. Almost imperceptibly, Bóas tightened his grip on the gun, but it was enough to startle the fox which whisked away up the slope, vanishing from sight in an instant.

‘Bless her,’ said the hunter, standing up and slinging his gun over his shoulder again before continuing on his way.

‘Is that the culprit?’ asked Erlendur.

‘Yes, that’s the little blighter. I know the earths in this area like the back of my hand and I reckon we’re close. They return to the same lairs generation after generation, you know, so I dare say some date back a pretty long way – though maybe not quite to the Ice Age.’

They walked on, through the hush of nature, until they came to a small hide made of heaped stones and moss. Bóas told him to take a breather and remarked that they were lucky with the wind direction, then said he was going to take a look around. Erlendur sat down on the moss and waited. He recalled what he knew about the Arctic fox, said to be the first settler of Iceland since it had arrived ten thousand years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. Judging by the way he blessed it and spoke about it like an old friend, Bóas had a great respect for the beast. Even so, he was prepared to exterminate it if necessary – to snuff out its life and dispatch its offspring as if this were all in a day’s work.

‘She’s here, bless her. All we need now is a little patience,’ Bóas announced when he returned, and got down beside him in the hide. He unslung the rifle and ammunition from his shoulder, and put down the leather satchel, producing a hip flask that he offered to Erlendur who grimaced as he tasted the contents. Bóas obviously made his own moonshine and was none too particular about how he distilled it.

‘What does a bit of depopulation matter anyway?’ Bóas asked rhetorically, taking back the flask. ‘The countryside was uninhabited when we arrived, so why shouldn’t it be abandoned again when we leave? Why sell the land to speculators to try and halt a perfectly natural process? – tell me that. People come and people go. I ask you, what could be more natural?’

Erlendur shrugged.

‘Look at poor old Hvalfjördur on your doorstep,’ Bóas continued, ‘with those two monstrosities belching out poison day and night. And who for? A bunch of insanely rich foreigners who couldn’t even find Iceland on a map. Is that our fate? To end up as a factory for people like that?’

He handed the flask back to Erlendur who this time sipped with extreme caution. Bóas rummaged in his satchel again and removed a large object wrapped in plastic that produced a rancid stench when opened. It was a lump of meat that had gone distinctly high. After chucking it as far as he could in the direction of the fox’s earth, he wiped his hands on the moss and reclined again with the rifle at his side.

‘Shouldn’t take her long to get wind of that.’

They waited quietly in the drizzle.

‘Of course, you wouldn’t remember me,’ Bóas said after a while.

‘Should I?’ asked Erlendur, coughing.

‘No, it would be surprising if you did,’ said Bóas. ‘After all, you weren’t yourself at the time. And it’s not as if I knew your parents – we didn’t have any contact.’

‘When was this? How do you mean I wasn’t myself?’

‘During the search,’ Bóas said. ‘When you and your brother went missing.’

‘You were there?’

‘Yes, I joined the search party. Everybody did. I hear you come out here now and then. Roam the moors like a ghost and sleep in the old croft at Bakkasel. You still believe you can find him, don’t you?’

‘No, I don’t. Is that what people are saying?’

‘Us old folks like to reminisce about the past and someone happened to mention that you still go up on the moors. And to prove it, here you are.’

He didn’t want to have to explain his behaviour to a stranger or justify how he chose to live his life. This was his childhood home and he came back for a visit every so often when he felt the urge. He did a lot of walking in the area and preferred the ruined farmhouse to a hotel. Sometimes he pitched a tent, at other times he unrolled his sleeping mat on a dry patch in the house.

‘So you remember the search?’ he said.

‘I remember them finding you,’ Bóas replied, not taking his eyes off the bait. ‘I wasn’t with them but the news spread quickly and it came as a tremendous relief. After that we were convinced we’d find your brother too.’

‘He died.’

‘So it seems.’

Erlendur was silent.

‘He was younger than you,’ prompted Bóas.

‘Yes, two years younger. He was eight.’

They sat there, the minutes ticking by, until Bóas seemed to sense a subtle alteration in their surroundings. Erlendur could not detect it, though he thought it might have been related to the behaviour of the birds. It was some time before Bóas relaxed again and offered him more of the hard mutton pâté and rye bread, and another swig of the hip flask’s poisonous brew. The fog settled over them like a white eiderdown. From time to time the piping of a bird reached their ears; otherwise all was quiet.

He couldn’t remember any member of the search party in particular. When he came to, they were hurriedly carting him down from the moor, his body rigid as a block of ice. He remembered warm milk being trickled between his lips on the way, but after that he had lost consciousness and was aware of nothing until he found himself lying tucked up in bed with the doctor leaning over him. Hearing unfamiliar voices in the house, he knew instinctively that something bad had happened but couldn’t immediately recall what. Then his memory returned. His mother hugged him tight, telling him his father was alive – he had made it home against all the odds – but they were still out looking for his brother, though they were bound to find him soon. She asked if he could help at all, by telling the search party where to look. But all he could remember was the screaming, blinding whiteness that had battered him to his knees over and over again until he couldn’t take another step.

He saw Bóas’s knuckles whiten as the fox emerged without warning from the fog and picked her way warily towards the bait. She moved closer, sniffing the air, and before he could ask Bóas if it was really necessary to kill her, the hunter had fired and the vixen crumpled to the ground. Bóas rose and went to fetch the carcass.

‘Like some coffee?’ he asked as he brought his prey into the hide. He took a Thermos from his satchel and unscrewed the two lids that served as cups. One of these he passed to Erlendur, full of steaming liquid, and asked if he took milk. Erlendur declined, saying he drank it black.

‘You have to take milk, it’s unnatural not to!’ Bóas exclaimed, rooting around in the bag, unable to find what he was looking for. ‘Blast it! I’ve only gone and forgotten the bloody stuff.’

He took a mouthful of coffee and declared it undrinkable. Then, clearly agitated, he glanced around, slapping the pockets of his coat as if he might have secreted a carton of milk in one of them. Finally his gaze was arrested by the carcass.

‘Probably pointless,’ he remarked, seizing the animal and groping under her belly for her teats, only to discover that they were empty.

ERLENDUR WALKED SLOWLY
up to the house in Reydarfjördur and observed a woman sitting by the window, facing in his direction. One might have thought she had been waiting there all day expressly for him, though he had given no warning of his visit and was still unsure if he was doing the right thing. In the end, however, curiosity had overcome his reservations.

As they descended from the moors, Erlendur asked Bóas about a story he had heard as a child, which had stayed with him ever since. His parents and most of their neighbours had known the tale back then, and it may well have been a motivating factor behind his decision to come out to the East Fjords this autumn.

‘So you joined the police?’ Bóas said. ‘What do you do down there? Direct the traffic?’

‘I was in the road division for a while, but that was years ago,’ he answered. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard but we have something called traffic lights these days.’

Bóas smiled at the jibe. He was carrying the vixen over his shoulder and his coat was dark with her blood. He had wiped it off his hands as best he could on the wet moss. Originally, his plan had been to spend the night on the moors but the hunt had gone better than anticipated, so he reckoned they would make it back to civilisation before dark.

‘You’ve lived in this part of the world all your life, haven’t you?’ said Erlendur.

‘Never dreamt of living anywhere else,’ replied the hunter. ‘You won’t find better people in Iceland.’

‘Then you must have heard the story of the woman who set out to cross the Hraevarskörd Pass and never came back.’

‘Sounds familiar,’ said Bóas.

‘Her name was Matthildur,’ said Erlendur. ‘She made the trip alone.’

‘Oh, I know her name all right.’ Bóas stopped and looked at Erlendur. ‘What did you say you did in the police?’

‘I investigate cases.’

‘What kind?’

‘All kinds: serious crime, murder, violent incidents.’

‘The seamy side of life?’

‘If you like.’

‘And missing persons?’

‘Those too.’

‘Do you get many?’

‘Not really.’

‘Once my generation’s gone, there’ll be no one left to remember Matthildur’s story,’ said Bóas.

‘I first heard it from my parents,’ Erlendur told him. ‘My mother knew her slightly and I’ve always found it . . .’ He groped for the right word.

‘Mysterious?’ suggested Bóas.

‘Interesting,’ said Erlendur.

Bóas put down his burden, straightened his back and peered down through the gloom to the village nestling by the sea. They were nearly back at Urdarklettur; it was growing chilly and the light was fading. Bóas shouldered the fox again. Erlendur had offered to carry it but the farmer had declined, saying there was no call to muck up his clothes too.

‘Of course, you would be interested in that kind of thing,’ Bóas commented, his mind still running on missing persons. He spoke more to himself than to Erlendur and looked thoughtful for a while, then resumed his journey downhill over the screes and heathery slopes. ‘Then you’ll know the story of the British soldiers who got caught in a storm out here on the moors during the war? Members of the occupation force, stationed in Reydarfjördur.’

Erlendur said he had heard about the incident as a boy and later read up on the circumstances, but this did not prevent Bóas from rehashing the story. His question had been rhetorical; he was not about to be denied the pleasure of telling a good tale.

A group of about sixty young British servicemen had planned a hiking expedition from Reydarfjördur to Eskifjördur via the Hraevarskörd Pass, but had got into serious difficulties on the way. The route over the pass had turned out to be too dangerous due to icy conditions, but instead of going back the way they came, they had headed further inland, along the Tungudalur Valley, then down over Eskifjördur Moor. It was late January; the weather had deteriorated drastically during the day and the skies had turned black, thwarting their original aim of reaching their destination while it was still light.

That evening the farmer from Veturhús at the head of Eskifjördur Fjord had been battling his way through the gale to his stable when he stumbled across one of the soldiers, overcome with exhaustion and cold. In spite of his weakened state, the man was able to communicate to him that there were more people in danger, and the labourers from the farm had gone out with oil lamps to search for them. Almost immediately, they found two other soldiers at the foot of the home field, and one by one their comrades had trickled down from the moor until forty-eight were safely accounted for. It transpired that torrential rain had swelled the rivers that flowed between their party and the village, blocking the route. Some of the men, who had made it across while the water was low, were now trapped on the other side, and their cries for help could be heard from the farm. Four died of exposure, but a handful of their companions made it all the way down to the village, arriving in a desperate state. When morning brought a slight improvement in the conditions, the farmer went up the Eskifjördur Valley with the corporal and recovered still more of the soldiers, some alive, others dead, including their captain. One body was found in the sea: the man was believed to have fallen into the Eskifjördur River and been washed down to the fjord. One way or another all the British turned up in the end. The disaster was discussed at great length locally, where it was generally agreed that things would have turned out much worse had it not been for the courageous and timely efforts of the Veturhús folk.