Forty Days Without Shadow

by Olivier Truc

  At the station, Nina had begun tracing Mattis’s GPS positions on the map, a painstaking task that would take hours to complete. Klemet had just finished telling her about his visit to Sofia on Saturday when Rolf Brattsen entered the room, preceded by a tray loaded with cookies.

  “All present and correct,” he observed in satisfied tones, looking around. “Good.”

  Rolf seemed to be reveling in the turn of events. He helped himself to a biscuit and swallowed a mouthful of coffee. The tension in the kitchen was palpable. Fifteen police officers and station staff had crammed into the room.

  “Superintendent Jensen has been summoned to regional headquarters in Hammerfest, as you know. He’s still there, talking to head office and the assembly members. It’s taking time. That’s the official version, anyway.”

  He drank some more coffee, bit into another biscuit. “Do help yourselves,” he ventured, glancing around with a suspicious look.

  Brattsen knew he was not liked. He had never understood why. Klemet did, though. The man was a brute: distrustful, crude, bitter, partisan, racist. He could go on. But Brattsen saw himself as a straight-talking, up-front character. Too up front, he readily conceded that, but effective. Capable of taking tough decisions when he had to. In all honesty, he had told Klemet, after one of their rare outbursts (Klemet tried to contain the hostility between them, as a rule), that he failed to understand why people disliked him so much. Beyond his comprehension, Klemet thought, watching him take another biscuit.

  “Now, let me give you the real version. Jensen’s been temporarily relieved of his duties. Taking a break. Being let go. Bye-bye. Time out. Bon voyage. Well-deserved vacation. Ha! Look at you all… Don’t worry, he’ll be back. When this is all over. Get it? This business has been dragging on far too long. Pussy-footing around the chaps out in the tundra. Huh! Who lays down the law around here? Us or them? This still Norway, or what?”

  Brattsen taunted Klemet with a hard stare. “Eh, Klemet? What do you say? Are we still in Norway, or aren’t we? Have I missed an episode? Just here for show, are we?”

  Klemet boiled with rage. Brattsen was provoking him openly, in front of the whole station. Sitting next to him, Nina fidgeted uneasily. It was she who spoke, breaking the tension.

  “You have no right to talk like that, Rolf. We’ve been working as hard as you on this, making inquiries all over the region. We’ve covered thousands of miles already. But the breeders’ world is complicated. Sami culture is very different from ours. We have to respect it. And we’re making progress. We have every reason to believe the French geologist is relevant to the investigation, and we’re going after him. Plus, he faces a charge of sexual harassment.”

  “Sexual harassment. Oh yeah, I saw a report here somewhere. Great stuff. Real open-and-shut case. Some hormonally charged adolescent schoolgirl fantasizing about getting touched up. What the fuck is that all about? Good luck there. We’re investigating a murder, and the fucking stolen drum, and you bring in a complaint from a fourteen-year-old kid because some guy put his hand on her knee, probably by accident?”

  Red with fury, Nina leaped to her feet. “You cannot say that. You’re an unjust man, Rolf, and your behavior is anything but impartial. That young girl deserves to be taken seriously.”

  Brattsen listened, half-grinning, clearly delighted to have goaded Nina beyond her usual self-control. Not a good sign, Klemet thought.

  Nina went on, “And the Sami cannot be dismissed as low-life wrongdoers. They’re protected by the Constitution and they have specific rights, which we must respect.”

  “Very good, Nina. I see you were paying attention in class in Kiruna. Very good. We’ll get a long way with all that…”

  The officers stared at one another around the room. No one could see where Brattsen was going with this. He’s spinning it out, Klemet thought, playing cat and mouse, just for fun. But he had planned his little presentation for maximum effect. He was plainly enjoying taking the stage like this. But patience had never been Klemet’s strong point.

  “We are making progress with the investigation, Rolf,” he said. “Real progress. But it’s raking up events that happened a long time ago, possibly connected with a mine, and—”

  “Well, fuck that, for a start!” Brattsen burst in. His expression was furious now. “We’re not here to write a damn anthropological treatise, or some other fucking nonsense. You can forget all that shit about the mine and your geologist, for Christ’s sake. You’d have to be blind or stupid not to see this is a straightforward breeders’ vendetta. Johann Henrik and Olaf Renson are in it up to here, one way or another. Clear as a mountain spring. So now, listen up, all of you. Hammerfest wants fast results. And our elected representatives in Oslo are getting terribly nervous and upset, the poor darlings. So we’re going to shake things up a bit, what do you say? Today’s Monday. Before Wednesday, I want Johann Henrik and Olaf Renson here at the station for questioning. And the press outside when we bring them in.”

  Klemet had heard enough. He stood up and banged his fist on the table. “You cannot decide to bring people in and hold them just like that, when our investigation is taking us in a completely different direction!”

  Brattsen was grinning broadly now. He was enjoying this. He adopted a soothing, honeyed tone.

  “Oh, that reminds me. I should have made this clear from the outset, of course. Hammerfest has confirmed the new, interim superintendent. Me. So I’m the one making the decisions, Klemet. And I’ve decided that from this moment onwards, the Reindeer Police are off the murder case and the drum investigation. You’re clearly out of your depth, so you can get along back to the tundra, counting reindeer. Is that clear? See—I can be quite considerate when I want to. Sparing you the embarrassment of having to arrest your breeder buddies.”

  There it is, Klemet thought. He’s been building up to this from the start. Klemet was sure Brattsen had even been mulling over the exact form of words in that pernicious mind of his. He eyed his new superior. Rolf had reverted to his habitual hard glare. My fist in that face, just once, Klemet thought. But he fought to retain his self-control. Let nothing show. Give the bastard no satisfaction whatever. He sensed without looking at her that Nina was horrified, on the brink of another outburst.

  The room remained silent. The officers glanced around at one another, and at Klemet. Brattsen had been the Sheriff’s official deputy, but that didn’t make him his natural successor. The deputy superintendent took responsibility for a number of public order issues, that was all. Everyone knew that, logically, Klemet should have been appointed for the interim. He was respected, and he had the experience and ability. Brattsen seized the moment, picking up the tray.

  “So, dear colleagues—anyone for a biscuit before you get to work?”

  Several officers hesitated before helping themselves on their way out, to Brattsen’s intense satisfaction. Klemet stayed behind, alone. Brattsen glared at him, then tipped the rest into the wastepaper basket before leaving.

  * * *

  “Dear God, Klemet, how could you not say anything?” Nina burst out angrily, when he joined her in her office. “He humiliated us. And took us off the case! And you just took it, saying nothing. As if you were almost grateful!”

  “That’s enough, Nina.”

  “No, listen to me. Since the very beginning of all this, it seems to me you’ve been taking one step forward and two steps back. As if you were afraid to make a move.”

  “That’s not fair, Nina. I move forward on the basis of facts. And that takes time. If you want to see some action, go and join forces with Brattsen. He’s less thorough than me. Prefers to arrest people first and ask questions later. Me, I tend to do things the other way around.”

  “I’ve always stood by you, Klemet, but I prefer to speak my mind. You seem unmotivated. And, to be quite frank, I actually wonder if you aren’t happier dealing with ordinary breeders’ business after all. Anything for a quiet life.”

  He was stunned by Nina’s
attack. His pleasant, smiling, cheerful colleague was firing poisoned darts now. First Brattsen, now her. Was he going to have to justify himself to this spoiled kid with her big blue eyes, who understood nothing about life here and was discovering everything for the first time? Who was she to judge him, after more than thirty years in every station in the region, a hardened investigator who had done time on the Palme inquiry?

  He turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the office door.

  * * *

  Central Sápmi

  Aslak Gaupsara followed the geologist step by step up the mountain’s icy flank. From time to time, the stranger tossed him a numbered shard of rock, and Aslak stowed it away in his backpack. The Frenchman focused all his attention on the stones, striking them hard, swearing under his breath, breathing out clouds of vapor. Often, he lost his temper. He was a tormented man. Aslak had known for many years that outsiders were interested in his country’s stones. This stranger was not the first he had accompanied. But he seemed more on edge than the rest. Aslak had been working as a guide for a long time. He knew the other breeders the outsiders sometimes hired, too. The foreigners’ talk was all stones, and mineral ores, and mines. And getting rich. They talked a lot about getting rich. They talked about progress, too. Most often, they expected an enthusiastic welcome from the Sami breeders. And they were surprised when they were met with sullen, inscrutable faces. The foreigners didn’t understand. Where they saw mining opportunities and what they called progress, the breeders saw something quite different. They saw highways cutting through their pastures, trucks frightening the reindeer, accidents when the animals had to get across to the other side.

  The foreigners would shrug their shoulders at all this and talk about money. They said that for every reindeer lost, the herder would get money. Still, most breeders were unresponsive. And then the strangers would get annoyed. Saying the Sami didn’t understand their good fortune, that they risked losing everything, that the mines would come no matter what.

  Often, when the breeders got together in spring and autumn to round up and sort the reindeer, they would talk about this. Aslak had even been visited by some of them in his tent. Olaf had come, as had Johann Henrik. Mattis came often. He didn’t understand the way things were going anymore. They all came to see Aslak, when he was perhaps the least affected by it. The others knew that. That was why they came. He had told them, you have too many reindeer. That’s why you need such vast expanses of pasture, why there are so many disputes. But they would argue that you needed a lot of reindeer to cover your costs—the snowmobiles, the quad bikes, the cars, the abattoir truck, helicopter hire. You don’t understand, Aslak, they would say. You’ve got barely two hundred reindeer.

  And Aslak would look at them, and say: I have two hundred reindeer and I live well on that. I have two hundred reindeer and I don’t need huge areas of pasture. I have two hundred reindeer and I keep watch over them. I’m always with them. I milk the females. They know me. They stay near me when I walk up to them. I don’t need to spend days and days looking for them all over the tundra. My skis and dogs are all the equipment I need. Does that make me a bad herder, because I have fewer reindeer, because I don’t need a snowmobile?

  Often, when he said that, Aslak saw a veil of sorrow darken the other herders’ faces. They would fall silent. The older ones would remember that they too had lived like that once. The youngest said they liked their scooters. They liked being able to spend an evening in town on a Saturday, after a hard week’s work. And snowmobiles were a good thing, in any case. Aslak would nod. And say nothing. And the young herders would fall silent, too. But sometimes they came back to see him. Just to try to understand how it was before. Some were afraid of him. Still, they came. Not right up to his tent, but Aslak could see them watching him from a distance, out on his skis with the reindeer. They would watch him for hours. Until the cold drove them back.

  * * *

  Kautokeino

  Someone was knocking on Klemet’s office door. Nervously.

  “What?” he called out, still in a foul mood.

  Nina entered the room and planted herself in front of him, hands on her hips, with a determined frown. She had put on her snowsuit and slung her rucksack over one shoulder. Ready to go out.

  “Off to join Brattsen, or are you planning to go round up some reindeer?” he asked drily.

  “Get your stuff, Klemet, all of it, we’re going on patrol. We don’t need to stay here with Brattsen watching our every move. Hurry up. I’ll wait for you by the garage.”

  She left as suddenly as she had appeared. Klemet rolled his eyes. Out of a need to get back to routine, keep up appearances, he had just started reviewing the latest reports on breeder disputes, neglected since the drum’s disappearance and Mattis’s death. He had no real desire to go back to all that, but he was undecided. He distrusted Brattsen, but recognized that he had manipulated the situation with some flair. Klemet tapped at his keyboard. Rather too much flair for someone like him, come to think of it. For a moment, he had considered tipping off Johann Henrik and Olaf, but quickly changed his mind. It would only make matters worse for them. For him, too. He banged his fists on the desk. There was no point staying here doing nothing. Nina was right. They might as well get out into the field. As ordered.

  He collected his things and found her ten minutes later, by the garage. She had wasted no time: filled the water containers, tidied up the back of the patrol car, loaded clean sleeping bags. What was she planning? Nina showed him the passenger seat, without a word. Then she climbed in and gunned the engine, reversing out fast.

  The sun had risen. Outside, the light was sharp and bright. He closed his eyes, feeling the icy air stinging his right cheek in a draft from the window, but did nothing to fend off the attack of the cold. He liked Nina’s initiative. She was getting him out of Brattsen’s way. Their absence would pass unnoticed. The Reindeer Police were supposed to be out on permanent patrol, far from base. They should have been on leave this week, but the schedules were all over the place. They could very easily set off for a few days, send the odd harmless message back every now and then. Brattsen wouldn’t even notice. Too busy on other business.

  Nina parked in front of the supermarket and cut the engine. She was thinking exactly the same.

  “The key thing is not to tread on the toes of the teams Brattsen will be sending out into the vidda,” she said. “If we do, he’s quite capable of putting us in total quarantine.”

  “Brattsen’s banking on his plan to question Johann and Olaf,” said Klemet. “I know him. He’s like a mad boar, charging on ahead, never bothering to follow up other leads at the same time. And he’s been dreaming of getting one over on the Sami. The bastard’s in seventh heaven.”

  Nina had never heard Klemet talk so freely. This business was weighing heavily on his mind.

  “I can’t even understand why he’s stayed around here for so long, when he can’t stand the Sami. Not sure who he hates more, in fact: the Sami or Asian immigrants.”

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Klemet, isn’t it? I know Sweden has its share of racists, but here––”

  “An exaggeration? The man could be a spokesperson for the Progress Party. And he doesn’t even bother to disguise the fact. God knows, they’ve been setting out their stall in plain sight for years now. Twenty percent of the seats in parliament, and no one’s even bothered any longer. We’re swimming in oil money and everyone’s fallen asleep.”

  Klemet took a deep breath.

  “Do you think Tor’s reprimand is political?” asked Nina.

  “Think? I know it is. But we’ll know more about that before long, don’t you worry. You’re right, Nina, I was sleeping on the job. Too close to retirement, I guess. But I can’t let Brattsen tear down everything we’ve put in place. And we have to see the investigation through to the end.”

  He saw Nina’s radiant look. She seemed straightforward and easygoing, but she was a fighter at heart.

&
nbsp; “We’ll need a new base,” he reflected.

  “We’ve got one already,” she said. “Your tent. And if I remember rightly, you’ve even stocked up on a few bottles. Courage for the task ahead. If there’s any left, that is.”

  Her face shone with a broad smile. She held out a hand to him. He shook it firmly, smiling back.

  They spent the afternoon preparing field provisions, fetching the trailer, the snowmobiles and supplies of petrol. They left the patrol car and the trailer in front of Klemet’s house and headed straight for the tent. He threw some logs on the fire, which caught immediately. It was still cold inside the lavvu, but Nina felt better already. Klemet had created a really cozy atmosphere, she thought. She settled herself near the fire and took out the folders. He sat down next to her and took out his own dossiers. The tent was big enough to spread everything out. He pulled some cushions and chests into position, organizing their workspace, and plugged his computer into a discreetly hidden extension socket. She smiled. He really had thought of everything.

  “Let’s start with the GPS readings,” he suggested. They each took out their section of the data. Klemet produced a bundle of 1:50,000 maps from his pack and spread them out between them. The next two hours were spent in silence as the maps filled with red dots and lines. Both officers were absorbed in their task. Being sidelined from the investigation had redoubled their energies. For the first time, they felt united by a shared understanding.

  41

  Monday, January 24

  8:10 p.m., Kautokeino

  Klemet felt a shiver run down his spine. Sorting the data had proved more taxing than he had imagined. Some had been lost when the snowmobile was set alight, partly corrupting the file. But he had established a logical method, and most importantly, a chronological list of readings. After that, transferring the data to the maps had been a relatively quick business. He had made sure Nina followed the same procedure, and in half an hour they had obtained a rough itinerary—rough but telling. Next, Klemet had entered the data into the police GPS software. After hours of painstaking work, it was deeply moving to picture Mattis in flesh and blood, riding his snowmobile in the last days and hours before his death.