Matthew tried to visualise the layout as Jakob had described it in his notebook. He knew that the living room with Jakob’s armchair must be behind the windows to the right of the front door.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’
Matthew saw a glowing cigarette pass his face.
‘It’s the address that Paneeraq gave me, and it fits the description in the notebook.’
Most of the houses around them could easily be more than forty years old. The distance to the nearest neighbouring house also matched the information in the notebook.
‘Let’s take a closer look,’ Malik said, making a beeline for the front door. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone lives here now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘What would I know? Only it looks empty.’ His eyes scanned the exterior. ‘And it could seriously do with a lick of paint.’
The path towards the house was narrow and obscured. It had been wider once—they could tell from the gravel strip winding in and out between the rocks—but the walkway didn’t look as if it was in use much now, having been overrun with low grasses.
The rain had almost ceased, but the cloud cover had grown heavier and lay so densely over the roofs and the rocks that it felt as if the clouds had merged into one with the moisture between the rocks and the brown and green shrubs. The house, which had been visible only a few minutes ago, now vanished into a fog so intense that it felt like cold, damp breath on their skin. Matthew watched Malik dissolve halfway up the path and hurried after him, wiping the moisture from his face with one hand.
A loud knocking penetrated the fog and Matthew jumped. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m knocking on the door. The place really does look abandoned.’
Matthew could barely see his own feet, but he walked in the direction of Malik’s voice, which sounded close by. The house emerged from the fog with its red, peeling paintwork. ‘You can’t just knock on the door!’ he protested.
‘We can always do a runner if anyone is in,’ Malik grinned. He stepped past Matthew and up to the window, where he cupped his hands around his face. ‘It’s pitch-black in there. Hold on.’ His fingers rummaged in his trouser pocket and he pulled out his mobile. Soon the torchlight from the phone was shining through the window. ‘What are we looking for?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Matthew said, stepping up beside Malik.
The light wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate every corner, but it was enough. An old-fashioned living room was hidden behind the window. Nut-coloured, glossy Brazilian rosewood furniture. Deep-pile rugs, one blue and one grey. Along one wall was a bookcase with books, Greenlandic figures, an ulo and lots of rocks.
‘Could you point the light towards the bookcase again, please?’
Malik tilted the mobile so the light shone brightest on the bookcase with the stones.
Matthew nodded to himself. ‘The guy from the notebook,’ he whispered. ‘He lived in this very room.’
‘You mean this house?’
‘Yes, but also this living room. It’s a perfect match for the description in his notebook.’
‘Okay, all right. So you’re saying the guy—who might be our mummy from the ice cap—used to live here, and everything has just been left as it was?’
‘The living room certainly has.’
‘You’re kidding me! It must be forty years ago.’
‘Forty-one, almost.’
Malik turned to Matthew. ‘Bloody hell! This place gives me the creeps.’ He stretched out his arm and pushed up his sleeve. ‘Do you think he’s still in there?’ he added, and resumed peering through the window. ‘Or what if his spirit is?’
‘Of course it’s not.’ Matthew took a few steps back, and then walked up to the front door. ‘If he’s inside, it’ll be because he’s still alive, but no one can hide in a house in the middle of Nuuk for forty years. Hang on.’ There was a letterbox near the door, and a small nameplate in the top right-hand corner with the name Abelsen. ‘One of the men who got him killed lives here now.’
‘Holy shit! Then I’m one hundred per cent sure that his spirit is in there,’ Malik exclaimed, looking about him. ‘I’ll just take a walk around the house.’
‘What? Why?’
‘I need to check something.’
Matthew grabbed a shovel that was by the door and walked down the front steps and onto the gravel. The fog had closed around Malik the moment he moved, and nothing but moisture remained. ‘Malik?’ Matthew called out nervously.
‘Over here.’
His voice came out of the fog. Possibly from the other side of the house. Or maybe it was nearer. The sound was bouncing around the drops of dense air.
‘Oh, screw it,’ Matthew grunted and stuck out a hand. He found the wooden cladding of the house and started moving in the opposite direction to the one Malik had taken, in order to find the kitchen. On the day Jakob was hit in the head by the stone thrown through the very window they had just been looking through, he had seen a silhouette approach the house. And the next day he had written in his journal that the snow outside his kitchen had been severely disturbed—that there had been pebbles and soil mixed up in it.
His hands fumbling across the rough wood, Matthew edged his way around the house. The fog held him in a firm grip. If he let go of the house, he would have no idea in which direction to walk. His feet searched for a foothold between stones, rocks and low scrub. He set down his shovel, took out his mobile, and switched on the torchlight. It wasn’t a huge improvement, but it was enough for him to see his feet and the red wooden wall. He turned a corner, and a few metres later another dark window appeared. He carefully moved right up to the glass, and pointed the mobile’s light inside.
He couldn’t see much, but it was definitely Jakob’s kitchen. Matthew recognised the hard, marled plastic kitchen table with the dark-brown edges from the notebook. Even the white kitchen cupboards with the grey metal handles looked the same.
Matthew jumped when someone put a hand on his shoulder. His mobile slipped from his grip and glittered as it whirled towards the ground where it landed face-down in the gravel.
‘Relax,’ Malik said with a grin. ‘It’s only me.’
Matthew bent down to pick up his phone. ‘Shit, Malik. I’m standing here staring into a dead man’s home.’ He straightened up and breathed out, patting his chest softly a few times with his left hand. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry, mate. And I didn’t even mean to.’ Malik grinned again, but stopped quickly. ‘There’s nothing to see here, and there’s definitely no one at home.’
‘No, I agree. But Abelsen does live here, and there’s probably a reason for that. I just don’t understand how he could live here for forty years without making any changes at all.’
‘He’s always working,’ Malik said. ‘He doesn’t have a wife or children, and he’s known as the coldest and most powerful man in Greenland.’
‘I think it’s a trophy.’
‘A trophy? You mean, like a pair of antlers?’
‘Yes, exactly. This house is Abelsen’s hunting trophy. Acquired through a chase that cost many people their lives, and helped him up the last few steps to the throne.’
Malik turned up his nose. ‘An old house like this is hardly what I would call a trophy.’
‘It probably looked better in ’73, but it’s not the house as such that’s the trophy. He moved into it purely to demonstrate his power. He was untouchable even to the police and the politicians.’
‘I believe he still is,’ Malik said. ‘What are you doing with that shovel?’
‘It was just a daft idea. Somewhere underneath us is the skeleton of an eleven-year-old girl who was killed by an overdose in November 1973. Abelsen and Lyberth were both involved in the girl’s death.’
‘And now Lyberth is dead.’
‘And now Lyberth is dead.’ Matthew stared at the house. ‘If this is Abelsen’s trophy, then I want to get inside.’
&nbs
p; ‘Inside the house? Now? You mean, we break in?’
‘Yes. Now. We need to get inside that house while Abelsen is out.’
‘And you’re quite sure that he’s out?’
‘Yes, for a little while. Come on. You were the one who was all gung-ho about knocking on the door a minute ago.’
Malik nodded. ‘There are no open doors or windows. I checked when I walked around the house.’
‘Maybe there’s another way in.’ Matthew glanced around. ‘I’ll just take another look at the front door.’
Back outside the front door, he grabbed the handle and pushed it down hard a few times, before he gave up and started looking for a key in the porch. It didn’t make sense for a man like Abelsen to leave the key in such an obvious place, but you never could tell. While Matthew searched under some boxes stacked against the wall by the door, his ear picked up a sound. It was coming from the inside. Behind the door. He jumped up, and when the door opened at the same time, he stumbled back down the porch steps.
‘We’ve finally made a breakthrough,’ Malik stated proudly, beaming at Matthew from the doorway.
‘What? How did you get in?’ Matthew grabbed the railing and pulled himself back up.
‘Those old windows are so brittle…I’m afraid one of the kitchen windows just came apart in my hand.’
‘We’d better get a move on.’ Matthew walked past Malik, through the hall and into the living room. ‘We’re looking for anything from ’73. Film reels and so on.’
‘All right, but everything in here is from the seventies.’
‘Just start looking. Check the cupboards.’
Malik got to work immediately, opening cupboards and drawers and rummaging around in them. ‘How about magazines, cups, stuff like that?’
‘No, I think we’re looking for films, or something technical, like a notebook…’ Matthew ran his hand across Jakob’s coffee table, and looked at the grey rug underneath it. ‘Possibly a jigsaw puzzle of Godthåb.’ He continued towards the tall bookcase, which was laden with police magazines, books and rocks. There was nothing that pointed directly to the case.
‘Did you say films?’ Malik asked. He was sitting on the floor near the sideboard, and in his hands he held an old film projector. ‘I’ve also found four reels of film,’ he said, reaching his arm into the sideboard. ‘Is this what we’re looking for?’
‘Yes, I think so. Very much so.’ Matthew glanced about the living room again. The harpoon. The figures. Everything that was Jakob’s. The Hemplers’ things. ‘Right, let’s get out of here.’
‘With the reels and everything?’
‘Yes—we’ll keep them at my place.’
56
Matthew had only been back in his apartment for a few minutes when his entry phone buzzed. He looked down into the street. Darkness was starting to settle on Nuuk, but it felt lighter because the fog had moved up towards the night sky.
‘It’s me.’ He heard Tupaarnaq’s voice in the handset. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and buzzed her in.
The lift hummed and the door opened with its clicking sounds.
‘You’re back late,’ she said, marching past him and into his apartment.
‘Yes, I…Have you been waiting for me?’
She unlaced her boots and kicked them off. She was wearing a new jumper—a black knitted rollneck. Her trousers were the same black ones with pockets down the sides. On top of her head was a thin, dark membrane of millimetre stubble.
‘They’ve found Lyberth,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She held up a black rucksack. ‘Do you have wi-fi?’
He watched her narrow back disappear into the living room, and went to get the code for the router from the bedroom.
‘What’s happening out there?’ she asked when Matthew returned to the living room, where she had sat down on the sofa, cross-legged, balancing her laptop.
He handed her the small white router lid with the code. ‘There were quite a lot of police around, and someone asked me why I had come to the police station with you and why we had gone seal hunting.’
She nodded slowly without looking up.
‘They want to talk to you,’ he added.
‘That’ll have to wait,’ she said, and looked up at him. ‘Do you have anything to eat?’
‘Food?’
‘Yes, food—what else? I haven’t had anything to eat all day.’
‘I don’t know what there is,’ he said, and went to check the fridge. ‘Do you eat eggs?’
‘Yes, I don’t mind eggs.’
Matthew took out a bowl and put a frying pan on the stove. ‘I’ll make you an omelette, then.’
She fell quiet behind him. He stood for a moment, looking at her hunched body in the yellow glow by the sofa. Her nose was small, and from where he was standing he couldn’t see a single freckle. She had pulled off the black rollneck jumper and was wearing a dark sleeveless vest underneath, like the first time he saw her at Cafe Mamaq. Her tattoos seemed alive in the artificial light, and the swirling, dark-green leaves reminded him of a dragon’s scales.
He looked away, and turned his attention back to the food. After whisking the eggs he poured them into the hot frying pan. He chopped up a couple of tomatoes and a red pepper, and added them to the mixture before the eggs started to set.
‘Salt? Pepper? Rosemary?’
‘I’m in now.’
‘In where?’ He turned around with a frown.
‘The server of the Greenlandic government.’
‘What?’
‘Their security is a joke.’
Matthew tipped the omelette onto a plate, which he brought her.
She looked up. ‘Aren’t you having some?’
‘I shared a pizza with my photographer a few hours ago…What are you doing on the government’s server? Can’t they trace you?’
‘I didn’t even break a sweat. And they couldn’t trace their own nose. Right, let’s take a look at Abelsen’s emails.’
‘What?’ Matthew exclaimed again, straightening up. ‘Is it all right if I sit here?’
‘Sure—it’s your sofa.’
She scrolled down a row of lines that looked like email subject headings. ‘I’ve searched for any emails he has received from Lyberth.’
‘Open the one with no subject heading from the day before yesterday.’ Matthew pointed at the screen.
‘You can look at it yourself,’ she said, passing him her laptop. ‘While I eat this. I would also like to use your shower.’ She eyeballed him. ‘And this time you stay away—understand? I can’t keep letting you live if you’re going to be such a moron.’
‘I’ll stay here, I promise.’ He looked up. ‘I can’t believe you managed to hack his emails. There are quite a few from Lyberth… most of them after the iceman was found.’
‘Anything about the murders?’
‘Lyberth seems worried that the old investigation might be reopened because of the iceman. Abelsen writes that he needs to calm down and let him fix things, as he always does. He sounds rather arrogant. Lyberth is afraid of how much might be revealed.’ Matthew opened another email. ‘Okay. Lyberth wants out, but Abelsen threatens him and says he needs to stick to their deal. Wow…’
‘What?’
‘Here Abelsen writes that Lyberth and Ulrik are both going down for the murder of the man on the ice.’
‘Does it say which man?’
‘No, just the man.’
‘So that could be the mummy or Aqqalu.’
‘Exactly. That’s the problem. But the tone is harsh, and there’s a lot of intimidation and threats.’
She put her fork down on her empty plate and moved closer to Matthew.
‘Fuck, he’s in Tasiilaq,’ he murmured.
‘Abelsen?’
‘Yes, right now. He writes here that they need to meet before he leaves for Tasiilaq.’
‘Does it say anything about where they’ll meet?’
Matthew opened
another email and then another, but both times he shook his head. ‘They must have arranged that some other way. But it says here that they’re going to meet, and that was written on the same day Lyberth was killed.’
‘It’s not enough to acquit me,’ she said, rubbing the stubble on her scalp.
‘Not even the emails?’
She shook her head. ‘There’s no hard evidence of a crime. It’s all circumstantial. It’s not enough.’
Matthew closed his eyes. ‘Lyberth’s pet, Ulrik, is from Tasiilaq. Perhaps that’s relevant.’ He considered sharing Leiff ’s discoveries with her right then and there, but he couldn’t. Instead he said, ‘I met with a woman today. She’s the only person, apart from Abelsen, who is still alive from the ’73 case, which I’m sure is what Lyberth and Abelsen were arguing about.’
Tupaarnaq turned her upper body and looked at him. ‘Can she link the two men directly to the murders? Or the man on the ice?’
‘Ultimately, it’s about medical experiments on Greenlandic children, but also sexual assaults and child abuse at an orphanage in Tasiilaq. In late 1973 it threatened to become a major scandal, but Abelsen cleaned up the mess.’
‘Any physical evidence?’
‘I don’t think so, but I have a witness who was subjected to it all.’
‘I need to speak to her. What time is it?’
‘Eleven-thirty. It’s too late now.’
‘Then it’ll have to be tomorrow,’ she replied. She got up from the sofa, shut her laptop, and put it on the coffee table. ‘I’m off to take a shower.’
‘Yes, all right.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘There’s another thing.’
‘Go on.’
‘I got an email from someone claiming to be Lyberth, but it was sent after Lyberth was murdered. He wants to meet with me down at Nipisa.’
She frowned. ‘“Nipisa” means lumpfish.’
‘It’s a restaurant down by the old quay in Kolonihavnen. It’ll be deserted after closing hours.’
‘Do you think Abelsen sent it?’
Matthew nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure it was him. I have a notebook belonging to that police officer they killed in 1973. Abelsen wants it. As do the police.’
The Girl without Skin Page 22
