Forty Days Without Shadow: An Arctic Thriller

by Olivier Truc

  “Do you have to do that right now?”

  Nina slid the paper across the table, with Aslak’s gift. Some sort of pendant, strung on a thong of plaited reindeer leather, and almost certainly pewter, which was often used in Sami jewelry. Klemet didn’t recognize the design. The forms were rounded, and the whole piece was asymmetrical, with two beadlike shapes at the top. In the lower section, a sort of upright strut on the right-hand side counterbalanced a curved, snakelike shape on the left. The curves were perfectly regular. Klemet was unable to decipher the design, but he had to admit it had a certain beauty.

  Nina pushed the paper further towards him. She had made several sketches, the last of which included four letters, G, P, S, and A. G and P were at the top, S and A underneath.

  “Not difficult,” she smiled. “My father used to doodle things like that when he needed to relax. He’d use our family name, or his first name, or mine, or whatever. He’d take the letters, alter their shapes for artistic effect, almost like a monogram, or a cipher. He designed a ring that way once, with the first letters of his first name and family name, and my mother’s. My mother never wore it. I think she disapproved of jewelry. But my father often wore it. You see, Aslak’s taken the first and last letters of his composite family name: Gaup and Sara.”

  Klemet looked again at the pendant. He could make out the rounded forms now. With a little effort, the letters were plain to see. Nina smiled, pleased with her discovery. She gathered up the pendant and folded the piece of paper.

  “Right, let’s go,” she said brightly.

  He stood rooted to the spot, barring her way. Nina found herself pressed close against her colleague. Her eyes opened wide in surprise. He held out his hand.

  “Show me the pendant again, please.”

  Nina stepped back, took out the pouch, and held it out to Klemet with a faint, uncertain smile. He took it between his fingers and examined it closely. He closed his eyes, opened them again, held the pendant up on the end of the leather thong, watching it turn slowly while Nina looked on in amusement. Finally, he held it upright between his thumb and forefinger.

  “The S, Nina, look at the S.”

  Nina was still smiling. Then her expression froze. She clapped one hand over her mouth and sat down suddenly on the chair.

  “Oh my God,” she cried. “That shape. Oh my God, Klemet, it’s an exact match. One of the marks on Mattis’s ear.”

  50

  Thursday, January 27

  Central Sápmi

  The Canadian glaciologist worked quickly, drawing on the full gamut of his expertise and equipment. In just two hours, he had identified two more boulders. No doubt about it, their concentrations of uranium were interesting, to say the least. Exceptional, even. From the readings on his SPP2, the boulders were very promising indeed.

  “I’m getting spikes at eight thousand shocks a minute, with the presence of yellow material,” he declared.

  Kallaway was one of a breed of specialists used only sparingly by men like Racagnal. A matter of pride. But the boulders might have been carried twelve miles from their source, and it was almost impossible for him to get that far alone. Kallaway was a necessary evil. The kid had jumped for joy when he discovered a more rough-cut, angular block about one and a half miles from the first finds. This one hadn’t traveled far in the glacier. They were approaching the source.

  The glaciologist spent a few hours carrying out initial tests and poring over the maps of the area. Before setting out, the documentary resources department at the SFM had sent all the available reports on the locality to his laptop. Back in the relative shelter of the bivouac, Kallaway entered his data, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and exclaiming with enthusiasm at regular intervals. He had given up trying to communicate with the Sami guide, who sat aloof, distant and inscrutable, just like his French colleague. Kallaway didn’t care. They needed him, and he was doing a fine job in record time. The company would be very satisfied with his work.

  He had to admit, the surly Frenchman had shown remarkable intuition. He found it hard to believe Racagnal’s account of the short time he had spent out here in the field. Early in the afternoon, flushed with the success of their initial exploration, he had contacted headquarters by radio, praising his colleague’s work.

  “The Buddha of the Boulders! Amazing…”

  But when Kallaway ended the call, Racagnal leaned forward and smacked him hard in the face, half knocking him out.

  “Dare to call me that, would you, you little asshole? And watch what you say over the fucking radio.”

  * * *

  Klemet and Nina had no time to lose. The match for one of the marks on Mattis’s ears was a sensational discovery. But it posed new problems, too. Driving into the center of Kautokeino, Klemet tried to collect his thoughts.

  “Mattis was murdered because he was in possession of a drum indicating the location of a fabulous mine. Why? Either because he’d stolen it, or because he refused to hand it over to someone else. Someone took advantage of him, gave him reason to believe he could harness the drum’s power. Aslak?”

  “Can you really see Aslak wanting to take control of a mining operation?” said Nina.

  “No, but perhaps Aslak wanted the drum, for its power?”

  “You mean Aslak might be some kind of shaman?”

  “A shaman—” Klemet echoed her words, quietly.

  “As far as I understand,” Nina went on, “true shamans don’t go around telling everyone about their powers. So why not Aslak? He has his mysterious side. And the Sami seem to respect him.”

  Klemet shook his head. Unconsciously, he was driving more slowly now.

  “I don’t know. It’s just— well, it doesn’t fit the image I have of him.”

  “What image, Klemet?” Nina was suddenly impatient. “The image that made you back off with some lame excuse when you were supposed to question him? I’d be very interested to know exactly what this ‘image’ consists of. I’ve been completely open with you. I didn’t have to tell you about the pendant, believe me, but I chose to show it to you.”

  He said nothing, staring at the road ahead. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. He had been on the point of telling her something, but thought better of it.

  “Whoever is after the drum is also looking for the mine,” he said cautiously.”They manipulated poor Mattis. Racagnal’s looking for the mine indicated on the drum; we know that for sure now. What we need to find out is whether he’s been acting alone. What if he attacked Mattis to get him to reveal the location of the drum?”

  “I thought you suspected Mikkel and Jonne?”

  “I do, but Johann Henrik says they were out in the tundra with him on the Tuesday Mattis was killed. Not far from the trailer, admittedly—he said they were trying to contain Mattis’s herd. And we haven’t checked whether the old French ethnologist—Henri Mons—knows Racagnal. They could have been in on this together, after all.”

  It was Nina’s turn to fall silent.

  “No,” she declared finally. “Or if they are, Henri Mons is unaware of the fact and has been manipulated in turn. But I don’t believe that. Mons had profound respect for Niils Labba. He was genuinely moved when he told me his story. I’m much more intrigued by the role played by Olsen’s father, Knut.”

  “I can’t imagine Aslak would have been capable of killing Mattis in cold blood,” said Klemet. “Something in their connection to one another escapes me. Johann Henrik might be able to shed some light on that. But we can’t talk to him now, thanks to Brattsen.”

  “Berit might know something. She seemed highly evasive when we showed her the photograph of Aslak.”

  Klemet thought back to the scene in Berit’s kitchen: the older woman’s distant expression, a troubled look she had tried to conceal. He glanced in the rearview mirror, flicked the turn signal, made a broad turnaround, and headed for Juhl’s museum. He parked on the street just above the main buildings. A minute later, he was knocking on B
erit’s door.

  Berit answered the knock. She seemed unsurprised at the sight of the police officers and showed them into the kitchen once they had taken off their boots. Her eyes were puffy. She had obviously been crying. Klemet gestured to Nina with a jerk of the chin.

  Nina took Berit’s hand and glanced at Klemet. He nodded.

  “Berit, we have reason to believe that Aslak might…that he might be the one who stabbed Mattis.” Nina spoke quickly, her words tumbling out. “Or at least that he was the one who made the marks on the ears.”

  Berit started in horror, pulled her hand free and clapped it over her mouth, stifling a cry. She stared wildly at Klemet, who nodded again, saying nothing. Berit burst out crying, her head in her hands.

  “Oh dear Lord, no!”

  Nina took her gently by the shoulders. “Berit, we know you were very close to Mattis. We’re so sorry. But we must—”

  Berit looked up suddenly. Her expression was completely altered. Fiery, tragic, and proud.

  “I am not weeping for Mattis now!” Her voice was loud and strong. “But for Aslak. Oh dear God, Aslak. My Aslak.” And she shook her head in anguish, hiding her eyes in her hands.

  Klemet and Nina stared at one another in astonishment.

  “What do you mean, Berit?” Nina shook her gently, encouraging her to speak.

  “It isn’t him! It isn’t him!” Berit was gasping now, unable to catch her breath. Her expression was one of utter despair, as if the foundations of her world had crumbled.

  * * *

  Brian Kallaway and André Racagnal were getting ready to leave. They would push on and explore a little further, while Aslak stayed behind at the bivouac. Racagnal wasn’t worried the Sami would try to slip away. Still, he made sure to send a message back to Brattsen every two hours—nothing too compromising, just giving his location. The threat of reprisals back at Aslak’s camp was enough to keep him in check, it seemed.

  Except Racagnal wasn’t so sure after all. The look in the herder’s eye, when he passed him up close, could be disconcerting. No, He wasn’t worried, still less scared. The Sami was the one who ought to be scared. But the man let nothing show, nothing at all. He never hurried, never spoke. He just watched Racagnal, hardly ever taking his eyes off him. He ate his own reindeer provisions, slept in his corner, never let himself become dependent on the Frenchman for anything at all. Often, he just lay stretched out, propped against a rolled-up reindeer skin, watching him. Like a wolf watching his prey. A wolf that knows the prey won’t escape. That’s what that fucking Sami reminds me of, thought Racagnal. And the thought pierced him to the quick. It was obvious: the Sami was a predator with all the time in the world. A wolf certain of success.

  “What? What’s up with you, you bastard?” Racagnal shouted at the guide. “Want my fist down your throat, do you?”

  Brian Kallaway looked startled by his colleague’s sudden outburst, but he dared not speak. He finished gathering up his equipment, pulled on his crash helmet, and lowered his eyes when Racagnal turned his furious glare in his direction.

  * * *

  Nina stood up as Berit gasped and sobbed. Nina could see Klemet was thinking the same as her. And both of them refused to believe it. Could Berit have done the unthinkable deed? Never. Not her. It made no sense at all, a mad idea.

  Nina shook Berit more firmly by the shoulders. “Berit, you have to tell us. This is too important.”

  Berit looked up imploringly at the two police officers. “Aslak,” she began, struggling to regain her composure. “Aslak. He was…Oh dear Lord God…”

  “He was what, Berit?”

  She took a deep breath. “He was the man I loved. The only one.”

  Nina and Klemet were stupefied. They had been expecting something big. A confession of some kind, but nothing had prepared them for a secret like this. Berit and Aslak.

  Berit blew noisily into a handkerchief. Nina sat down to her right, Klemet pulled up a chair on her left. The candle shivered.

  Berit stared at the fragile flame in the middle of the table—the room’s only source of light. And she kept staring at it as she talked for the next half hour, uninterrupted not even once by either of the police officers.

  Never, Berit assured them, had anything of a carnal nature ever passed between them. And Aslak knew nothing of Berit’s feelings, either. Her flights of passion were fantasies, mere illusions, and she had tried to absolve herself with frenzied prayers. More than once she had hidden, to watch Aslak lead his reindeer along a valley. She had looked on admiringly, so many times, as he threw his lasso, or wrestled a reindeer in the enclosure so that he could mark it, even castrate it with a single bite. So many times, too, she had trembled with violent, unnamed sensations, dazzling and exhausting. And there were the dreams. The restless nights.

  Berit was hiding nothing now. She stared at the candle, shrinking now but still bright. The vivid dream had recurred often, so often, in which she, Berit, went on all fours in the midst of the herd, as if she were a reindeer herself. The dream in which Aslak caught her in his lasso. Her silent hopes had evaporated the day Aslak met Aila, the woman who would become his wife.

  Aila was so young at the time, barely fifteen years old when she was promised to Aslak. Aslak’s father was already dead. Anta Labba, Mattis’s father, had arranged the contract. The future bride was a member of his family. Aila was fifteen, delicate and bright, already skilled in the preparation of skins and a capable craftswoman. Berit had no chance. She had wanted to die. But she was needed at home. Her young, handicapped brother had filled her thoughts and deeds. But in her dreams, she belonged to Aslak.

  And that was the story of Berit Kutsi’s life. On the one hand, the dubious attentions of Pastor Lars Jonsson, who wanted her to experience the sensation of sin, the better to answer the call of the Lord, and on the other, her silent passion for the man she considered the finest Sami God had ever taken into his protection on this earth. She had chosen the way of prayer and reflection, and dedicated her life to others.

  Berit sat in silence for a long while, her hands folded on the table in front of her, her head slightly bowed, gazing dreamily into the tiny flame, in the semidarkness of the kitchen.

  “Do not harm Aslak,” she said finally.

  She seemed unburdened. Klemet and Nina waited to hear what she would say next, certain the story did not end there. Klemet knew that he and his colleague were on the same wavelength. The idea pleased him. They were unafraid of the silence. Seconds passed. Berit seemed to be in the grip of some inner struggle. But Klemet knew the hardest confession was over. They had only to wait now, for the rest. The candle flickered and dimmed. Berit stared at it. The darkness closed in around them.

  “God knows our religion acknowledges no saints,” she began. “But if there were to be one, it would be Aslak. All he has done for his wife…”

  “What do you mean?” said Nina.

  “Have you ever met Aila?”

  Nina nodded.

  “So you have seen that she is robbed of her reason, in part. I told you she was quite beautiful. When they met, she was fifteen years old. He was twenty-five. And Mattis, dear God, Mattis was twenty. It was in 1983. Troubled times in the vidda. This was a few years after the business of the dam on the river Alta, the one people wanted to stop being built. Perhaps you remember, Klemet. People were bitter.”

  Nina thought of the newspaper cuttings describing the protests. She pictured the photograph of Olaf Renson as a young militant objector.

  “Aslak was beyond all that. He was never interested in politics. He lived in a different world. Some people reproached him for it, but that was how it was. He showed such integrity. Eventually, people left him in peace. Some even respected him for it. And the dam was built anyway. Perhaps you remember, Klemet, or perhaps you had already left by then, or was it just before you came back? I don’t remember. But the region was overrun by hundreds of foreign workers. And…things happened. In that year, 1983, one of the foreigners wen
t after Aslak’s young fiancée. It happened in one of the tunnels serving the dam. One evening, when everyone had left. She was raped, there in the tunnel. Did you know that, Klemet?”

  Berit turned to look at him for the first time since the beginning of her story. Klemet shook his head. No, he hadn’t known that. He felt overcome with emotion, and the image of Aslak. He nodded for Berit to go on.

  “Almost no one knew. And those who did know did nothing. What was a poor Lapp girl worth compared to the foreigners working on the dam? One policeman knew. He did nothing. He’s dead now. I prayed for his soul. Aila was raped. She was fifteen. She was betrothed to Aslak. They were to be married when she turned eighteen. She knew she was promised to Aslak. She didn’t want to disappoint her uncle, Anta Labba. Above all, she didn’t want to lose Aslak. She was in despair. She did not know I was in love with him. She came to see me one day. Dear Lord, she was so beautiful. But oh God, her misery. She placed her hands on her belly and I understood. She begged me to help her, on her knees. Dear God, she begged me to help her extinguish the child.”

  Berit covered her face with her hands. Her chest heaved, but she kept control.

  “I could not do it. I could not. Aila went away. She was in such despair, she wept, like a child who does not understand. Oh Lord, the tears, and the wailing. I can see her now, in front of me, wailing and crying.”

  Berit’s throat tightened. She burst into tears again, sobbing and shaking, her features contorted. She buried her face in her arms on the table.

  Nina and Klemet stared at the dying flame, waiting for Berit to continue. She sat up straight, but her voice was distant now, and altered, as if someone else was speaking through her. She did not look at the candle but gazed into the distance, through the frost-framed window. She spoke very slowly.

  “I found out later. The child was born much too soon. A boy. Aila delivered it all alone. Then she took it up above the dam, which had been opened by then. And she…she saw the baby’s body bounce off the rocks. And after that, she lost her reason.”