The Girl without Skin

by Mads Peder Nordbo

  Matthew couldn’t see if Tupaarnaq was inside the blue apartment, but she probably was. It was even riskier for her to venture around Nuuk than it was for him.

  There were several different types of documents in the parcel. Notes, printed spreadsheets, accounts, photocopies of receipts and expense claims. It looked like something prepared by an accountant. They had been organised into twenty-three different bundles, with a strong clip on each. Matthew looked around, then stubbed out his cigarette on the buff envelope. There was a yellow Post-it note stuck on each file with a name on it. Lyberth’s name was on one of them. On another was the name of the current Greenlandic prime minister, Aleqa Hammond, the country’s first female leader. Abelsen’s name featured too, as did several others whom Matthew recognised as senior government politicians.

  Matthew fetched himself a beer from the fridge and sat down on the sofa with the files. He intended to review them one after the other, but was on only the second file when he twigged to what he had been sent. This wasn’t a simple record of expenses, but a list of government expenditure for which there was either no receipt or a receipt that had been faked in order to disguise private expenditure as public. It was money spent on travel, artwork, expensive flat-screens and designer furniture. It was an economic and political scandal at a time when the Greenlandic economy was on its knees. Misuse of public funds. If this information was ever made public, it would destroy not only Lyberth but also many other politicians and civil servants, depending on how extensive the subsequent investigation turned out to be.

  Matthew shook his head. It might even bring down Abelsen, but he wouldn’t bet on it. Nothing beat a corpse, but this information was a start. It would undoubtedly have ended Lyberth’s career; now it would merely be just another nail in his coffin. However, it would most definitely cost Lyberth’s fellow party member Prime Minister Aleqa Hammond her job. Probably her entire government would fall. There was irrefutable evidence in the documentation of her personal use of public funds. She appeared to have spent public money on private plane tickets and hotel rooms for her family.

  He smoothed his hair and stroked his stubble, then lit another cigarette and opened his laptop. There was more to this than he had first thought. It was a political scandal that would rock the whole of this small nation, which, with its first female leader, had otherwise been heading for unity and reconciliation. The outrage following in its wake would ruin everything and create division on several levels—the exact opposite of Hammond’s stated vision.

  If it really was Lyberth who had sent him the parcel, then Matthew had no doubt that he had chosen to expose the financial scandal in the hope that the ensuing chaos might act as a distraction from the other scandal involving him, which was about to come to light after more than forty years in the dark. It was a smokescreen, in which Lyberth would be sacrificing everyone else to save what he could for himself and his family. All in vain, sadly, but Lyberth probably hadn’t expected to be killed soon after sending the parcel.

  The smoke from Matthew’s cigarette settled around the laptop when he exhaled heavily and began writing a new story. This time about the abuse of public office and of public funds.

  This story would be uploaded onto the Sermitsiaq website, but in the official way this time, with Leiff credited as the reporter. It would undoubtedly be taken down as well in time, but someone would read it before that happened, and Leiff would hand over the contents of the parcel to the police and file a complaint based on the three most serious cases of abuse of public office and misuse of public funds.

  Matthew closed the Sermitsiaq tab and checked his inbox one last time before going out to find Tupaarnaq. There was only one new email:

  Don’t forget our meeting tomorrow night, Matthew. Or the notebook. I came back early and I stopped by to see Paneeraq today. She remembered me well. She agrees that you should give me the notebook, and she’s absolutely right. A middle-aged woman all alone with an old man in Block 2. Those rickety galleries are so dangerous. She could so easily have a bad fall. Ten o’clock tomorrow night. Come alone. You may have heard that I’m dead, but don’t let that worry you. You just turn up. And I’ll make sure that your new friend lives to see another week.

  60

  The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted soft and warm through Paneeraq’s living room. The two candles had been lit again, and like the last time her grandfather was sitting in his anorak with the hood over his head. His armchair was turned so that it faced the yard between Blocks 1 and 2. It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, but the heavy clouds above Nuuk made it seem dark outside.

  Paneeraq had let them in immediately, and Tupaarnaq had gone with Paneeraq to the kitchen to make coffee. Matthew heard them talking in Greenlandic.

  ‘Impressive paintings,’ Matthew said, trying to break the ice when the two women returned, each with a cup of steaming coffee.

  ‘We brought them with us from Qeqertarsuatsiaat,’ Paneeraq said, sitting down in an armchair. Tupaarnaq took a seat on the sofa.

  Matthew frowned. ‘Qeqertarsuatsiaat?’

  ‘Yes—its Danish name is Fiskenæsset. It’s a small village south of Nuuk. I’ve lived there ever since…well, you know.’

  Matthew nodded slowly and absent-mindedly, while turning his attention to Tupaarnaq. ‘Have you ever mentioned that village to me?’

  ‘No, and I’ve never been there either.’

  Then it dawned on Matthew where he had heard the name. Without thinking, he produced Jakob’s notebook from his bag and flicked through to the days when Jakob’s life imploded.

  ‘Lisbeth—you travelled to Qeqertarsuatsiaat with Lisbeth.’

  Paneeraq smiled briefly and looked down at the table, before turning her gaze to the man in the armchair.

  The old man turned his upper body and pulled his hood down, so that his face and hair were exposed to the blueish light. ‘You have my notebook, I see.’

  Matthew nearly jumped out of his skin. He closed his eyes and clung to the notebook as if its contents were the last remains of his sanity. ‘But you’re—’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It was a close call. Perhaps only a matter of minutes, but in such circumstances a minute is all it takes.’ His fingers traced the drum skin. ‘And now we find ourselves in the same boat. Forty years on.’

  Matthew was silent. He looked furtively at the old man.

  ‘Paneeraq has just had a visitor,’ Jakob continued. ‘Abelsen. He wanted the notebook.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Matthew croaked, rubbing his eyes and face with the heels of his hands. His stubble scratched his skin. ‘I’m in shock.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘But…I was so sure that you were dead.’ He stared at the old man. His face was wrinkled and pale, his hair sparse and white.

  ‘So were most people.’

  ‘The man from the Faroe Islands,’ Matthew then exclaimed. ‘The one you wrote about. He’s the one they found on the ice cap, isn’t he?’

  ‘I would think so,’ Jakob said. ‘But I haven’t seen the mummy, so I can’t say for sure. But it certainly scared Lyberth out of his wits—and now he’s dead.’

  ‘As are a young police officer and a fisherman,’ Matthew added. ‘They tried to pin the murders on Tupaarnaq because…’ He came to a halt.

  ‘I know about Tupaarnaq,’ Jakob said, and he smiled at her. ‘We had newspapers and the internet down in Qeqertarsuatsiaat.’ He took a deep breath and looked at Tupaarnaq. ‘I followed your case closely. You shouldn’t have been on your own. I’m sorry.’

  Tupaarnaq tilted her head a little and looked at him. ‘Thank you. But I’ve always been alone.’

  ‘I know. You’re always welcome here, if you want to talk to someone.’

  She gave a light shrug. ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone.’

  ‘No, I know that too, but sometimes it can be nice just to chat about seals, the tide and the colours of the ice.’ He gestured tow
ards Paneeraq. ‘Paneeraq also lived in Tasiilaq once, and her parents were killed. You can share your thoughts with her, if you need to.’

  ‘You can,’ Paneeraq joined in. ‘My door is always open to you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Tupaarnaq got up from the sofa. ‘Where’s the toilet, please?’

  ‘Let me show you,’ Paneeraq said.

  Raindrops dotted the windows.

  Matthew looked at Jakob in the armchair. ‘Can I ask how you escaped alive?’

  Jakob turned his face away from the window and smiled at Matthew. ‘You must have been very confused after your visit here the other day. You should have said that you had read my notebook.’

  ‘I was under the impression that it was the killer who had written the last few pages. Only I don’t understand why he would do that… or her. The handwriting looks like a woman’s.’

  ‘It was actually the killer’s.’ Jakob turned his face back to the windows with a heavy sigh.

  ‘But you didn’t die,’ Matthew said.

  ‘That’s true. I’m referring to the woman who killed the men. I was right all along: the motive for the killings was revenge.’

  ‘But you didn’t report it and clear your name so you could stay in Nuuk?’

  ‘No, it was too late by then. And anyway, I couldn’t have done that to her. She was just like Paneeraq, only she was an adult. And I had to get Paneeraq out of Nuuk.’

  He hesitated, then spoke again. ‘Ultimately, it was me who got the four men killed. My efforts to expose them. She heard everything. She read my files at the station without me noticing. Or maybe it never crossed my mind. All that coffee and cake. Her visit to my house.’

  ‘Lisbeth? Lisbeth killed the four men? She flayed and gutted them? And she killed Paneeraq’s mother?’

  He nodded heavily. ‘Indeed she did. As a result of her own childhood.’ He looked up. ‘Did you know that in Greenland one girl in three is raped? In some villages, it can be as many as all of them, and they have to live with the trauma for the rest of their lives.’

  ‘Yes,’ Matthew whispered hoarsely. ‘I’ve read pretty much everything I could find of public reports and statistics.’

  ‘How could I ever have done anything but take Lisbeth and Paneeraq with me to a place of safety? We had a good life in Qeqertarsuatsiaat. We kept mostly to ourselves. Paneeraq went to school until she was fifteen, and from then on we taught her ourselves. Lisbeth and me, I mean. There’s a good library down there.’

  ‘And no one ever worked out your true identities?’

  ‘No, in that village the only thing people cared about was cod fishing. As far as they were concerned, I was just an eccentric Danish geologist, Lisbeth was my wife and Paneeraq our daughter.’

  ‘It was that easy?’

  ‘Yes, it was. I collected rocks, which was all the evidence they needed, and Lisbeth was Greenlandic.’

  ‘But she killed four innocent men and a woman.’

  ‘They weren’t innocent—I’m even more certain of that now. Except for Paneeraq’s mother. That haunts me to this day.’

  Matthew shook his head and stared at the floor. ‘I don’t know what to say. She…she flayed those men and she gutted them. That’s…’ He shook his head again. ‘What did she do with their skins?’

  ‘She only did what she had been taught to do,’ Jakob said through a quick sigh. ‘She did exactly what her hands had done hundreds of times when she was a child. Nothing more. A dead body is a dead body.’ He shrugged. ‘We never spoke about it after that last night in Nuuk, so my knowledge is no greater than yours, and I’ve no idea what she did with their skins. Nor do I care, to be perfectly frank. My priority was the girls.’

  ‘And what about the puzzle piece?’

  ‘The puzzle piece?’

  ‘From your jigsaw puzzle. The one placed on the forehead of the final victim. She was willing to sacrifice you.’

  ‘Ah, the puzzle piece. I never asked her about it, but I don’t think she was trying to frame me. No, I think she was trying to send me a message. A message meant only for me. She didn’t think anyone else knew about the jigsaw.’

  He glanced towards the hall. ‘Paneeraq has never really opened up about what happened in the time between the orphanage and the murders. Nor have we discussed that Lisbeth was the killer.’

  ‘So she doesn’t know who killed her parents, or that you and Lisbeth killed the Faroese man and chucked him into a crevasse in the ice cap?’

  ‘We’ve certainly never spoken about it. After I came round and realised what had happened, I was shocked and devastated. But what good was that? I couldn’t turn back the clock—it was impossible. So I stole a boat and we sailed to the bottom of a fjord with him. I pulled him across the ice on a sleigh on my own. It was a hell of a trip. We had to stop off at Kapisillit to refuel. I had wrapped him in some hides the Hemplers had left in the house, and I threw his intestines into the sea. We took Paneeraq with us, but she stayed in the wheelhouse and never saw what happened.’

  He covered his face with his hands. They were thin and wrinkled. Shaped by a long life.

  ‘I thought the ice would eat that stupid Faroese, given how close we were to the outskirts of the ice cap, but I must have thrown him into a crevasse in a location where the ice movement was minimal. Or perhaps it wasn’t a crevasse, but just a crack in the rock with ice in it. It can be hard to tell in winter, and I didn’t dare go too far in.’

  ‘Well, whatever it was, he resurfaced,’ Matthew said. ‘Why did you move back to Nuuk?’

  ‘Why? I’m over eighty now, and Lisbeth died two years ago. I thought the time had come.’ He looked towards the door to the hall again. ‘I think we both needed to come back and unburden ourselves, should the opportunity arise. In our different ways.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  Matthew looked up at Paneeraq, who was smiling at him from the doorway.

  ‘A little, but don’t you worry about that.’ He took his mobile from his pocket. ‘I have some pictures I’d like to show you. Perhaps you might recognise something. They may be of Najak when she was eleven years old. She’s in distress. Do you mind?’

  ‘Let me have a look.’

  Matthew passed her his mobile.

  Paneeraq took it and pressed her lips together. Then she nodded briefly before letting herself fall back into a chair. ‘I never expected to see that again.’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Tupaarnaq said, putting her hand on Paneeraq’s shoulder. ‘Water?’

  Paneeraq shook her head. Wiped her eyes with her fingers. ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘You were there?’ Matthew said.

  Paneeraq heaved a deep sigh. Her breathing trembled. ‘Yes.’

  Matthew looked from Paneeraq to Jakob.

  The old man shook his head. ‘I know nothing about that.’

  ‘I’ve never told anyone,’ Paneeraq said. ‘But I’ve been there. Just like Najak. All four of us were kept there for a couple of weeks after we came back to Nuuk. They called it quarantine—they said they were afraid that we might still be infected, but it was all a lie.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I’ve repressed it as much as my nightmares will allow me.’

  ‘So you too were imprisoned in the shipping container?’

  ‘Yes—I’ll never forget it, though I wish I could.’

  ‘Was the light flashing inside?’

  She nodded. ‘There was a bright light bulb in the ceiling. It kept coming on and going off. All the time, although I soon lost any sense of day or night. There was only light or darkness. I was so scared of what they were going to do to me. Everything broke down inside me. And outside. In the end I wasn’t even sure whether I was alive or dead because everything was a blur. I think I wanted to be dead.’

  Matthew stared at the floor.

  Tupaarnaq had sat down next to Paneeraq. ‘Can you remember where it was?’ she asked gently.

  Paneeraq nodded. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was hoarse. Almost gone. ‘I think so. I think maybe it
was in Færingehavn. I’m not sure.’

  ‘You should have told someone,’ Jakob muttered from his chair.

  ‘I know,’ Paneeraq said. Now tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Tupaarnaq protested. ‘She was eleven years old and trying to escape her monsters.’

  Matthew looked at Jakob. ‘Might it have been Færingehavn?’

  ‘Yes, it sounds about right. Both in terms of the distance from Nuuk and their Faroese lackey. And no one would bother them out there.’

  ‘We sailed for a few hours,’ Paneeraq said. ‘It wasn’t that far away. I remember there was a whole little village of wooden houses there, and the harbour was made from the biggest timber logs I’d ever seen in my life. It went on forever.’

  ‘That’s definitely Færingehavn,’ Jakob said.

  ‘I spent some days in a big grey house.’ Paneeraq stared at a distant point in space. ‘I could see some huge round buildings on the far side of the fjord.’

  ‘That will be Polaroil,’ Jakob said. ‘Those silos are still there… Everything is still there.’

  ‘Including the shipping container?’ Matthew said with raised eyebrows.

  ‘I’m almost sure of it,’ Jakob said. ‘The town of Færingehavn wasn’t abandoned until the early eighties, and since then everything has pretty much been left to rot.’

  ‘Doesn’t anyone live there?’

  Jakob shook his head. ‘Færingehavn was a fishing station that the Faroese were allowed to build in 1927. I don’t know how many people lived there in its heyday, but it was quite lively the few times I visited it in ’71 and ’72. Today the place is deserted and the buildings are derelict.’

  ‘So why do you think the shipping container would still be there?’

  ‘Because everything was left behind. The inhabitants moved away over the course of a decade, and the last person to leave just turned the key and sailed off. It was too expensive to bring anything other than a suitcase. It’s like that up here. When people move away, most of their stuff is left behind. It costs a fortune to clear a village or a town, and Greenland is so big that no one sees the rot.’