Petra gripped her mug in both hands as she stared at a file with her photo, name, and a brief service record.
“It’s all right, Sergeant. Denmark and the United States are allies, friends, if you will, and friends share information.” He circled her name with the cursor, and said, “Piitalaat? Is that Greenlandic?”
“Yes,” she said.
“But no-one calls you that, do they?”
Petra looked at Sam, caught the glint in his eyes, as he stared back at her.
“It’s a lovely name, although I’m sure I didn’t pronounce it properly. Anyway,” Sam clicked back to the Wegener document. “Berndt believes that Wegener presented a misleading report of the mining potential for Svartenhuk. And we believe he wants to find the clue that will lead him to the treasure.”
“And what is that?” the Commissioner asked.
“Wegener’s missing journal,” Sam said.
“Forgive me,” the Commissioner frowned, as he tapped a finger on the table, “I did not have the benefit of Sergeant Jensen’s briefing. Why would Wegener deliberately write a misleading report?”
“Who knows? Perhaps he fell in love with the area.”
“And what will Berndt do with the journal?”
“Destroy it,” Petra said.
“What?”
“Good girl,” Sam said.
Petra pointed at the screen, and said, “If the journal is destroyed, no-one can prove the existence of minerals in that area without another expedition.”
“So,” the Commissioner said, “the Danish Technology University can send a bunch of students up there next summer.”
“They won’t do that,” Sam said. “Tell him why, Sergeant.”
Petra understood that she was being tested. She folded her hands on the table in front of her, and said, “If Svartenhuk is as rich as Berndt believes it is, he will want to keep the information a secret so he can buy the mining company that has the rights, for very little money.”
“But he can’t stop the Danish or Greenlandic government from carrying out a survey next summer,” the Commissioner said.
“No,” Petra said, “but he can use the media to make it very difficult for the government, any government, to commission the survey.”
“How?”
“By appealing to the people of the world to think of the families of those murdered in Svartenhuk, and by making it very difficult for a survey team to explore the area without being labelled as insensitive. He would suggest they wait at least another year.”
“By which time he will have convinced his board to buy the struggling company sitting on the Svartenhuk mining rights.” Sam closed the open documents with a click of the remote, and tuned the screen off. “Well done, Sergeant.”
“Yes,” the Commissioner said, “very good, but answer me this, Sergeant, are you saying the murders were planned for that purpose?”
“I don’t know, it just came to me, sir. But if you are asking me if people are prepared to kill for the secrets in Svartenhuk, I think they already have.”
Chapter 13
Maratse clumped down the stairs, glancing at Therese asleep on the sofa, one long freckled leg curled over the sleeping bag, as he walked to the kitchen. He decided on fresh coffee, and held a jug beneath the tap. The water limped up the pipes and the electric pump juddered with little or no resistance.
“I told you, I emptied the tank,” Therese called from the living room. She appeared at the kitchen door in her pants and bra, forcing Maratse to look away.
“I’ll get more water,” he said, and brushed past her.
Therese stopped him with her arm. Her skin seemed to glow and Maratse could feel the heat from her body through his t-shirt as she pressed in close to him. “What did you find when you searched Dieter?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m not so sure,” Therese said. She shifted position and brushed her hand across the wispy black hairs of Maratse’s oriental beard. “I told you I liked this style, didn’t I?”
“Iiji.”
“Then why don’t we find out how much? What do you say?”
Maratse took Therese’s hand and peeled it from his cheek. He looked into her green eyes, spared a glance at the blush of freckles across her cheeks, her nose, her lips, and said, “I didn’t find anything.” Maratse let go of Therese’s hand and walked into the living room.
“Where are you going?”
“To fill the tank with water.” He pulled on his overalls, boots, and hat, and stepped outside.
Inussuk had a water tank with a pump in a small insulated wooden building behind the store. It was blue, just like all the utility buildings in Greenland. Hospitals were yellow, stores and schools painted a dark red, police houses were green. Maratse collected two twenty litre plastic jerry cans from beneath the deck of his house, and carried them to the water tank. His boots slid over the finger-thick rime of spillage ice on the metal grate beneath the tap. Maratse unscrewed the cap of the jerry can, lined up the mouth with the spigot, and pushed the button to pump the water; he repositioned the can, and waited for it to fill. Buuti surprised him with a pinch to his waist.
“You’re up early,” he said, as he switched cans, and capped the first one.
“Karl has caught a whale,” she said. The light of the water station danced in her eyes, and she pressed a set of keys into Maratse’s hand. “He wants you to bring the snowscooter.”
“Iiji.”
“But not the woman,” Buuti said. “He thinks she is a journalist.”
“He’s probably right,” Maratse said, and tucked the keys into his pocket. “Her father owns a media company.”
“I’m not ashamed,” Buuti said.
“Of what?”
“Hunting whales. But they don’t understand, do they?”
Maratse screwed the cap onto the second jerry can and straightened his back.
“Europeans?”
“Non-Arctic people.”
“I think there is a big distance between them and their meat.” He shrugged, and said, “I’ll fill the tank and then go and get Karl.”
“Qujanaq,” Buuti said. “We have narwhal for Christmas.” Buuti smiled, wriggled her shoulders within her jacket and walked back to her house.
Maratse picked up the cans of water, grunted with the strain, and them carried them inside the house and to fill the tank. Therese was in the bathroom, and he called out that he was leaving.
“I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said.
He waited for a reply, and, when none came, he pulled on a few extra layers and left the house. Maratse tugged a thick fleece neckie from his overalls, and slipped it over his head. He pulled on the gauntlets tucked beneath the seat of the snowmobile, checked the tank, and started the engine, grinning at the sudden roar of power. Maratse considered himself a traditional hunter. As long as there was ice, he would never give up his dogs. But the warning signs were clear, and, despite the welcome cold snap and the lack of wind that allowed the sea ice to cover the fjord, he knew it was far from the norm. The days of the sledge dog were disappearing, even north of Uummannaq. Perhaps in ten years, maybe fifteen, the number of dogs in Uummannaq would be reduced to a handful, kept for show, or for the dwindling stream of tourists failing to come further north than Ilulissat. Maratse didn’t know exactly how he felt about that, he tried not to feel, to think; mostly he just wanted to live.
He let the engine idle for a moment, tugged one of the gauntlets off his hand, pulled out his mobile, and dialled Petra’s number.
“Piitalaat,” he said, when she answered.
“You didn’t call.”
“When?”
“After the car went through the ice. Why didn’t you call?”
“I didn’t think.”
“I would have called,” she said, “but I heard it from the Commissioner. He said Simonsen took you on the search, and that’s why you were in the car.”
“Iiji.”
“David,” Petra said.
Maratse heard her take a breath. “If we are going to be friends…”
“We are friends, Piitalaat.”
“If we are going to be more than that, one day, I really need to know about things like this.”
The snow crunched beneath his boots as he paced around the snowmobile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m calling now.”
“And I’m pleased. Pleased you are calling, and that you are all right. I’m sorry too,” she said. “It’s been quite a morning. I want to tell you about it.”
“I’m here.”
“I know, and I’ll tell you, when I see you.”
“I don’t know when that will be,” Maratse said. “I have to help Karl, and…”
“I know,” Petra said. “I’m flying to Qaarsut today. I’ll see you this afternoon.” She paused, and said, “The Commissioner wants me to interview the crew of the Ophelia. I’m liaising with him, and…”
“And?”
“Some other people. I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“This afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“I’d like that.”
Maratse ended the call, slipped the mobile into his pocket, and pulled on the gauntlet. He ignored the discomfort in his leg as he lifted it over the seat and made himself comfortable on the snowmobile. He clicked it into gear and throttled up and over the drift of snow before racing past the dogs, slowing to negotiate the ice foot, and then accelerating onto the sea ice. Karl looked after his snowmobile, and Maratse increased speed to a steady seventy kilometres an hour. On a straight stretch of smooth ice he pushed it over one hundred, the wind biting at his cheeks, the bubbles and bumps of ice rattling through the skids and vibrating into his body. Even traditionalists are allowed to have a little fun, he thought. Maratse patted one hand against his chest pocket, and then gave up the idea of smoking as the left skid jarred on a stubborn clump of ice, and Maratse was forced to steer with both hands, wrangling the metal beast onto an even course. He throttled down to eighty and concentrated on the ice ahead. The moon reflected on the new layer of snow that had covered the ice in patches through the night, and the deep deep blue of the polar sky pushed at the fringes of the black night and suggested that a new day was dawning, although the sun would not rise for another two months.
The smell of blood and intestines steamed in the distance, as Maratse approached the edge of the ice. A single floe, covered in blood, had broken free of the edge, with one hunter securing it with the tip of his ice staff while another worked on the carcass of a narwhal. Maratse had seen blood floes before, thick plates of ice where hunters had butchered a whale. In the winter they would steam until the heat had long since left the carcass, the hunters motoring home in bloody fibreglass skiffs with a bounty of food for the winter. Maratse understood Buuti’s concern, and imagined the uproar the western media would have at the sight of so much blood, the sprawl of intestines with a heavy tang of hot cabbage, and the positioning of toothed heads cut flat to stand on the ice as the men worked. This was not an industry, it was a livelihood, meat for the family, the tooth sold whole or carved into earrings and tupilaq – small figures polished to a smooth creamy finish – so much richer and ornate than those carved in reindeer bone. Tourists were not allowed to buy products made of narwhal, but there were plenty of Danes looking for a souvenir. As long as they lived in Greenland for six months or longer, they were free to take such rich treasures home.
Maratse found Karl and Edvard wrapping huge steaks of dark red meat in plastic tarpaulins. The dogs jerked back and forth, to the very limits of their tethers, intoxicated by the smell. Karl grinned at Maratse as he cut the snowmobile’s engine. He beckoned to him and pulled back a corner of the tarpaulin under which Maratse saw a stack of thick grey-mottled skin and blubber. Karl took the knife in his bloody hand and carved a finger-thin length of whale skin – mattak – and pressed it into Maratse’s hands. Maratse reached deep into a pocket and pulled out a small knife, grinning as he clamped the mattak between his teeth and cut a chunk free. He wiped a smear of spit and fat from his lips and nodded at Karl.
“Good,” he said, and grinned.
“Six whales,” Karl said, and pointed at the men working on the ice. “And there is another pod on the way.” He pointed at a man standing alone at the edge of the ice. “The game officer says we can take another three. That’s nine for Uummannaq. Not enough,” he said, with a shake of his head.
“Buuti is pleased,” Maratse said.
“I know,” Karl said. He wiped a bloody hand across his brow. “I must work, or I’ll get cold.” He nodded at the overalls, rolled down and tied around his waist by the sleeves.
“Here,” Edvard said, as he stood up. He pressed the wooden handle of a thick blade into Maratse’s hand. “I just sharpened it,” he said, and tapped the blade with a bloody fingernail. It wasn’t the first time it had been sharpened that night, nor was it the first time it had been used. The blade was narrower than the hilt of the handle, curving in a smooth arc to the point. Both sides of the blade were scratched from use, the grains of the handle filled with blood. Edvard pointed at the carcass he was working on and Maratse kneeled beside him and got to work.
The trick, he knew, was to cut a handle in the thick whale skin, and then carve a square around it, teasing, cutting, and pulling the skin from the meat until a square of skin and blubber was released roughly the size of school atlas, thicker than a fist. Maratse stopped to shrug out of the top half of his overalls, tied the sleeves around his waist, and continued. Edvard smoked as he cut, and Karl’s blade was not idle. They were finished with the whale an hour later.
“You go back,” Edvard said to Karl. “I’ll stay and help my brother-in-law.”
“Okay,” Karl said. He slapped Maratse on the back, and they wrapped the meat in another tarpaulin, securing it to the sledge with lengths of cord tied around the wooden thwarts and pulled in a zigzag across the bloody prize. Karl whistled, and said, “I can taste Buuti’s narwhal stew already. And,” he said, patting the stack of mattak, “she promised to fry the mattak and marinate it with onions, vinegar and…”
“And?”
“Something else. Something delicious.”
“Aramat?” Maratse said, with a thought to the classic spice mix in every Greenlander’s kitchen.”
“Naamik,” Karl said, with a wrinkled brow. He waved his hand. “That’s for fin whale or sildepiske. This,” he said, and patted the tarpaulin, “is narwhal.”
Maratse laughed. He climbed onto the snowmobile and shunted it into position in front of the sledge with gentle twists of the throttle. Karl attached the sledge to a thick loop of rope at the back of the snowmobile, and climbed onto the seat behind Maratse. He clapped the retired policeman on the back, and Maratse shifted into gear, driving around the dog teams on the ice before opening up the throttle and racing towards Inussuk. Karl lit two cigarettes, and pushed one between Maratse’s lips. The smoke drifted across their bloody brows, tickled the clogged pores of their blood-stained fingers, and blew across the bounty of meat and mattak on the sledge.
“I heard about the police car,” Karl shouted in Maratse’s ear.
“Iiji.”
“You were inside it.”
Maratse nodded.
“But you are all right?”
“I am.”
“What about the man? He stabbed a policeman.”
“Maybe,” Maratse said. “Piitalaat is coming to interview him.”
“She’s coming today?”
“Iiji.”
“That’s nice. She must come to dinner. Perhaps she has never tried narwhal?”
“Do you think there is enough?” Maratse chuckled a cloud of smoke from his lungs.
“There is never enough,” Karl said. He leaned back in his seat, finished his cigarette, and flicked the butt onto the ice.
High tide had pushed the ice foot into a thick slippery wall that took some time to negotiate. Ka
rl guided the sledge from the back, leaning into the uprights as Maratse tried to pull the sledge up and over the ice. After twenty minutes, and under the silent gaze of a small crowd, Karl unhitched the snowmobile and Maratse parked it on the sea ice. They fetched a team of dogs and pulled the sledge up and over the ice foot, all the way to Karl’s house. A group of six small children, Nanna among them, raced after the sledge. The dogs whirled with the smell of fresh meat, and Karl found a bucket of entrails to reward them once Maratse had secured them at the ends of their chains. It was only when the meat was in Karl and Edvard’s freezers that Maratse realised the lights were not on in his house, and Therese was nowhere to be seen.
“A taxi came from Qaarsut,” Buuti said, as she handed Maratse a square slab of mattak.
“Qaarsut?”
“Aap.”
“Not Uummannaq?”
“Naamik. I think she is leaving.”
“Leaving?”
Maratse pressed the mattak under his arm as he ran up the stairs and into his house. He left the whale skin on the mat and clumped up the stairs, ignoring the bloody ice cascading from the soles of his boots. He threw back the sheets on his bed, and tossed the pillow onto the floor. The journal was gone.
The thunder of the four rotors of the de Havilland Dash 7 shook the house as it descended for a short landing on the icy strip in Qaarsut. Maratse raced down the stairs, out of the house, and along the beach to the snowmobile.
“What’s the rush?” Karl yelled, but Maratse ignored him.
The engine started at the first turn of the key, and Maratse felt the snowmobile leap across the ice as he accelerated. He pushed the machine from seventy, past ninety, felt his arms start to shake as the snowmobile shuddered around one hundred and thirty kilometres an hour. Maratse squinted through the cold air pricking his cheeks into solid cubes of flesh. He saw the lead of open water, another one, about ten seconds after he should have decreased speed to turn to avoid it. Instead, committed, Maratse increased speed, gritted his teeth, and held his breath as the skids skimmed across the first metre of the open lead, crashing into and biting at the brittle edge half a metre further away. Maratse felt the rear of the snowmobile dip into the water, felt the splash of icy water as it sprayed across his overalls, and then felt nothing more than relief as the snowmobile found purchase on the other side of the lead, and the leading edge of the tracks spun and gripped the ice, propelling Maratse forwards, and out of the sea. Maratse slowed for a second to study the ice ahead, steered around the thicker patches of snow that would warm and degrade the ice below, choosing instead to race along a path of black ice. That route, more cracks, and a few open leads, took him deeper into the fjord, away from the runway. The first passengers would have disembarked by now, he realised, Petra among them. But it wasn’t Petra he was racing to meet, Maratse knew that he had maybe twenty minutes before the Dash 7 took off again, together with Therese Kleinschmidt and Alfred Wegener’s lost journal, the one worth killing for.
Blood Floe: Conspiracy, Intrigue, and Multiple Homicide in the Arctic (Greenland Crime Book 2) Page 11