Blood Floe

by Christoffer Petersen

  The man crouched in front of the stove, warming his hands as he did a visual inspection of the room, directing his gaze to the shelves for tins of food, the beds for blankets, the bucket for wood, and when that ran out then the cots for kindling. He stood up and plucked a rusty can of ravioli from the shelf, together with a metal can opener. He fiddled with it, and then sat down in front of the fire to warm his hands before working on the tin.

  Needles of fire burst through his fingers as his flesh recalled what it was to be made of meat, muscle, sinew and bone, not wood and metal. The fibres were meant to flex, and the pain as they warmed sparked a string of anecdotes from his research. His recollection of those stories had secured him a place on the expedition, regardless of his quirks and social oddities, and now those same stories were coming true, and saving his life, as he opened the can and put it on top of the stove.

  Again the voice in his head told him, “You’ll need water.”

  He searched for a pan, found one, and filled it with snow from the drift inside the door.

  Ice may have been better, but he didn’t have ice, and he was not going outside, not now that he was warm. The man crossed his legs in front of the fire, feeding it as the ravioli bubbled and spat in the can on the flat stove top.

  He wrapped his mitts around the can, dragged the armchair closer to the stove and listened to the air pop out of the snow inside the pan as he ate, pressing two bent fingers together like a spoon. With his feet flat on the floor, his knees were higher than the arms of the chair, and he smiled at his Lilliputian adventure as he assumed the role of Gulliver of the North. He preferred such thoughts and distractions, as his mind settled, and the voice of the survivor fell back into the shadows.

  The dark recess of his mind, black like the polar sky, black like the lichen, black like lava – cooled and inert, but fertile.

  A fertile, fervent mind.

  The thought made him smile, but still he did not entertain more than a thought. Some things must be suppressed in order to survive.

  He had to suppress them.

  There were things to do.

  He had found the cabin. By luck, perhaps, but he should not disregard his latent knowledge, his studies and education.

  He licked his fingers and placed the can on the floor. It took some effort to get out of the chair, then he searched the cabin, beyond the shelves, above the stove, beneath the beds. He kneeled in front a wooden crate turned on its side, its contents seemingly more valuable than the legs of the armchair. He smiled at the slim collection of mildewed magazines with stiff corners, curled and greasy as soap flakes. He flicked through a copy of National Geographic, placed it on the floor, covering it with a tattered Playboy magazine, a Danish western novel – the pages held together by true grit and mould. Then he spotted something else, something that peaked the researcher’s interest, flooding his body with warmth, the kind that needs no flame.

  “What’s this?” he whispered, as if words might damage the leather binding, crack the spine, or even chase the journal at the tips of his fingers into an Arctic mirage, a polar tease.

  The leather felt real, pressing into the thick whorls of his skin as he ran a finger down the spine. He tugged the journal out of the crate, teasing the sides from the magazines that gripped it, reluctant to let go. He knew what he had found but suppressed his enthusiasm with the same resolve and detachment that he kept for his other thoughts, the darker ones, hidden in the shadows. He would deal with them when the time came, now he had to be the keen observer and objective appraiser of all things Arctic. This was not the first and only Arctic journal the man had held between his fingers. But if this was Alfred Wegener’s missing journal, if this was the one he had been tasked to find, then it might be the last he held for a long time, perhaps forever. He knew it as soon as he opened the journal, the pages crackling at his touch, with a glance at the name, the date, and the location in which the journal was written, Alfred’s journal, the missing one, the one that would crown the man’s post-doctoral research, and secure a position – any position – at the institute of his choice.

  “Anywhere in the world.”

  The thought reminded him of the satellite phone in his jacket pocket. He had done his job, shelter, warmth from the fire and food to eat, and, soon, he would have something to drink. The man ticked off Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – now that the basics had been met he remembered love.

  He pulled the phone from the deep chest pocket, and the collapsible antenna from the other. He removed the battery, warmed it in his fist, and placed the spare battery on top of the journal, and then moved it to one side. He stared at the journal for a few minutes until he judged the battery to be ready. He carried the antenna to the door, opened it a crack and planted the tiny tripod in the snow. He shut the door and screwed the lead into the satellite phone, inserted the battery, turned the unit on and waited for it to find a signal.

  “I found it, Marlene,” the man said, when his wife answered his call.

  “Dieter?”

  “I found it.”

  “It’s late,” Marlene said.

  Dieter waited as his wife stifled a yawn, and then said, “I found Alfred Wegener’s journal.”

  “You found the cabin?”

  “Yes, and the journal.”

  “That’s great, baby, really. You must all be really pleased.”

  “What’s that?”

  “All of you must be pleased.” Marlene raised her voice, and said, “There’s a delay.”

  “I know.”

  “… others say?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s getting worse. What do the others say?”

  “It’s just me. I found it.”

  “I know you found it. I’m really pleased for you. But what about the others?”

  “Others?”

  “Oh, baby, I’m too tired for this.” Marlene paused. “The others. The team. The crew. What do they think?”

  “The crew?”

  “Yes.”

  The man paced within the limits of the wire, and said, “It’s just me. I found it.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are the rest of the team?”

  “I don’t know. I found the cabin.”

  Marlene sighed, and said, “Maybe it’s the connection, but, it sounds like you are alone.”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Where is the yacht?”

  “In the ice. No,” he said, “at the edge of the ice.”

  “And the crew? Are they on the yacht? Are they on Ophelia?”

  “Ophelia? Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know, Dieter?”

  Dieter stared at the phone. He ran his hand through his hair, turned his head at the crackle and spit of the last piece of wood in the stove, and then looked at the phone again, frowning at the distant, static chatter on the line. He pressed the phone to his ear, and said, “I found it.”

  “I know you did, baby.” The line crackled with static, and Marlene paused. “I’m worried about you, Dieter.”

  “I’m all right,” he said, and then, “I have to go. I love you.”

  Dieter stabbed the tip of a numb finger on a button and ended the call. He turned the phone off and removed the battery. He shook the snow from the antenna and coiled it beside the spare battery on the floor by the journal. He lined up the parts, cataloguing them in his mind, before adding another piece of wood to the fire, the last, more snow to the water warming in the pan, and then grabbed a blanket from the bed before settling in the armchair with the journal. He tugged a headlamp from his jacket, switched it on, and started to read.

  The survivor in him had served many functions. He had helped Dieter find the cabin, helped him survive the cold, and now he would help him to suppress thoughts of the crew, to forget the yacht, for the moment at least. There were other, more important things, for Dieter to consider.

  He remembered the briefing at the offices of t
he Berndt Media Group, once the final team had been assembled. He recalled the way Aleksander Berndt had stood, one hand in a trouser pocket, as he clicked a laser pointer with the other. Dieter had been fascinated with the man’s passion, his fire, and, not least, his fortune.

  “This area here,” Berndt had said, circling a group of mountains on the map of Uummannaq fjord projected onto the screen, “is where we know Wegener was working, collecting data, before he died on Greenland’s inland ice sheet. There should be a cabin. The locals know of it, but have, so far, been reluctant to confirm it. It is my belief,” Berndt said, as he faced the team, “that they are tired of expeditions. There have been many of late, and we are just the latest in a long line. But, I also believe that if you find the cabin, establish a base of operations, and conduct a thorough investigation of the area, you will be rewarded.”

  “With what, exactly? It’s a big area. We’re going to need a little more information.”

  “Ah, Katharina,” Berndt said, and smiled, “of course, I might have known our captain would be the team sceptic.”

  “I’m not a sceptic, I’m a geologist. I’ve seen my fair share of granite. If I’m going to get excited about something, I’d like to know what to look for.”

  Dieter closed his eyes for a moment, letting the rustle of snow crystals against the wooden shutters, and the teasing of the wind at the corners of the bitumen roof, distract him from the memory of Berndt’s briefing. He swapped his memory of the subtle scent of Berndt’s expensive cologne for the rich Arctic odour of cold, damp mattresses, mildew, lichen, and earthy roots. He smoothed his fingers over the creased leather cover of the journal and thought about Berndt’s reward.

  “No-one knows for sure what secret is buried in those mountains,” Berndt had said, “Wegener hid it well. The question is why?”

  Dieter opened his eyes and turned the page. He was about to find out.

  Chapter 4

  Maratse screwed the last of the spikes into the ice and tightened the shrouds of the tent. He studied the thick clouds of snow hiding the peaks of Svartenhuk and decided that even if he hadn’t stumbled across the yacht, the weather would have hidden anything worth hunting in the mountains. The light from his headlamp reflected on the snow caught within its beam as he fed the dogs with dried halibut heads from the sledge, working down the thin dog chain he had anchored to the ice. Once all the dogs had been fed, Maratse crawled inside the tent, tied the canvas door, and assembled the walls, base, door, and hotplate of the collapsible stove. He prised the tubular chimney sheets into one long length and pushed the end through a leather flap in the tent. He lit the stove and arranged his sleeping gear as water boiled in the small kettle Karl had given him. Maratse lay on a cot inside his sleeping bag, with an enamel mug of coffee by his side and a heavy paperback in his hands. He grumbled between the pages, squinting once or twice as he moved the book closer and then further away. After three more pages, he eased himself out of his sleeping bag and rooted through his pack for his glasses. A second cup of coffee later, and he had given up reading altogether, as even the most engaging descriptions the science fiction author wrote couldn’t compete with the images of the bloody interior of the yacht, and the two dead crew. He stoked the stove with enough fuel for an hour or more, and then turned off the light.

  It didn’t matter what he might have said to the woman in the yacht, and no matter how many times he told himself he didn’t, the truth was that he did care.

  “You can’t just leave,” she had said.

  But he did, and yet it gnawed at him, just like the dogs scraping at the skin of the halibut, before they penetrated the cheeks to chew on the frozen white flesh beneath. When he closed his eyes he could see the two dead crew members, slumped in their respective corners of the yacht’s living area. The first question that plagued him was not how, but when did they die? Were the victims drugged like the crew? How many glasses were on the table? Was it five or six?

  Maratse stared at the reflection of the flames from the glass window in the stove door as they licked at the tent walls. Beyond the crackle of the wood in the stove, the swathes of snow cascading down the tent walls, and the dogs fidgeting on the ice, Maratse heard the distant sound of two vehicles retreating into the night, and pictured the police Toyota and the hospital transit van that doubled as an ambulance, racing back to Uummannaq. Another world, his world, one he had left behind.

  The small folding cot creaked as he turned on his side and closed his eyes. The dogs settled. Maratse forced himself to think of something else, anything else. He chose the image of police Sergeant Petra Piitalaat Jensen, the wayward strands of her long black hair, soft dark cheeks, her smile, her pout, those lips. His final thought was of the thirteen years between them, not particularly remarkable in Greenland, but enough to push any further thoughts from his mind. Maratse felt the frame of his glasses cool against his cheeks, pulled them off, and listened to the snow trickling down the side of the tent.

  The next morning he had to dig through the snow to find the ice screws. Everything took that bit longer, as he packed his gear, collapsed the tent, clipped the dogs into their traces, and anchored the team to a fresh bridge of ice he dug with the metal-edged ice staff before breakfast.

  It was dark. The sun would not return for another two months.

  Maratse secured everything to the sledge, hitched the dogs, and leaped on as Spirit tugged the team towards Inussuk. Their trip interrupted, they were going home. They passed the yacht two hours later. The dogs barely gave it a glance, while Maratse stared, remembering the stripes of blood on the ice outside the yacht. They would be covered with snow now, but the yacht would stay moored to the ice unless a storm and warm winds broke the sea ice into floes, causing the crime scene to drift away. He turned away from the yacht, clapped his hands, and leaned back against the sledge bag. He closed his eyes, felt his breath cool and bead on the light moustache above his lip, and cling to his eyelashes like tiny diamonds on each hair.

  The dogs slowed at the open lead in the ice, the black water visible beneath a thin soupy coating of new ice. Not enough to stitch the two plates together, but plenty to fool Tinka as the dog tried to step onto it as Spirit leaped. Maratse clapped, encouraging the dogs with two quick calls, as they pulled the sledge and Tinka onto firmer footing, and the last stretch before home.

  Maratse watched as Tinka fell in beside the lead dog, shaking the water from her legs with a strong lope to match the pace of the team.

  “Lesson learned,” Maratse said, and smiled as he settled on the sledge.

  He didn’t move again until the team bumped the sledge up and over the ice foot, flatter and easier to navigate at low tide. Maratse slowed the team with soft commands, stepped off the sledge and gripped the uprights, walking behind the team to the anchor points he shared with Karl and Edvard. Their dogs yipped and howled as Maratse sorted his team, marching one dog after another to its chain, throwing it a fish head from the blood and grime-spattered plastic crate hidden inside a wooden chest beside the dogs. Once the sledge was empty, and the dogs fed, Maratse slid the sledge up and onto the box so that the runners would not freeze in a sudden surface melt. It didn’t matter quite so much on the beach as it did when the team was anchored on the ice, but Maratse took pleasure in doing things the same way every time. He carried his gear to his house, dumped it on the deck, and opened the door.

  The phone started to ring before he had removed his boots. He kicked them off, shook and patted the snow from his overalls, and padded into the living room in his socks. He picked up the receiver on the sixth ring.

  “Maratse,” he said, and leaned against the windowsill.

  “Constable David Maratse?”

  Despite the static on the line, Maratse thought the English accent was strange. He waited for a moment, and said, “I’m retired.”

  “But you are David Maratse?” It was a man’s voice, older than Maratse. Not Scandinavian.

  “Iiji.”

  �
�My name is Aleksander Berndt. Ophelia is my boat.” He paused, and said, “You are familiar with Ophelia?”

  “I was onboard, yes.”

  “That’s right, the Chief of Police told me.”

  “Simonsen.”

  “Yes.”

  Maratse unzipped the front of his overalls, and said, “What do you want?”

  “Well, I’m sure you can imagine this is a difficult time for the crew, and I feel that I’m very far away. I’m calling from Berlin. It’s late here, and I just need to have some things in place, as quickly as possible, to solve this matter.”

  “What matter?”

  “Ophelia.”

  “Your boat?”

  “Expedition yacht, yes. Rather an expensive asset. She is anchored to the ice, as I understand, without a crew. So I need your help.”

  “I’m not a sailor.”

  “I appreciate that, but you are a policeman.”

  “Was.”

  “That’s right, you’re retired. But I wonder if you would be interested in earning more money.”

  “Looking after your boat?”

  “No, not quite. I have already arranged to have someone secure the boat in the event of a storm. But even if Ophelia is secure, the police will not release it before the case has been resolved, and that’s what I want you to help me with.”

  “To solve the case?” Maratse shifted position. “I’m not interested.”

  “No? Not even for a substantial payment? I can make it worth your while, Constable.”

  “I’m retired.”

  “So you say, but I have an idea that you are not entirely satisfied with that particular arrangement. I understand you were hired earlier this year to help solve another case, one involving a missing girl? You see, Constable, I have done my homework, and I believe you are the very man I need to speed things along, and allow me to get my boat back to Germany, and my crew to their families. You understand, this is a very difficult time for everyone concerned. Greenland is so very far away, so remote, isolated. It would be a comfort for the families to know that the company, and me, are doing everything possible to help with investigation and to speed it along the way to a happy conclusion.”