The Ice Star (Konstabel Fenna Brongaard Book 1)
Page 20
The lights came on and Fenna turned her head towards the nurse. The woman paused at the door, her short body half inside the room as she turned her head to talk to a policeman in the corridor. Fenna heard the nurse switch from Greenlandic to Danish and then tut to allow the policeman to enter the room. The tears that Fenna's nightmares had held at bay, welled in her eyes at the sight of Maratse. He grinned as the nurse scolded the unlit cigarette from between his lips and into his jacket pocket. Maratse stepped aside and let her pass, closing the door behind her with his foot.
“Konstabel,” he said as he fished the cigarette from his pocket and pushed it into the space between his teeth. “I've come to take you home.”
Fenna nodded and sniffed once before lifting her wrist and rattling the cuffs chaining her to the bed. Maratse grinned and fished a key from the pocket on his belt. He tossed it to Fenna and nodded at the clothes in the bag on the chair.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We have to take Dina to the heliport.”
And there she was, Dina, again, but this time Fenna wasn't alone.
Chapter 30
There was a crowd outside the hospital when Fenna walked out of the front door. She tugged the collar of Simonsen's jacket high around her neck and dipped her head, covering her face with her hair. Her leg was stiff but she was determined not to limp. Maratse opened the taxi door as Fenna slid her feet along the smooth surface of the snow. She noticed that Simonsen was sitting in the driver's seat of the police Toyota, watching her from where he was parked on the road, outside the light blue offices of Nukissiorfiit, Greenland's energy utility company. Maratse waited for Fenna to get inside the car and closed the rear passenger door. He sat down next to the driver and told him to wait on the road. Dina's body, Fenna had heard the nurse say, was sealed inside a zinc casket and loaded onto the back of a pickup. She saw the vehicle outside the side entrance to the hospital, the early morning sun reflecting on the shiny surface as the driver secured it with straps to the pickup's bed. Maratse nodded for the taxi driver to follow the pickup as it pulled out of the hospital parking area and onto the road. Simonsen followed in the Toyota.
The road to the heliport wound around the mountainside, cut into the rock. Wooden houses painted blue, red, green and yellow, leaned over the edges. They drove past the town scrap yard and an assortment of sledge dog houses, drying racks, snowmobile carcasses stripped for parts, and the ubiquitous plastic fish crates borrowed indefinitely from the Royal Greenland fish factory. Fenna took it all in, her face pressed to the passenger window as she avoided looking through the windscreen, avoided the thought of Dina, and tried to block out the shoot-out at the schoolhouse.
The taxi slowed as the pickup drove up the slight rise beside the heliport and through the gates onto the landing pad. The ground crew helped the driver unload the casket and secured it inside a net to be slung beneath the red Air Greenland Bell 212 helicopter. Maratse paid the driver and got out of the taxi. Fenna waited for him to open the door. He pressed a small backpack into Fenna's hands and waited for her to look inside.
“I can't take that on the plane,” she said and opened the pack to show Maratse the Webley. He shrugged and fished a cigarette from the packet in his pocket.
“It's all you have,” he said.
Fenna closed the backpack and slung it over her shoulder as Simonsen parked the Toyota beside the heliport building, stepped out of the car and bummed a cigarette from Maratse. He stared at Fenna's jacket as he lit the cigarette.
“Konstabel,” he said and paused to blow out a lungful of smoke. “I don't pretend to understand what happened before you arrived in Uummannaq. All I know is I want you off this island. You are now in his custody,” Simonsen said and nodded at Maratse. “He'll see you all the way to Kangerlussuaq. You'll fly to Denmark later today.”
“That's it?” she said. “What about Kommandør Kjersing?”
“Dead,” said Maratse.
“What?”
“Shot himself yesterday,” he said and shrugged.
Fenna's shoulders sagged as she processed the information. The distant beat of rotors whopped through the air and she thought about Humble's man in the Arctic and the cost of the Canadian's test, the number of dead, and the potential implications for the Sirius Patrol should the story ever find its way into the papers.
“You are advised to keep your mouth shut, Konstabel,” Simonsen said, raising his voice as the helicopter settled into a hover over the helipad, buffeting them with the wash of the rotors as it landed. “There are no journalists on the island,” he said. “And, fortunately for you, no-one thought to film your gunfight outside the hospital. If someone had posted this on YouTube...” Simonsen shrugged and took a last drag on his cigarette. He flicked the butt into a snowdrift.
Maratse tugged at Fenna's elbow and nodded towards the helicopter. The ground crew had finished attaching the net to the bottom of the aircraft and the pilots were signalling that they were ready.
“You can keep the jacket,” Simonsen said as he walked beside Fenna to the gate. “Consider it a souvenir, a reminder. I have mine,” he said and smoothed his hand over the purple welt on the side of his head. Fenna nodded and followed Maratse through the gate and across the helipad. They ducked instinctively as they walked beneath the rotors and climbed into the helicopter. Fenna slid along the bench beside Maratse, dumped the backpack on the floor and buckled her seatbelt. Maratse handed her a pair of ear defenders and she tugged them over her ears. Simonsen waited by the gate until they were in the air before returning to the Toyota. Fenna watched him drive along the road as the helicopter lifted off the helipad and into a hover, settling the weight of the casket before gaining altitude and dipping the nose of the aircraft. The island was busy as people walked along the roads to the supermarket, glancing up at the helicopter as it chopped through the air above them.
The flight to the mainland took less than twenty minutes. Maratse was silent and Fenna closed her eyes. She immersed herself in the high pitch and tremor of the rotors, blocking out images of the schoolhouse, and focusing on Kjersing's abrupt death. She thought about Humble and pressed her hand against the pocket in her thermal top. She felt the card in the bottom of the pocket and pulled the zip closed. Maratse tapped her shoulder and pointed out of the window at a whale breaching the surface between the icebergs in the dark waters of the fjord below the helicopter. Fenna noticed the pilots exchanging gestures and felt the aircraft dip to the left as they angled for a better look. The pilots levelled the helicopter and raised the nose of the aircraft, losing speed and altitude as they settled above the gravel landing strip at Qaarsut airport. More ground crew guided Dina's casket to the ground before stepping back as the helicopter shifted position and landed. The rotors whined as the pilot powered down, reaching up to apply the rotor brake as the helicopter shuddered and the motor ticked cool. Fenna grabbed her backpack and followed Maratse out of the helicopter as the ground crew jarred the door open, sliding it alongside the fuselage. Dina waited to one side.
“I told Kula I would bring his granddaughter home,” Maratse said. Fenna stood by his side as the ground crew removed the net and straps. They paused at the roar of the four-engined Dash-7 aircraft as it touched down on the gravel strip, air-braking all the way to the airport building. Maratse turned away from Dina's casket and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. He walked towards the building and Fenna fell in step beside him. The aircraft turned at the end of the strip and taxied to the terminal, a small wooden building with a tiny tower.
Fenna's bag was shoved in the hold with the other passengers' luggage. Maratse sorted her boarding pass and they waited in the small lounge as the crew removed several rows of seats inside the aircraft to make space for Dina. When they climbed onboard, Fenna was relieved to sit in the seats directly in front of the casket. While the first sight of the casket had troubled her, she now realised that Dina was finally at peace, and that no man could ever hurt her again. She smoothed her hand over her breast pocket,
not for the last time, and imagined how she could use the card inside it.
What was it Burwardsley had said? She tried to remember as the aircraft taxied to the end of the strip, powered up and lifted into the air. The short take-off thrust Fenna back into her seat. Toronto, she recalled. That's where Humble will be. Fenna closed her eyes as Maratse fidgeted beside her. When the stewardess brought coffee, Fenna shifted her position and winced at the pain in her ribs. Maratse stared out of the window as they flew over Disco Island. Fenna tapped him on the arm and beckoned for him to lean in close.
“Vestergaard?” she said. “What happened to him?”
“Gone when I got back to the station,” Maratse said.
“Where to?”
He shrugged and took a sip of coffee.
“And the dead Danes in Kulusuk?”
“Navy,” he said and reached inside his jacket for a newspaper clipping. He unfolded it and presented it to Fenna. She read the headline and shook her head at the caption citing an unfortunate boating accident – the two men supposedly drowned when sailing in a hunter's dinghy from Kulusuk to Tasiilaq on the mainland. Fenna furrowed her brow and returned the clipping.
“Cover up,” she said.
“Iiji,” he said and stuffed the clipping inside his jacket. He sipped his coffee and then grinned.
“What?”
“Us,” he said and finished his coffee. “They said it was an exercise.”
“The gunfight on the ice?” Fenna said and laughed.
“Iiji,” Maratse said and smiled. “The Chief of Police flew in from Nuuk. He said we had to be prepared to fight terrorists, even in Greenland.”
“Terrorists? Really?” Fenna laughed again and felt her cheeks begin to ache.
“The world is changing,” Maratse said. “And Greenland with it.”
“He said that?”
“Iiji.”
Fenna leaned back in her seat. She warmed her hands on the paper cup and sipped at the coffee. The world was indeed changing. The Arctic, and Greenland, she realised, was, now more than ever, firmly in the spotlight. It had started with global warming, when hundreds of politicians and journalists had been encouraged to visit the glaciers calving in Ilulissat, to see climate change in progress. And then came oil, she mused, or the promise of it. And minerals. Tourism alone will never support an independent Greenland. And everyone wants a slice of the pie. Before it’s too late.
The plane landed to pick up more passengers in Ilulissat, before touching down at Greenland's main hub: Kangerlussuaq. Maratse escorted Fenna out of the aircraft once all the passengers were gone. She lingered by the side of Dina's casket and turned to look at Maratse. He nodded.
“I will tell Kula what you did for Dina,” he said.
“It wasn't enough.”
Maratse shrugged and gestured towards the exit. Fenna smoothed her hand on the casket and then turned her back on Dina, nodding at the stewardess as they climbed down the steps and onto the layer of firm snow that covered the tarmac. The dense, inland cold bit at her lungs and she thrust her hands inside the pockets of her jacket, the tips of her ears prickling as she followed Maratse to the terminal. He waited by her side as airport security processed her, presented her with a boarding pass and queried her backpack.
“Evidence,” Maratse said and waited as the officer inspected the Webley.
“It will have to go in a strong box,” he said. “And then someone will have to sign for it in Copenhagen.”
Fenna watched the man place the Webley inside an aluminium box, a strip of yellow warning signs blazed on the lid, and a combination padlock that secured it. What was it Bose had said? ‘I know someone who would be interested in that.’ Humble, she realised and then smiled at Mikael's words, mumbled in disgust inside the tent. ‘Fuck eBay.’
“I have to go,” Maratse said as Fenna was shown to a secure waiting room. He shuffled his feet and Fenna saw the awkward flicker of his eyes.
“Thank you,” she said and held out her hand. Maratse ignored it and pulled Fenna into a brief hug. She caught her breath as he managed to trap her arm and squeeze her ribs in his embrace, but the tears rolling down her cheeks were not from pain. She smiled as he let her go.
“I won't forget,” she said.
Maratse nodded once, turned and walked away. Fenna watched as he walked through the security door and was lost in a sea of passengers. The sense of being alone clamped her stomach and she stumbled towards the nearest seat. The dead had departed, and now the living had abandoned her. She sucked at the air through her teeth and tapped her hands on her knees. It was going to be a long flight to Denmark.
The Office
TORONTO, CANADA
Chapter 31
KASTRUP AIRPORT - COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Fenna woke at the light touch of the flight attendant on her shoulder. The woman left her hand there as Fenna blinked and fidgeted beneath the blanket. She nodded at the attendant that she was awake and squinted out of the window at the baggage handlers moving into position alongside Norsaq, Air Greenland’s Airbus 330. The passengers bustled out of their seats as Fenna retrieved her temporary passport – a hastily printed official document – from the sleeve of the chair in front of her. She waited until the aircraft was all but empty, unfastened her seatbelt, slid out of the seat and into the aisle. Fenna smoothed her hand around the outline of the SD card in her shirt pocket, grabbed Simonsen’s police jacket from the overhead locker and made her way out of the aircraft. The cleaners had already entered the aircraft to prepare it for the following day’s flight to Kangerlussuaq.
Fenna winced at the bullet wound in her leg as she worked the pins and needles out of her system, picking up the pace along the jet bridge to the terminal. She ignored the passengers waiting at the gate, barely noticing the airport luggage trolleys as she weaved her way between them. Fenna blinked at the image in her mind of Dina swinging from the rafters of the schoolhouse, and every black-haired woman in the terminal thereafter wore the Greenlander’s almond death mask. Fenna stopped and pressed her hand to her forehead, her temporary passport clutched between her fingers. She looked up and searched for a toilet. Fenna pushed through a group of aircrew and burst into the ladies’ restroom. The cubicles were occupied. Fenna threw up in the hand basin.
“You all right, love?” Fenna whirled around at the word, fists clenched, only to glare at the face of a middle-aged British woman. Fenna unravelled her fists and did her best to ignore her. She wiped her mouth with a paper towel and waved her hand beneath the tap to rinse the sink. Fenna scrunched the towel into the wastepaper bin and walked out of the restroom.
“Feeling better, Konstabel?” said a man standing by a vending machine.
“Who are you?” Fenna said and wiped her cheek with her hand as she studied the man in the jeans and suit jacket. He wore a graphite wool sweater beneath the jacket and, Fenna noticed, a 9mm pistol in a shoulder holster rig on the left side of his body. Old school, she thought and almost laughed at the observation.
“My name is Per Jarnvig,” he said and waved a hand towards the nearest café. “Can I buy you a coffee? You look like you need it.”
“Sure,” Fenna said as she scanned the crowd of passengers. “Let’s go.” She folded the passport and slipped it into the inside pocket of her jacket. Jarnvig nodded at the jacket and smiled.
“Souvenir?” he said as he led Fenna to an empty table near the huge windows overlooking the runway.
“Something like that.” Fenna waited for Jarnvig to order two coffees. She decided to let him talk, and waited for him to flash his badge tucked inside a leather wallet. She recognised the logo of Politiets Efterretningstjeneste, the Danish Intelligence Service of the Police. “PET?” she said and sighed as the waitress returned with two black coffees.
“Yes,” said Jarnvig and slipped his badge inside his jacket.
“Then you knew I was coming.” Jarnvig nodded, and took a sip of coffee. “And you know everything that happened?”
“No?”
“No,” he said and shook his head. “There’s a lot about this case that needs investigating, and just as much that will be swept under the carpet. No,” Jarnvig said and leaned back in his chair. “I’m much more interested in you.”
Fenna warmed her hands around the coffee cup, turning it slowly within her fingers. She blinked an image of another coffee and another interrogation out of her mind and focused instead on Jarnvig and the man’s forty-something stubble of white hair on his chin and the groomed cut of grey on his head. The butt of the 9mm peaked out of his jacket and Jarnvig adjusted his position to conceal it.
“What do you want?” she said.
“I’m just curious as to what you plan to do next,” Jarnvig said and waited as Fenna turned the coffee one more revolution.
“What I really want,” she said, “is a flight to Toronto.”
“Canada? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“You asked me what I want,” Fenna said and looked up. “Can you get me what I want?”
“Well,” Jarnvig said and leaned forwards. “That all depends on you.” Fenna lifted the paper coffee cup to her lips and waited for Jarnvig to explain. The hot coffee stung her broken lips. “I need a young woman with your expertise...”