by Olivier Truc
“Unless it’s the last straw, unless Henrik was drunk that night. Things can get out of hand. Any excuse.”
“Maybe,” said Klemet quietly. “But we need more than just a motive.”
“Dear God.” Brattsen was visibly annoyed. “Old Chubby-chub’s giving us a lesson in police procedure now. Served you well in the Palme investigation, didn’t it? Remind me—how many years is it since the Swedes saw their prime minister assassinated, and the murderer is still at large? Unless I’m very much mistaken?”
“Thank you, Brattsen, this is getting tiresome,” warned the Sheriff. “What about Aslak?”
Klemet was about to speak when Nina cut in quickly, “Another suspect alibi.”
She had been lost in thought for a moment, reliving the extraordinary encounter with Aslak. She realized now that when he spoke—despite his awe-inspiring, powerful, almost brutal aura—he had a strange way of making you feel you were the center of the known universe. Something in those eyes, perhaps.
“There’s no one to confirm it,” she went on.
“What?” the Sheriff interrupted brusquely, thumping his fist on the table. “And where is Aslak now? You’ve brought him in, I hope?”
Nina glanced uncomfortably at Klemet, who gave a jerk of the chin, inviting her to continue.
“Well, something strange occurred at his place. Or rather, it began before we arrived. We heard a terrible scream. At first, we didn’t know what it was. And then when we left, we heard the cry again. It was his wife. She has some sort of condition. She utters these awful shrieks.”
“No way?” scoffed Brattsen. “And what’s that got to do with the case? The woman’s got a screw loose, what about it? Mattis wasn’t the brightest spark, either. Normal, really. They’re all inbred. You know perfectly well, Mattis’s father was his uncle—his mother’s brother!”
Klemet was about to respond when the Sheriff burst out, “Brattsen! For Christ’s sake, you’re overstepping the mark. You’re a police officer, and never forget it. Not some damned gossiping fishwife. Can we please get back to the serious business in hand?”
Klemet and Brattsen glared at one another. Nina went on:
“I think we are making progress with Mattis’s murder investigation, in spite of everything—at least from our perspective on the Reindeer Police. We have eliminated a number of potential suspects. We have been focusing on the breeders for the moment, because that’s our field. But I think it would be useful to start looking at other areas, too. And I’m sure Deputy Superintendent Brattsen is working on that.”
She spoke with assurance, encouraged by her male colleagues’ bitter silence.
“With respect to the drum, if Deputy Superintendent Brattsen has no objection, I’m prepared to travel to France to meet with the donor. I feel sure he has information that will help us.”
“Yeah, the drum,” Brattsen muttered, clearing his throat. “Traveling to France is probably a good idea, especially if there are documents to be seen, as your report suggests.”
“I think it’s such a good idea, I’d like Klemet and Nina to be more closely involved in the drum investigation,” said the Sheriff. “To be perfectly honest, I think it needs more careful handling than you’re capable of, Rolf.”
Brattsen flushed with suppressed anger. “What careful handling? Why would the breeders need careful handling? Because they’re Lapps? Is that it?”
Tor Jensen looked calmly at his deputy. He made no reply. His silence, and the slight smile at the corners of his lips, said it all.
“Fine,” the Sheriff went on. “Nina, when you will be leaving for France?”
Nina turned to Klemet. “In the next couple of days.”
“Good. The sooner the better. Perhaps we’ll get somewhere now.”
Nina spoke quickly, before Tor Jensen could go on: “And I think it’s important to stress the coincidence of the two cases—two major inquiries, two days apart: the theft of a Sami drum, and the death of a breeder who was fascinated by drums. I don’t see how they can’t be connected, even if the link isn’t clear at the moment.”
“That’s pure speculation, Nina,” said Klemet. “We can only go on tangible proof, which we don’t have. In the Palme affair, we spent years following up attractive hunches that proved futile in the end.”
“Klemet, in the absence of any other leads for the moment, I want you to carry on questioning the breeders,” instructed the Sheriff firmly. “For now, that’s still our most plausible lead. But I’m astonished you let Aslak off the hook, when he has the least watertight alibi—one we can’t check. You’ll have to answer for that sooner or later.”
16
Friday, January 14
5:30 p.m., Kautokeino
The group filing out of Tor Jensen’s office looked thoroughly out of sorts. Fredrik left first, eager to get back to Kiruna and the analysis of his findings and samples.
Klemet caught up with Nina. Before heading back out into the vidda, he wanted to talk to Helmut Juhl, the German museum director, in preparation for Nina’s trip to Paris.
Patrol P9 found him in the museum’s reserve collection, overseeing the opening of a set of packing crates from Afghanistan. He escorted Klemet and Nina to his office, overlooking Kautokeino in the valley below. It was late afternoon, and twilight had long since engulfed the town. No one had contacted him, Helmut said. He had heard nothing more about the drum. No rumors or speculation, nothing. He seemed genuinely affected by what had happened.
“Was the drum insured?” asked Klemet.
“Yes, but not at its true value, nowhere near that,” the director admitted. “If its true value can indeed be estimated, that is. I was due to get an expert opinion on it in the next couple of days.”
“You mean you weren’t convinced it was genuine?” asked Nina.
“Oh, it’s genuine, of course, but we accepted it on the basis of what Henri Mons told us—the French collector who presented it to the museum. I’ve no reason to doubt him, or the drum’s authenticity, but from a strictly financial point of view I wasn’t able to give a reliable valuation. And no one in France had the required expertise.”
“I understand the drum was here for a week before it was stolen,” said Nina, “but its case remained unopened. You weren’t in any hurry to take a look at it. That seems odd, to me. A specialist in Sami culture like yourself…”
Juhl looked uncomfortable, guilty even. “I can understand your surprise. But we are right in the middle of preparations for the UN conference in a few days. The delegates are coming to visit Kautokeino, and of course they will come here to the museum. The drum was going to be one of the highlights of their visit. We had a thousand other practical details to attend to first. I was very busy with all of that. But my mind was very much on the drum, I can assure you.”
“I see,” said Klemet. “Fair enough. So you have no idea what the drum looked like?”
The director pulled another guilty face. “I know Henri Mons by reputation. He was one of the collectors closest to Paul-Émile Victor. I can assure you he is a thorough-going professional, and a very great gentleman. If someone of his caliber contacts you saying he has something exceptional to give to the museum, you take him at his word. And especially as no money was changing hands. He wanted nothing, only that we should cover the transport and insurance costs.”
“And no photograph was taken for insurance purposes?”
The director threw his hands up in a gesture of impotence.
“Were you surprised by the Frenchman’s approach?”
“How could I not be surprised? If someone calls to say they have a genuine Sami drum for you, you have every reason to be surprised, believe me. Especially when you know about the drums, as I do. There are apparently only seventy-one historic Sami drums left in the world. Seventy-one. Can you believe it? Hundreds, maybe thousands, were burned by the Lutheran pastors. And this is the first one to be returned to Sami territory.”
“Seventy-one, you say,” said
Nina. “And was this one of those known drums or not?”
“A priori, I would say no.”
“A priori?”
“Well, some drums have been identified and authenticated, but then they disappeared from circulation. Most are in European museums, but some have vanished. We have precise descriptions of seventy-one drums—copies of the designs on the skins.”
“Vanished? You mean stolen?”
“In some cases, yes indeed. Stolen to order for private collectors, you know. There are always cases of that.”
“So there could be an illegal trade in the drums?” asked Nina.
The director said nothing for a moment, apparently deep in thought. “I would tend to say not. Sami culture is not so well-known or widespread as to encourage such behavior.”
“I don’t want to insist on this point,” said Nina, “but I do wonder why you weren’t desperate to open the case and see what it looked like.”
“Well, listen. A drum like that—if it is authentic—has to be handled with extreme care. That’s another reason why I hadn’t looked at it. I was waiting for a conservation expert; I didn’t want to take any risks. And he was supposed to come the day before yesterday. So there it is. But I assure you, I feel desperately bad and frustrated about this whole business. I feel have betrayed the Sami.”
Helmut seemed genuinely, profoundly affected.
“When did Henri Mons first contact you?” asked Klemet.
“Not very long ago, in fact. I can find the exact date, if you’re interested, because he wrote me a letter. But I would say it was about a month ago, roughly. Yes, a month almost to the day. It must have been Saint Lucy’s Day, or the day before that, because I remember joking with my wife that we could celebrate with a Saint Lucy dressed up as a shaman, chanting to the beat of a genuine Sami drum.”
Klemet thought this was an extremely bizarre idea, but said nothing.
“Who else knew about the drum?”
Helmut spread his arms wide. “Everyone hereabouts, I would think. The press had been talking about it. We had no reason to keep it a secret. Although now I think perhaps we should have done.”
“Do you know Henri Mons?”
“By reputation only. I have some of Paul-Émile Victor’s books. Perhaps you do, too?”
“Er, no. Who is he, actually?” Klemet asked.
“I see,” said Helmut. “He was a very well-known French explorer, a specialist on Polynesia and the Polar regions. He made a journey across Lapland—Sápmi—just before the Second World War.”
“And Mons worked with him?”
“Yes. He was a geologist by training, and an ethnologist, too. He was one of that great generation of polymath adventurers, before it all became ultraspecialized. Expeditions like that took along all sorts of multitalented people. It was cheaper that way, I imagine. But Mons was highly qualified in his field.”
“How did he come into possession of the drum?”
“Well, I don’t know the details, to tell you the truth. But I believe one of the Sami guides gave it to him. Was it a personal gift? I don’t know. We were going to ask Mons, and then this business turned everything upside down. The drum’s exact provenance is less of a priority now. We simply must get it back.”
“If the drums are as rare as you say, then it was quite an extraordinary gift, wasn’t it?” asked Nina.
“Indeed it was! But did the Sami guide know its true value? We cannot be sure. Most of the drums still in existence were no longer in the hands of private families. People had no use for them anymore. The Sami had been largely Christianized by that time. But it’s an object of great significance for the culture of the Far North. And Europe, after all. The Sami are our last aboriginal population. How we treat them, and their culture and history, says a great deal about our ability to apprehend our own past.”
“No doubt,” said Klemet. The director’s comment had touched a raw nerve. “But we’re getting off the point…”
“You alone can be the judge of that, Inspector.”
“What about Mattis Labba, the breeder who was murdered?” Nina decided the question was worth a try. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about him?”
“Mattis? Of course,” said Helmut, to both officers’ surprise. “I knew him quite well, as a matter of fact.”
Klemet and Nina stared at one another in astonishment. Helmut gave a small chuckle.
“Mattis was a remarkable character.”
“We’ve mostly heard him described as someone down on his luck, alcoholic, unable to cope,” said Nina, looking hard at Klemet.
“Well, yes, he could be seen in that light, too. I would say he was more complicated than that. He had vision and ambition, beyond what he felt he was capable of achieving. And so he became depressed. I can understand that. He took it very seriously.”
“What do you mean by his ambition?”
“Well, you know who his father was? A very mysterious man, a true shaman, so people say. No one believes in all that nowadays, but there is a strong sentimental attachment to the idea. There’s a certain nostalgia for it. Not to mention its historical and cultural importance.”
“What about Mattis’s ambition?”
“I think he lived very much in his father’s shadow. I wouldn’t say he saw himself as a shaman, but he certainly had quite a gift for making drums.”
“Making drums? What sort of drums?”
“The same as those used by the shamans of old. That’s why I was in regular contact with him, in fact. I sold his drums in the shop here at the Center. I may even have one still in stock, I think. The customer hasn’t come to collect it yet. They demand a great deal of work, you know. So Mattis made them to order. The big ones, at any rate, the ones for private collectors. Then there are the tourist versions—they take less time, and they are less expensive, of course.”
Nina thought of the equipment and raw materials neatly arranged on Mattis’s shelves. So that was how he had spent his time when he wasn’t out watching his reindeer: drum making and drinking. She pictured him alone in the trailer, cut off from the world in a snowstorm, bending over a piece of wood, working it laboriously, his eyesight blurred by alcohol. She forgot her disgust at the leering herder.
Naturally, her thoughts turned to Aslak, with his tormented gaze. His implacable, troubling expression.
“When did you last see Mattis?” asked Klemet.
The museum director stroked his beard. “I saw him…a good two weeks ago, I believe.”
“What did he want?”
“Oh, the same as usual, you know. We saw one another about every two months or so. Mostly when he needed money. So I would order a few drums. I liked Mattis very much. He was one of a dying breed. There’s no room for the little people like him, nowadays. Not with the fixed expenses the breeders have to put up with today, and the pressure from the Reindeer Administration. But I’m talking out of turn. None of that is my business.”
“How did he seem to you?”
“Mattis could go from one extreme to the other. It depended on his state of mind…”
“Whether or not he’d been drinking,” Nina finished.
“Yes,” said Helmut with an uncomfortable look. He glanced at the two officers and continued: “I don’t wish to sully his memory.”
“We’re not asking you to do that,” said Klemet. “Carry on.”
“I saw Mattis as a very sensitive man. He was not made for this world.”
“We’re none of us made for this world,” said Klemet, very softly under his breath.
“What? Say again?” said Nina.
Klemet ignored her, turning his attention to the museum director. “Did he seem any different from the last time you had seen him? How long had you known him?”
“I met Mattis almost as soon as I came to Scandinavia, over thirty years ago. He was young then, a teenager. He worked for the other breeders.” The German director smiled with pleasure at the memory. “I arrived just as the reindeer br
eeders were becoming mechanized,” he said. “The Sami were discovering snowmobiles. Mattis was a wild rider on his—really reckless.”
Helmut smiled again and fell silent. Then he looked up at Klemet and Nina in turn.
“He had changed. He was always changing. He was on a slippery slope. Alcohol played its part, but he was sinking fast even without that. I think something was bothering him. No, it was more than that. Something haunted him, possessed him. That sounds far-fetched. But I think he carried something within him that he couldn’t share with another living soul. And it dragged him under. Yes, there was something dragging him down. You asked about the last time he came to the Center: he hung around the workshop, watching the other artisans at work, and he took a look at the exhibits. There was no one else here, much. It was nice and quiet, and I think he appreciated moments like that, before returning to the vidda, the cold, the danger, the endless work with the reindeer. I like to think he found a few moments of peace here.”
The police officers said nothing. They had no more questions. Each was lost in thought. For their own, quite different reasons. They left the Center, and when Klemet asked Nina if she wanted to come over to his place that evening, she accepted with relief.
17
Friday, January 14
7 p.m., Kautokeino
Nina knocked on Klemet’s front door at seven sharp. She wore a close-fitting parka jacket and a colorful knitted hat with a red pompom bouncing to one side. It felt strange to be calling on Klemet at home—this was the first time—and even stranger for him to see her in plain clothes. There was no logical reason why this should make her feel uncomfortable, she knew that. But she felt more exposed, all the same. There was no reply. She knocked again. No reply. She turned around, looking along the brightly lit street. Klemet’s car was parked. She looked down the side of the house, toward the garden, but the path was too dark to see anything. She knocked again, harder this time, then called Klemet’s name. At last, she got a response.