Matthew looked at Ottesen, struggling to put his suspicions into words. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say it… but I think the organs belong to your colleague, Officer Aqqalu.’
13
The road behind the public swimming pool was made up largely of potholes and granite chips. Several old dinghies lay scattered between the road and the bay. Sport fishermen would dock here when they had been out at sea.
Matthew expelled the smoke hard between his lips, and watched it disperse in the fog. His gaze scanned the small bay and continued down the arm of the fjord separating Nuussuaq from Qinngorput. Qinngorput wasn’t far away, but the fog blocked his view of the buildings there.
He crossed a gravelled area where some boats had been pulled ashore. Two of them would definitely never go to sea again, while the other three looked in reasonable shape. A blue boilersuit on a coathanger was hanging from the gunwale of a boat, making it look as if an invisible man was standing next to the hull.
His mobile rang and he answered it. ‘Matt, it’s me,’ his editor said. ‘Have you reached the harbour yet?’
‘Yes, I’ve just got here.’ Matthew took another look around the small bay. ‘There’s no one here. Did you get my message about the sack that the police opened over at the Atlantic Port?’
‘Certainly did. What a story. I can’t make sense of it, but you just stick with it.’ His editor hesitated for a moment. ‘Don’t forget, though, we can’t write about it yet.’
‘It’ll leak out eventually,’ Matthew argued. ‘You can’t keep things secret for very long up here.’
‘Once it leaks, we’ll leak with it, Matt,’ his editor said. ‘You’ve got a couple of stories ready to go, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, we’re good to go.’
‘Great.’
‘This boat I’m supposed to be looking for,’ Matthew said. ‘Is it open or does it have a wheelhouse?’
‘A wheelhouse, I guess. Perhaps he’s not back yet? Are the police there?’
‘No. I reckon they’re still busy with the… black plastic sack.’
‘All right. You find that fisherman and get him to tell you what he saw. I’m told he didn’t see the killer’s face, but he did see the boat the bloodstained man came ashore in, and he’ll be able to identify it. You should be able to get something out of him. Keep at it, eh, Matt.’
There were only two boats with wheelhouses in the bay. One was about twenty metres out in the water, and the other very close to the shore. There was no way he could reach the one in the water without access to another boat.
The second boat lay near the low rocks. Matthew could hear it scrape against them, a grating, almost mournful sound. The waves were small, yet lively enough to cause the boat to bob up and down.
Matthew grabbed a rope hanging over the bow of the boat. He could see no signs that the boat was moored to the shore or that its anchor had been dropped. It was simply chafing against the rocks. When the tide turned, the boat would be carried out to sea in no time.
‘Hello?’ he called out, putting both hands on the gunwale. He tried calling out again, this time in Greenlandic. ‘Halu?’
Matthew looked about him. There wasn’t a soul to be seen who could help him. He managed to haul himself over the gunwale and roll onto the small deck.
‘Halu?’ he called out again tentatively. ‘Is anyone here?’
Slowly he edged his way past the small wheelhouse in the middle of the boat. There was barely enough room to squeeze past it, and he would never have dared try this manoeuvre on the open sea. The waters around Greenland were so cold all year round that you would go into shock and die within minutes of falling in.
‘Hello? Anyone here? I’m just visiting, all right? I’m looking for a witness who saw something this morning.’ He hesitated, then continued cautiously, ‘I’m working with the police. There’s nothing to worry about. Officer Ottesen will be here in a moment.’ That last bit was just a guess.
Carefully, he pressed down the handle to the small wheelhouse. The door opened with a click. He hesitated again before pushing it open. The room behind it was dark. Because the fog was so dense today, the portholes didn’t let much light into the hull.
‘Halu? Anyone here?’
He could smell fish and engine oil in the dark cabin. He made out some tins to one side, and a couple of half-full fish crates on the other. That didn’t leave much floor space. He nudged the top crate. It was mostly cod and redfish, and none of it had been covered with ice, despite the fish being gutted and cleaned. There was a puddle of fish guts and blood on the floor by a tall cupboard jerry-built from masonite.
‘Why would you abandon your catch?’ Matthew mumbled to himself. ‘Fish need to be kept cold, don’t they?’ He looked dubiously at the puddle of fish guts at his feet. He was baffled as to why the fisherman hadn’t gutted his fish outside. Surely cleaning the wheelhouse floor would create much more work for him than simply hosing down the deck?
A big wave jolted the boat, which crashed against the rocks. At the same time Matthew heard a bump from inside the cupboard. He looked down at the pink fish blood at the toes of his shoes. Then another wave hit, the cupboard flew open, and a short, heavy-set man lunged at him. They both crashed to the floor, knocking over a crate and scattering fish everywhere.
Matthew shouted and lashed out, pushing the man off him, and he didn’t stop yelling until he had scrambled back to the door, where he collapsed. His hands, trousers and jumper were covered in blood. The man was lying on his back between the fish. He had been cut open from his groin to his chest. Just like the fish, he had been gutted.
14
There was a hiss as Malik flipped the cap off the bottle and handed the beer to Ottesen. By now there were quite a few empty bottles on the table in front of them. Malik had insisted that they needed sustenance so they had ended up getting a crate of beer and three large pizzas from Cafe Prego before returning to Matthew’s apartment.
They had spent most of the evening discussing Aqqalu and the fisherman. Both were dead—killed and mutilated.
‘This is my last one,’ Ottesen stated firmly as he took the bottle. ‘I’m not usually much of a drinker, but today I really needed a beer.’
Malik raised his own beer to his lips. ‘It’s just insane. The mummy, me being burgled, the murders… and Aqqalu.’
‘Promise me you’ll never board a boat on your own again,’ Ottesen told Matthew, closing the lid on his empty pizza box. ‘Anything could have happened.’
‘How was I to know a dead man would fall out of the cupboard?’ Matthew replied.
‘Well, that’s just it,’ Ottesen grunted. ‘Do you know who tipped off your editor?’
‘No,’ Matthew said. ‘I was just told to investigate, but believe me, I wish I’d never set foot on that boat.’
Ottesen took another swig of his beer. ‘Still, I’m glad you called me straightaway.’
‘I’m going outside for a cigarette,’ Malik said, getting up. ‘Are you coming, Matt?’
Matthew shook his head. ‘Not right now.’
Ottesen picked up the printouts of the post-mortem reports, the notes and the newspaper cuttings from the coffee table and looked across at Matthew. ‘May I?’
‘Knock yourself out. It’s an old case my editor suggested I look into.’
Ottesen skimmed the pages, nodding lightly. ‘I know about this case.’ He looked up. ‘Four men flayed and cut open from their groins to their chests.’
‘And now we have another two,’ Matthew said, ‘except that they weren’t flayed.’