Cold Fear

by Mads Peder Nordbo

  ‘Okay…’ Matthew flicked through his notebook. ‘Right, I’ve got something.’ He began to smile. ‘I’m calling it Thoughts about Being the Father of a Girl.’

  Tupaarnaq wrapped herself in one of the blankets again and rested her head against the glass as before. Her gaze disappeared out into the darkness. ‘I would like to hear that.’

  29

  FÆRINGEHAVN, WEST GREENLAND, 22 OCTOBER 2014

  Matthew was woken by the sound of a helicopter flying low over the boat. He cricked his neck; his back felt stiff and sore. He couldn’t remember falling asleep, but discovered that he was now lying curled up on one of the seat rows with his head on his jacket.

  The oil heater had gone out and the cold had slowly crept into the cabin, leaving ice crystals on the inside of the windows.

  Tupaarnaq was awake. She was looking out of the window. ‘I think it’s the police again.’

  ‘Good.’ Matthew rubbed his eyelids and pushed a couple of blankets aside. He could see his own breath in the air as he exhaled. ‘Will they be able to land around here?’

  ‘I’m guessing they can land that thing most places.’ She went over to the dashboard and started the engine. ‘Raise the anchor so that we can dock.’

  From the back of the boat Matthew watched the helicopter search between the houses, but soon the sound of the rotors disappeared, one chop at a time. He knocked on the windowpane and indicated with a thumbs-up that the anchor had been raised.

  ‘Throw the fenders over the side,’ Tupaarnaq shouted from the cabin. ‘Steering is tricky and the current has got hold of us.’

  Matthew looked about him. ‘You mean those blue cushions?’

  ‘Yes, throw them over the side…now!’

  Matthew had only just thrown the last of the blue fenders over the side of the hull when they hit the pontoon bridge. The boat bounced back so hard that Matthew had to grip the rubber dinghy in order not to be thrown overboard. The cold bit into his hand.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you,’ Tupaarnaq said from the cabin. ‘It’s impossible to control the boat in its current state…Just as well we didn’t try sailing to Nuuk.’

  Matthew nodded and waved to Ottesen, who had appeared around the corner of the first red building. ‘Let’s get off this boat,’ he said to Tupaarnaq, rubbing his fingers. ‘I’m bloody freezing.’

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ Tupaarnaq said with a glance at the police officer.

  ‘Okay.’ Matthew jumped up on the staging by the bunker point and continued towards the grey cabin with the opening hours sign and fire risk warnings.

  ‘Am I glad to see you,’ Ottesen called out to him. ‘Did you spend the night out here?’

  ‘Yes, the boat broke down. We reversed into some rocks…or rather, I did.’

  ‘Have you seen anything?’

  ‘No, nothing at all…Only darkness and snow.’

  Ottesen smiled. ‘I’m glad to find you here. We’ve been looking for you along the coast all the way down from Nuuk. We were afraid you might have sunk. Why didn’t you call us on the boat’s radio?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Matthew hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if it’s working…’

  Ottesen waved to another police officer and a couple of people in civilian clothes. ‘Never mind, as long as you’re all right.’ He turned to Matthew again. ‘Malik is on his way here by boat…He was pretty worried about you. But that means he can tow you back to Nuuk, doesn’t it?’

  Matthew nodded and looked towards the boat. The only footprints in the snow were his. Virgin snow glistened in the sunrays that penetrated the scattered clouds. ‘Any news?’

  ‘No,’ Ottesen said. ‘Not yet, but we’ll keep looking.’

  ‘It’s not good if they’re out here on their own in this weather.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re out here on their own,’ Ottesen said. ‘If they had been sheltering somewhere and heard the helicopter, Arnaq would have recognised it and made herself known, don’t you think? We circled the houses on the other side a few more times before landing here, and there’s absolutely no sign of life in the snow.’

  ‘What about over here?’ Matthew said. ‘I wanted to talk to Bárdur, but he seems to have vanished into thin air.’

  ‘Yes, Rakel brought him back on their return flight. His answers were so cryptic that she decided to interview him at the station.’

  ‘So he’s in Nuuk now?’

  ‘Yes, for the time being.’

  ‘Did he know anything?’

  ‘He doesn’t have even a hint of an alibi for anything,’ Ottesen said. ‘But neither do we have the tiniest piece of evidence implicating him, so we’re going to search his house thoroughly—yet again—and then we’ll have to see. Otherwise we’ll have to let him go.’

  30

  NUUK, WEST GREENLAND, 22 OCTOBER 2014

  It had been snowing in Nuuk as well. Matthew made sure no one was lingering by the blue terraced houses across the street before he took out his keys.

  It had taken them more than five hours to get back. Malik had towed them with his boat, and once they docked, Tupaarnaq had made her way to Else’s, who was going out of her mind with worry.

  Matthew needed to stop by the newspaper office, but he wanted to pick up a few things from his flat first.

  ‘Hello.’

  The hairs on Matthew’s arm stood up. He looked towards a black Humvee in the car park not far from him, heaving a sigh of relief when he saw Briggs get out of the car with a broad smile.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Briggs said, sticking out his hand to Matthew.

  ‘Yes, we both are.’ Matthew shook Briggs’s hand. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m so glad to hear it,’ Briggs said. ‘I heard you got stranded further south, and I just wanted to make sure that you were both back safe and sound.’

  ‘We’re good,’ Matthew said. ‘I just need to pop by my office, and then I’m going to visit my sister’s mother.’

  ‘Yes, what a terrible thing to have happened,’ Briggs said, making a short, whistling sound out of the corner of his mouth. ‘The reason I’m here is that I’ve been thinking about this business with your father…Did you know that we were only six years old when we started to go out on our bikes together back home?’ His face lit up and he produced a folded sheet of paper from his jacket pocket. ‘I got my sister to scan a couple of pictures of us when we were kids. They’re from the late sixties; we were only seven or eight in them.’

  Matthew took the sheet and unfolded it. They contained several photographs featuring two skinny, blond boys. ‘That’s you?’

  ‘Yep.’ Briggs leaned forwards and pointed to a picture. ‘That’s Tom with the yellow bicycle. He loved those dropped handlebars.’

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘Tom was an only child,’ Briggs then said. ‘But I think that his mother—I mean, your grandmother—is still alive.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Nice lady.’ Briggs whistled again out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I’m sure she would be pleased to see you.’

  Matthew smiled feebly.

  ‘Just let me know if one day you would like to see the place Tom was from and I’ll help you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Matthew said, closing his eyes for a moment. ‘I just need to…it doesn’t matter right now. I just need to process all of this.’

  ‘Yes, sure.’ Briggs smiled. His face was open. ‘It’s just me reminiscing about the old days.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘Those shards of glass that we used to cut ourselves to become blood brothers when we were kids…damned well nearly killed us…He was proper crazy, your father.’

  ‘You keep saying was,’ Matthew said.

  Briggs’s gaze grew serious. ‘Yes, you’re right. It’s just that for many years I thought he was dead. It’s a real mess. He’s a dangerous man, Matthew. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why you want to meet him, but I don’t feel entirely comfortable with it. He has taken enough lives, don’t you think?’

  �
�All I’ve heard from him for the last twenty-four years is that letter from Ittoqqortoormiit.’

  ‘Ittoqqortoormiit?’ Briggs exclaimed. ‘He wrote to you from Ittoqqortoormiit? What on earth would he be doing there? It’s pretty much the remotest town in the Arctic.’

  Matthew shrugged and looked across the road that led up to the low buildings that housed Sermitsiaq’s offices and the Video-Leif shop. ‘I can’t even be sure that it really was from him. Maybe it was just meant to look like it.’

  ‘I know his handwriting,’ Briggs said. ‘Give the letter to me and we’ll soon know.’

  ‘The police told me that you had been in touch with them,’ Matthew said, looking back at the tall man. ‘I would like to meet my father before you lock him up for good.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ Briggs said, then he paused. ‘Their current investigation relates to the old case at the Thule base, and as far as the US military is concerned, those cases never die—there’s no statute of limitations. So once I read about the killings in Ittoqqortoormiit, especially the pills, I decided to have a word with Ottesen. We would very much like to know more about those pills.’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘We being the Greenlandic government or—?’

  Briggs pressed his lips together. ‘We want those pills.’

  ‘But it’s only the survivor, Nukannguaq, who claims there were some,’ Matthew said. ‘And he was high as a kite…The police said there were no pills at the crime scene.’

  ‘Oh, the pills were there, I’m sure of it,’ Briggs said. ‘And those two cases…Listen…if you hear from Tom again, you will let me know, won’t you?’

  Matthew nodded slowly. ‘Right now I’m more concerned with finding my sister…And the rest of you should be too.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’ Briggs paused again. ‘I’ll look into it. Would you like a lift?’

  Matthew shook his head. ‘I’m only going across the road.’

  THOSE WHO LIVE UNDERGROUND

  31

  FÆRINGEHAVN, WEST GREENLAND, 15 APRIL 1990

  The air in the room was dense. Tom trailed his hand over the glass flask simmering over a low Bunsen burner. The glass felt warm. The fumes smelt of vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.

  They had set up a lab in the old doctor’s surgery a few doors down from Tom’s room. It was distinguished from the other rooms that Tom had seen by having a window in the ceiling. As far as he could work out, it wasn’t one he could escape through, but still it was a window, and although the sun was never visible at any time, it let in some light.

  Tom had dragged a couple of tables inside the room on which he could set up his equipment, but he was still missing many items and it would take time before Abelsen could source the right measuring devices for the experiment.

  He removed his hand from the flask and walked across to an old mahogany desk that had once belonged to a doctor. As far as Tom knew, the bunker under Færingehavn had never been used, but people must have been down there, because the doctor’s surgery was well-equipped. He had found several types of medication and instruments, but also quaint items such as wooden pill moulds and pill rollers.

  Tom pressed his finger into one of the little hollows of a pill mould. Then he put his finger into his mouth. The taste was sharp. Chemical. Mainly amphetamine and ketobemidone chloride.

  Abelsen had left the room a few minutes ago and would undoubtedly soon return. Tom had pointed out—yet again—the difficulties of performing an experiment on resistance to low temperatures now that summer was on its way; although the Nuuk summer wasn’t all that warm, it was still unrealistic to expect frost in the daytime before October. Abelsen had demanded that Tom hurry up and get the work done before the frost disappeared, but Tom had insisted that they didn’t have the necessary equipment for him to analyse the experiment.

  In the meantime, Tom had produced some pills to shut Abelsen up. His tormentor didn’t know the first thing about chemistry and now he would suffer the consequences of his own ignorance.

  The pills were drying under the green reading lamp on the desk. Tom had put them in a small metal box and lowered the green glass shade as close to them as possible. When he bent over the lamp, he could smell chemicals.

  The rest was just smoke and mirrors. Nothing in the flasks had anything to do with the experiment or pill-making. It was window-dressing meant to confuse and slow Abelsen down.

  Behind the desk was an old leather armchair with dark wooden armrests. Tom sat down, picked up a pill and dabbed it against the tip of his tongue. Then he put it back and ran his fingers up and down his thigh. He was wearing dark brown cords. A pair of trousers that Abelsen had left in his room along with some other clothes. The shirt was beige with orange and lilac stripes. His jumper the colour of urine. He looked like an idiot from the seventies.

  Tom turned to the door the moment he heard Abelsen’s footsteps in the corridor. The skinny man’s movements were always quick and decisive.

  ‘Tom!’ Abelsen said in a loud voice as he pushed open the door. ‘I’ve got the answer.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To the cold, obviously—what else?’ Abelsen shook his head and flapped one hand dismissively in the air. ‘Listen to this: we’ll use the old pool down here. It’s filled with seawater and it’s never more than two degrees Celsius. It’s perfect. They’ll freeze their backsides off in that water.’

  ‘The bunker has a pool?’ Tom said in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, there’s an old swimming pool at the end of this corridor,’ Abelsen said. ‘But I don’t want you going down there unless I’m with you.’

  Tom scrunched up his nose. ‘It’s not sub-zero, but we could try it.’

  ‘Great!’ Abelsen exclaimed with a broad smile. ‘So we’re in business.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ll have a hard time selling a product whose test result you can’t document.’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘It makes no sense to get someone to take these pills and then chuck them into an icy swimming pool when we don’t have the equipment to measure and analyse the results. You’ll end up with a product you can’t sell…Unless you’re happy to be just another small-time pusher.’

  ‘Pusher? What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘If you want to sell this stuff to big pharma, your test results must be in order and cover a long period.’

  ‘Tom, I thought our deal was clear? You make my product, and I let Matthew live.’

  ‘And the girl.’

  ‘Yes, yes, whatever…Stop harping on about that girl. I want my goods, okay?’ He pointed at the wall. ‘Your old room is just over there and you could be back there sooner than you think.’

  Tom heaved a sigh and straightened up in the chair. ‘I get it. I’m not an idiot. But there are two things you need to understand or the whole effort is wasted. One: if we don’t analyse and document the experiment properly, then it’s worthless…completely! The only money you’ll make is by selling it on the street. Now, listen to me…I’m telling you this because it’s not in my interest, sadly, that you screw up.’

  The corners of Abelsen’s lips turned downwards and he nodded slowly.

  ‘Two,’ Tom went on. ‘I’ve made a demo version of the pills with the ingredients we do have. You’re welcome to try them right now. And if you decide to jump into a freezing cold swimming pool afterwards, well, knock yourself out.’

  ‘What?’ Abelsen walked up to the desk. ‘You’ve made some pills already? Like the ones in Thule?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ Tom said, nudging the box towards Abelsen.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I’m telling you now…They needed time to dry.’

  Abelsen folded his hands and looked at Tom. ‘So if I wanted to, I could try them myself?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ Tom said. ‘They’re yours.’ He got up and rested the palms of his hands on the desk. ‘Why do you want to try them?’

/>   ‘Do you think I don’t know why you took them?’

  ‘I know that you saw what happened when we did.’

  ‘I saw what you became able to withstand,’ Abelsen said. He struggled to hide his smile, but he tried. ‘Just remember what I told you, I’ll be testing them on Bárdur’s family as well—and you have met his girls, haven’t you? I think they’ll be having some of these.’

  ‘Take one, go on,’ Tom said. ‘Take two, damn it.’

  ‘You first,’ Abelsen said with a scornful look.

  Tom shrugged, popped a pill in his mouth and swallowed it.

  Abelsen looked at him for a few seconds, then reached for the pillbox and picked two pills at random. He smiled disdainfully, stuffed them into his mouth and swallowed them. ‘It’ll be fun to see if we both drop dead now.’

  ‘They need a few minutes to take effect,’ Tom went on, ignoring Abelsen’s sarcasm. ‘And it takes a long time to develop resistance to very low temperatures, but you’ll feel something in a moment.’

  Abelsen nodded and walked over to the tables with Tom’s equipment. ‘Why is it so complicated to make the pills? I mean, we have all the ingredients.’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘The challenge isn’t making something that works, it’s making something that works without killing people at the same time.’

  Abelsen tapped his forefinger on a box on the table. ‘A man like you must know thousands of ways to kill people.’

  ‘Yes, but most of them can be detected.’

  ‘Most of them?’

  ‘Let’s talk about it some other day,’ Tom said wearily. ‘Feel anything yet?’

  ‘A buzzing,’ Abelsen said. He looked down at his arms. He clenched his fists and relaxed them. Then he clenched them again. ‘I can feel it under my skin.’ He looked up. Smiled broadly and turned his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Wow…This is wonderful.’

  Tom leaned back in his seat and studied the gaunt man’s face. The colour was rising in his pale grey skin. His eyes were glowing.

  Abelsen inhaled hard through his nose. ‘This is amazing, Tom… bloody amazing.’ He spun on his own axis once and waved his hands in the air as if conducting an orchestra. ‘Can you feel it? Dies irae… The angels are singing…Crescendo and crescendo.’ He looked down at Tom. ‘Let’s go hunting.’