When Pedersen did not receive an answer from his boss, he sought the explanation elsewhere. He looked at the corpse and said, “This is pretty disgusting, and also inexplicable. We’re several hundred kilometres from the nearest inhabited area. In the middle of nowhere, as they say. It’s like a classic locked-room mystery turned on its head-the all too open room.”
“I know who she was, and how she got out here,” said the Greenlander.
Pedersen turned to Egede in surprise.
“And you’re just telling us that now?”
“I didn’t think you wanted to hear any information before you’d seen her.”
“It’s only my boss who has these purist notions. Personally I prefer all the facts as soon as possible, but you weren’t to know that. Okay, let’s hear it.”
But Simonsen held up one hand and stopped them there.
“In a little while. First I need time to think.”
Pedersen did not try to conceal his concern.
“Is something wrong, Simon?”
“I told you, I need a minute to myself. That can’t be so hard to understand surely.”
Most people would have backed off then, but not Pedersen. He ignored his boss’s tone of voice and said firmly, “No, it’s not hard to understand. Just like it shouldn’t be difficult for you to comprehend why I asked if there’s something the matter. Well, is there?”
Simonsen pulled his scattered thoughts together. No doubt about it, the Countess, or his daughter Anna Mia, or maybe both of them, had talked about his health condition behind his back. The Countess was one of his closest co-workers. Her name was actually Nathalie von Rosen, but everyone called her the Countess. Everyone except his daughter, who insisted on using her real name. The Countess was also quite possibly his girlfriend, though he couldn’t as yet figure that out. In fact, neither of them could.
He supposed it was not so surprising that the two women in his life should discuss his state of health. There was cause for concern over it as the doctor had made clear the last few times Simonsen had consulted him.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not well,” he admitted now. “But don’t worry, my health won’t affect the case.”
He turned away from them but had barely taken a step before Pedersen blocked his way and looked him in the eye. They stood that way, toe to toe, for what seemed like an eternity, until Pedersen finally stepped aside and let him pass.
When Simonsen was ready to be briefed, the Greenlandic constable pulled a notepad from his inside pocket and removed one glove so he could browse through his notes.
“Her name is Maryann Nygaard. She was a trained nurse and worked at the now closed American base in Søndre Strømfjord, where she was employed through a Danish company, Greenland Contractors, which specialised in recruiting Danish civilian workers for the American bases in Greenland. I believe there was an undertaking from the US government to Denmark that all civilian personnel at the bases in Thule and Søndre Strømfjord should be Danish. But don’t take my word for that. There may be exceptions I don’t know about. In any event, Maryann Nygaard had a job there as a nurse from March 1982 until her disappearance the following year, on the thirteenth of September 1983.”
Simonsen, who seemed to have calmed down after his outburst, queried, “In 1983? So she’s been lying here for twenty-five years?”
Only Pedersen, who knew him well, could hear that he was still not quite up to speed. There was something seriously wrong here. Their Greenlandic counterpart answered the question.
“Yes, she has, and if it hadn’t been for climate change, she could easily have been lying here for thousands more, until one day she slid into the fjord inside an iceberg.”
“Do you know her age?” Konrad pressed him.
“She was twenty-three years old when she was killed, but beyond that I don’t know much about her. I’ve spoken with the colonel in command then at Thule Airbase-a man I know well, by the way, and have liaised with before-and he’s promised to get more information to me as soon as possible. He’s usually pretty quick, given the notorious bureaucracy of the American armed forces. Of course in the event of a case being opened by them it could take years to process, but there’s nothing to suggest that will happen.”
“You mean, so long as there were no American soldiers involved?”
“Exactly, and I don’t believe there were.”
Pedersen butted in, “How far away was this Søndre Strømfjord base?”
“Is, the base is intact, only the Americans are gone. In round numbers, three hundred kilometres to the south-west.”
“Then why is she here?”
“There’s a good explanation for that, but perhaps you’d like to see a couple of pictures of her first?”
Without waiting for an answer he unfolded a piece of A4 paper from the back of his notebook.
“The colonel sent these over last night. I don’t know if they come from the US or his own personal files. They kept the pictures for identification purposes, in case she was ever found. It’s standard procedure when someone goes missing.”
Again it was Pedersen who interrupted.
“Does that happen often round here… people disappearing?”
“Yes, unfortunately it’s not uncommon, especially in the winter. Greenland is a big country, and in certain conditions if you wander off course then it’s far from a given you’ll be found again.”
They moved in closer and studied the photographs. The top one was a portrait that showed a smiling young woman who barely resembled the one in the hole below them, apart from her long, black hair. Below the portrait was an informal picture of the woman, taken in summer while holding a trout in front of her with both hands. The pose was meant to be humorous as the fish was small enough to be held easily in one hand. A lock of her dark hair was caught by the summer breeze and drifted behind her like smoke.
Simonsen studied the bottom picture thoroughly. When he was done, he grimaced and asked, “So what brought her out here?”
“It was her work. Have you ever heard of the DYE stations?”
Both men shook their heads.
“They were a kind of radar outpost from the base in Søndre Strømfjord. There were five such stations, simply designated DYE-1 to DYE-5, and three of them rank among the world’s most isolated places, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest settlement. All five were built in the early 1960s as part of the American atomic early warning system, a chain of radar stations from Alaska across Canada to Iceland that were supposed to detect Russian bombers and later intercontinental missiles. The first four DYEs are spread along a line that roughly corresponds to the northern polar circle, starting with DYE-1 on the west coast at Sisimiut over the ice cap, and finally DYE-4 on the east coast at Ammassalik. DYE-5 is an exception, pretty far north of the other DYEs and, as I said, over three hundred kilometres from the base in Søndre Strømfjord. I have no idea why it was not built in a line with the others. Maybe there is a perfectly reasonable explanation if you’re a radar engineer or maybe it’s a military secret, who knows?”
Simonsen asked, “How big was it?”
“Not very big in circumference, but high. You can see a few pictures when we get back to Nuuk. It wasn’t pretty.”
“What does DYE stand for?”
“As far as I know, it comes from the Canadian town of Cape Dyer on the east coast of Baffin Island towards the Davis Strait. Cape Dyer was also part of the radar system, but I’m not sure about the linguistic connection. In any event, all five DYE stations were taken out of service in the late 1980s. The technology was antiquated by that point as Russian rockets could then be tracked better from satellites. The first to be shut down was DYE-5-that was here where we’re standing-and unlike the other four it was removed completely. That was down to some desk decision or other in Copenhagen about not compromising Greenland’s wilderness. The Americans were told to clean up after themselves so to speak, which they did quite effectively as you can see-or perhaps I should say, don’t see. Later the Self-Government had to reverse the procedure so that the other DYEs were allowed to remain more or less as they were, and today two of them are used occasionally by climate researchers overnighting on the ice cap.”