‘Yes,’ he said, stepping closer to the door. ‘My name is Jakob Pedersen, Godthåb Police. I’m looking for Mrs Rossing Lynge.’
‘Is this about their daughter?’
Jakob hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, but why do you want to know?’
The door opened fully so that he could look in. A petite woman about thirty years old was standing on the tiled floor just inside the door. Her face was short and broad, and her eyes as black as her hair.
‘My name is Inge-Lene,’ she said with a timid smile. ‘Would you mind coming in for a moment?’ She glanced around and listened briefly to the silence in the stairwell. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell the police for a long time. About the night Najak disappeared.’
‘You know something about Najak’s disappearance?’ Jakob said, looking at the woman with consternation. ‘It’s really important to pass on such information to the police immediately.’
She nodded. ‘Yes, and that’s what I’m doing now. Come inside for a moment. I don’t want to talk out here.’
‘Of course.’
When Jakob had taken his boots and coat off, she showed him into a small living room and invited him to sit on a green sofa with wooden armrests and several embroidered cushions. Inge-Lene herself continued into the kitchen, where he heard a clatter of plates and cupboard doors open and shut. He had hoped that she would just tell him what she had to say so that he could get home to his own armchair, but he didn’t have the heart to refuse her hospitality.
There was a lamp hanging over the coffee table. The shade consisted of three lime-coloured glass panels; on the table below was a magazine and some knitting. There was no TV in the room, but several drawings in pale wooden frames adorned the walls. All were pencil sketches, sensitively coloured so that the colour didn’t steal the attention from the subjects. Jakob got up and went over to the longest wall in the living room to study the artworks. The first one depicted two girls, both wearing Greenlandic national costume. The younger girl was sitting at a table, while the older girl—with some effort, it seemed—was trying to put a kamik boot on the foot of the smaller one. The older girl’s hair was piled up on top of her head in the shape of an ulo, while the little girl’s hair was short and loose.
‘Here we are.’
Jakob turned around. ‘What impressive drawings.’
‘Thank you,’ Inge-Lene said with a big smile as she set down an orange enamel tray on the table and picked up her knitting. She looked about her, then placed the yarn and the knitting needles in a basket next to the sofa. ‘They’re of my sister and me when we were little.’
Jakob was surprised and took a closer look at the drawing, and then at the pictures near it. ‘You’re the artist?’
‘Yes. I’ve always loved to draw, so people in my family don’t have a lot of wall space left.’ She laughed briefly. ‘I’ve just made a pot of coffee, so I got you a cup and…some cake. Well, it’s just fruit loaf, really.’
Jakob was given a slice on a plate, then he sipped his coffee. He had long since grown used to coffee always being drunk black in Godthåb. Especially during the long, dark winters. ‘I hate to ruin the nice mood,’ he began, ‘but please tell me what you saw and heard the night that Najak went missing.’
Inge-Lene retreated slightly down her end of the sofa. ‘Let me just…’ She chewed and swallowed.
He smiled and took a bite of his fruit loaf. The butter was thick, and his teeth left marks in it.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ she said quietly. Her eyes had grown serious and glum. ‘I’m scared that something has happened to her.’ She took a sip of her coffee and swallowed it with a slight shudder as she put down the cup. ‘Anyone can see that she’s not a happy child. She has had a bad life so far. When I think about her eyes and the way she moves, I feel awful. It’s like she’s invisible. I’ve never seen her cry, but then again, I’ve never seen her smile either. Not once.’
Jakob took another bite of his fruit loaf and leaned back on the sofa. ‘So you know her well?’
Inge-Lene shrugged. ‘I invite her in from time to time, but not very often because she’s pretty much terrified of her own shadow.’ She looked at the walls. ‘She likes my drawings, and I know that she’s fond of drawing. I told her once that it was like being in another world when you draw, and she understood that, I could see it. So I try to get her to come here to draw as often as I can.’
‘So the two of you draw together?’
‘That’s probably an exaggeration, but she has given me one of her drawings, so I know how good she is. I mean, she’s only eleven years old.’ She got up from the sofa and went over to a brown sideboard with three doors. ‘Just a moment. Here it is—her drawing, I mean.’
Jakob reached out and took the paper she was holding out. It was coloured right into every corner with shades of blue, grey, yellow and black, which together produced a sombre image of a woman’s head and neck breaking the flat calm surface of the sea in between two dark mountains. He turned to Inge-Lene. ‘Did Najak draw this picture?’
She nodded with a sad smile.
The room fell silent.
‘I want you to have it,’ Inge-Lene said.
Jakob cleared his throat and put the picture down on the coffee table. ‘No, it’s yours. I don’t know Najak the way you do. I can’t accept it.’
‘Please take it with you,’ she urged him. ‘You can give it back to me when you find her.’
‘Are you so sure that I will find Najak alive?’
She stared at the floor. ‘No.’
‘I’ll do whatever I can,’ he promised. ‘Not just for her, but also for the others.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping.’
Jakob slowly massaged his upper lip with his thumb. ‘Are you ready to tell me about that night?’
She inhaled deep into her lungs, and then expelled the air. ‘It was the night before Ari was murdered. Several men had gone up to his place, and there was a lot of screaming and shouting. It was mostly Nukannguaq, Ari’s wife, doing the screaming, while the men were shouting. In Greenlandic and in Danish. A little later it grew quiet again. With hindsight it was probably an ominous silence, but I didn’t think so at the time. I didn’t hear Najak’s voice at any point either, so I don’t know if she disappeared that night, but I have a feeling that something terrible happened, and because of that Ari ended up getting killed.’
‘Did you see any of the men?’
‘I saw them.’ She gathered her hands in her lap. ‘And that’s why I didn’t contact the police.’
‘But you’re talking to me now?’
‘This is different. You wouldn’t be sitting here, talking like we are now, unless I trusted you. Besides, nobody knows that you’re here.’
Jakob leaned closer. ‘You should only tell me more if it’s what you want.’
‘I do want to talk to you,’ she said. ‘I feel I must.’ Her eyes shone with sincerity. ‘It was dark, so I couldn’t see clearly, but I saw three men come down from upstairs, and once they were outside this block, they met up with a fourth man. He was a thick-set, red-haired man with a bushy beard. When the others left, this man entered the stairwell, and I heard him walk up the stairs. Later that night I heard thumping from Ari’s place, as if someone was banging on the floor, but I ignored it because it was now several hours since I had last heard or seen someone in the stairwell. Later, I fell asleep, and the next day all hell broke loose when Ari was found murdered. Nukannguaq was in shock and Najak was gone.’
‘Could you identify any of the first three men you saw?’ Jakob didn’t want Inge-Lene to know that what she had heard was undoubtedly a dying Ari’s hands bashing the floor as he was being gutted alive.
She shook her head. ‘Only one of them.’
33
Jakob had only managed to sink a few centimetres into his armchair before there was a knock on his front door. He scowled at the dark windows and heaved a sigh. The knocking persisted, and he closed h
is eyes in an attempt to disappear so deep inside himself that only the silent night would remain.
The next sound to reach him came from the window. Fingers tapping the glass lightly. ‘Wake up, Jakob.’
The voice was female. It belonged to Lisbeth. He opened his eyes and hurried to the door.
‘Lisbeth, do come in,’ he said, smiling, with a glance at the folded blanket in her hands.
She stared at his forehead. ‘Good heavens—does it hurt?’
‘Hurt?’ Jakob touched his forehead. ‘No, it’s fine. Nothing to worry about. I hope you haven’t—’
‘I’ve brought you some rissoles,’ she interrupted, nodding at the blanket. ‘I didn’t think you should be on your own after being attacked yesterday.’ She looked down. ‘Or have you already had dinner?’
‘Why don’t we eat together?’ he suggested, taking a step backwards. ‘I love rissoles.’
He followed her into the kitchen, where she unwrapped a dish from the blanket.
‘Is it all right if we eat at the coffee table?’ he asked. ‘There’s a jigsaw puzzle on the dining table.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. You’re in charge.’
He looked at her back and at her long, black plait hanging down. ‘It smells good.’
‘Thank you. I hope it tastes even better.’ She turned around and looked at him. ‘If you don’t mind setting the table, the food will be ready in just a sec.’
Jakob found a couple of plates and carried them to the living room. ‘Do you drink wine?’
‘Yes, indeed I do.’ Her voice was soft and vibrant. ‘But I’m not sure it’s a good idea with that cut to your head.’
Jakob opened a door in the sideboard behind the dining table, and took out two wineglasses.
‘Do you have a trivet?’ She had appeared from behind, holding the steaming dish in two oven gloves.
He nodded and put the glasses on the coffee table, then rushed back to the kitchen. ‘I can’t find one,’ he called out, reappearing in the doorway. ‘We’ll just use a book.’
She smiled and set down the dish when he placed a book on the table. ‘Shall I do the honours?’
He nodded while he poured the wine.
‘Cheers,’ Lisbeth said, raising her glass. ‘And thank you for inviting me.’
He looked up at her with a frown.
She smiled and winked. ‘I’m just teasing you, Jakob.’
‘Cheers…And thanks for the rissoles. It was kind of you to think of me.’ He put down his glass. ‘Have you always lived in Godthåb?’
‘No, I’m from Qeqertarsuatsiaat.’
‘Qeqertarsuatsiaat,’ he echoed. ‘I haven’t been there yet.’
‘Only a few hundred people live there now,’ she said. ‘But my grandmother is still there. She doesn’t want to move to Godthåb.’
‘We could go down there one day in the police boat,’ he said. ‘I mean, if you would like that.’
‘You know how to sail?’ A big smile had spread across her face, all the way into her eyes. ‘I’d love to, but I don’t want to cause problems for you. Promise? It would probably take us all day.’
‘I have a lot of time on my hands,’ he said.
She sipped her wine and smiled. ‘That would be wonderful. I miss my grandmother. She’s the kindest person I know.’
‘I can imagine.’ Jakob topped up their glasses and raised his own to his lips. He rarely drank wine, even though he enjoyed the taste.
‘Are you getting anywhere with your investigation?’ She put down her cutlery, which clattered softly.
He shook his head in despair. ‘We’re not getting anywhere at all.’
‘I guess I shouldn’t ask you about it.’
He took a big gulp of his wine. ‘It’s not the killings. Well, don’t get me wrong, the murders are terrible, but they’re just men. Grown men who weren’t good people in any sense of the word, and frankly I would happily have beaten Anguteeraq Poulsen to a pulp myself, although it’s very wrong of me to think like that.’
Lisbeth tilted her head and tucked up her legs underneath her. He could see her black tights where the grey marl skirt ended around her knees.
‘I understand,’ she said quietly.
‘I just don’t get men like him. I mean…’ He ground to a halt as he tried to articulate his thoughts. ‘Surely the most natural feeling in the world is to love your child?’
‘It certainly ought to be,’ Lisbeth said.
‘Yes, it should, shouldn’t it? Surely nothing is more important than that. I wish it was like that for all children. No child should ever suffer abuse.’
Jakob reached out and grabbed the bottle in order to share the last of the wine between them.
‘The same goes for adults,’ she said softly. ‘The older we get, the more introverted, fearful and frightened of love we become.’
He nodded. This wasn’t his area of expertise at all, but the wine and the food had loosened his tongue. ‘Adults carry their childhood sorrows with them all their life. That’s why it’s so important to love your child, so that it can grow up knowing that love exists, and that it’s safe to accept that love and to love in return.’
She looked at him with a gaze that was simultaneously wistful and warm. ‘Do you have a child back home in Denmark?’
He looked down and shook his head.
‘Only suddenly it sounded as if you had. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘That’s quite all right. However, I’m very concerned about child abuse.’
‘You would make a good father,’ she said, and drained her glass. ‘I used to go hunting with my father. It was always me who butchered the seals. My mother taught me how to slide the ulo in between the blubber and the skin, and slowly remove the skin from the body. I was ten years old when I flayed my first seal. My father had cut open its belly so the intestines spilled out—the rest was my job. I cut free its guts. Intestines, heart, lungs. Everything. We always had to taste the liver. It makes you strong, my father would say.’ She shook her head. ‘My arms could barely reach right round the seal while I cut it.’ She looked at her hand. ‘The warm sensation of the blubber…and of the body.’ She looked down. ‘My father nudged the seal with his boot. He never really helped me. It’s women’s work, he would say. You’re a woman now.’ Her gaze disappeared in the deep-pile rug. ‘I knew that he saw me as a woman. Whenever I cut up an animal, I would think of him. Sometimes I would be covered in blood all over. In some strange way I enjoyed it.’
Jakob looked at his plate. He pushed his empty wineglass further onto the coffee table.
Lisbeth shook her head. ‘I talk a lot of nonsense. I’m sorry. I think I had better be going.’
‘It’s not nonsense,’ Jakob said, looking at her face. Her freckles and her black hair gleamed in the electric light. ‘Many people have deep wounds that no one ever sees. I’ll walk you home, if you don’t mind. It’s a dark and cold night.’
She smiled to him. ‘Thank you, but I’ve lived with this weather all my life.’
‘I don’t mind walking you home,’ he offered again. ‘Maybe we’ll see the northern lights.’ He had seen the northern lights many times, but she didn’t have to know that.
Lisbeth looked at his face. Then she reached up and kissed him lightly on his cheek. ‘Thank you.’
34
When Jakob returned after walking Lisbeth home, he could see from the path leading up to his house that someone had left a small bag on his doorhandle. He freed the bag from the handle and turned to look out into the night, where the snow lit up the darkness. There were too many footprints in the snow by his door for him to see if any of them were fresh. His fingers had detected immediately that the bag contained two reels of film.
Once inside, he kicked off his boots and pushed the door shut. He hung up his coat and cap on the old pine coat stand in the small hall.
‘Now, what’s going on here?’ he muttered to himself.
He picked up the box Karlo had br
ought in. It didn’t take him long to plug in the small grey projector and turn it on. The two reels were labelled 1 and 2, so he assumed that he should watch number one first. He glanced at the glass with Mortensen’s cheroot butt and fetched a clean glass from the kitchen. The aroma of whisky reached his nostrils before the taste spread inside his mouth and, for a brief moment, numbed his tongue before the heat exploded. He put the glass on the armrest and pressed the play button.
The film began rolling with a monotonous clicking sound, and the light flickered on the white wall in front of him.
The camera appeared to have been mounted in the corner of a large shipping container. The walls were covered with a metallic material that reminded him of tinfoil, but it was thicker, more substantial. The floor looked like plywood. Uneven sheets. From the ceiling hung a single naked light bulb that turned on and off all the time. Sometimes it would be dark for a few seconds. At other times for longer. The light was bright when it was on. Everything went pitch-black once it disappeared. It was stressful for his eyes to look at.
His fingers tightened around the glass on the armrest. The tinfoil room was completely empty. Except for one thing. In a corner furthest from the camera, a small girl was curled up. There were no sounds in the light and the darkness. Just the clicking rhythm of the projector in Jakob’s living room. The girl disappeared and came back again with the light. She didn’t have any shoes on. No boots. Only tights covering her legs. Red tights. Her dress was dark brown. It was covered by a green jacket that fitted her tightly. She held her arms close to her body. Her hands were by her mouth. She was gripping something dark and knitted. A hat. Pressing it to her face as if it were a teddy bear. She would chew the hat. Her eyes were closed. Her body twitched. The light coming and going clearly distressed her behind her eyelids.
The girl sat like this for the whole film, which lasted about twenty-five minutes. Afterwards there was darkness in his living room. The reel rotated with the loose filmstrip flapping.
Jakob was hyperventilating. He had never seen Najak but it had to be her. She had gone missing eleven days ago, and now someone had sent him a film of her. His thoughts were all jumbled up. There were no containers of that size in Godthåb right now. Very few large container ships called in here in the winter, especially given what the weather was like at the moment. Then he remembered the bag on the doorhandle. He jumped up from his armchair, found the bag and took out the second reel of film. Along with the film was a note that looked similar to the one that had been tied to the stone. If you tell anyone about this film, she dies. Stop your investigation or she dies.
The Girl without Skin Page 13