The Fever in the Water: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella (Greenland Missing Persons Book 4)

by Christoffer Petersen

  “He asked me if we were leaving,” she said. “I said no. I told him that we couldn’t leave because we had no money, and that ataata was ill. I told him we would never leave.”

  “And what did he say?”

  Ansu swallowed and took another look at her mother. “He said that was good.”

  Part 14

  Tuukula slipped his tobacco tin into his trouser pocket, then nodded for me to follow him outside. We left the two women in the kitchen. Ansu’s sobbing followed us out of the kitchen and onto the deck, until Tuukula closed the front door with a soft click. Tuukula spent a moment rooting through a box of Eqqitsiaq’s tools, choosing a claw hammer as I tugged my boots on. I followed him off the deck and onto the parched grass in front of the house.

  “Everybody at the mine in Ivittuut liked Iikkila,” he said, pausing to light his cigarette. “She was kind to everyone, teased everyone, and listened whenever someone needed cheering up. She made the best raisin bread, and sweet bread rolls.” Tuukula laughed. “It wasn’t just her bosom that Eqqitsiaq fell for. Iikkila is a beautiful woman, inside and out.”

  “How did she collect the clippings?”

  “She didn’t.”

  Tuukula pointed at the water tank in the near distance and steered us towards it. The boys’ cries together with Luui’s shrill laugh echoed around the houses, amazing me that they still had energy to play, only to remember that Luui had slept most of the way in the boat.

  “There were lots of Danes at the mine. Iikkila knew them all. She said the clippings started to come last year. Some of them are photocopies, as if whoever was sending them to her had to search for them first.”

  “She doesn’t know who sent them?”

  “Naamik,” Tuukula said, with a shake of his head. Smoke spilled from his mouth as he finished his cigarette. “Only that they were sent from Denmark.”

  “So, whoever sent them…”

  “Knew Haarløv,” Tuukula said. “They either knew or guessed what he had done.”

  “Done what?”

  Tuukula lifted his finger, pausing my thoughts as we reached the water pump. He took the hammer and slid the claw behind the clasp and padlock. Tuukula worked the hammer back and forth until the soft, weather-beaten wood started to give and the screws popped out of the clasp. He opened the door, then gestured at my utility belt as I reached for my flashlight.

  The small blue structure was like many others in the towns and villages of Greenland. A push of a button released a measured amount of water into a bucket or jerry can. Three pushes, I knew, would fill a two-litre container, and the grille below it would catch the excess water. In winter, the grille would be thick with ice. A warm sleeve heated by electricity stopped the pipes from freezing in the harsh Greenland winter.

  “There,” Tuukula said, taking my hand to direct the beam of my flashlight. “You see where the water flows through the pipe?”

  “Yes?”

  “An extra bit of pipe connecting the two. I bet if we open that we’ll find something.”

  “Find what?”

  “A container. Something the water will run through, taking deposits of something with it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Aluminium fluorides,” Tuukula said. “Traces of cryolite. Things you could find in the mine, or a laboratory or a science classroom.”

  “Don’t,” I said, as Tuukula tapped the hammer against the pipe. “I want someone to look at it. We’ve already done enough, breaking into the pump room.”

  “Then you believe me?”

  “I believe someone thinks something is going on. That person sent Iikkila articles to prove that Haarløv is against the building of aluminium smelters in Greenland.”

  “There has been a lot about it in the news,” Tuukula said.

  “Yes, but to suggest Haarløv has poisoned a community…”

  “Fluorides are waste products of aluminium smelting.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But we don’t know that Haarløv has done anything.”

  “The answer is in that pipe,” Tuukula said, tapping it with the hammer. “And Ansu recognised Haarløv. She would recognise him again.”

  “I understand. Then we need to go back to Nuuk to find him.”

  “He’s not there. I checked the gymnasium website. There’s no Haarløv on their list of employees. Even if he changed his name, none of the photos match the ones from articles.”

  This was a new side to Tuukula. I struggled to imagine him using the internet, knowing that he did not even have a mobile phone, let alone anything more sophisticated.

  “I used the school library in Qaanaaq,” he said, with a shrug. “Luui showed me how.”

  “Of course, she did,” I said, enjoying the smile curling my lips. I could hear Luui’s voice as the children drifted closer to the water pump.

  “Haarløv is the missing person,” Tuukula said. “Someone thinks he is responsible for what is happening in Ingnerssuit. We need to find him to prove it.”

  “We can’t do that here,” I said. “We need to leave.”

  My stomach flipped at the thought of sailing back to Nuuk, and I wondered if Tuukula was able to drive, or if I would have to take my turn in the stern.

  “We eat, and then we leave,” he said, gathering Luui into his arms as the boys pulled her around the side of the pumphouse.

  Part 15

  Keep the coast on your right. Tuukula’s last words before he curled into the bow of the boat to sleep played in my head on repeat, over and over, as the granite cliffs and thick fingers of rock reached into the black waters of the Labrador Sea. I perched my nose on the lip of the collar of my sailing suit, flashing wild stares at Luui as she lay between her father’s knees, her head almost hidden in the deep recess of her hood. Tuukula snored, loud enough to be heard over the soft crash of the waves against the bow, as we pushed north through remarkably forgiving seas.

  The commissioner had given me seventy-two hours, but I didn’t think he intended for me to stay awake for every hour of the investigation. I blinked into the sea spray, wiping the water and a film of sea salt from my eyebrows as I steered around lumps of ice, quartering the waves as Tuukula had instructed, and staying clear of the unpredictable icebergs standing tall and looming over us.

  The burr of the outboard motor together with the vibration of the waves through the hull was hypnotic, disturbed by the occasional crash of a calving iceberg, jolting me awake each time I felt myself sagging. I kept my mind active with thoughts of the case – more of a manhunt than a missing persons case, although the similarities made it easier to justify the search.

  Ivan Haarløv, the handsome activist with an agenda, was now linked – by a person or persons unknown – to a potential poisoning. I pressed my hand against the deep cargo pocket sewn into the right trouser leg of the sailing suit, nodding as I felt the reassuring size and shape of the bottle I had filled with Ingnerssuit water. I wasn’t sure who, but I just knew that someone in Nuuk would be able to test it, setting in motion what I hoped would be a proper investigation, and not just a shaman with a hammer in the pumphouse.

  The thought made me smile, especially as I realised that even magic had its limitations. Tuukula was no more able to break open the pipe than I was. Although, I thought, with a glance at the clear skies above me, he has some sway with the weather. I smiled at the thought of Tuukula swimming deep down into the ocean to comb the hair of Sassuma Arnaa, the mother of the sea, in return for clear skies and calm seas.

  “But when did he do that?” I said aloud, drawing a smile from Luui.

  She scrabbled across the deck of the boat, over the thwart seat, pausing as the belt from her sailing suit snagged on an exposed bolt, before flopping onto the deck by my feet. Luui took a moment to extract her hand from inside deep sleeves, then slid onto her knees to wrap her fingers around one of mine.

  “We’re on another adventure, Luui,” I said, unzipping my collar to free my mouth to speak. “Where will it take us this time?
”

  Luui smiled and pointed over her shoulder towards the bow of the boat.

  “North,” she said.

  “To Nuuk.”

  “Naamik,” she said, turning her head from side to side within her hood. “North of Nuuk.” She stabbed her fingers into the wind until I nodded.

  “Okay,” I said. “Further north.”

  I just hoped we wouldn’t be sailing all the way.

  Part 16

  Luui and I slept in the bow as Tuukula took over in the stern, sailing the long and narrow fibreglass boat under the midnight sun another few hours before arriving in Nuuk. Luui pressed her tiny bottom into my stomach as she curled into her preferred sleeping position, tugging my arm over her and holding onto my fingers all the way into the harbour. Tuukula woke us with a gentle bump of the bow against the dock, promising that he would meet me in Katuaq at midday.

  I wiped sleep from my eyes and brushed salt from my cheeks before shrugging out of my sailing suit. I tucked the bottle of Ingnerssuit water into the pocket of my police jacket and climbed the ladder onto the dock. Luui waved from the boat and I smiled back before heading into town.

  I tried to remember who was on shift, hoping that Atii was at the station, that she didn’t have the late shift. I had less than twenty-four hours to find Ivan Haarløv and I could use all the help I could get. I just hoped that whatever tension there had been between us was now gone. There wasn’t time to get upset over men – there never was.

  I found Atii in the parking lot, just as she was climbing in behind the wheel of a patrol car. She paused, half inside the cab, and then stepped out, pulling me into a hug as soon as I was close enough.

  “I thought I’d lost you, P,” she said.

  “I was coming back.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I brushed at a twist of hair in her fringe, teasing it out as I smiled, nodding that I knew exactly what she meant, even if I wasn’t quite ready to say the words.

  “I need your help,” I said, tugging the bottle from my jacket pocket. “And I could use a ride.”

  Atii hiked her thumb at the passenger seat, and said, “Get in. I’m supposed to pick up Sergeant Duneq, but he’s running late. I’m free until he calls.”

  I cringed at the thought of running into Duneq, especially as the clock was still ticking, but shoved the thought to one side as Atii pulled out of the parking lot and into the street.

  “Where to?”

  “Nukissiorfiit,” I said, with a wave of the bottle in my hand. “I need them to test this.”

  “Water? From where?”

  “Ingnerssuit.”

  Atii frowned, then slowed the car to a stop by the side of the road.

  “I thought you were working a missing persons case.”

  “I am. Sort of.”

  “And it has something to do with water?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “You’re not making any sense, P.”

  “Probably because I don’t understand most of what I’m working on.”

  Atii pulled away from the side of the road and I brought her up to speed on what I knew and what I didn’t.

  “So, you’re looking for a man who isn’t missing, but might be trying to hide,” she said, as she parked outside the head office for Nukissiorfiit in Greenland.

  “Yes.”

  “And the answer is in the water?”

  “And their records,” I said, with a nod to the main entrance.

  Atii dipped her head as she thought, then paused to check a message that beeped into her phone. “It’s Duneq,” she said. “I have to pick him up. I can come back for you later.”

  “I’ll call you.” I opened the door, then paused to take another look at Atii. “We’re back to normal, right?”

  “You better believe it,” she said, although there was a tiny fleck of something in her eye that suggested she still needed a little more time until things were completely back to normal. “Call me,” she said, as I climbed out of the patrol car and closed the door.

  “We don’t test water here,” the receptionist said, as I placed the bottle on the desk between us. “You’ll have to send it to the DTU lab in Sisimiut.”

  “You can’t do that?”

  “Send it?”

  “Yes,” I said, with an exaggerated sigh. It wasn’t hard to act tired, but adopting the role of exhausted police officer needing a break seemed to help.

  “Leave it with me,” she said.

  “There is one more thing,” I said, hoping that I wasn’t pushing my luck.

  “Just one more thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I pulled my notebook from my jacket and tore a page out of it. I pulled my pen from my shirt pocket and printed Ivan Haarløv’s name on the page.

  “I’m looking for this man,” I said. “He’s Danish. I think he worked for Nukissiorfiit, at least two years ago. Could you search your personnel records, maybe give me a current address?”

  “I’ll have to run it by my supervisor.”

  “I understand,” I said, as I added my name and phone number to the page with Haarløv’s name. “If you could call and let me know.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  I left the building as the receptionist answered an incoming call, pausing at the door as I caught my reflection in the glass. I looked tired, and, on closer inspection, crusty with sea salt.

  “Perfect,” I thought, as I walked out of the door.

  I caught the bus back into town, daydreaming along Sipisaq Kangilleq, my forehead pressed against the cool window, before getting off at the stop by Nuuk Center, Greenland’s only shopping mall.

  The walk up to the gymnasium cleared my head, and I brushed the worst of the salt from my cheeks and my eyelashes before entering the modern glass and wood building. Students for the early classes were just arriving, and I slipped between them on my way up the stairs to the administration offices on the first floor. The rector, I discovered, was in a meeting, but I could wait in her office if I wanted to.

  “Thanks,” I said, before adding, “Could I wait with coffee?”

  The woman behind the desk smiled and pointed the tip of a pencil at a coffee machine in the corner of her office.

  “Help yourself,” she said.

  I took a large mug, filling it to just below the brim, before clutching it between salt-streaked hands. I let myself into the rector’s office and slumped in a chair at a small round table in one corner of the room. I don’t know how long I waited, only that she needed to squeeze my shoulder to wake me.

  “Constable?”

  “Yes?” I said, lifting my head, sloshing coffee, untouched, from my mug onto the table.

  I looked up at a woman of medium height and of Danish origin. She sat down, adjusting her glasses and clearing a stack of papers to one side before pulling her chair closer to the table. “How can I help?”

  “Ivan Haarløv,” I said, spelling his name. “I think he used to work here. I’d like to ask him some questions but need to find him first. I was hoping you could help.”

  “Haarløv?” The rector tapped her chin with a long finger. “I don’t remember anyone called Haarløv, but Ivan rings a bell. He taught science, just for a short time, earlier this year. Ivan Linauskas. Not Haarløv.”

  I wrote the name in my notebook, pausing as the rector spelled it.

  “Is it this man?” I pulled out my smartphone, opening the photo gallery and swiping my finger until I found the grainy image of Haarløv I had taken from one of the articles in Iikkila’s scrapbook.

  “Let me see.” The rector took my phone, zoomed in with a pinch of her fingers, and said, “I’m not sure, but perhaps, if you gave him a moustache.”

  “Linauskas has a moustache?”

  “He did when he worked here.”

  “And do you know where he is now?”

  “I think he is in Aasiaat. They needed
a science teacher, and I suggested he could try there.” She stood up to walk to her desk, reaching for her phone. “I can call and check if you like.”

  “No,” I said, rising from my seat. “Please don’t.”

  “Are you sure? It’s just a quick call.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, suddenly concerned that as I got closer to finding Haarløv, the last thing I wanted to do was alert him that he was a person of interest. “You’ve been very helpful. I’ll take it from here.”

  I called Atii as soon as I was out of the building, arranging to meet her at the station. I walked back towards the shopping mall, full of renewed energy that things were falling into place, albeit with the potential for mistaken identity ruining a positive identification. I checked the time on my phone, hoping that Tuukula and Luui would be on time, as I turned towards the café in Katuaq.

  Part 17

  Atii wasn’t alone when I brought Tuukula and Luui to the station. She met us at the door, whispering a warning as she led us to one of the meeting rooms reserved for training and larger briefings. My stomach cramped when I saw Duneq scowl at me from his seat along the wall, and again when the commissioner walked across the room to greet Tuukula and Luui.

  “You’re our shaman consultant,” the commissioner said, as he shook Tuukula’s hand.

  “Aap,” Tuukula said.

  “I love how he owns it,” Atii said, whispering into my ear.

  Tuukula tousled Luui’s hair once she had greeted the commissioner, sending her to the back of the room to wait as the meeting resumed.

  “We’ve been busy since you called, Constable,” the commissioner said, nodding for Gaba to continue as he rested against a desk.

  Gaba stepped forward, squaring his feet as he brought everyone up to speed. In typical Gaba fashion, he snapped his fingers when he wanted Atii to change slides on the computer screen behind him. I stifled another smile as Luui made soft snaps of her own fingers to echo Gaba’s. The SRU sergeant continued after a short beat of irritation.