“It will mean overtime for the officers replacing her,” Duneq said. “I’m not sure it’s worth the…”
“Time or money, Sergeant? This won’t be the first time we dip into overtime. Put Constable Jensen on a plane or a boat, whatever is available. Give her three days and we’ll see what comes of it. Does that sound like a plan?”
Duneq nodded, and, with little more than a grunt of confirmation, he pushed away from the desk. The commissioner caught my arm as I turned to leave.
“Just a minute, Constable,” he said, with a nod to Duneq as he walked to his desk at the other end of the open office.
“Yes, Sir?” I said.
“That description of the missing man…”
“Yes?”
I caught a flash of something in the commissioner’s eyes that could have been a warning. I swallowed and waited for him to continue.
“The description fits that of an older man who brought a young girl to a nightclub the other night. That same description was given by the bouncers at the door, as they tried to explain why they had let him in in the first instance. Have you seen that report, Constable?”
“No, Sir.”
“Well, when you get a chance,” the commissioner said, letting go of my arm. “You might find it interesting. Especially the part where the bouncers describe being confused, that the man – the one with the tuft of hair on top of his head – confused them into letting him into the nightclub.”
“He confused them?”
“It’s unclear how. But it reminded me of the article about you in Suluk. It was very entertaining, if a little sensational. There was something about a shaman?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The glint in the commissioner’s eyes was gone, replaced with a faint smile on his lips. But his manner suggested that I should prepare myself for a reprimand of sorts. I just didn’t know what kind.
“Let’s agree on this, Constable. I’ve given you a lot of leniency and very little oversight when it comes to these missing persons cases.”
“It was your…”
“Yes,” he said, cutting me off with a wave of his hand. “I asked you to answer the telephone that day. I gave you this responsibility, and you have had some results already. But let me be clear, you mustn’t abuse the position, Constable. I don’t doubt that you are working on a case. And I recognise the assistance your shaman…”
“Tuukula, Sir.”
The commissioner nodded. “I understand that he has been of service and has helped in a number of cases so far. But this is the first and last time I make any exceptions for you. I need Sergeant Duneq’s loyalty… Don’t laugh, Constable. I know how he treats you. But one day you’ll thank him. And one day you might even realise just how much he cares about you – professionally.”
“He cares?”
“Of course, he does. Just don’t expect him to show it. Now, go to Ingnerssuit. You have seventy-two hours.” The commissioner reached around me to tear Duneq’s notes from my pad. “You’ll need these,” he said, smiling as he turned away.
I waited until the commissioner had left the office, then stuffed the notes into my shirt pocket. Duneq glared at me as I walked past his desk, and I could feel his stare boring into my back as I walked out of the office, all the way to the station entrance. Tuukula and Luui were waiting outside.
“You gave a description of yourself,” I said, quietly hurrying Tuukula away from the door. Luui slipped her hand in mine as we walked across the parking lot to the cultural centre.
“I thought that was quite clever,” Tuukula said. “If your Sergeant Duneq measures these cases by success, then when you produce me as the missing person, you will be able to say the case is solved.”
“The commissioner knows,” I said, after a brief shake of my head.
“He’s a smart man. They both are.”
I stopped walking. That was the second time someone had praised Sergeant Duneq – twice within the same hour.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, as Luui tugged at my hand.
“Aap,” Tuukula said, slipping a newly rolled cigarette behind his ear. “I have found us a boat. We’ll be sailing to Ingnerssuit.”
“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes at Luui as we remembered the last time we had been on a boat together. “Perfect.”
Part 11
In a country with no connecting roads between towns and villages, boats of all sizes are essential. Nearly every family owns a boat, or has access to one, so it was no surprise that Tuukula knew someone in Nuuk from whom he could borrow a boat. I just wished it could have been bigger.
Luui snuggled between my legs, her head hidden deep inside the hood of her buoyancy-lined sea suit, as she picked at the buckles of mine. I kept my hood down, dipping my nose inside the stiff collar when it got too cold, letting my hair stream behind me in the wind. Tuukula smoked his two roll-up cigarettes, one straight after the other, one hand on the extended tiller, as he guided the long fibreglass dinghy between errant floes of ice south to Paamiut. He kept the bow relatively light, with just a few spare cans of fuel pressing it down towards the water. Luui and I rested on kitbags and assorted soft gear, trimming the boat, and leaving Tuukula in the stern. We dozed, he drove, waking us when he spotted whales, or when he needed to eat.
We had two coolers full of sandwiches, drinks, and dried strips of halibut that Tuukula would chew on, nibbling the white flesh and letting the skin slap against his cheeks before spitting it over the side of the boat and into the wind. I poured the coffee, reaching back to press a dirty plastic mug into Tuukula’s hands, before wrinkling my nose at the fishy smell leaking out of the sides of my own mug each time I pressed it to my lips. Luui drank apple juice – more than Tuukula thought she should. He slowed the dinghy each time I tugged Luui out of her suit, holding her over the gunwales to pee.
“Not far now,” Tuukula said, as we passed Paamiut. “Another sleep and we’ll be there.”
I nodded as I zipped Luui back into her suit, teasing her with eyelash kisses on her cheeks before she disappeared inside her hood. The water was calm, the sun high in the sky, and the wind was at our backs. I hoped the return journey would be just as smooth.
Tuukula drank the last of the coffee, then chewed the last strips of halibut as he steered the boat along the coast to the settlement of Ingnerssuit, calling out for us to wake as we approached. He cut the power, drifting the boat towards the beach, until the bow bumped gently onto the sand. I saw the spot where I had sat waiting for Gaba and Atii, before taking the painter from the bow to tie it to the links of rusted chain wrapped around a large boulder. Luui clambered over the gunwales, wobbling on her feet until she felt the familiar tug of the land and regained her balance.
Iikkila and her daughter walked down the beaten earth path to the beach to join us, hugging Tuukula then holding their arms wide to receive Luui as she ran towards them.
“I didn’t think you would come so soon,” Iikkila said, in Danish, most likely for my benefit.
“I’ve come to help,” Tuukula said.
“Have you seen Eqqitsiaq?”
“He was sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb him.” Tuukula waved for me to come closer. “You remember Constable Jensen?”
“Aap,” Iikkila said. “She took Eqqitsiaq to Nuuk.”
“And now she’s here to help.”
Ansu laughed as Luui wrestled her way out of her sailing suit, calling to her own children to help. I watched as two boys took the legs of Luui’s suit and pulled, bumping her bottom along the path as they dragged her towards the houses of Ingnerssuit. Luui giggled as they slid under a line of bright clothes hanging on the washing line, and then disappeared behind the houses and out of sight.
“I don’t have much time,” I said, unzipping my suit. “Perhaps, if I could ask some questions, we could get started?”
“This way,” Iikkila said. “I have food ready.”
Part 12
Tuukula said he would join us in a mo
ment, leaving me with the two women as we walked between the red and blue houses. Iikkila chatted about Eqqitsiaq and Tuukula, how she could have married both of them, but of the two of them, Eqqitsiaq seemed like the least trouble. Ansu laughed when Iikkila pointed at Luui, now out of her suit, but clinging to it as the boys pulled her from one house to the next. Apart from the boys, Ingnerssuit seemed deserted, something I hadn’t thought about before.
“Everyone who could leave has gone,” Iikkila said.
“Why?”
Iikkila took her daughter’s hand, as she laughed again. She whispered to her, calming her until she stopped laughing, and then, with heavy tread, climbed the steps to the deck and disappeared inside the house.
“She’s struggling, now that Eqqitsiaq is in Nuuk.”
“Struggling?”
I tried to remember what Atii had said, about the children being high. But watching the boys spin Luui between the houses, they seemed high-spirited, full of energy, but nothing out of the ordinary. Iikkila tapped my arm and pointed to a yellow house with a white deck. It was partly obscured by two other houses – Ingnerssuit had twelve houses in total – and I had to step to one side to see all of it.
“The school,” Iikkila said. “Before the teacher left.”
“When?”
“She left thirteen months ago.”
Iikkila could have said just over a year ago, but she was more precise, as if it was important.
“And you haven’t had a replacement?”
Iikkila shook her head and pointed at the boys. “I’ve been teaching them, as best I could. A lot of baking, sports. Some science when Eqqitsiaq caught a fish. But I don’t know numbers, and I can’t force them to speak Danish.”
She paused as Tuukula strolled between the houses, puffing smoke around the cigarette clamped between his lips. His hands were full, gripping the handles of the holdalls and bags into which we had hastily stuffed clothes and bottled water – something Tuukula insisted on – before leaving Nuuk.
“Tuukula could teach them things,” Iikkila said, pressing her hand to his cheek as he stopped beside her.
“I’m too old to teach children,” he said.
“What about Luui?” Iikkila tucked her hands on her hips, knuckles inwards, slipping into imaginary grooves as if she did it often. “You’re teaching her, aren’t you?”
“That’s different,” Tuukula said, with a quick glance at his daughter. “They won’t teach her what she needs to know in school.”
“Iikkila says everyone is leaving,” I said. “And the school has no teacher.”
“We are nine,” she said. “Ten if Eqqitsiaq was home.” Iikkila slipped her hands from her hips, dusting the last flour from her palms with strong claps of her hands. “Let’s go inside.” She called for the two boys to come, then led the way up the steps to her house.
“Here,” Tuukula said, pressing a bottle of water into my hands.
“I’m not thirsty,” I said.
“For when you are.”
“Tuukula?”
I waited for him to explain, but he shook his head, as if to say not now, and then followed Iikkila into the house. I kicked off my boots and shrugged out of my sailing suit, hanging it over the railing, before walking inside. Ansu and Tuukula were already sitting at the kitchen table, as Iikkila slid huge plates of raisin bread and strips of dried whale meat onto the table.
“You can eat the bread,” Iikkila said. “I used a little water from the pan.” She pointed at a large pan with a lump of melting ice on the counter as I sat down.
“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Tuukula said. “Iikkila made all the bread at the mine.”
“You don’t have water in the tank?” I asked, frowning as Iikkila swapped a glance with Tuukula.
“Aap,” she said. “For washing only. Ever since we found out.”
“Found out what?”
“That it was poisoned.”
Iikkila reached out to take her daughter’s hand as she started to laugh.
Part 13
I sat quietly as Ansu’s laughter faded into a soft sobbing. She pushed back her chair and left the table. Iikkila followed her out of the kitchen, leaving Tuukula and I alone. I waited for him to say something, anything, prompting him with raised eyebrows and a nervous tap of my finger on the table.
“The commissioner knows it was you who called,” I said. “I could get in a lot of trouble. Something is going on. I can see that. But you said someone is missing, but apart from people leaving Ingnerssuit, I don’t know who I’m supposed to be looking for.”
“There is more to the story,” he said.
“I’m sure there is, but unless you give me more information, there’s nothing I can do, and you’re just wasting police time.”
Tuukula took a piece of raisin bread from the plate, then buttered it with slow strokes of a broad knife. He paid attention to the corners, spreading the butter to the very edges. It felt like he was drawing out the time, waiting for something. Then he called out in Greenlandic, and Iikkila returned with what looked like a large scrapbook in her hands. Tuukula cleared a spot on the table in front of me, then nodded at Iikkila to give me the book.
“The answers,” he said, pointing with the tip of the butter knife, “are in there.”
The pages crackled as I opened the book, stiff with glue, now dried in patches, barely holding clippings from newspapers and magazines. Most of the articles were in Danish, with a few translations in columns beside the main body of text.
“Pollution?” I said, looking up from the scrapbook.
“Keep reading,” Tuukula said.
I checked the dates of each article. The earliest were dated four years back, with a few older magazine clippings with faded print. Most of the articles were written by the same man: Ivan Haarløv.
“Not Petrussen?” I said, tapping the journalist’s name with the tip of my finger.
“I couldn’t remember his name.” Tuukula pulled out his tin of tobacco and rolled a cigarette. “He changes his name,” he said. “He wrote those articles shortly after he came to Greenland.”
“Four years ago.”
“Aap.”
“He’s Danish,” I said, turning the page to skim read the next articles, columns, and opinion pieces. “He’s an activist worried about pollution.”
“About aluminium,” Tuukula said. He tucked the finished cigarette behind his ear. “He was against the aluminium smelter, saying that it would cause significant pollution, dangerous to wildlife, the environment, and to people.”
“But he lacked proof.” I ran my finger beneath the lines of a paragraph that was repeated in three articles, notably from newspapers, and not written by Haarløv. “They said his allegations were baseless.” I turned to the middle of the scrapbook, scanning the last clipping as Tuukula spoke.
“Or based on little evidence.” Tuukula shrugged. “Haarløv needed proof.”
“But this last article,” I said, noting the date, “was two years ago.”
“Aap.”
“So, he stopped writing?”
“Or he changed tactics.”
“What does that mean?”
Tuukula turned to Iikkila. He took her hand as she sat down, squeezing it once, before nodding for her to speak. I got the impression that she was about to confess, as if she was guilty of something. I closed the scrapbook and waited for her to speak.
“We have a water tank and a pump,” she said, drawing her hands into her lap. “The pump broke two years ago. Nukissiorfiit, the energy and water company, sent a man to fix it. He fixed the pump and went away again.”
“Two years ago?” I said, as I opened my notebook. I paused to take a picture of Haarløv’s photo with my phone.
“Aap. In April, I think.” Iikkila licked her lips and Tuukula offered her water from one of the bottles he brought from the boat. “Everything was fine, but then, after half a year, I noticed Eqqitsiaq would forget things.” Iikkila paused for a long, ragged
breath. “At first, I teased him about it, told him he was getting old, that I would have to find a younger man. But then he forgot more and more things, like where he left his hammer, or how to tie his laces. I was worried, but Eqqitsiaq didn’t want to go to the doctor. One day my neighbour said her mother was acting strangely. She thought she had dementia – she was forgetting things too. Acting confused. They took her to Paamiut to see a doctor. They never came back. They were the first to leave. Then the children started to have trouble breathing, like asthma. Ansu’s children,” she said, turning her head to look through the door into the living room.
Iikkila stopped talking and Tuukula took over, holding her hand as she lowered her head.
“They didn’t know what was happening,” he said. “They had no reason to think there was anything wrong.”
“But these articles,” I said, gesturing at the scrapbook. “Why did Iikkila start to collect them?”
“Because Ansu met the man, Haarløv, when she went to Nuuk for a language course. She recognised him.”
“How?”
“Because he was the man Nukissiorfiit sent to fix the water pump,” Iikkila said.
“She remembered him?”
Iikkila shrugged, and said, “We don’t get many visitors. This man was Danish. He was handsome. Ansu remembered him.”
“And she saw him in Nuuk?”
“He was a teacher at the gymnasium, where Ansu went for the course. She saw him in the corridor. He talked to her and asked her how things were in Ingnerssuit.”
“And she told him,” Tuukula said.
Iikkila nodded. “She told him her father was sick, and that her sons were suffering from asthma. She told him that people were leaving Ingnerssuit.”
“And did he say anything?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Iikkila said. “Or nothing that made any sense to Ansu. At least not then.”
I turned my head as Ansu entered the kitchen. She stopped at the door, brushing at the tears on her cheeks with her fingers. She looked at her mother, then Tuukula, before turning to look at me.
The Fever in the Water: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella (Greenland Missing Persons Book 4) Page 4