His hands found a glass and a bottle. He poured some and sniffed at it. Johnnie Walker. Red label.
He opened his notebook and started jotting down his dream, but meandering thoughts soon took over, and before he knew it an hour had passed. As he shut his notebook, he heard a strange sound and thought he saw a shadow glide past the windows. It could have been any number of things, of course. Except that no one in their right mind would be outside at this time on a winter night. He heaved a sigh, put down his notebook and got up to check the windows. There were no streetlights, but the moon had found a way through the clouds, and its glow lit up the snow, giving him a clear view of the nearby houses.
He shook his head, despairing at himself. The town was just as dead as the grass under the snow. Then he narrowed his eyes. A shadow had appeared on the wall of the neighbouring house. He stepped closer to the window to get a better look. At that moment the shadow stepped away from the wall, and moved towards him. Jakob was startled. He took a few steps back and squinted again, but only caught a fluttering movement a short distance from the house before he heard the glass splinter and felt a hard blow to his face. He slumped to his knees. Blood started pouring down his face, and he touched his forehead, confused. On the floor was a lump of rough granite, the size of a fist, with a note tied around it. He pressed one hand against his bleeding forehead and made his way to the broken window to look outside, but the shadowy figure had gone.
He staggered to the kitchen, turned on the light and wrapped a tea towel around his head to stop the bleeding, but he wasn’t entirely successful. He needed to see a doctor and get seen to. If he could get hold of a doctor, that is. Even thinking about it was exhausting, so instead he picked up the rock and the note, returned to his armchair and collapsed back into it.
Mind your own business or she is done for.
‘Who is she?’ he muttered to himself. Who on earth would write such a thing? The note fell from his hands and floated to the floor. He loosened the tea towel and dipped one end of it in his whisky. Then he pressed the wet fabric against his injured forehead, letting the alcohol seep into the wound. It stung so fiercely that he could barely sit still. He got up and walked over to the broken window. He could feel the frost reaching out for him.
The wound was throbbing, but the worst of the bleeding had now stopped. He poured himself another large Johnnie Walker, and this time he knocked it back in four big mouthfuls that almost made him gag. But he kept it down and sank deep into the armchair, breathing heavily. He pulled a woollen blanket over himself.
24
‘What the hell is this? Hello! Hello! Pedersen, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Bit by bit the words made their way to Jakob, together with the sound of crunching glass. It sounded like a distant scattering of ice.
‘Jakob? Are you all right?’ The voice belonged to Karlo. ‘You look terrible. What happened? Can you hear me? Jakob?’
Jakob opened his eyes, but he struggled to gather his thoughts. His temples were throbbing, as was his forehead. His mouth and throat tasted of iron and alcohol. He was shaking violently all over, and not a single sound escaped his lips.
‘Sir, would you fetch some more blankets?’ Karlo said. ‘And make some coffee right away.’
Mortensen was about to bridle at the bossy tone from his Greenlandic junior, an officer of the lowest rank, but when he saw Karlo strip down to his underwear and climb under the blanket to join the near-naked Pedersen, he understood the gravity of the situation, fetched some extra blankets and made some coffee.
Jakob felt the heat from Karlo’s body and his hands rubbing his skin. Slowly, he regained enough control over his own hands that he could sip some coffee from the cup Mortensen was holding to his lips.
‘I can’t leave you alone for a single minute,’ Mortensen growled.
Jakob looked up at his boss’s round, balding head. In many ways it had all been worth it just to see Karlo order the boss around. He smiled. His fingers clutched the cup.
‘What happened?’ Mortensen demanded.
‘There was a man outside my window last night,’ Jakob stammered. His head was pounding, and his body was still stiff after being so close to hypothermia. ‘He threw a rock through my window with a threat. It hit my head, but I don’t think that was part of his plan, because I was standing here in total darkness.’ Jakob took a big gulp of the steaming coffee. ‘I ended up in this chair, and I tried to clean my wound with whisky.’
Mortensen patted him lightly on top of the blanket. ‘Right. Let’s take the note to the station and see if it tells us anything.’ He looked about the living room. ‘And I’ll get a couple of men to tidy up this mess for you.’ He turned back to Jakob. ‘This she the note refers to—do we know who she is?’
Jakob shook his head. ‘I’ve no clear idea. Najak, possibly. But no, I don’t know.’
Mortensen nodded. ‘Apart from that wound, are you fit for duty?’
‘I think it’s best that I stay here today,’ Jakob said.
Mortensen clenched his teeth and looked at Karlo. His chubby fingers patted the pockets of his long, beige coat.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jakob asked.
Mortensen produced a packet of cheroots from his inside pocket, and turned to Jakob.
Karlo took over. ‘There’s been another murder. Another man was killed and left in exactly the same way.’
Jakob closed his eyes. ‘What was his name?’
‘Anders Umerineq.’
Now only one of the four men on Jakob’s list was still alive.
‘In that case I’m coming,’ he said, struggling out from under the blankets.
‘Are you sure?’ Karlo asked as Jakob put his clothes back on. ‘You look like you need a trip to the hospital.’
‘If Pedersen says he’s ready, he’s ready,’ Mortensen grunted. ‘I haven’t got time to run around Block P.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘This is the third brutal murder, and I’ve no doubt that the mayor, the chairman of the provincial council and the idiot chairman of the Home Rule Committee have been ringing my office nonstop in the last hour while I’ve been out. These bloody murders.’
Jakob wrapped the blanket around himself and disappeared into the bathroom.
‘We’ll deal with it, sir,’ Karlo said.
‘I bloody well hope so, Lange,’ Mortensen growled, and took a deep drag of his cheroot, letting the rich smoke glide around his tongue and the roof of his mouth. ‘Do you think the rock and the note have something to do with the murders?’
Karlo looked at the rock, then at Mortensen. ‘I do, sir.’
Mortensen raised an eyebrow and looked at the young Greenlandic police officer. ‘And what might that connection be, Lange?’
Karlo steeled himself. ‘I’m thinking it might have something to do with child abuse, sir.’
‘Ah,’ Mortensen snorted as he walked over to Jakob’s dining table and studied the almost finished jigsaw puzzle there. ‘All those visits to Block P that I never approved.’ The fingers on his left hand tapped the jigsaw puzzle box. ‘This education survey the two of you have carried out here in Godthåb.’
Karlo look at his boots, and then at the jigsaw puzzle. On the lid under Mortensen’s fingers it said Godthåb. ‘I don’t think so,’ he mumbled to himself. ‘It might be some Scottish or Norwegian town, but it’s definitely not Godthåb.’
Mortensen turned and walked back to the armchair where Jakob had been sitting. He dropped the butt of his cheroot into the empty whisky glass. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about that survey… from anyone.’