‘My point exactly.’
‘Mind you don’t get your fingers burned,’ Rakel said. ‘Criminals know how to pull the wool over your eyes.’
‘I believe Jakob,’ Matthew said. ‘He followed Tupaarnaq’s trial and he said that she should have been acquitted.’
‘There’s no one on the boat,’ Malik said. ‘But the rubber dinghy is gone, and as you never sail without a rubber dinghy…she must be ashore somewhere.’
‘There’s Bárdur!’ Rakel pointed towards the bunker point.
Matthew quickly turned his head and followed her gaze. ‘We need to land,’ he said to the pilot. ‘Next to that guy over there…right now.’
40
Bárdur paced up and down the living room. He stared at all of them, but mostly at Rakel.
‘Why don’t we sit down?’ Rakel said, looking firmly at Bárdur. ‘So that we can have a chat.’
‘About what?’ the big man sneered.
In his mind Matthew tried to compare Bárdur’s voice with that of the man who had attacked him in Nuuk, but his attacker hadn’t said very much and Matthew had been terrified.
Rakel sat down on a seventies-style blue sofa. ‘How very comfortable. Lovely house you have here.’
‘Thank you.’ Bárdur pulled out a chair by the dining table and sat down as well.
‘Any chance of a cup of coffee?’ Malik said.
‘No.’ Bárdur shifted on his chair. ‘What do you want? I don’t like visitors.’
‘Oh, this isn’t a social call,’ Matthew said. ‘You’re the only person who lives out here where my sister and her friends disappeared.’
‘I’ve already spoken to the police about it,’ Bárdur said dismissively. ‘I don’t know why you’ve come back.’
‘I need to take a slash,’ Malik interjected. ‘Can I use your loo?’
‘No,’ Bárdur said. He glowered at Malik. His eyebrows had sunk down over his eyes.
‘You don’t have a loo?’ Malik went on in a quizzical voice.
‘No,’ Bárdur said. He closed his eyes. ‘Yes…No…I want you to leave now.’
‘Cool television.’ Malik raised his camera and took a few pictures of the old-fashioned television set. ‘Does it work?’
‘Work?’ Bárdur said, looking at them in turn.
‘Yes, all the signals are digital today, and that old picture tube can’t—’
‘I don’t use it,’ Bárdur cut him off. ‘It’s just sitting there…It’s nice.’
‘It certainly is,’ Malik said and aimed his camera at a picture of an old fisherman with a pipe and sou’wester instead. ‘My old aunt had that exact same picture in her home.’
‘Didn’t all old people have that?’ Rakel said.
Malik shrugged and lowered his camera.
‘My sister and her friends saw you over in Færingehavn the day before they disappeared,’ Matthew said. ‘Together with a pale young man whose name might be Símin and who has just turned twenty-three?’
‘No,’ Bárdur said.
‘No? You can’t just say no. They saw you. Who was the pale guy?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bárdur said.
‘But you were there.’
‘No.’
Matthew swore, and then said: ‘There can’t be any other red-bearded men your size running around out here now, can there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’ Matthew drummed his fingers on his leg impatiently.
Bárdur frowned. ‘My brother.’
‘Hey,’ Rakel interrupted. ‘You never said you had a brother?’
‘Who is he?’ Matthew wanted to know.
‘My brother’s name is Olí,’ Bárdur said.
‘Shit,’ Rakel sighed. ‘I’m tempted to haul you back to the police station again.’
‘No,’ Bárdur said. ‘No…we’re…no, we’re not going to do that.’
‘So where is Olí now?’ Rakel asked him.
Matthew nodded.
‘He looks like me,’ Bárdur said, shaking his head dismissively. He was leaning forwards now and for the first time he looked straight at Matthew. ‘I hardly ever see him. He keeps mostly to himself.’
‘I thought you lived alone?’ Matthew said.
Bárdur nodded. ‘Yes, alone.’
‘But where does your brother live?’ Rakel said. ‘If it’s somewhere out here, surely you must know?’
‘He’s the devil himself,’ Bárdur said. The expression in his eyes had grown more intense. ‘He’s everywhere…Inside and out.’
‘And what about that pale guy you were with?’ Rakel tried. ‘Is his name Símin?’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Bárdur said, leaning back again. ‘You need to talk to Olí.’
‘Seriously,’ Rakel said. ‘You really should have told us about Olí when we first interviewed you in Nuuk.’
‘You don’t talk about Olí,’ Bárdur said.
‘I think you’ll find that’s my decision,’ Rakel said irritably.
Matthew caught Bárdur’s eye again. ‘Why did Olí attack me?’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Bárdur said again, and looked away.
‘I’ve had enough of you,’ Rakel said angrily. ‘We’ll come back for you once we’ve searched Færingehavn.’ She got up and zipped up her police jacket. ‘Meanwhile I suggest you try to remember more about Olí and that pale boy…Argh.’ She groaned with frustration.
Bárdur nodded reluctantly. He pressed his lips together so hard that they disappeared completely behind his beard.
Matthew studied the man’s fleshy face. He was easily strong enough to gut Lyberth and nail him to the floor, but he seemed too stupid to be above Abelsen in the food chain. And besides, he hadn’t killed Jakob; they’d had the result of the DNA tests. There was no match.
‘We need to find that pale guy,’ Matthew said wearily. He patted his thighs and got up. ‘Let’s fly across the fjord and take a look at Færingehavn.’
41
The snow whirled up around the red body of the helicopter. Despite there not being much snow on the ground, there was enough to create a brief white chaos under the downdraught from the rotors as the helicopter took off.
Matthew, Malik and Rakel watched it from the ground. They had agreed that Viktor might as well circle the area and carry out an aerial search while they checked the empty houses in Færingehavn.
They decided to start with the big grey house where they had found traces of blood. Malik’s camera dangled around his neck and he had a backpack full of lenses.
Matthew looked at Rakel’s back. The word ‘POLICE’ glowed in white letters across her dark blue jacket. Her kit was attached to the belt around her waist, visible right below the hem of the jacket.
Malik carefully raised his camera when they stepped up onto the worn wooden walkway that led up to the grey house. He aimed the lens at the woodwork below a window at the end of the right wing. It looked as if blood had run down the wall below the window.
‘Is this the place?’ he asked quietly.
‘It’s in there, yes,’ Rakel said. ‘But you won’t be taking any pictures inside, understood?’
‘Of course.’ He raked a hand through his shoulder length black hair. ‘This is seriously messed up, all of it…That business with Ulrik and everything was only a few months ago…’
Matthew looked down at the withered grass and the snow under his feet. He nudged a bit of dirty snow with the toe of his boot and avoided looking at Rakel. ‘If Tupaarnaq was here, she would have come outside by now.’
‘But the boat is here,’ Malik said.
Matthew took out his cigarettes and lit two; he gave one to Malik. The wind was cold. It stung his cheeks. ‘Somebody needs to flatten this shit hole.’
‘I think it’s flattening itself,’ Rakel said. ‘Let’s search the houses… for the umpteenth time. There has to be something we keep missing.’
Matthew nodded grimly. Exhaled the smoke. It tormented him that Arnaq might be lying somewhere, prayin
g to be found before it was too late, her hope of rescue slowly dying inside her. He rubbed his eyes. His fingers smelled of smoke.
The helicopter swooped close to them. Viktor shook his head to indicate that he had seen nothing new. Rakel, too, shook her head, but at that point the sharp nosed AS 350 was already on its way back out across the sea.
They searched the houses one by one and by the time they reached the laundry, which bordered the sea near the place where Matthew and Tupaarnaq had previously rowed ashore, the helicopter had finished its aerial search.
Matthew couldn’t see the helicopter on the far side of the fjord, but he had seen it fly around the bunker point and heard its engine stop. He looked at his watch. It was just after five o’clock in the afternoon and it was slowly starting to get dark.
‘There’s a rifle in here.’
Matthew spun around and looked towards the laundry, where Malik was standing. ‘What did you say?’
‘Is there usually?’ Malik went on.
‘Why would there be a rifle in there?’ Rakel rushed over to Malik.
‘Eh, because there is!’
‘Don’t touch it,’ Rakel ordered him as she stepped through the smashed door. ‘Is that Tupaarnaq’s, Matt?’
Matthew walked around Rakel and squatted down next to the rifle on the floor. ‘Yes, it is. She bought it when she came back to Greenland.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’ He reached for the rifle.
Rakel shoved him aside. ‘What you think you’re doing? Our technicians need to examine it.’
He looked up at her. ‘But we can’t just leave it here and I want to know if it was fired.’
‘Then let me do it,’ she said, picking up the rifle. ‘And yes, you’re right. We can’t leave it lying around. We don’t know how many nutters are out here.’ She removed the magazine and pulled back the bolt. ‘One cartridge is missing from the magazine, but it could have been fired at any time.’
‘Tupaarnaq never goes ashore without checking that the magazine is full,’ Matthew said. ‘She does it almost on autopilot. I’ve filled it for her myself before.’
Rakel surveyed the room. ‘Apart from that, is there anything of interest here?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Matthew rubbed his eyelids with two fingers. ‘There’s dust everywhere.’
‘We’ll find your sister,’ Rakel said, placing her hand on Matthew’s shoulder. ‘Fuck it…We’ll go back and talk to Bárdur again. I refuse to believe that moron doesn’t know something.’
‘I’m sure he was the guy who attacked me,’ Matthew said. ‘It can’t be anyone else. He has to know where Arnaq is…and Tupaarnaq.’
‘In that case we need to call Viktor and get him back over here so he can pick us up,’ Malik said. ‘What on earth is that twit doing on the other side?’
‘Refuelling, I guess,’ Rakel said. ‘Perhaps it’s complicated.’
‘Ha,’ Malik quipped. ‘I bet he’s looking for girls on his mobile inside that warm cabin of his.’
‘But we haven’t got a signal,’ Matthew pointed out, waving his mobile in the air. He had done so regularly, but there was no coverage anywhere, not even one bar. ‘How is it even possible that Arnaq could have made a call from here?’
‘I’ve never found any networks in this precise place,’ Malik said. ‘But when we sail around the fjords closer to Nuuk, there are occasional spots with some coverage. Not very strong—you can’t even open Instagram.’
‘If she had a Danish SIM card, she might have got lucky and found a spot where she could get a short call through,’ Rakel said, surveying the surrounding houses. ‘But Malik is right; it’s more common closer to Nuuk. This place is fairly dead.’
Malik let his backpack slide from his shoulder. He sat down on the dusty floor next to it. ‘Does anyone want a rum truffle?’
‘You actually brought some?’ Rakel said, sitting down as well. She carefully placed the rifle on the floor and set down the magazine next to it.
Matthew brushed some wooden splinters away and sat down opposite the other two.
Malik nodded, smiled and produced a box of six big truffles. ‘Or would you rather have some dried seal?’
‘You brought that as well?’
He shook his head with a grin. ‘No, but I would have packed some whale blubber if I’d known that we would be sitting here freezing our backsides off…Matt loves whale blubber.’
‘You do?’ Rakel asked, looking at Matthew with raised eyebrows.
‘No,’ Matthew said, pulling a face. ‘It’s just Malik having a joke at my expense. He’s forever trying to get me to eat it by telling me how the oil in the raw blubber warms you up.’
‘It does!’ Malik protested.
Rakel nodded. ‘So can I have one, then?’ She got her truffle and looked at Matthew. ‘Has Malik ever told you that he’s never shot anything himself?’
Matthew frowned. ‘I thought he went hunting all the time?’
‘Well,’ Malik said. ‘I go off with the guys…I’m cool with that. I just can’t be bothered to shoot anything.’
‘Go on, tell him about the seal,’ Rakel said.
Malik swallowed a mouthful of truffle and wriggled on the floor. ‘If we have to wait for that idiot Viktor for a long time, I’m going to make myself comfy on the old sofas in the community hall.’
‘I’m with you,’ Matthew said. ‘So what about the seal?’
Malik looked around the old laundry. ‘When I was eight years old, I was out with my dad one day emptying the nets…We lived up in Aasiaat. It was bloody freezing. And when we pulled the net up, there was a dead seal trapped in it. It was completely rigid. It had drowned and it was ice cold. But its eyes were staring at me, all black and shiny. My dad was over the moon at bringing home fresh seal, but I hated how it had stared at me…That it had drowned and everything. So as we walked home, I made up my mind that I would never kill an animal. It’s not some vegetarian bollocks; I’ve just never felt like killing anything myself.’
‘You wouldn’t have lasted very long in Greenland a hundred years ago,’ Rakel said.
‘Never mind,’ Malik said, stuffing the rest of his truffle into his mouth. ‘You can always shoot a seal for us, if we end up stranded here for weeks.’
‘You can certainly shoot a seal with that,’ Matthew said, nodding at the rifle. ‘But I’ll take a raincheck as well. I nearly threw up the last time.’
‘Why?’ Rakel said.
‘Eating raw liver…Tupaarnaq had just cut it out of the seal… Guts and blood all over the place. It tasted disgusting.’
‘Of course it did—you need to prepare it properly,’ Rakel said. ‘You put the meat in clean water and you keep changing the water until it stops being muddy…And only the ribs are tasty…I’ll cook some for you one day, and then you’ll be converted.’
Matthew was lost in thought for a moment, then he popped the last bit of truffle into his mouth and looked up. ‘Is there any way we can reach Viktor?’
‘Not without a boat,’ Malik said. ‘It would take us days to hike down to the bottom of the fjord and then walk back along the other side to Polaroil, and I don’t think we’d make it. We didn’t bring any kit for a hike like that at this time of year.’
‘How weird,’ Matthew said. ‘I mean, we can look right across to where he is.’
‘That’s Greenland for you,’ Malik smiled. ‘If you don’t have a boat or plane, you’re stuck where you are. And Mother Nature is just waiting to kill you.’
‘You don’t think anything has happened to Viktor, do you?’ Rakel said suddenly.
Malik shook his head. ‘No, and that’s what so bloody irritating about him; once he reclines that seat, he can sleep for hours.’
42
Matthew held his breath. He was certain that the others had also heard the noise because they had fallen just as quiet as he had. It sounded as if someone was walking past the broken windows outside.
Wh
en it began to get dark they had moved from the old laundry to a square red building, which had once been some sort of canteen and community hall. It was where Færingehavn’s former residents had watched movies, played pool, played the piano, listened to music and relaxed. Many of their things were still there, but in a terrible condition. The heavy pool table had collapsed and the piano had split open and barely looked like an instrument. But there were also a few old pieces of furniture which could still be used, and that was why they had sought shelter there when they gave up waiting for Viktor at the laundry.
Matthew was lying on a battered green sofa, Malik and Rakel on the other two. None of them had much battery left on their mobiles so they chatted in the darkness.
Until they heard the noise.
‘Do you think that’s Viktor?’ Malik whispered.
Rakel hushed him. ‘Not without the helicopter, you moron.’
The noise began again. It sounded like the crunching of someone walking on frozen grass.
‘This is giving me the creeps,’ Malik said.
Rakel slowly stood up.
Matthew heard her open one of the small bags on her belt and shortly afterwards a click as she removed the safety catch from her service pistol.
‘Let’s check it out,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ Malik hissed. ‘You’re going outside?’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated for a moment. She stood still. ‘To be honest, I was hoping this would happen when we flew down here.’
‘You’re nuts,’ Malik said.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Rakel whispered. ‘Now, come over here and watch my back. And Matthew, pick up the rifle and load it.’
‘Okay,’ Matthew said softly, and got up. He struggled to keep his breathing steady as he slowly made his way to the sofa where Rakel had been lying.
Malik and Rakel crept towards the door to the hall and then onwards to the front door. Matthew picked up the rifle, inserted the magazine, slid the bolt back and then pushed it forward. For the first time he experienced a physical sensation of relief at holding a loaded weapon. He was still frightened and on edge, but the rifle gave him an unexpected feeling of control.
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