The Winter Trap

by Christoffer Petersen

Atii grinned, rolling her tongue to one side, pressing it into her teeth, eyes sparkling.”

  “It’s not funny, Atii.”

  “It is. Just a little.”

  “You followed me through the window.”

  Atii slowed at a junction. She tilted her head onto her shoulder – another grin. “The damage was already done, P.”

  “Right.”

  She accelerated out of the junction, and I settled in my seat. The last of the rain dripped from my hair and down my neck. I stared straight ahead, stewing in my thoughts, until Atii missed the turn for the police station, and carried on down Aqqusinersuaq, Nuuk’s main street.

  “Atii?”

  “Aap?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Hospital.”

  “Why?”

  “Surprise,” she said. Atii turned up the police radio, catching the last of an exchange between two officers coordinating a search for a second shoplifter. “Busy night,” she said.

  For shoplifting, maybe, but Wednesdays weren’t typically busy. They were often the calm before the storm of Thursdays building up to the weekend. Pay day Fridays were the worst, of course. Many of Nuuk’s residents were paid once a fortnight and could blow two week’s pay over a single weekend of booze. When the end of the month salary also fell on a Friday… well… I was just glad it was Wednesday, and that Uuko and I were the topic of the night. If that was it…

  “Atii?” I said, suddenly worrying that there was something worse in store for me when we arrived at the hospital.

  “Nearly there,” she said.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure I’m ready for a surprise, at least not at the hospital.”

  “This one is okay, I promise.”

  Atii parked in one of the short stay parking spots, and I followed her into the hospital. She slowed to a stop, then pushed me forward towards a waiting room at the end of a long corridor.

  “Ear, nose and throat,” she said. “Last door on the right.”

  “Atii?”

  “Trust me,” she said, tugging her smartphone from her pocket. “I’ll wait in the car.”

  I gave her one of my best frowns and she waved it away, laughing as she turned for the car. I left her to it and walked the rest of the way down the corridor, wet soles squealing on a linoleum floor. I paused at the door, thinking it was late in the day for a clinic, and then stepped inside.

  The events of the late afternoon vanished as a bundle of energy leaped into my arms and I staggered backwards, bumping against the wall as a five-year-old girl slid down my chest. I grasped at her legs, stopping her fall, and she crawled back up my body, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face in my neck.

  “Pretty lady,” she said, voice muffled as she pressed her nose into my skin.

  “Hello Luui.” I kissed the side of her head and looked around the waiting room for Luui’s father. Tuukula waved from a chair on the opposite side of the room and then stood to greet me.

  “Atii said you were working,” he said, as Luui squirmed against my chest.

  “In hiding,” I said. “I may have caused some trouble earlier.”

  “Scaring old people, eh?”

  “What?”

  Tuukula raised his hand and pointed at the speaker on the wall with the stub of his finger. “I heard it on the radio. Big police action – a chase, and lots of damage.”

  “It was a window and a few potted plants. I’m not even sure we cracked the glass.”

  “We?”

  “Atii and me. She was there too.”

  “Ah,” he said. “They said there was just the one police officer.” He shrugged. “You can never trust the media, eh?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”

  Tuukula pressed his hand against Luui’s back and straightened her t-shirt. “Luui has earache. The nurse in Qaanaaq thought a doctor should look at it. She’s had a few ear infections before, when she was younger, so they sent us all the way to Nuuk.” Tuukula peeled Luui from my arms, smiling as my body sagged – she was getting heavier with every visit. “They’ve given her something for the pain and we’re waiting here while they find us a room for the night.”

  “Just one night?”

  Tuukula pressed his finger to his lips, and then switched to English, “That’s what I told Luui.”

  “I can English,” Luui said, turning her head to scowl at her father.

  “I know you can,” he said.

  Tuukula sat down and Luui wriggled on his lap. I took the chair beside them. Luui leaned over the arm of the chair and took my hand, tugging at my fingers as Tuukula spoke, switching back to Danish.

  “But something is bothering you,” he said.

  “Well, now I’m concerned about Luui.”

  “Sure, but that’s not it. It’s from before.” He reached out to smooth the crease on my forehead. “You have two kinds of frowns, Constable Jensen.”

  “I do?”

  “Aap.” Tuukula let his hand fall, smoothing Luui’s hair as he spoke. “You have the pinch of interest, right there…” He tapped the centre of my forehead. “And you have the concerned frown when something bothers you. That’s the one you’re wearing now.”

  “I suppose I am concerned,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “I’m not sure. It was just something the woman at the residential home said. Something about a friend of hers – Venus.” I slumped against the back of the seat, smiling at Luui as she examined the tips of my fingers, inspecting the mud from the potted plants caught under my nails. “She said she was missing,” I said.

  “Venus?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want to find her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I looked at Tuukula, his grey hair with the odd but familiar tuft bunched at the top of his head, his eyes sharp, inquisitive, exactly like his daughter’s. He caught my eye and smiled.

  “Yes, you do,” he said. “You can’t help it.”

  Part 5

  I spent Thursday morning with The Boo Radleys, a band Atii had just discovered, swinging the vacuum cleaner as I tried to convince myself it really was a beautiful morning despite the rain thrashing the windows, and the wind whipping at the waves in the bay separating Qinngorput from the city centre. I fixed the spare bedroom, following up on a promise to Tuukula and Luui that if they needed to stay longer than a few days, then they could stay with me. The thought of Luui careening around my apartment made me smile, if only for the potential revenge it afforded me, responding to the neighbours’ kids in kind.

  But no matter how much I cleaned or how loud I played the music, I couldn’t shake the thought that Venus was missing, and I of all people should be able to do something about it. Atii and I had the evening shift, and we agreed she would pick me up. That gave me the rest of the morning and a few hours into the afternoon to get Venus out of my mind. I grabbed a wool sweater from my closet, tugged it over my sweaty house-cleaning t-shirt, and straightened the saggy hem over my jeans. I took my police-issue boots to combat the rain, and a rain jacket, grabbed my keys and ran for the bus.

  I spent the better part of the bus ride into the city fixing my hair. I let my hair down on my days and mornings off, literally, and now the wind and the rain had whipped it into something ravens could hide in. I flattened it, smoothed it out, chilling a little as I hummed the chorus about waking up on a beautiful morning, and almost missed my stop. The wind purged all my hair-dressing efforts and pushed me along the sidewalk all the way to the residential home with gusts batting at my back. It followed me into the entrance of the home, teasing the nurse at the front desk with a flutter of papers.

  “Hi,” I said, fixing my hair. “I’m the constable from last night.”

  “Oh, yes,” the nurse said, fixing me with a rather hard stare.

  “Right.” I bit my lip, wondering if this was a mistake. “I wondered if I could apologise to…”

  “Ruusiina?”<
br />
  “Yes. Now that it’s daylight.”

  “She’s in her room,” the nurse said. “You know the way.” I nodded. “But you’ll have to speak up. Her hearing aid needs a new battery.”

  “Of course.” I reached over the desk to shake the nurse’s hand. “Thank you…”

  “Tiillat,” she said. “Just call if you need me.”

  “I will.”

  I left my jacket to dry on a stand near the door, then followed the corridor to Ruusiina’s room, whispering sorry to the cleaners as they removed the last of the mud from the carpet. Ruusiina’s door was open, and I knocked on my way in.

  “Hi,” I said, introducing myself. I was about to say more, to apologise, but when Ruusiina turned from her plants at the window, I realised I had the wrong room or the wrong resident. “Are you Ruusiina Magtikalât?”

  “Aap.”

  “And this is your room?” I tugged hair from my eyes, revealing the frown on my forehead.

  “And my plants,” she said.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about your plants.”

  “For my grandson, really,” Ruusiina said. She lifted her hand and clapped it like a mouth. “He thinks his ana is growing monsters in her bedroom.”

  “Yes,” I said, catching up in the conversation, although my mind was a little cloudy as to who Ruusiina was. I reminded myself that the lights were off when I busted into her room, and that I was more focused on catching Uuko than I was on frightening old ladies. “Venus,” I said, without thinking it through.

  “Venus flytraps,” Ruusiina said. “That’s right. Do you like plants?”

  “Erm, no, not really. At least, that’s not what I meant.” I took a breath. “I’m sorry, I was expecting someone else. Someone other than you, in your room.”

  “Oh.” Ruusiina pointed behind me. “You’re looking for Kiiki.”

  “I am?”

  “Aap. Kiiki Anguupisen. She gets confused. She comes into my room looking for…”

  “Venus,” I said.

  “Aap. My grandson shouts when he visits. He thinks his ana can’t hear him. So he shouts for Venus, and that confuses Kiiki.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “And where can I find Kiiki?”

  “In the common room.” Ruusiina smiled. “And thank you,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “Your apology.”

  My cheeks burned, and I made my excuses, leaving Ruusiina to her plants. I figured she was better off tending to them without me.

  I passed Tiillat in the corridor, explained the mix-up and gestured at the common room.

  “I won’t keep her long,” I said. “It’s just something she said yesterday. It caught my interest. That’s all.”

  “It’s fine,” Tiillat said. “I’ll be close by, if you need me.”

  It was the second time she suggested I might need her help, but I thought nothing of it, until I walked into the common room and Kiiki Anguupisen screamed.

  Part 6

  “It’s your sweater,” Tiillat said as she brushed past me. “I should have thought about it.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. Kiiki screamed a second time, and the residents around her stared at her and then glared at me. I retreated to the door, thinking there was nothing I could do right in the residential home, that I should stick with policing and worry about old age when I reached it, not before, and not on a Thursday morning just hours before I started an evening shift.

  “She’ll be okay,” Tiillat said, stepping back as two more nurses arrived to help calm Kiiki down. “But it’s probably best if we go back to reception.” Tiillat placed a gentle but firm hand on my shoulder, much like I did when guiding distraught family and friends away from an incident.

  But I wasn’t distraught, I just didn’t understand.

  “What was it about my sweater?”

  “I’ll explain,” Tiillat said, gesturing at a chair close to the door. “I just need to get something.”

  She returned a moment later, carrying a large book in her hand. Tiillat placed it in my lap and I opened it, catching a hint of old paper and dried summer grasses.

  “It’s her scrapbook,” Tiillat said. “Kiiki kept it for many years, adding to it whenever she found something new.”

  “New? Such as?”

  “News about Venus Manumina. Look.” Tiillat tapped a newspaper cutting of a young Greenlandic woman wearing boots and jeans and, “A wool sweater. You even have her hair – long, black…”

  “All over the place,” I said, as I looked at Venus for the first time. Tiillat sat in the chair beside me as I turned to the next page, unfolding a colour photo – not Venus – from a glossy magazine as Tiillat spoke.

  “Venus wanted to be a model. She had the figure, the height – everything. She thought she could be in knitwear magazines. You know?”

  “Yes,” I said. I’d seen them in dentists’ waiting rooms.

  “Well, this book is Kiiki’s record of everything she could find about Venus’ disappearance.”

  “She disappeared?”

  “According to Kiiki’s son and daughter. They explained everything – as much as they could – the day Kiiki moved into the home. They said we should be careful with the scrapbook, that Kiiki could get herself worked up over it. She did. Often. So we took it from her room.”

  “You took it from her?”

  Tiillat sighed as if it wasn’t the first time she had to explain something to an outsider. “Kiiki suffers from a form of dementia. No,” she said, waving her hand before I could ask questions. “You’ll need a doctor to explain it to you. I’m more of an administrative nurse, but I’ve seen what that book can do to Kiiki. I understand why it’s best for her not to see it, at least not if we haven’t prepared her for it.” Tiillat paused for another sigh. “If I’d thought about it, we should have prepared her for meeting you.”

  “The sweater?”

  “Sweater, hair, jeans…” Tiillat smiled. “The whole ensemble.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. But…” She tapped the scrapbook. “Maybe you can do something about it. Venus means so much to her. Her family said they were the best of friends. They said Kiiki feels responsible for Venus’ disappearance. I wonder if it drove her mad, but the doctors say she’s not mad, just ill. But who knows? Maybe finding out what happened to Venus will give Kiiki peace.”

  My brain started to spin, and I could feel the pinch of what Atii dubbed my curious frown just above my nose. I turned a few more pages until I hit the first empty page, about a quarter of the way into the book.

  “There’s not much to go on.”

  “No,” Tiillat said. “I kind of hope that Venus went to Denmark, that some modelling agency picked her up, and she’s living in Copenhagen, or…”

  “New York,” I said, thinking of the dreams Atii and shared of living in big cities.

  “Exactly. In retirement, after a long, successful career.” Tiillat sighed once again as she stood up, smoothing the tails of her uniform.

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “Naamik.” She shook her head. “I read the articles in the scrapbook on a night shift, once. It starts off well, but then there are old reports of a young girl gone missing down south in the beginning of winter.”

  “South as in Denmark?”

  “South as in Narsarsuaq.”

  “Greenland.”

  “Sheep country,” Tiillat said, pointing at my sweater. “Wool.”

  “Venus went straight to the source.”

  Tiillat shrugged. “She liked wool. Maybe she thought she could model sweaters made of Greenland wool, like the Icelanders she saw in the knitting magazines.”

  I could just see it – Venus striking a casual pose, her long hair trailing in the wind blowing off the ice cap. Icebergs in the fjord, in the distance, lush green grasses behind her as she leaned against a dark wooden gate.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, good luck, Constable. I�
�ll get you a bag for the scrapbook.”

  “You’re giving it to me?”

  “I’m lending it to you. Bring it back when you’ve figured out what happened to Venus. Only…” She glanced at the common room. “Don’t wait too long.”

  No pressure then, I thought, as Tiillat returned to her desk.

  Part 7

  I read every page of the scrapbook on the bus, missing my stop on the first loop, as I opened the folded articles, careful not to rub the old newsprint off the page with my fingers. Kiiki had pasted the articles in chronological order, starting with scraps of Venus’ ambitions and dreams, aged twenty-seven in the early 70s. The images of Nuuk in the background were recognisable, with many of the same buildings still standing – I saw them when I looked out of the window, getting ready for my stop. Other pictures showed spots now obscured by newer buildings, fancy signs, and big American cars. Venus’ story continued as far as 1975, after which, the last few articles following the young Greenlander with her sights set on the catwalk changed in tone, painting a depressing story of a twenty-nine-year-old woman, gone without a trace.

  “Winter, 1975,” I said. I looked up as the driver called out my stop.

  “You missed it last time,” he said, as I gathered my things.

  “I know,” I said, and then, “Thank you,” on the way out of the door.

  I tucked Kiiki’s scrapbook into the plastic bag Tiillat gave me and clutched it to my chest, dipping my head into the wind and rain as I marched up the hill to my apartment, head spinning, wondering how I could solve this one.

  “For Kiiki,” I said, gritting my teeth in another gust of wind.

  Atii blasted the horn of the patrol car as I crossed the parking lot, startling me, followed by a shout as she rolled the window down.

  “Where have you been? I tried to call.”

  I checked my phone – dead. “Am I late?”

  “I’m early.” Atii checked the clock on the dashboard. “But not by much. You have to hustle, P.”

  I waved, tugged my keys from my pocket, then took the stairs to my apartment. I left Kiiki’s scrapbook on the kitchen table, stuck my toothbrush in my mouth as I stumbled out of my jeans, forgetting that I hadn’t removed my boots. The end of the brush caught in the hem of my sweater as I tried to pull it over my head, and I stopped, jeans around my knees, head covered, with my toothbrush caught between my teeth and my sweater.