The Fever in the Water: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella (Greenland Missing Persons Book 4)

by Christoffer Petersen

  Those few seconds were enough.

  “It stays on the boat,” I said. Followed by, “I’m ready.”

  “I know you are,” he said, as he reached out to adjust my vest one last time. Gaba shifted his grip on his MP5 submachine gun, then nodded to his team to enter Ivittuut.

  The few tourists shuffling about the abandoned mining village stopped in their tracks as we entered the village. The skipper had called the captain on the MS Wisting, alerting him to the situation. Gaba’s men directed the remaining tourists quietly but firmly back to the Zodiac rigid inflatable boats beached on the rough strip of gravel and sand just beyond the buildings. I heard a mix of broken English, German, and Danish words, as the SRU team cleared the village. A woman, dressed like a tour guide with a big radio in her small hands, pointed to a blistered house with a rotten deck and tiny squared windows, typically colonial, bitten by the wind, burned by the sun, and splintered by winter.

  “He’s in there,” she said, then pointed with the tip of the radio’s antenna. “I saw him go in.”

  I dipped my head in acknowledgement, then felt Gaba’s hand on my shoulder, guiding me towards the house, while the three SRU men found sheltered positions covering the house and its exits. The guide jogged back to the Zodiacs on the beach.

  “Put your helmet on, Constable,” Gaba whispered.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want to frighten him.”

  “And I don’t want to shoot him. But I will if he so much as farts in your direction. If you’re wearing your helmet, I’ll give him a second’s worth of goodwill. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I said, as I unclipped my helmet from my belt and pulled it onto my head. Loose strands of my hair caught in the clip and I tugged them free. I didn’t realise I was holding my breath until Gaba squeezed my arm.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

  Friday nights in Nuuk were often physical. Even the most patient and sympathetic police officer struggled with drunks too far gone to be reasonable. We trained for it, learned how to anticipate violence, to counter it, and put an end to it as quickly and respectfully as the situation allowed.

  This was different.

  Eqqitsiaq was armed, and he was clearly struggling with something, yet unknown. I knew little more than his name, and the fact that just a short boat ride earlier, he had laid siege to his own house, trapping his wife, his daughter, and his grandchildren inside. I had no idea what might make him do that, but the only way I would find out was if he was ready to talk.

  I took a step forward, stopping when Gaba hissed that I shouldn’t go too far. I heard him squirm his boots into a firm stance in the gravel outside the house, pictured him tugging the MP5 into his shoulder, using the sling to offset the weight of the weapon in anticipation of a lengthy ready stance. He clicked his tongue and I took that as my cue.

  “Eqqitsiaq Kuannia,” I said, clearing my throat before I continued. “My name is Constable Petra Jensen. I’m here to help you.”

  It occurred to me, as the wind dusted spores of grit and ancient husks of cotton across my boots, that I didn’t know if Eqqitsiaq could speak Danish. I suppressed a sudden thought that Atii would have been so much better at this than me, and another when I imagined Sergeant Duneq nodding his head in agreement. But Duneq had sent both Atii and me, and that gave me some hope that my presence had some purpose, beyond the egotistical and chauvinistic afflictions of the SRU leader.

  “Again,” Gaba whispered.

  I took a small step forward, waving my hand for Gaba to relax, as I heard his sharp intake of breath. I was close to the deck now, close enough to see the rotten fibres of wood, twisting around rusty nails with long thatched fingers.

  “Eqqitsiaq?”

  I took another step, ignoring Gaba’s curses, and the metallic clicks of the SRU team as they adjusted their aim. I lifted one foot onto the first step, testing it, pressing my boot down until I heard the wood tear with soft snaps and hushed crackles.

  “My name is Constable Jensen,” I said, climbing to the second step and reaching out for the winter-bitten wood railing. I pressed my fingers around it, felt it wobble in my grasp, then climbed the last step to the deck.

  “Petra,” Gaba said. “No further.”

  I stopped, nodded once, then leaned to one side to peer in through the open door. The wind wrenched it open with a squeal and a thud, enough to mask the sound of Eqqitsiaq’s footsteps as he approached the door. I saw the barrel of his rifle first, as he pressed it against the door, pushing it slowly to open it wide, triggering my eyes to do the same.

  “Eqqitsiaq,” I whispered, as I watched his finger slide through the trigger guard of his rifle. “Don’t.”

  Part 4

  Eqqitsiaq Kuannia wore the wrinkles of long summer days with the hues of long dark winters. His cheeks were stubbled with black and grey hairs, with more grey in the thick hair on his head. His look matched his situation – tense, like his finger around the trigger, but his eyes held a sadness that threatened to bring a lump to my throat, if only it wasn’t for the rifle pointed at my chest.

  “Eqqitsiaq,” I said, softly, drawing his attention to my face as I heard Gaba crunch through the gravel behind me. “Do you speak Danish?”

  “Aap,” he said. He tilted his head to one side, following Gaba’s movements with the same sad eyes, now flecked with suspicion.

  “That’s Sergeant Alatak,” I said. “We’re both here to help you.”

  “He has a gun.”

  “Yes,” I said, and then, “So do you.”

  Eqqitsiaq flicked his gaze back to me and I cursed, silently, as I thought about what I had said. I needed to speak smarter, although the very idea and phrasing of it almost made me laugh. I needed to get it together but standing between two men with guns didn’t help.

  “Can I come inside?”

  “Not a good idea, Constable,” Gaba said. “Stay where you are.”

  I caught the flick of irritation on Eqqitsiaq’s face, as if Gaba was intruding suddenly. He slapped the barrel of his rifle against the door as it started to creak open, then pushed it to one side as he beckoned for me to come with his free hand.

  I flashed a look at Gaba, willing him to back off, as I unclipped my helmet and placed it on a rickety table sinking slowly into soft wood of the deck.

  “Thank you,” I said, as I stepped inside the house. Eqqitsiaq backed away from the door, letting it close behind him as we entered the kitchen.

  The interior of the house was bruised with age and the recent footsteps of curious tourists. I remembered that the mine was abandoned in 1987, but that the Danes had dug cryolite out of the earth for over one hundred years. Apart from the soft tread of Eqqitsiaq’s tattered sneakers and the sturdy impressions of the tourists’ boots, the dust on the floor revealed little more than whispers of ghosts. At least, that was what I felt as I sat down on one of two chairs still in one piece. Ghosts were a part of Greenlandic culture, everyone believed in them, including me. I shivered as Eqqitsiaq sat down. He slid the rifle onto the table between us, and I resisted the urge to grab it.

  “You said you were shopping,” he said, picking at an oily thread on the hem of his fleece. “But where is your bag?”

  “What’s that?” I said. “Shopping?”

  “I waited. Your mother waited. She said you had been gone too long, I said we should wait. There was plenty of coffee. We only needed sugar. But…” Eqqitsiaq’s gaze drifted to my face, and he frowned. “You’re not Ansu.”

  “No,” I said.

  Eqqitsiaq turned to look over his shoulder. “Where is Ansu?”

  “She’s not here. She’s waiting in Ingnerssuit.”

  I reached for the rifle as Eqqitsiaq twisted in his chair to look through the tiny squares of the broken window.

  “She said she would come straight home,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  I curled my fingers around the barrel of the rifle, sliding it towards me as Eqqitsiaq turned around. He f
licked his head up, stared at me, then reached a wrinkled and scarred hand towards the rifle. He grabbed the stock just as I pulled it out of his grasp. Eqqitsiaq’s knuckles rapped on the table surface, bouncing old dust and memories into the mouldy air between us.

  “That’s mine,” he said, rising and heaving the table to one side.

  I stood, stumbling backwards with the rifle in my hand, pulling it out of Eqqitsiaq’s reach as he lurched towards me. The kitchen floor was as rotten as the deck outside, and I plunged my right foot through it, pinning my ankle and toppling onto the floor, crying out in surprise and then pain as I twisted under Eqqitsiaq’s body. He gripped the rifle, ripping it from my hands just as Gaba burst through the door.

  I held my breath. I almost closed my eyes, anticipating the short burst of thunder and bullets that Gaba would unleash as he blasted Eqqitsiaq with his MP5. But Gaba didn’t fire. Instead, he charged over my body, letting his MP5 swing free on its sling as he curled his fingers into the loose material of Eqqitsiaq’s fleece, flinging the older Greenlander across the room. Gaba stooped to pick up Eqqitsiaq’s rifle, clearing the bullet from the chamber and jettisoning the rest with fluid movements of the bolt. He emptied the rifle as his team entered the house, slapping it into the nearest man’s hands before he knelt beside Eqqitsiaq, offering the old man his hand, then pulling him slowly, gently, into a sitting position.

  “He’s confused, Gaba,” I said, as I worked my foot out of the rotten floorboards.

  “About what?”

  “Not about anything. He thought I was Ansu.”

  Eqqitsiaq looked at me as I said the name, and I caught a look of panic in his eye.

  “My daughter,” he said. “Iikkila will be worried.”

  “Yes,” I said. I reached up to take Taatsiaq’s hand as he pulled me onto my feet. “We can take you to Iikkila. If you’re ready to come with us?”

  Eqqitsiaq shrank to the kitchen wall, splaying his hands in the dust, leaving tracks like raven feathers in the snow. It made me think of Tuukula, the shaman, and how nothing is as it seems, and everything is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

  “Eqqitsiaq,” I said. “We’re here to help you.”

  “I want to see Iikkila.”

  “Yes. And we can take you to her.”

  Gaba reached out, offering his hand, holding it steady until Eqqitsiaq took it.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s take you home.”

  Part 5

  Home was eerily quiet. The residents of Ingnerssuit watched without a word as we walked between the houses with Eqqitsiaq, Gaba leading, with one of his men either side of the old man. Taatsiaq tied Eqqitsiaq’s dinghy to a thick link of iron chain attached to the rock, as I jogged along the beach to catch up with the four men. Eqqitsiaq had been slow and silent on board Sisak III, receiving sweet coffee with little more than raised eyebrows. But as soon as we arrived in Ingnerssuit, he became animated, bounding off the cutter towards his house with the SRU in tow.

  Eqqitsiaq’s grandchildren greeted him with cautious smiles as he climbed the steps onto the wooden deck outside his house. A plump woman waited for him, arms folded across her chest.

  “Iikkila,” Eqqitsiaq said, but she shook her head, shooing her husband away until Atii stepped between them.

  “She’s worried,” Atii said, as Gaba helped Eqqitsiaq into a chair. “She wants us to take him to Nuuk.”

  “I can’t arrest him for running away,” Gaba said, pressing his hand onto Eqqitsiaq’s shoulder, clamping him into his seat. “No one got hurt. This is a domestic disturbance at best.”

  Atii shook her head. “It’s more than that. He’s sick. Iikkila says he’s confused. But,” she said, lowering her voice, “he’s not the only one.”

  “Explain,” Gaba said. He nodded for one of his men to keep an eye on Eqqitsiaq, then pointed at a patch of tough straw-coloured grass a few metres from the house. I followed him and Atii off the deck, glancing once at Eqqitsiaq before Atii started to speak.

  “Something’s not right,” she said, throwing me a look that suggested she was still pissed that Gaba had taken me instead of her, but that there were more pressing concerns. “The kids are a little high without being high, if you know what I mean?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Gaba said. “But you’ve been here the longest. What’s your recommendation?”

  “My recommendation?” Atii frowned.

  “What do you suggest we do, Constable Napa?” Gaba hooked his thumbs into his utility belt. “I’m deferring to your judgement.”

  It could have been a peace offering, or perhaps it was Gaba showing a side of him neither of us had seen before, but it had Atii stumped, and I relaxed a little, eager to help my friend assume the responsibility that had just been given to her.

  “If you think we should take Eqqitsiaq to hospital…”

  “I don’t know,” she said, teasing her hand through her dark bobbed hair. “I think we should take all of them.”

  “All of them?” Gaba snorted. “Well, we can’t do that.”

  “Eqqitsiaq then,” Atii said. “Let’s get him checked out. I’ll tell his wife.”

  Atii turned away before I could say anything, leaving Gaba and I alone on the grass outside Eqqitsiaq’s house.

  “Sergeant,” I said, once Atii was out of earshot.

  “Aap?”

  “Don’t do that to me again. Don’t do it to either of us.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Choose me over her, to send a message.”

  “I wasn’t sending a message, Constable.”

  “No?” I took a breath, glancing at Atii where she waited, watching us from the deck of Eqqitsiaq’s house. “Whatever you were doing, whatever you were trying to prove, next time you have to choose someone, I suggest you choose the one best suited for the job.” I turned on my heel and walked away, barely catching Gaba’s words on the wind.

  “I thought I did,” he said.

  I walked back to the police cutter, leaving Gaba and Atii to organise Eqqitsiaq’s departure. I sat on a rock on the beach, looking out at the red-hulled police cutter loitering just off the shore. Taatsiaq waved from the inflatable as he powered back towards the beach. It would take two trips, I thought, idly running through the practical details of getting us all back on board Sisak III, the last decisions I thought I would make in the case of Eqqitsiaq Kuannia.

  Of course, Tuukula had other plans.

  Part 6

  The nightclub was Gaba’s idea, a chance to blow off steam and regroup after the trip to Ingnerssuit. Atii had balked at the suggestion, but I saw a chance to be the friend I knew I was, and to remind her that a man was never going to come between us, never split us apart. Once Eqqitsiaq was admitted to hospital, I convinced her to come to Mattak, agreeing that I would meet her there, and that, if she didn’t come, I would leave. Whatever Gaba was, however curious I might have been to get to know him, it was Atii who was interested in him, and me… well, I was normally the naive type, and I could easily be that for one more night.

  Clubbing in Nuuk had to account for the weather, and even in May it could be cold, often wet, with stubborn patches of ice clumping the gravel on the unfinished sides of the streets. I settled on skinny jeans and a checked blouse. But when I saw Atii my breath caught in my throat. Her bobbed hair was fixed with spray at the back as if she was speeding on a motorbike with no helmet. Her eyes sparkled, with just enough eyeliner to give her a killer stare. Together with the skin-tight tank top and equally tight black leather trousers, I knew Gaba was the least of my problems. If I couldn’t take my eyes off Atii, then neither would he. And he didn’t, the whole night. At least, not until Tuukula arrived.

  We had a booth tucked along one wall of the club, something Taatsiaq had arranged with his brother, the current owner of Mattak. The square dance floor writhed with gymnasium students aged seventeen and up, sometimes younger, together with men and women in their twenties and thirties. I smiled at the
thought that Gaba was one of the oldest in the club. But he wore his age like a badge of honour, earned through experience. His usual persona, however, was knocked out of kilter by Atii’s outfit, and the need to win back her affections.

  I left them to it when Taatsiaq invited me onto the dance floor. He took my hand and tugged me deep into the throng of bodies until the booth was gone and there was only the beat, phasing stutters of music, strobes and zigzags of purple and pink light. Taatsiaq pressed his left hand on my waist, his right testing and teasing, slipping over my hips, curving around my bottom. I paused for a moment, curious as to how far I would let him go, how far I wanted him to go. I brushed a length of hair out of my face, behind my ear. I felt sweat bead on my top lip, felt it under my arms, running down my ribs in hot streams. My shirt was too thick for the dance floor. I swallowed, felt the brush of a woman’s skin on my bare arm as she danced in her bra, and I thought about doing the same, if only for a second, before Taatsiaq moved in closer, pressing against me, until his lips were close to mine, closer than I imagined they would ever have been just a few hours earlier. But if I wanted to prove to Atii that I would never come between her and Gaba, wasn’t this the most perfect situation? Showing her that we were friends, that we would have plenty to talk about, to giggle about over coffee, or sprawl on the sofa, whispering gossip after a late-night shift. I let Taatsiaq move in closer, pressed my lips against his, felt the heat of him, felt his excitement grow in the press of his body, the grip of his fingers, until shouts and the smash of glasses on the floor turned our heads, as the dancers parted. Tuukula stood in the gap with his daughter Luui clutched to his side, ringed by irritated dancers, and the barman doing his best to order the old shaman to leave.

  “Petra,” Tuukula said, ignoring everyone around him. “I need to talk.”

  “You know him?” Taatsiaq said, with a jerk of his thumb.

  “Yes,” I said.