Strange Shores Read Online Free PDF

see the boy but sits motionless, his head sunk on his chest, hands in his lap. Perhaps he is asleep. The room is dark. He doesn’t know of his father’s terrifying ordeal; how he crawled the last few metres to Bakkasel on hands and knees, frostbitten, hatless and almost out of his mind after his battle with the elements.
    ‘Aren’t you out looking?’ he asks.
    His father doesn’t answer, just stares down at his lifeless hands. Moving closer, he puts a hand on his father’s knee and repeats his question. His father seems to have aged many years: the lines in his face have deepened, the light in his eyes has been extinguished, leaving them cold, remote and indifferent. He has never seen his father so far gone before, so desolate and alone, as there in that shadowy room. He stands before him, filled with dread and horror, and offers up the feeblest excuse of all:
    ‘I couldn’t help it,’ he whispers. ‘I couldn’t help it.’

7
    ERLENDUR FOUND EZRA outside in a shed that stood diagonally down the slope from his house. After knocking in vain at his front door, Erlendur had followed the sound of hammering to a ramshackle shelter with slatted sides, built from offcuts of timber and corrugated iron. The door, from which hung a piece of string to fasten it, was standing ajar when Erlendur approached, revealing a bowed figure sitting on a stool with a heavy mallet in his hand. Ezra had placed a fillet of dried haddock, or
hardfiskur
, on a grimy stone slab and, holding it by the tail, was beating it rhythmically to tenderise the flesh, sending up a puff of crumbs with each blow. The old man did not look up from his task or notice Erlendur, who waited in the doorway, watching him work. Drips kept forming at the end of Ezra’s nose and every now and then he wiped them away with the back of his hand. He was wearing woollen mittens with double thumbs, an oversized leather hat with ear flaps that covered his cheeks, brown overalls and a traditional Icelandic jumper. A straggly beard sprouted from his unshaven jowls and he was muttering under his breath through a swollen lower lip, scarred from an ancient injury. His eyebrows jutted in tufts over small, grey eyes that seemed to be perpetually watering. Ezra was certainly no looker: his face was abnormally wrinkled, with a massive, powerful chin and fleshy nose, yet he had obviously once been a man of presence.
    When he finally took a rest from beating the fish, he glanced up and saw Erlendur standing in the doorway.
    ‘Have you come to buy
hardfiskur
?’ he asked in a hoarse, threadbare voice.
    ‘Have you got any to spare?’ Erlendur felt as if he had briefly stepped back into the nineteenth century.
    ‘Yes, a little,’ Ezra replied. ‘Some of this is headed for the shop but it’s cheaper to buy direct from me.’
    ‘Is it good?’ Erlendur asked, moving closer.
    ‘I should say so,’ said Ezra, his voice gaining strength. ‘You won’t find better anywhere in the East Fjords.’
    ‘You still use a mallet?’
    ‘For small quantities like this it’s not worth investing in machinery. Anyway, there’d be no point as I’m bound to kick the bucket any day now. I should have gone a long time ago.’
    They agreed on an amount and exchanged small talk about the weather, the fishing season and, inevitably, the dam and smelter – a subject that clearly bored Ezra.
    ‘For all I care they can destroy the environment,’ he said.
    Hrund had told Erlendur that Ezra had always been a recluse, never married or had children – at least not as far as she knew. He had lived in the village for longer than the oldest residents could remember, largely keeping himself to himself and respecting other people’s privacy. He had done a variety of jobs on land and sea, mostly working in solitary occupations. Recently he had slowed down a bit; it was unsurprising, given that he was nearly ninety. Well-meaning neighbours wanted him to go into a home but he was having none of it. Ezra