In one place the frost had taken the water so completely by surprise that it looked as if several waterfalls on their way down the tall mountainside had frozen mid-flow. Even the foam on the water had frozen, the knobbly bubbles reflecting the sun’s rays like thousands of crystal prisms in an old chandelier.
Jakob was sitting on a rock, gazing across Kolonihavnen. In his hands he held his small brown notebook and a yellow pencil.
He and Karlo had recently visited every household in Block P, on the pretext of carrying out a survey of children’s school habits. It was just a cover, but even so, such data gathering wasn’t really a job for the police. Three hundred and twenty apartments. School-age children didn’t live in all of them, of course, but as there was no register of the residents, they had no choice but to knock on every single door. Jakob and Karlo had suspected child abuse in forty-three apartments. In four of them there wasn’t the shadow of a doubt.
Jakob had made a list of the fathers in the forty-three apartments, and recorded the names and ages of any young daughters living at the same address. In addition, he had written down the names of the four worst offenders in his private notebook. Two of these men were the two victims they had found killed—the first one only a few days after Jakob and Karlo had shared the results of their survey at the police station, to Mortensen’s immense irritation. We’re not going to get involved in this, Pedersen, his boss had declared. You don’t have any evidence. If we jailed anyone we didn’t like the look of up here, everyone in this godforsaken place would be behind bars. Karlo just stared at the floor, but Lisbeth from reception had marched out of the room. Later, she had come over to Jakob’s desk and nodded affirmatively at his list of names. Her eyes had been as sad as those of the girls he had seen in Block P.
Jakob shook his head. Now two men had been killed, and an eleven-year-old girl was missing. If they had got involved sooner, perhaps it wouldn’t have happened.
23
Jakob woke up abruptly from a dream so distressing he’d almost fallen out of bed.
He staggered from the bedroom and into the living room, where he flopped into a deep velvet armchair that had been there when he moved in. He gazed out of the large windows that overlooked the bedrock between his house and the next. There were no gardens in Godthåb. All that grew here was grass, tundra flowers, dwarf willow and arctic angelica—short things.
His breath formed a faint cloud in the air. There had to be something wrong with the heating. It had never worked at night in the living room, and the closer they got to the darkest time of the year, the more he felt the cold force its way through the wooden walls of the house, as if the frost and the arctic wind were trying to eat the wood, chew it up with their toothless but steadily grinding jaws.
His hands found a glass and a bottle. He poured some and sniffed at it. Johnnie Walker. Red label.
He opened his notebook and started jotting down his dream, but meandering thoughts soon took over, and before he knew it an hour had passed. As he shut his notebook, he heard a strange sound and thought he saw a shadow glide past the windows. It could have been any number of things, of course. Except that no one in their right mind would be outside at this time on a winter night. He heaved a sigh, put down his notebook and got up to check the windows. There were no streetlights, but the moon had found a way through the clouds, and its glow lit up the snow, giving him a clear view of the nearby houses.
He shook his head, despairing at himself. The town was just as dead as the grass under the snow. Then he narrowed his eyes. A shadow had appeared on the wall of the neighbouring house. He stepped closer to the window to get a better look. At that moment the shadow stepped away from the wall, and moved towards him. Jakob was startled. He took a few steps back and squinted again, but only caught a fluttering movement a short distance from the house before he heard the glass splinter and felt a hard blow to his face. He slumped to his knees. Blood started pouring down his face, and he touched his forehead, confused. On the floor was a lump of rough granite, the size of a fist, with a note tied around it. He pressed one hand against his bleeding forehead and made his way to the broken window to look outside, but the shadowy figure had gone.
He staggered to the kitchen, turned on the light and wrapped a tea towel around his head to stop the bleeding, but he wasn’t entirely successful. He needed to see a doctor and get seen to. If he could get hold of a doctor, that is. Even thinking about it was exhausting, so instead he picked up the rock and the note, returned to his armchair and collapsed back into it.
Mind your own business or she is done for.
‘Who is she?’ he muttered to himself. Who on earth would write such a thing? The note fell from his hands and floated to the floor. He loosened the tea towel and dipped one end of it in his whisky. Then he pressed the wet fabric against his injured forehead, letting the alcohol seep into the wound. It stung so fiercely that he could barely sit still. He got up and walked over to the broken window. He could feel the frost reaching out for him.
The wound was throbbing, but the worst of the bleeding had now stopped. He poured himself another large Johnnie Walker, and this time he knocked it back in four big mouthfuls that almost made him gag. But he kept it down and sank deep into the armchair, breathing heavily. He pulled a woollen blanket over himself.
24
‘What the hell is this? Hello! Hello! Pedersen, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Bit by bit the words made their way to Jakob, together with the sound of crunching glass. It sounded like a distant scattering of ice.
‘Jakob? Are you all right?’ The voice belonged to Karlo. ‘You look terrible. What happened? Can you hear me? Jakob?’
Jakob opened his eyes, but he struggled to gather his thoughts. His temples were throbbing, as was his forehead. His mouth and throat tasted of iron and alcohol. He was shaking violently all over, and not a single sound escaped his lips.
‘Sir, would you fetch some more blankets?’ Karlo said. ‘And make some coffee right away.’
Mortensen was about to bridle at the bossy tone from his Greenlandic junior, an officer of the lowest rank, but when he saw Karlo strip down to his underwear and climb under the blanket to join the near-naked Pedersen, he understood the gravity of the situation, fetched some extra blankets and made some coffee.
Jakob felt the heat from Karlo’s body and his hands rubbing his skin. Slowly, he regained enough control over his own hands that he could sip some coffee from the cup Mortensen was holding to his lips.
‘I can’t leave you alone for a single minute,’ Mortensen growled.
Jakob looked up at his boss’s round, balding head. In many ways it had all been worth it just to see Karlo order the boss around. He smiled. His fingers clutched the cup.
‘What happened?’ Mortensen demanded.
‘There was a man outside my window last night,’ Jakob stammered. His head was pounding, and his body was still stiff after being so close to hypothermia. ‘He threw a rock through my window with a threat. It hit my head, but I don’t think that was part of his plan, because I was standing here in total darkness.’ Jakob took a big gulp of the steaming coffee. ‘I ended up in this chair, and I tried to clean my wound with whisky.’
Mortensen patted him lightly on top of the blanket. ‘Right. Let’s take the note to the station and see if it tells us anything.’ He looked about the living room. ‘And I’ll get a couple of men to tidy up this mess for you.’ He turned back to Jakob. ‘This she the note refers to—do we know who she is?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘I’ve no clear idea. Najak, possibly. But no, I don’t know.’
Mortensen nodded. ‘Apart from that wound, are you fit for duty?’
‘I think it’s best that I stay here today,’ Jakob said.
Mortensen clenched his teeth and looked at Karlo. His chubby fingers patted the pockets of his long, beige coat.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jakob asked.
Mortensen produced a packet of che
roots from his inside pocket, and turned to Jakob.
Karlo took over. ‘There’s been another murder. Another man was killed and left in exactly the same way.’
Jakob closed his eyes. ‘What was his name?’
‘Anders Umerineq.’
Now only one of the four men on Jakob’s list was still alive.
‘In that case I’m coming,’ he said, struggling out from under the blankets.
‘Are you sure?’ Karlo asked as Jakob put his clothes back on. ‘You look like you need a trip to the hospital.’
‘If Pedersen says he’s ready, he’s ready,’ Mortensen grunted. ‘I haven’t got time to run around Block P.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘This is the third brutal murder, and I’ve no doubt that the mayor, the chairman of the provincial council and the idiot chairman of the Home Rule Committee have been ringing my office nonstop in the last hour while I’ve been out. These bloody murders.’
Jakob wrapped the blanket around himself and disappeared into the bathroom.
‘We’ll deal with it, sir,’ Karlo said.
‘I bloody well hope so, Lange,’ Mortensen growled, and took a deep drag of his cheroot, letting the rich smoke glide around his tongue and the roof of his mouth. ‘Do you think the rock and the note have something to do with the murders?’
Karlo looked at the rock, then at Mortensen. ‘I do, sir.’
Mortensen raised an eyebrow and looked at the young Greenlandic police officer. ‘And what might that connection be, Lange?’
Karlo steeled himself. ‘I’m thinking it might have something to do with child abuse, sir.’
‘Ah,’ Mortensen snorted as he walked over to Jakob’s dining table and studied the almost finished jigsaw puzzle there. ‘All those visits to Block P that I never approved.’ The fingers on his left hand tapped the jigsaw puzzle box. ‘This education survey the two of you have carried out here in Godthåb.’
Karlo look at his boots, and then at the jigsaw puzzle. On the lid under Mortensen’s fingers it said Godthåb. ‘I don’t think so,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘It might be some Scottish or Norwegian town, but it’s definitely not Godthåb.’
Mortensen turned and walked back to the armchair where Jakob had been sitting. He dropped the butt of his cheroot into the empty whisky glass. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about that survey… from anyone.’
‘I’m ready,’ Jakob called out as he reappeared. He smoothed his brown tweed jacket and gave his tie an extra tug at the knot.
‘Glad to hear it,’ Mortensen said. He glanced at the gash on Jakob’s forehead. ‘That really needs stitching, though I’m guessing it’s a bit late now.’
Jakob gave a light shrug.
‘It’ll leave you with a lasting memory,’ Mortensen said, and he clapped his hands. ‘Are you good to go?’
Jakob nodded. ‘I’m ready, sir. Lange and I will take it from here. You go back to the station. I’ll just take a couple of painkillers, and we’ll be at the crime scene in a few minutes.’
Mortensen left, grumbling as he went about the amount of snow on the slope leading to Jakob’s house.
‘Sit down for a moment, will you?’ Jakob said, pointing to the dining room chair next to where Karlo was standing. ‘I just need to get some painkillers from the bathroom.’
Karlo nodded and sat down on the wicker seat, and then looked around the room. There were two tall wooden candleholders, a small blue porcelain cat and a rubber tree on the windowsill. The window was framed by curtains of some sort of velvety material, dark red with broad lilac stripes. Over the sofa was a big painting of a fjord on a late autumn day, and there were several wooden masks, tupilaks and rock samples on the furniture and the shelves. An old harpoon made of wood and iron was mounted on the wall over the sideboard by the dining table. Karlo strolled over to take another look at the puzzle.
‘I’ve put in some more pieces in your jigsaw,’ he said when Jakob returned.
‘Oh, that was here when I moved in,’ Jakob replied.
Karlo looked up with a smile. ‘It’s almost done now.’
Jakob smiled back. ‘Pretty much all the stuff was here when I moved in. A couple called the Hemplers used to live here. They were killed when that Catalina crashed into the sea during a landing in ’64.’ He looked around. ‘I haven’t changed it much. If they came back, I bet even they couldn’t tell the difference.’ He turned to the bookcase and picked up a delicate porous stone. ‘Except for all the geological specimens. I’m the rock collector.’
‘I think you’ve gathered one too many,’ Karlo said, nodding towards the rock that had been thrown through the window.
‘I don’t believe it was meant to hurt me,’ Jakob said, slipping an arm into the sleeve of his warm coat. ‘If it was, I’d be on the floor right now with my stomach cut open.’
‘You’re probably right about that,’ Karlo said, looking at the gash on Jakob’s forehead.
Jakob pointed to a half-open cardboard box by the door to the hall. ‘Did you bring that?’
‘That box?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, it was on your doorstep.’ Karlo shrugged. ‘I thought it was yours.’
Jakob walked over to it and pushed one of the flaps aside. ‘A film projector.’ He looked back at Karlo. ‘I’ve never seen it before in my life.’
‘It was just sitting there.’
Jakob frowned. ‘There’s no film. Only an empty reel.’
‘How odd.’
Jakob nodded. ‘I’ll keep hold of it. Maybe the owner will turn up.’
WHISPERING SEA
25
NUUK, 11 AUGUST 2014
High above Block 17, the sun was halfway through its journey to the mountains on the far side of the cold fjords.
Matthew put down the notebook and rubbed the corners of his eyes with one hand, while the fingers of his other hand sank into the ground underneath him. The scent was alive, spruce-like and sharp.
A world of dwarf plants was hidden among the rocks. Grasses, crowberries, blueberries, thyme, dwarf willow, yellow lichen and small arctic flowers crawled densely in and out of every crevice, like a soft, prickly quilt covering the rock. Sometimes the growth was so deep and springy that his feet sank into it as he walked; in other places it was merely a thin membrane, adapted to survive the long, harsh winter.
His fingers closed around a tiny flower made up of even tinier flowers, the size of pinheads, each complete with pink petals and a yellow stigma. Somewhere in his notebook Jakob had described such a flower. Maybe not quite the same one, but it was close.
Matthew took out his mobile and pressed Malik’s number.
‘We need to rattle some cages,’ he said the moment Malik picked up. ‘Are you able to set up a meeting for me with Jørgen Emil Lyberth? Tell him that I’ve found Jakob Pedersen’s private diary from the winter of ’73. That should do it.’ He hung up.
A shadow broke the light around him. ‘You still here?’
Matthew turned his head towards the voice, which he recognised immediately. Tupaarnaq’s face and body were in deep shade with the sun behind her.
‘Have you found your killer?’
He shook his head.
‘You will.’
She stepped out of the shadows and became a living woman, her gaze so intense that he had to look away. She had scattering of light brown freckles—one on her nose looked like a heart. She held a laptop.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked tentatively.
‘To pick up my stuff from the police before they close for the day.’
He nodded and pressed his lips together, then said: ‘I’m heading the same way. Can I walk with you?’
‘That’s up to you,’ she said, and stepped past him.
Matthew grabbed his jumper and Jakob’s notebook as he rose to follow her. Her movements were calm. Not quick and angry, like earlier. ‘I need to speak to Lyberth,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I think he’s one of the big villains in all of
this,’ Matthew said, holding up the notebook.
‘They won’t like that at the top. One of their national father figures with his dick buried in little girls.’ She shook her head. ‘Ah, well. He wouldn’t be the first politician here who can’t keep his dick in his pants.’
Matthew felt a tingling under his skin. ‘I’ve let him know that I have this notebook.’
Tupaarnaq glanced at Matthew. ‘Then you’d better start looking over your shoulder.’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘Bunch of bastards. All of them.’
Her footsteps were angry again, but she wasn’t walking any faster. Her heels just hit the tarmac harder.
They reached the new, fashionable apartment blocks not far from the police station.
‘Why did you buy a gun when you came back?’ he asked, not daring to look at her.
‘So I could go seal hunting.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Yes, just like that. Surely it’s better than hunting men?’
There was no challenge, no aggression in her voice. It was a statement. Nothing more. Gutting a seal was certainly better than gutting a man.
They followed the road around the corner, where Tuapannguit and Kuussuaq streets meet. Mount Ukkusissat loomed far off on the horizon between the houses in midtown, the Nuuk Centre and Nuussuaq. Back in Jakob’s day, Mount Ukkusissat had been known by its Danish name, Store Malene.
‘I’d like to hike up there one day,’ Matthew said, pointing towards the mountain. There were a few patches of snow on the peak. From this distance they looked like frozen puddles, but up close they were probably several hundred metres long.
‘Then do.’
‘I don’t know the way. And I’ve been told that you should always hike in pairs…for safety.’
‘Okay…and when you eat something, do you also have someone watching you in case you choke?’
‘Eh?’
She shook her head. ‘It’ll take you a couple of hours, max, to reach the top from the city centre, so if you want to go there, then do it. It’s as simple as that.’
The Girl without Skin Page 9
