Free Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indridason Page A

you?’
    ‘Not bad,’ said Erlendur. ‘I bought some first-rate dried fish off him.’
    ‘No one makes better
hardfiskur
,’ said Bóas. ‘Did he mention the dam business at all?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No, that’s just it. I don’t know where he stands on it. He’s not one for showing his hand, Ezra. Never has been.’
    ‘Did he ever go out fishing with Jakob?’ Erlendur asked.
    ‘I don’t know – I’d have to ask around. Ezra’s done so many jobs. He was foreman at the ice house in Eskifjördur for years. Started work there during the war, I believe.’
    Erlendur vacillated for some time before changing the subject. Now that it came to it, he wasn’t sure he really wanted to find the answers he had been seeking for so long. Noticing his preoccupation, Bóas held his tongue for once. In the end, Erlendur took from his pocket the scrap of metal that Ezra had found by a fox’s earth on the slopes of Mount Hardskafi.
    ‘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