Blood Floe

by Christoffer Petersen

  Contents

  Front Matter

  Insert

  Quote: Nordpolen

  Note to the Reader

  Map: Greenland

  Title

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  New Polarpol Series

  About the Author

  By the same Author

  Blood Floe

  By Christoffer Petersen

  Published by Aarluuk Press

  Copyright © Christoffer Petersen 2018

  Christoffer Petersen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events or organisations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Christoffer Petersen

  From the Midnight Sun,

  from the Winter Night,

  tomb-black,

  no Word …

  We hardly knew

  those that were lost

  Author’s translation from

  NORDPOLEN

  by

  LUDVIG MYLIUS-ERICHSEN (1872-1907)

  Fra Midnatssolen,

  fra Vinternatten,

  den gravkammer-sorte,

  intet Bud ...

  Vi kender jo knapt

  dem, der blev borte

  Note to the Reader

  Blood Floe is the second book in the Greenland Crime Series featuring the main character of Constable David Maratse. While it is not necessary, readers will get more enjoyment out of Blood Floe if they read book one in the series: Seven Graves, One Winter.

  Maratse and other characters such as Petra Jensen and Gaba Alatak have also appeared in short stories set in Greenland. It is not necessary to read these stories before reading Blood Floe. However, each of the short stories does include some information that adds to the character of Constable David Maratse.

  If you would like to read even more about Maratse, then you might be interested in The Greenland Trilogy, three thrillers set in Greenland, starting with The Ice Star, in which we meet Maratse for the very first time.

  The people of Greenland speak Greenlandic – including at least four dialects, Danish, and English. In many aspects of daily life, West Greenlandic and Danish are the working languages. Blood Floe is written in British English with the use of some Greenlandic and Danish words used where appropriate, including:

  East Greenlandic / West Greenlandic / English

  iiji / aap / yes

  eeqqi / naamik / no

  qujanaq/qujanaraali / qujanaq / thank you

  Just as language defines identity in Greenland, so too does subsistence hunting, i.e. hunting for food, and to make a living from the carving of bone jewellery, and the sewing of skin and fur products, especially for families in the far north.

  Hunting is a very important aspect of life in Greenland, and this includes the hunting of whales. This is one of the themes explored in Blood Floe, and, while “we” - myself included - will never truly appreciate how central hunting is to the Greenlanders’ way of life, aspects of that life are included in this story as a means of providing depth to the fascinating culture and country that is Greenland.

  Chris

  May 2018

  Denmark

  Blood Floe

  CHRISTOFFER PETERSEN

  Chapter 1

  Even in the unfathomable dark of the long polar winter there is always light – the moon reflecting on the surface of the sea ice, the green and white curtains of Northern Lights twisting across the black night sky, the stars, pinpricks of primordial light scrutinising the tiny villages and settlements clinging limpet-like to the barren west coast of Greenland. The houses add a warm, artificial light, casting yellow squares onto the snow through thick-paned windows, the tiny red lights of the radio mast glowing over the graveyard on the mountain’s knee above the settlement of Inussuk, and a cigarette burning a bright orange, a smouldering flame just a few centimetres from the lips of the man wearing a headlamp, drifting the light slowly from left to right, as he searches the snowy black sand beach for the skittish dog that shuns the harness.

  Retired police constable David Maratse knew the dark side of all of Greenland. During his active years of service, he had seen more than enough evil deeds that even the blackest winter could not hide. Now, cigarette tucked into the gap between his teeth, he smoothed his bare hands over the webbing harness, pricking his thumb on the knot of waxed thread he had tied at the end of a stubborn line of stitching. The padding of the shoulder straps, as thick as his little finger, had been the trickiest to sew, the size and dimensions hard won as the sea ice thickened and the dog had wriggled and twisted between his knees, biting at the measuring tape each time the end flapped too close to its mouth. Other hunters he knew might have given up on the dog as a lost cause, been less patient, more insistent, but Maratse had time, and he owed the dog a debt of gratitude – the more he chased after it, the less he was bothered by the pain in his legs, the less he thought about the torturous root of it. He stuffed the harness into the cargo pocket of his insulated overalls, and sat on the reindeer skin tied to the battered thwarts of the wooden sledge with a zigzagging sealskin cord. The hollow-haired skin was stiff with cold; he could feel the ridges pressing into his buttocks.

  He turned off the headlamp and finished his cigarette in the darkness. The dog would come to him, he reasoned, as it always did when he ignored it. He heard the soft crunch of snow beneath the dog’s paws as it padded towards him, felt the smooth wet lick of its tongue on the back of his hand, and the cold of its nose as it pressed its face into the warmth of Maratse’s neck. He ran his fingers through the dog’s ice-beaded fur, up its chest, past strong shoulders, all the way to the collar around its neck.

  “Hello Tinka,” he said.

  The dog skittered on the snow as Maratse stood up, turned it within his grasp and clamped its body between his knees. Maratse tugged the harness from his pocket, straightened it, and slipped the collar over the dog’s neck. He bent the dog’s front legs at the elbows and pushed one and then the other through the triangular loops of the harness. He had tied the stiff loop of cord to the end of the harness, and he gripped it now, just above the dog’s tail, and let the dog wriggle out from between his legs. He tugged the dog down the snowy beach to the ice foot, and then onto the ice where the team was anchored. Maratse clipped the dog into the team traces with a small karabiner through the cord loop. The dog whined as he turned and walked back towards the beach for the sledge.

  “Enough, Tinka.”

  Maratse took his time with the sledge, fiddling with the sledge bag, hanging
it over the uprights at the rear, like a large envelope. He opened the canvas flap of the bag, making a last visual and physical check that he had everything he needed for the journey. The larger items of gear, the canvas tent, the collapsible metal stove, fuel, food, and clothes were tied to the front of the long, broad sledge, leaving just enough space for him to sit, at an angle, between the load and the uprights. The rifle he had bought from the gravedigger, Edvard, was holstered in a canvas bag tied to the sledge like a rifle slung from a cowboy’s saddle. Maratse gripped the uprights and started to push the sledge towards the ice.

  “Let me help you.”

  Maratse grunted a hello at Karl as his neighbour crunched through the snow and took one of the uprights and together they pushed the sledge up and over the ice foot.

  “How’s the dog?”

  “Don’t ask,” said Maratse.

  “That’s her wriggling the lines into a bird’s nest?”

  “It is.”

  Karl laughed. “You’re going to have a wonderful trip.”

  “You could come with me.”

  “I could,” Karl said, as they turned the sledge to within a metre of the team anchored to the ice. He shooed the dogs away from the sledge runners with a clap of his hands as Maratse clipped a large karabiner through the thick rope loops forming a V between the curved tips at the front of the sledge.

  “Then why don’t you?” Maratse asked, as he walked towards the knot of lines tied through a chain frozen in the ice.

  “Buuti is preparing for the meal on Thursday. I have to help.”

  “Hm.”

  “Don’t forget you are invited.” Karl kicked at the gear tied to Maratse’s sledge.

  “I won’t.”

  “Good.” Karl lit a cigarette, offered one to Maratse. “It’s a long way to Svartenhuk, even with nine dogs.”

  “I know.” Maratse gripped the bunch of lines in his fist. “Maybe I won’t go so far. One, maybe two nights. A short run to the edge of the ice.” He straightened his back. “You’re worried?”

  “Naamik,” Karl said, “it’s just, you’re not a policeman anymore.”

  “I know.”

  Karl exhaled a cloud of smoke, and said, “You don’t have to go looking for trouble.”

  “I don’t.” Maratse heaved the lines free of the ice.

  “I think you do.”

  Maratse grunted and tugged the lines to the sledge. Karl moved to the back and gripped the uprights. The ice was smooth underfoot, and he pressed the toes of his boots against a ridge, squirming his foot into a solid stance as Maratse attached the dogs to the sledge.

  “Ah,” Maratse said, and the dogs settled for a moment, all but Tinka. He took a step on the ice and said Ah, louder this time, and Tinka lowered her head. Maratse kept an eye on the dogs as he walked to the uprights. He nodded at Karl. “Tell Buuti I won’t look for any trouble.”

  “It was me who said it. She thinks you are a hunter. I know you’re still a policeman. Besides, I think trouble finds you.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Maratse finished his cigarette, gripped the uprights and nodded as Karl took a step back.

  “See you on Thursday,” Karl said, as he slapped Maratse on the back.

  The lead dog was one of Edvard’s old leaders, a small bitch called Spirit. Maratse hoped she would help him train Tinka. Spirit lifted her head, padded forwards to the end of the line, and pulled it tight. Maratse cast a quick glance at the rest of the team and gave the command to pull.

  The team tugged at the lines and ran forwards; spread like a fan in front of the sledge, only Tinka was out of formation, until the momentum of the team tugged her into a position on the outside, to the left of the sledge. Maratse jogged behind the sledge, increased speed, and ran to the left, before leaping into the gap between the uprights and the gear. He settled his back against the sledge bag, found a comfortable position for his legs, and tugged the dog whip from where he had tucked it, beneath the cord that tied the tent to the sledge. He uncoiled the pencil-thick sealskin whip and let it run though his fingers into a five-metre line, trailing on the ice behind him. Maratse held the long wooden handle in a loose grip, and then cracked the end on the ice to the left of the dogs, smiling as Spirit pulled the team to the right. He adjusted course with another crack on the right, and then tucked the handle of the whip beneath the cord stretched tight over the reindeer skin. Maratse stretched his legs at an angle so that the heels of his boots tipped over the thwarts to one side. He rested his hands in his lap, clapping soft claps when he felt the team begin to dawdle, or when the scent of a fishing hole and the frozen innards scattered on the surface of the ice turned their heads.

  The sunless twilight of mid-morning turned the black sky into a penitent grey. Maratse lowered his head, fumbled for the cigarettes in his chest pocket, and then patted the pocket smooth against the hook and loop closure, smiling at his thoughts

  “Piitalaat would say I smoke too much.”

  He scanned the thick layer of sea ice – an anomaly if one believed the climatologists – and turned his head to explore the shadows of the icebergs locked in place. One berg in particular, massive with three gnarled and twisted towers, would have been right at home in one of Maratse’s beloved science fiction novels. He smiled at the thought of setting up camp, lighting the metal stove, and reading by lamplight, as the dogs curled up on the ice by the sledge. Retirement, he realised, held plenty of opportunities, and, despite the pain in his legs, he was still young, a year shy of forty.

  The sledge bumped over a fissure in the ice, and Maratse spotted a narrow lead of open water, perhaps a metre wide. He clapped his hands, gave a few encouraging whistles and shouts, and the team picked up speed, dragging the sledge and Tinka onto the firm ice on the other side of the gap, with Spirit taking the lead. Maratse leaned back, proud of his team, content with his surroundings, at one with the environment. They passed the three-towered iceberg, and the shadows diminished as the high-peaked peninsula flattened to a long, thin finger of snow-clad granite stretching into the frozen sea. Maratse could see the smoke of condensing air on the open water, in the distance, at the brittle edge of the sea. He could see something else, too. A thin line pointing straight up, like a mast. He leaned forwards just as the dogs jolted the sledge with a spurt of curiosity to match his own. Maratse didn’t chide or encourage the team. He let them run, as his own curiosity grew, and the shape of a broad hull anchored to the ice sharpened with each metre they sledged towards it.

  A scent or tang of something had pricked the dogs’ noses, and Spirit tugged them forwards. Had Maratse not been equally caught up in the shape on the horizon, he might have noticed that Tinka had shoved her way to run alongside the lead dog, bumping against Spirit’s more experienced flank. Maratse shifted position, kneeling, and then standing on the sledge, one steady hand on the upright, as he leaned forwards.

  There was a dark stain on the ice in front of the boat, a stripe of something, too thin to make out at this distance, but not altogether unfamiliar. Maratse slowed the team with long, slow commands to stop.

  He pulled the whip handle free of the cord and timed his first step onto the ice, ignoring the pain in his legs as he ran to the head of the team and slowed them with casts of the whip, tracing figure eights in the frigid air in front of the dogs. The team stopped, icicles hanging from their muzzles, as Maratse took hold of Spirit and smoothed his hand between the dog’s eyes and through the cold fur of its jaw. He spotted a mountaineering axe buried deep in the ice and anchored the team to it before unhitching the sledge and studying the boat in front of him.

  It was an aluminium-hulled ice-strengthened expedition yacht, one that Maratse had seen before, on the east coast, a long time ago. He recognised the broad hull, the generous glass cockpit of the bridge, and the name on the side: Ophelia.

  The yacht was anchored to the ice with two lines, one axe holding down each line. The bow was embedded in the ice, sealed a few metres along each side of the hull. The sa
ils were furled and stowed, the shrouds caked in rime ice, and the decks heavy with layers of old ice and new snow. It had been there several days, perhaps a week.

  He turned away from the yacht and examined the stain on the ice. Two dark stripes of blood led away from the hull. The trail stopped a metre ahead of Maratse’s sledge; either the blood was covered with fresh snow, or the wound had been staunched. He looked at the sharp semicircular peaks of Svartenhuk in the distance, and then back to the yacht. The blood was fresher than the ice on the deck. He took a step forwards, catching himself with the memory of Karl’s last words. Maratse shook the thought away, and walked the last few metres to the hull. He found a short ladder on the starboard side, shouted a quick greeting in English, and climbed aboard.

  There had been a snowfall in the night, and, as he walked on the deck, Maratse stooped to brush snow from a narrow window, shaped like a long, thin teardrop. The interior of the yacht was lit with a weak light. Maratse pressed his nose to the Plexiglas, squinted, and then took a breath as he noticed a body, a man, laying on the floor with a broad-handled knife protruding from his stomach.

  Chapter 2

  The air in the cabin was heavy with blood and faecal matter, the last physical act of the dying man. Maratse turned his face away from the steps leading from the deck to the cabin. He waited for a second and then descended into the cabin, one hand flat against the bulkhead. He scanned the dimly lit interior of the yacht. Two more crew, a man and a woman, both slim, were slumped at the table, the ends of the woman’s long blonde hair playing over the bald head of the man. Another member of the crew, slumped on the floor, looked like she had slipped in the blood. There was blood on her forehead, crusted in her short black hair. Her arms were positioned at uncomfortable angles, as if the fall had surprised her. Maratse took another step inside the cabin, placed his hand on the top of the cabinet that jutted into the room, and then lifted it immediately to stare at the blood glued to his fingers and palm. He peered over the cabinet, tracing a generous spray of blood plastered against the wall. There, on the other side of the cabinet was a fifth crew member, another woman, her feet pressed against the base of a shelf, her neck twisted, her head clamped in the corner by the oven. She had a knife in her throat, smaller than the one in the man’s belly.