Matthew let the cigarette drop into a glass bowl full of water and other cigarette butts on the balcony and looked across to Mount Ukkusissat, which towered against the blue sky behind Nuuk’s outer residential area, Qinngorput. Behind Mount Ukkusissat there was another ridge of mountain peaks, after which the ice cap began. If you stood at the top of Mount Ukkusissat and looked in the direction of Ittoqqortoormiit, one thousand five hundred kilometres of ice separated the two locations. There was nothing else in between. No life. Just a kilometre-thick carpet of ice larger than France.
The man who had shot himself in the face and survived was called Nukannguaq, and going on the notes Matthew had been sent, the men all appeared to have been high at the time. Nukannguaq even claimed that a demon had killed the others, then forced him to shoot himself. He had been found immediately after the shooting and flown to Reykjavik, where doctors had spent hours fighting to save his life and his face.
When Nukannguaq had been interviewed by Icelandic police officers, he told them that the men had found a bag of homemade pills that had made them go berserk. To begin with they had only taken two each, but the pills had made them feel so amazing that they had all swallowed some more. Perhaps another six or seven. The pills had made them high pretty much instantly, but afterwards they had all crashed. It was like hurtling into hell and being ripped apart by evil spirits. Everything dark and black inside them was torn to pieces, and they all started screaming and shouting. Nukannguaq didn’t know what had happened. When he came around, he was sitting in a chair and the others were lying near him, soaked in blood. He hadn’t realised that there had been any shooting. He thought the noises were coming from inside his own head. He had shot himself soon afterwards, when the demon had broken through the living room window. Death had seemed the only escape from the screams of the demon and the blood-soaked bodies.
However, according to Matthew’s editor’s source, there was absolutely no trace of pills in the house. Or demons. Only a lot of empty bottles and some cannabis, which added up to a bad trip that had driven three young Greenlanders to take their own lives. Sadly that was all too common.
Matthew picked up a ballpoint pen from the pile on the sofa and wrote Suicide? Who shot whom? What pills? on the back of the photos he had printed out of the dead bodies from Ittoqqortoormiit. Four young men shooting themselves pretty much at the same time, in the same room, with the same rifle, was brutal. Even by east Greenlandic standards.
Matthew looked at the photo of the living room and tried to imagine the stench of cannabis and gunpowder residue. The old tiled coffee table in the middle of the room was covered with empty beer bottles and two plates overflowing with what appeared to be the ash and butts of joints as well as cigarettes. Several bottles had been knocked over. One of them had been full and the yellow liquid had run across the green tiles and onto the stained carpet below. On the sofa behind the coffee table lay two young men whose names were listed as Salik and Miki. They had both been shot at close range. Salik just sat there, slumped, while the shot had pushed Miki off the sofa so that he was half-lying across Salik’s thighs. Salik’s sweatshirt and trackpants were soaked with their blood. His eyes were open and vacant. A third young man was lying on the floor. Konrad. He had fallen forwards and his face was pressed against the carpet. The back of his head had been blown off. Clumps of dried blood hung from his hair, along with pieces of pink brain.
6
It was just past two o’clock in the afternoon when Matthew sat down at the small table in Else’s kitchen. Else was the mother of his half-sister. They lived in one of the low, rundown apartment blocks at the top of Radiofjeldet, not far from his own flat. He often thought about visiting them, but nothing had ever come of it because of the chaos of the past few months. Discovering that he had a sister after being an only child all his life had affected him more profoundly than he had expected.
Matthew forced a smile and turned his attention to the table. The envelope was a standard white one, with no sender. It was addressed to Matthew, but it had Else’s address on it.
‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘No, thank you.’ Matthew studied the handwriting on the envelope. Sweat spread on his forehead as he opened it.
‘Is it a letter?’ Else said.
He nodded and pulled out a note. ‘I think it’s from Tom,’ he said in a hoarse voice and put the note on the table so that she could see it too.
I read your articles in Sermitsiaq. Come to Ittoqqortoormiit. House number 87. I want to tell you about Tupilak. That was all it said.
‘So after twenty-four years he suddenly wants to tell me about some tupilak?’ Matthew mumbled to himself. He felt a knot of unease in the pit of his stomach. He got up and left the kitchen, stepping outside into the fresh air. The sun was still shining, but it hung low now, turning everything orange. Matthew stared up at the sky. He had been missing his father for so long that his yearning had turned into a strange emotion, which more than anything resembled the kind of residual hatred you feel for people even though you’ve forgotten why you hated them in the first place.
‘Are you okay?’ Else asked Matthew when he returned to the kitchen a few minutes later.
Matthew nodded and rubbed his eyelids.
‘Do you think your father lives there now?’ she went on. ‘In Ittoqqortoormiit?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Matthew said, sitting down again on the chair by the small kitchen table. ‘But it’s his handwriting. I have a postcard from 1990 that he sent to my mother and me, and it’s the same style. I’ve stared at that postcard thousands of times so there’s no doubt in my mind. My father wrote this note.’
‘I recognise his handwriting too,’ Else said. ‘And hiding in a place like that would be just like him. He was always on the run somehow or other, so the more remote the better.’
Matthew looked at the photograph of his half-sister on the fridge behind Else. ‘How does Arnaq feel about Tom?’
‘We never really talked about him, but once she got used to the idea that she had a brother, she started asking lots of questions. In fact, I think she would like to see her father now. Only so much time has passed. After all, Arnaq was only two years old when he disappeared.’
Matthew looked down at the note. ‘Is Arnaq around?’
‘No, three friends from her school in Denmark have come to visit, and the four of them have gone camping in Færingehavn.’
He looked up. ‘They’re spending the night there?’
‘Yes, I think they’ll have a great time. Her friends have never been to Greenland before so it’s a new experience for them, and it’s not as if anyone lives there.’
Matthew nodded. ‘How long are they away for?’
‘At least until after the weekend,’ Else said with a smile. ‘They packed tents, plenty of warm clothing and good sleeping bags, and if they change their minds they can always sleep in one of the abandoned houses.’
‘Definitely…As long as they stay away from the old quay.’
‘Is that where you found the dead girl last summer?’
‘Yes, but the point I was making is that the quay is completely unsafe.’
‘She had been dead a long time, hadn’t she?’
‘Yes, since 1973, so there’s nothing to worry about.’
Else smiled and took a sip of her coffee. ‘Oh, I’m not worried or I wouldn’t have said that they could go camping there. Besides, my friend Lars, who took them there in his boat and will be bringing them back, has promised to stop by every day to check that they’re okay.’
‘Just as well…There’s no mobile phone coverage down there.’
‘No, I know. There never has been.’ She tilted her head slightly. ‘Lars teaches at the local sixth-form college so he knows just how people the same age as Arnaq think and act.’
‘Is she enjoying sixth form?’
‘Yes, I think so. She certainly seems to and there are lots of new things to do.’
‘And now on top
of everything our father has turned up.’
Else nodded and her gaze grew distant.
‘I’ll talk to Arnaq about it when she comes back,’ Matthew said.
‘Thank you.’
Matthew looked at the brief message again. He frowned. ‘It’s twenty-four years since I last heard from him.’
‘He’s good at disappearing,’ Else said. She picked at the handle of her cup. ‘Do you remember me telling you about a man Tom was scared of?’
Matthew looked at her. ‘Not really. The last few months have been a bit of a blur.’
‘He was around back when Tom disappeared,’ she went on.
‘Ah…A fellow soldier, was he?’
‘Yes, and Tom was scared of him, this stranger.’
‘Could that be why he left Nuuk?’
‘I don’t know. He simply disappeared from one day to the next and I never heard from him again. But, yes, Tom was so scared of this stranger that he refused to leave the house, and then one day he was just gone.’
‘Do you know his name? The stranger?’
‘I found him,’ Else said with a distant expression in her eyes. ‘The first time Tom spotted him, the man was heading into a government building. Tom went white as a sheet and insisted that we go home immediately. He called the man Briggs. Tom went straight to the bathroom when we got home and stayed there for hours.’
‘But you just said you found him? The man? Briggs?’
‘I was frightened of what might have happened to Tom when he disappeared, so I went to that government building and asked for Briggs. He was there all right, but he said that he had no idea who Tom was. Only I didn’t believe him. One of my cousins worked in the same building and she told me that as far as she was aware, Briggs was a former US officer from the Thule base and was now head of HR for the Greenlandic government. She also said that he spoke only a few words of Danish when he first arrived, but that he had picked it up really quickly.’
‘But you never found out why my father was scared of him?’
‘No…And I guess after several months I stopped believing that Tom would come back. There was no record of him anywhere, so there was nothing the police could do. I don’t think they could be bothered, either.’
‘Do you think that Briggs guy is still there?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Else looked towards the window at the end of the narrow kitchen. The view was entirely of the next dilapidated apartment block.
Matthew picked up the envelope and looked at Else. ‘Do you have a picture of Tom and Arnaq together?’
Else squeezed her eyes shut and nodded slowly. ‘Tom didn’t like pictures, but I think I have one or two. They’re from my niece’s confirmation.’ She pushed her chair backwards and stood up. ‘You stay here—I’ll go check.’
7
A cold fog had settled across Nuuk when Matthew left Else’s flat. The chilly, dissolving droplets in the air pricked his skin, and the scent of the icy Arctic sea mixed with the moisture between the tired, grey apartment blocks on Radiofjeldet.
He turned into Lyngby-Tårbæksvej and took the long wooden steps down across the rocks between Kiassaateqarfik and the blue community hall at the corner of the TelePost building.
His mobile buzzed in his pocket. It was his editor wanting an update on the article on the Ittoqqortoormiit suicides from three days ago. It’s on its way, he quickly replied. Then he texted Tupaarnaq. I’ve heard from my father, he wrote. My sister is in Færingehavn with some friends. They’ve gone camping there for the weekend.
He automatically found his cigarettes and lit one while he continued towards the grey wooden building.
His mobile buzzed in his hand. The Tupaarnaq thread lit up on his screen. Your father? I’m on my way.
He stared at the small white text box. She was coming to Nuuk? Was that what she meant? A flush of heat surged in his chest. Everyone began to move in slow motion. The smoke filled his lungs. He exhaled and watched as the smoke mingled with the cold fog. A half-full yellow Nuup Busii bus passed him at a leisurely pace. Cars. Faces. He placed the cigarette between his lips and narrowed his eyes as he replied to her: Good. Text me when you’ll be landing in Nuuk and I’ll pick you up. He stared at the screen for a few minutes, then threw away the cigarette and slipped his mobile back in his pocket. He knew there wouldn’t be any more from her for some time.
He had folded Tom’s letter and stuffed it into his back pocket along with two photographs that Else had found for him. Once he got home he would find out how to get to Ittoqqortoormiit. As far as he was aware, he would have to fly to Reykjavik and then backtrack to Ittoqqortoormiit by helicopter.
He entered the white building that housed the Greenlandic government’s administrative offices and made a beeline for a narrow counter where a Greenlandic woman was staring at a screen.
She turned to him with a smile. Her skin and black hair shone in the bright beam of the lights above the reception. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello,’ Matthew said. ‘This might sound weird, but is there a man working here called Briggs?’
The woman nodded. ‘Yes, do you have an appointment?’
Matthew shook his head. ‘No, it’s a private matter. Family business.’
‘Ah,’ she said, looking back at the screen and typing quickly. ‘It says he’s around, so why don’t you just go in.’
‘Okay…Thank you.’ Matthew looked around the reception area. Several doors and corridors led further into the building.
The woman smiled again and pointed to a corridor on the far side of the lobby. ‘It’s the fourth office on your right.’
Matthew nodded and headed for the corridor she had pointed to. It was narrow and had the feel of an old wooden barracks. Just like the other doors in the corridor, the fourth door on the right was open. As he passed, he could see into each office, where one or more people were working at low desks.
On the fourth door there was a sign with only one name: Robert Briggs.
Matthew’s heart started pounding and he took a few deep breaths while he gently caressed the ring in his jeans pocket. Then he stepped into the doorway.
In the middle of the room was a man who looked about fifty years old. He seemed tall, although he was sitting down.
Matthew cleared his throat.
The man looked up. ‘Are you looking for someone?’
‘Yes,’ Matthew said. ‘I think I’m looking for you. Are you Briggs?’
‘Yes. How can I help you? Have you been fired?’
‘No…No, I’m a reporter from Sermitsiaq.’ Matthew took a step into the room. ‘But I’m here on a private matter. My name is Matthew Cave.’
‘Cave?’
‘Yes. I think you served with my father…At the Thule base.’
Briggs straightened up in his office chair and looked at Matthew for a few seconds. ‘It’s true that I served at the Thule base, but that was a long time ago now.’
‘I think my father was there twenty-four years ago,’ Matthew said. ‘His name is Tom.’
Briggs continued to look closely at Matthew. Then he shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t remember anyone called Tom from those days… unfortunately. He’s your father, you say?’
‘Yes, Tom Roger Cave,’ Matthew said, rubbing his empty ring finger. ‘I’m guessing you must be about the same age.’
‘There was no one called Cave when I was there,’ Briggs said. He pressed his lips together and shrugged.
‘He lived at the base until 1990,’ Matthew went on. ‘I lived there myself with my mother when I was a boy.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Briggs said. ‘I don’t remember him.’
‘Okay.’ Matthew looked at his feet. He felt as if the floor was dragging him down, as if he had suddenly turned to lead. ‘I knew it was a long shot.’
‘So you haven’t heard from your father since 1990?’
Matthew looked up again. ‘No…Not a word. My mother and I travelled to Denmark just before I turned four and he was meant to follo
w on, but he never did.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Briggs said. ‘If there have been no signs of life from him for twenty-four years, he could be dead.’
‘He lived here in Nuuk for a while. After 1990.’
‘But you just said—’
‘I only found out two months ago,’ Matthew interrupted him.
‘So you think he’s still alive?’ Briggs said, making a whistling sound out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Yes.’ Matthew frowned and looked quizzically at Briggs. ‘He lived here in Nuuk with a woman throughout the 1990s…They had a child, so I have a half-sister, as it turns out, but I still have no idea where my father might be.’
Briggs raked his hand through his short, blond hair and drummed his fingers on the table.
‘I’ve been told that he fled when you came to Nuuk,’ Matthew went on. ‘My sister was two years old at the time, and she never heard from him again either.’
‘I can’t help you, Matthew. Unfortunately.’
‘Okay,’ Matthew said, looking down glumly once more. ‘I’m sorry for wasting your time.’
‘That’s quite all right,’ Briggs said with a smile. He hesitated, then looked gravely at Matthew. ‘What made you turn up here, today of all days?’
‘I’ve had a letter from my father, and then…Well, I ended up here because my half-sister’s mother mentioned you.’
Briggs moved right to the edge of his seat and looked at Matthew with an expression that was simultaneously surprised and insistent. ‘You’ve heard from him?’
‘Yes, but not until today…And there’s no sender on the letter. I just recognised his handwriting.’
Cold Fear Page 3