Cold Fear

by Mads Peder Nordbo

  Tom looked up at the mountain again. ‘Get down!’ he screamed and threw himself on the ground; at that moment the first shot was fired. Tom was knocked over. There was another shot and this time his leg was flung backwards as his trousers were ripped open in a spray of blood that dripped scarlet onto the snow. Another two shots followed, one brushing Tom’s head.

  Frederik shouted to everyone to seek cover, and police officers grabbed Tom and dragged him behind Ottesen’s car.

  ‘Fire towards the mountain,’ Ottesen shouted. ‘Let’s get a helicopter in the air.’

  From his shelter Matthew could see Frederik tending to Tom’s injuries, while Ottesen barked orders into his mobile.

  Between them, out in the open, Briggs lay limp on the snow. The back of his head was a bloody crater.

  Matthew could feel Arnaq very close to him. Her mouth was open and she rocked her upper body back and forth. Her lips mumbled.

  ‘…twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Matthew said gently, pulling her close. She buried her face in his jacket and shook so much that both of them wobbled. His own fear disappeared. He closed his eyes and felt a sense of calm spread through him.

  Soon afterwards a red helicopter flew low over the airport terminal towards the mountain, where it followed its sloping rise before turning around in a short curve and flying back across the mountain to the airport.

  Several ambulances had arrived and paramedics had rushed up to Briggs, Tom and Leiff.

  ‘Would you like to see Tom?’ Matthew said.

  Arnaq nodded. ‘Is it okay now, do you think?’

  Matthew shrugged. ‘I’m guessing the shooters must be gone by now.’

  ‘I was talking about Dad,’ she said.

  Matthew smiled. ‘Yes…Come with me.’ He got to his knees and peered towards the mountain. Then he stood up fully and offered Arnaq his hand. ‘It’s safe.’

  ‘Shit,’ she said, grabbing his hand. ‘Was he shot? Dad?’

  ‘Yes, he…He…’ The words stuck in his throat. ‘Come on.’

  They hurried across the small area between the terminal and the car park. Matthew kept Arnaq on his left, away from the mountain.

  The flashing blue lights on the ambulances were going. Briggs lay covered on a stretcher, while sections of Tom’s trousers and jacket had been cut off. He had been shot in the shoulder and the shin. The shot hitting his head had merely grazed it.

  Tom grabbed Matthew’s arm and pushed away the oxygen mask that covered his mouth and nose. ‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘But not… right here…this could affect the whole world.’ His face contorted in pain. ‘And we need to track down Kjeld Abelsen…It’s crucial now that Robert is dead.’

  ‘Okay,’ Matthew nodded.

  Tom looked towards Ottesen. ‘We need to talk to him as well… him and Abelsen.’

  The stretcher was lifted into the ambulance. Arnaq reached for the stretcher, but then withdrew her hand.

  Ottesen came up to Matthew. ‘The murder charges against your father will be dropped now. Nothing else makes sense.’

  ‘If there even were any murders.’

  ‘Yes, that’s just it. You’re claiming that the victims are alive.’

  ‘I know they are,’ Matthew said. ‘Who do you think shot Briggs and Tom just now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ottesen said. ‘The shooter has vanished into thin air…Or into the snow.’

  ‘Precisely. It was what my father’s experiment and Tupilak were really about right from the start: to create elite units that appear out of nowhere, strike, and then disappear without a trace in the ice and snow.’

  ‘Whatever happens, your father won’t be charged with those killings—if they did take place—because both Briggs and Abelsen are in front of him in the queue of suspects.’ Ottesen rubbed his eyes. ‘What did Tom say about Abelsen?’

  ‘He said that we need to find Abelsen so that you and he can question Abelsen together, and then he said that he knows something which could affect the whole world.’

  ‘I’m starting to think he might be right,’ Ottesen said. ‘Abelsen is alleged to be hiding out in Tasiilaq. I’ll send some officers over there. Perhaps we could get some flown up from Denmark as well.’

  ‘I think Tupaarnaq has gone to Tasiilaq too,’ Matthew said. He turned his gaze to the hardened snow under their boots. ‘She has talked quite a lot about killing Abelsen.’

  ‘Please tell me she’s not that stupid?’ Ottesen exclaimed. He looked away from Matthew and up at the mountain. ‘Has it ever crossed your mind that Tupaarnaq might not be who we think she is?’

  Matthew frowned at Ottesen, who was still peering in the direction from which the shots had been fired. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just an idea, Matt.’ He turned back to Matthew. ‘I’m starting to wonder if she really was in prison for quite as long as we think. Who paid for her tattoos, and who made sure that she could get enough leave to have them done? It must have taken a long time.’ He hesitated and rubbed his eye. ‘Worst case scenario, Matt, and I really mean worst case: she could have killed Lyberth, and Abelsen might be one of the few, or possibly the only person, who knows it, because he was there.’

  ‘I haven’t got the energy to discuss that now,’ Matthew said. His stomach muscles contracted.

  ‘I did say that it was just an idea,’ Ottesen said.

  Matthew looked at the ambulance. The doors had been closed and it was about to leave.

  ‘Would you like a lift into town?’ Ottesen said.

  ‘Yes,’ Matthew said absentmindedly. He was troubled. It had been Tupaarnaq who had found the box with the pistol and the file from the experiment, and she had insisted on searching alone. And down in the bunker under Færingehavn she had pushed him away as he tried to enter the cell where she had been kept. Lyberth had been nailed to her floor and she had turned up in Matthew’s flat only hours after the murder with blood on her clothes and on her hands. If Abelsen hadn’t confessed to everything, she would have gone straight back to prison.

  TUPAARNAQ

  67

  TASIILAQ, EAST GREENLAND, 4 NOVEMBER 2014

  Tupaarnaq sat very still in the snow. It wasn’t very deep yet, so she looked like just another dark lump of rock in the white landscape. There was a game track not far from her where the snow had been compressed and was slippery to walk on. She sat still. She had sat there for several hours already today, as she sat there every day. She watched the town with her rifle resting across her lap.

  Most roofs in Tasiilaq were covered by snow. Not the colourful wooden walls, but the roofs. There were no icebergs in the sea now, and at the heart of the bay the water was starting to freeze over.

  She could see pretty much the whole town from her location. It was dark or twilight most of the day, but there were some hours where the light dominated and then she would be on her spot by the path.

  Tupaarnaq moved her upper body slowly from side to side and arched her back. She rotated her neck. Pressed her shoulders backwards and exhaled heavily.

  She took a deep breath and looked down the path. She had seen the three men even as they made their way to the mountains at the outskirts of the town. They were slowly approaching the spot where she was sitting.

  She got up in a calm, gliding movement while she pressed her lips together and tilted her head slightly. They hadn’t noticed her until now. She could tell from their movements that they were discussing something, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. One of them flung out his arms. It was the man in the middle. His body language indicated anxiety.

  She lifted the rifle to her shoulder. Eased a cartridge into the breech and aimed at them. The three men began to get uneasy. The man in the middle pushed one of the others in front of him, while the third raised his hands in a placatory gesture and shouted at her.

  She fired a second later, knocking over the man who had been waving. He clutche
d his leg and wailed. Her second shot took out the man on the other side. He rolled around screaming in the snow, cursing into the air while clutching his thigh. The snow was red where he had fallen.

  The last man carried his rifle on his back and he pulled it around in front of him. He loaded it and shouted something to the two men who were howling in the snow.

  Tupaarnaq let the man raise the rifle to his shoulder. She even let him press his cheek against the butt and look through the telescopic sight so that he could see her. It wasn’t until she saw the slight jolt of his head as he recognised her that she fired her rifle again.

  Her shot ripped open the back of his hand and he dropped the rifle before he had time to recover from the shock and shoot back.

  She aimed at his knee and fired again.

  One of the other men had stopped whimpering and was reaching for his rifle, but before he could lift it, a bullet brushed his arm. He screamed again and dropped the rifle.

  Tupaarnaq inhaled deeply into her lungs, filling them with the pure, frosty air. She closed her eyes briefly and exhaled. Then she walked towards the three injured men, shaking her head. The corners of her mouth were pulled down in anger and disgust.

  ‘Shut up,’ she ordered them. ‘If you keep squealing like little girls, I’ll bloody kill all three of you.’

  ‘You’re finished,’ said the man whose leg and arm she had wounded. ‘We should have killed you twelve years ago when we found you with the bodies.’

  She raised her rifle and aimed at his head. ‘Do you think you can shut up or do you want me to do it for you?’

  He shook his head. He glared furiously at her with bloodshot eyes. The snow under his legs was squashed and stained with blood.

  She turned her attention to Abelsen. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Is what true, you crazy bitch?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about, you pig.’ She tightened her grip on her rifle. ‘Am I another one of your rape children?’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed the man she had shot twice. ‘What’s she talking about? Surely my brother was—’

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ Tupaarnaq sneered, and fired into the snow right next to him. ‘You’re too stupid to understand, so just keep your mouth shut, all right?’

  He looked down at the red snow underneath him and she turned her rifle on Abelsen again. ‘Bloody answer me!’

  ‘It wasn’t rape,’ Abelsen sneered. ‘She loved it, your mother. She was a slag, just like all the others. They were paid for it and your father got plenty of money to keep you, that’s all there was to it.’

  Her arms slipped down.

  Abelsen grinned. ‘That was why he fucked you. You weren’t his. He didn’t give a toss about his daughters. It was when he discovered that his only son wasn’t his that he went mental.’

  Tupaarnaq’s muscles tensed under her clothing, contracting and then relaxing once more. Her breathing was controlled and slow. She stared into Abelsen’s black eyes. Then she raised the rifle again. The muzzle was less than half a metre from Abelsen’s face.

  ‘You won’t get away with this,’ said one of the men in the snow in a strangled voice.

  She kicked the man’s gunshot wound and he curled up in pain. ‘If I ever hear even the slightest hint that the two of you have breathed a word of this to anyone, you’re dead. Even if it takes years, because I’ll have to go to prison first, you will die. They’ll let me out one day and you know it. And then I’ll come looking for you. You won’t be able to hide, because I’m everywhere. I’ll be waiting in the darkness one day when you think that the danger has passed and I’ll kill you. Not like this, with a gun. No, I’ll gut you and I’ll cut out your intestines while you scream and squirm.’ Once more she aimed her rifle at Abelsen. ‘You know I’ve done it before, and I promise that I’ll be happy to do it again, just for you.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Abelsen screamed.

  ‘I’ll smear these idiots with your guts,’ she vowed, and shot Abelsen in the shoulder.

  He screamed hysterically and clutched his shoulder with his undamaged hand. He gritted his teeth and growled from deep down in his throat. ‘You daughter of a whore. You can’t kill your own father…This time you’ll get life.’

  ‘The pig that was once my father sentenced me to life a long time ago,’ Tupaarnaq sneered. She gripped the rifle and pointed it at Abelsen’s head. ‘You have one minute left to live.’

  Her forefinger rested firmly on the trigger. Abelsen stared into her eyes, terrified and furious at the same time. His mouth was open in a scornful grimace. His veins pumped hard under the skin across his forehead and throat. His chest heaved and sank.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said, and fired two shots.

  The two men in the snow cried out. She heard no words. The shots lingered above them in the crisp air. Blood spread in the snow on both sides of Abelsen’s head.

  ‘Fuck you,’ she muttered under her breath.

  Then the scream came. Delayed by the shock. His eyes flitted madly from side to side. He raised his left hand to his ear. Then he screamed again. She could see that he couldn’t hear anything; his eardrums had burst. She had shot off his ears. He rolled around the snow, trying to numb the pain by pressing snow against the bloody and fraying remains of his ears.

  ‘Pig,’ Tupaarnaq hissed. She kicked him hard in the ribs, then grabbed him and rolled him onto his back. She kicked him again. Then she rifled through his jacket pockets and got hold of a mobile and a leather wallet.

  She stuffed both into her own pocket and looked at the two other men. ‘If you breathe a word about me to anyone, you’re both dead.’

  68

  NUUK, WEST GREENLAND, 6 NOVEMBER 2014

  Matthew pushed off his duvet. He had the heating on too high, but he couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn it down. He pulled his laptop back and placed it between his legs so he could continue writing. He had started compiling material for a major article about Tupilak, but he was already wondering whether one article would be enough. It all seemed so far-reaching, and there were so many offshoots that writing even a broad summary was proving to be a major challenge. His editor wasn’t sure just how many details they could publish, either. Some people will kill to keep this secret, he’d said.

  Wind lashed the bedroom window. It was late in the evening and the daylight had disappeared long ago. During the day a storm had gathered over Nuuk and now it was playing with the snow outside, making it look like a snowstorm.

  Matthew turned his attention back to his laptop and started typing. Tupilak—an elite Arctic unit with a licence to kill. He shook his head at himself and deleted the line. He had spent most of the day at the hospital writing down everything his father could remember, and although that was a lot, it was only one man’s word, and supporting evidence was needed before it could be used or even made sense of.

  Abelsen was also in hospital, but it hadn’t been possible to interview him yet. He had gunshot wounds to his knee, hand and shoulder, and both his ears had been shot off. He insisted vehemently that Tupaarnaq had shot him, but the men who had been with him were adamant that they had been unable to see the shooter. Personally, Matthew didn’t care. Abelsen had been caught and was now under constant guard. Briggs was dead. Símin and his half-sisters were locked up and it could only be a matter of days before they found Bárdur, who no longer had Abelsen to protect him. Matthew watched the howling storm outside his window. Bradley and Reese, however, were still out there—if they really were the ones who had secretly crisscrossed the ice and snow in order to liquidate people.

  His mobile buzzed on the table. Matthew reached for it. It was a text message from Tupaarnaq. He had texted her several times every day, but hadn’t heard from her since Constable Point. The last time he had texted her was a couple of hours earlier at the hospital. Did you shoot Abelsen? he had asked, and now he had her reply: I was the one who let him live. I’m coming over.

  ‘Coming here?’ Matthew exclaimed, looking down himself. �
��Shit.’

  He had only just put his laptop on the bedside table when there was a knock on the door.

  He sniffed his armpits and looked out of the open bedroom door; the room itself didn’t smell too good either.

  ‘The door was open,’ she shouted from the hallway. ‘Why don’t you lock it?’

  ‘I, eh…I…’ Matthew looked around, jumped out of bed, snatched the duvet and wrapped it around himself.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She looked at him and shook her head. The heating was turning her skin red. She had already kicked off her boots and left her jacket in the hallway.

  ‘I was in bed,’ Matthew said, pointing at his trousers on the floor.

  ‘Okay.’ She looked towards his wardrobe. ‘My clothes are wet, the weather is insane and I’m cold.’

  ‘I thought you were never cold.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up,’ she said, closing the bedroom door behind her. The only thing lighting the room was the flickering street lamp, which was swaying in the storm.

  He could see her silhouette in the twilight by the door. She pulled all her jumpers over her head in one go and dropped them. Then she unbuttoned her trousers and let them slide down onto the floor and calmly kicked them off.

  ‘I’ll have that,’ she said, snatching the duvet from him.

  He watched her as she climbed into his bed and covered herself with the duvet.

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘I’ll go sleep on the sofa, shall I?’

  ‘Are you always this dim?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Just join me.’

  ‘Under the duvet?’

  She moved in the dim light. Squatted onto her haunches and pulled him down to her. He felt her skin press against his. His hands grabbed her and moved slowly, tentatively across the tattooed plants. Her breath crept into his ear. It was warm and alive. He explored her with his lips. Kissing her neck and breasts. Biting her. Carefully. She moaned. She pulled off his jumper, pushed down his underpants. He embraced her back while she pushed him down and straddled him. His hands explored her back. It was smooth, as though she were made from glass. His breathing was deep and trembling. He let his fingers trace the skin over her hips and across her stomach, until he closed his hands firmly around her breasts. With a finger she explored the gunshot wound on his arm. Caressing it. Then she leaned forward and swallowed him up.