The Girl in the Ice

by Lotte Hammer

  THE GIRL

  IN THE ICE

  Translated from the Danish

  by Paul Norlen

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  A Note on the Authors

  By the Same Authors

  Also available by Lotte and Søren Hammer

  PROLOGUE

  There is a price to be paid for everything.

  And perhaps the price for centuries of ruthless exploitation of nature was being paid in Disko Bay in Greenland—or a small down payment anyway before the really big instalments fell due, thought the German Chancellor as she stared out over the fjord.

  Denmark’s Minister for the Environment involuntarily followed the direction of the chancellor’s gaze. The journalist who was interviewing them did the same. The view was breathtaking. Ice floes of all sizes rocked sluggishly in the chill blue water. The glacier above formed a rugged white wall that reflected the summer sun and made the observers squint. Occasionally an iceberg calved, with a deep rumbling sound that carried through the clear air and echoed around the bay.

  After a while the journalist cleared his throat. He wanted an answer to his last question and was discreetly trying to resume the conversation, but as the chancellor kept silent he addressed the Danish minister, this time in English.

  “Why is it necessary to go all the way to Greenland to understand global warming? What can the world’s decision-makers learn here that they can’t just as well learn at home?”

  The minister smiled obligingly while she polished her answer. It was clear that the world’s decision-makers did not include her but rather her guest, which was reasonable but also made the topic sensitive. She was used to hearing this argument. After she’d given a guided tour to a handful of American senators a few months ago, the Danish opposition had accused her of climate-change tourism. In a way the journalist was right. The chancellor did not need to go almost four thousand kilometres from Berlin to Ilulissat in order to realise that the polar ice was melting. Anyone comparing satellite photos of the North Pole today and ten years ago would understand that immediately. The South Pole too for that matter. The important thing was what could be done to reverse the process—or, more realistically, limit the damage—and neither the glacier nor the satellite had an answer to that.

  The chancellor turned her head and observed them with a teasing smile, apparently just as eager for the minister’s reply as the journalist was. The minister indulged herself in a moment’s paranoia, wondering if the two Germans were trying to stitch her up. Feeling hot and flustered, she unzipped her fleece-lined jacket. She hated being put on the spot like this. Besides leading a nation of eighty-three million people, her guest had a PhD in quantum chemistry.

  The zipper stuck, which gave her a few extra seconds to consider her response. Then she said honestly, “Nothing.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  She briefly considered telling the journalist about the roughly four thousand Greenlandic whalers whose ancient livelihood was now ruined by temperature rises twice as high as in the rest of the world. But that would be a mistake. Her climate conference was meant to be dealing with the problem on a global basis; she must steer clear of suggesting that she put Greenland’s interests first. Instead she diverted the question, saying only, “Because politicians are people too, and no one forgets this scenery, right?”

  The journalist seemed to agree with this and the chancellor smiled broadly, both of them apparently satisfied with the answer. The minister thought this lightening of the mood might be her way in. They were walking back towards the waiting helicopter. This would probably be her last chance to discuss the politics of climate change with the chancellor. If she could be persuaded to back them at next year’s conference in Copenhagen it would be a major coup. But until now the German leader had concentrated purely on their experience of climate change and left politics off the agenda. The person she had talked with most was the glaciologist accompanying them.

  The minister’s hopes were dashed when in the helicopter too the chancellor sought out the scientist. She made sure that he sat next to her as they flew over the ice cap, and soon the two of them were deeply immersed in a scientific conversation, which the minister with her limited German had a hard time following. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and had to pinch her arm to stop herself from falling asleep. The scene glimpsed through the helicopter’s windows was a uniform white, and the official by her side was already napping. From time to time he let out little grunts. She considered nudging him but fished a magazine out of her bag instead and started reading it listlessly, only to succumb to sleep herself after a short time.

  The minister was jolted awake an hour later. The glaciologist was shouting and gesturing wildly. The chancellor had stood up in her seat and was gesturing out of the window, commanding the helicopter to fly back. After a while the pilot turned back.

  CHAPTER 1

  Konrad Simonsen, chief inspector in Copenhagen’s Homicide Division, squinted up at the polar sun, hanging low over the long line of the horizon. Where sky met ice, clear pastel greens and blues hinted at more hospitable locations than this one, far, far away. What a place to be killed, it was plain wrong, he told himself, before dismissing the thought. As if it made any difference to the victim.

  For a while he observed his own shadow in front of him, holding up one arm and letting its unnaturally extended counterpart reach impossible distances towards cracks in the ice. Eventually he grew tired of this game and glanced again towards the hazy sun, which seemed to radiate cold instead of heat. He found it disconcerting. The sun ought to rise and fall, not drag itself monotonously around the firmament, making day and night one and the same.

  In a vain attempt to chase tiredness away, he closed his e
yes and turned his face to the wind. He had not slept more than three hours in the past twenty-four, and it seemed unreal to him that a new day had begun. He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands and enjoyed the momentary darkness. He wondered if, in her last moments, the dead girl had thought about spring flowers, warm, sandy beaches or maybe a Midsummer bonfire? Probably not. All the same there was something terrible about the fact that she had had to die out here in this vast unfamiliar place where human beings did not belong. In a sense it was a double violation.

  He glanced at his watch and noticed that the Danish time was seven-thirty. What that was in Greenland he could not immediately work out. He smothered a yawn, and realised he was more than usually exhausted. This morning he had forgotten to take his pills, or more correctly—there was no reason to lie to himself—he had forgotten again to take his pills, and now he was suffering the consequences. Desire for a forbidden cigarette gnawed at him cruelly. Just one or maybe even a half, a few restorative puffs to keep him on his feet a while longer. He tapped the chest of his padded jacket to reassure himself that his cigarettes were in the inside pocket. A year ago—or was it two?—he had been diagnosed with diabetes. The illness and the concern it had caused others had forced him to re-examine some of his bad habits. Or at least try to.

  An unfamiliar feeling of anxiety made him consult his watch again. As before it meant nothing to him here. He turned to the man standing next to him and asked, “Do you know what time it is?”

  The Greenlandic detective constable took a quick glance at the sun and answered curtly, “Almost three.”

  He was a man who said no more than was strictly necessary, which had not made the wait any easier. He was called Trond Egede, and that was about all Konrad Simonsen knew about him. He considered returning to the light aircraft that had brought them here and trying to get a little sleep while the crime-scene technicians finished up. The hard, uncomfortable seat that he had cursed on the trip over from Nuuk seemed tempting to him now. A little sleep was better than none at all and there was no sense in standing alongside a mute colleague staring at four people, who worked neither faster nor slower because they were being watched. But it might offend his taciturn partner if Simonsen abandoned him, and establishing good relations with the Nuuk police was essential if they were to crack this case together. Or he could always say to hell with procedure and join the technicians in their search. It was unlikely he could do much here to contaminate the scene of the crime. On the other hand he risked being turned away, which would be humiliating for him as well as making him appear unprofessional, so the conclusion he reached was as clear as it was depressing—he must remain where he was.

  For want of anything better to do he tried to start a conversation.

  “How can you know exactly what time it is just by looking at the sun? I mean, you don’t have any landmark to work from here, just flat ice all around.”

  With difficulty the other man took off one glove and rolled back the sleeve of his polar jacket over his wristwatch. After he had laboriously put his glove back on, he said, “The time is thirteen minutes past three.”

  “So you were right.”

  “Yes.”

  “Based purely on the sun? Without any fixed reference point?”

  “Yes.”

  Simonsen backed down and concentrated on setting his own watch correctly. It made the time pass anyway. Suddenly an unpleasant suspicion struck him, a nagging little doubt. This place had completely disoriented him. It was embarrassing to show it in front of the other detective.

  “So . . . that’s three in the afternoon?”

  He aimed to make his voice as casual as possible but could hear that he had not succeeded. The Greenlander turned and looked at him appraisingly before he replied.

  “Yes, in the afternoon. Are you sundowning?”

  “I didn’t know there was a word for that. But I guess you’re right—I couldn’t be sure for a moment.”

  “It can be pretty disconcerting.”

  Simonsen nodded and relaxed. With difficulty he fished out his cigarettes, ignoring all the health warnings, lit up and inhaled with pleasure. The silence didn’t seem so oppressive with a cigarette in his hand. When he’d smoked it to the last shreds of tobacco, he bent down and meticulously stubbed it out on the ice, after which he stuck the butt in his pocket. The Greenlander observed him closely throughout. Simonsen tried to start a conversation again.

  “Tell me, do you come here often?”

  The other man’s face reluctantly squeezed itself into a grin that made him resemble a mischievous troll. Simonsen could not help smiling back.

  “Arne thought that too . . . your partner, I mean. I’ve forgotten his last name,” said Egede.

  He nodded his head towards the plane instead of pointing.

  “Arne Pedersen. His name is Arne Pedersen,” Simonsen told him.

  “That’s right. Well, he had this idea that I often go trekking about on the ice cap. Five hundred kilometres out, a quick walk around the old neighbourhood, then hike home again with healthy red cheeks.”

  The man’s irony was more cheerful than sarcastic.

  “Okay, I get it. You haven’t been here before. Of course you haven’t.”

  “That’s not quite correct because I was here yesterday,” said Egede, straight-faced, “but otherwise it’s not somewhere I’d choose to visit. Why would I?”

  They both nodded, and for a moment Konrad feared that they’d lapse back into silence. But the other man said, “Pedersen mentioned you don’t like discussing a case before you’ve seen the victim. That it’s a kind of principle you have.”

  “Principle is a bit of an overstatement, I’m not quite that rigid, but it is correct that I prefer to wait, if that’s all right with you? There are a couple of things, however, that we might as well deal with now. It’s probably no secret to you that I’ve been thrown headlong into this case.”

  The other man stopped smiling.

  “Yes, I heard that. Pedersen said that you were about to leave on holiday. To somewhere more southerly and a whole lot warmer.”

  He gave his troll’s grin again.

  Konrad liked him more and more.

  “Thanks for reminding me! Yes, I should be on my way to Punta Cana—it’s in the Dominican Republic, by the way—where I was going to doze under a palm tree with my . . . my girlfriend, before being picked up by the good ship Legend of the Seas from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, and . . . Well, it hurts too much to think about the rest.”

  “You’re welcome, it was nothing.”

  “Anyhow, there hasn’t really been time to brief me about what happened yesterday, or maybe nobody I’ve talked to knows the full story. Was it really the German Chancellor who found the girl?”

  “No, it wasn’t, but almost. It was a glaciologist who discovered her first and pointed her out to the chancellor.”

  “Were you there when it happened?”

  “No, but I got the story from someone who was. They were in a helicopter. In fact, there were three of Air Greenland’s big Sikorsky S-61s. You know, the red ones they call Sea Kings.”

  Konrad had no idea what he was talking about, but courteously replied with a white lie.

  “Yes, they’re impressive.”

  “I think so too. Well, there was one machine for the chancellor and the Danish Minister for the Environment plus aides and hangers on, one for security people and subordinate German staff personnel, and the last one for journalists. The chancellor’s helicopter led the way. The route was roughly circular, over the ice cap from Ilulissat at Disko Bay and down to Nuuk, from where they were scheduled to take commercial flights back to Copenhagen and Berlin respectively. She—the chancellor, that is—insisted on going all the way to the middle of the ice, possibly based on a misunderstanding that the melting is worst there. But that was what she said she wanted, and no one raised any objections.”

  “But what is there to see?”

  “Nothing of any
significance. Once you’ve seen the first puddle of meltwater, of which there are lots on the Ilulissat glacier within a ten-minute flight, there’s no point in looking at the next hundred. Besides, they actually become less frequent the farther you go over the ice, and as you can see for yourself, there’s not much else to look at out here.”

  Simonsen answered him diplomatically.

  “It’s fascinating, but perhaps a trifle monotonous.”

  “Yeah, you could put it like that. All the same, the chancellor found the tour extremely interesting, and the glaciologist thought the same. He was sitting beside her, lecturing away throughout the whole trip. To the Minister for the Environment’s great irritation.”

  “Didn’t she want to see the ice cap?”

  “I’m pretty sure she’d rather have talked politics. There were two Greenlandic politicians along, one of whom I’ve spoken to, and she tells me they were laughing up their sleeves at the minister’s disappointment. Who knew the chancellor would be such a keen student of glaciology? Not too long ago the Minister for the Environment hosted a bunch of US senators on a similar mission but they viewed the guided tour almost as a pleasure trip. One of them even asked if he might be able to shoot a reindeer—possibly in jest—but our local press was very indignant about it, and naturally none of the visitors was keen to see more of the ice cap than strictly necessary.”

  Simonsen brought him back on track.

  “But the chancellor did?”

  “Yes, like I said. The helicopter flew low and everyone was equipped with binoculars, which no one except the chancellor and the glaciologist used after the first half an hour. The Danes napped and the Germans worked on their computers, my source says.”

  He smiled and Simonsen interjected, “So far, so predictable. What happened then?”

  “Nothing at all for a good hour . . . hour and a half. The chancellor got her climate lesson, and the others minded their own business. Until she and the scientist suddenly started calling out because they had seen the corpse on the ice. So after a little discussion the pilot got the helicopter turned around and they flew back and found it here.”

  “Did they land?”

  “No, they just hovered in the air for a couple of minutes while the pilot reported the coordinates. Someone had the presence of mind to direct the journalists’ helicopter away from the scene before the representatives of the world’s press could slug it out for a photographic scoop. I mean, who’s going to cover a climate-change conference when there’s a juicy murder to write about instead? But they couldn’t contain the story completely. Word got out, after the group reached Nuuk, and a couple of photos taken from the security helicopter are in circulation. It’s front-page news all over Europe. Chancellor Sherlock Holmes—that’s Bild-Zeitung. The London Times’s lead article is a much more staid Chancellor Finds Murdered Girl. The Danish newspapers are featuring it big-time, and CNN has had the story as ‘breaking news’ since last night. Do you need any more on this?”