He walked on as the door closed with a quiet click, and continued towards the external gallery. This heavy door wasn’t as damaged as the previous one, but it couldn’t be closed properly either. He pulled it open and looked across the rocks and the sea. He identified the spot where he had been reading Jakob’s notebook earlier that day. The fingers of his right hand instinctively moved to his left collarbone, and he glanced back towards the closed door.
After a while Matthew returned to Tupaarnaq’s apartment. It was quiet behind her front door, not that he had expected anything else. He had no idea what it might be like inside. Or what it must have been like to be locked up at the age of fifteen and not let out for twelve years.
He jumped when the door opened. She looked at him, nodded and handed him a USB stick. ‘Take a look at this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Just some stuff. Remember, there are two sides to every story, always, and the truth is often found in the details of a lie.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look at it when I get home.’
‘Good. See you tomorrow. Be here at eight.’
Matthew steeled himself and nodded. ‘Okay. Eight o’clock it is. See you then.’
‘Put on some old clothes. Killing is messy.’
As soon as he got home, he inserted Tupaarnaq’s USB stick into his laptop. It contained several folders with files saved either as PDFs or JPEGs, and as he opened them he realised that they were all pictures of articles about the killing of her family in Tasiilaq in 2002.
Matthew read the files one after the other. There was no doubt that Tupaarnaq had been convicted even before the first news reports reached the public. The murders were brutal and the newspapers explicit in their coverage of the tragedy in the east Greenlandic village. A picture of two dead girls lying on a double bed was published in several papers. The blood from their bodies had soaked into the quilt and mattress. A woman was lying on the floor not far from them. The pictures of the father had all been taken when he was alive, but according to the papers he had been shot with his own gun and then cut up with an ulo. The newspaper Politiken wrote that it was the most gruesome murder ever on Greenland’s east coast—a tragedy in which the family’s oldest daughter had killed everyone except her younger brother, who hadn’t been at home that afternoon.
Matthew continued looking through the files. The intervals between the stories grew longer until the verdict came. Tupaarnaq had only ever admitted to killing her father, and had refused to speak about anything else throughout the entire trial. She was convicted of all four counts of manslaughter: guilty of killing her father, mother and two little sisters. Contrary to the advice of her legal counsel, she had not appealed the sentence.
Matthew picked up his mobile and checked the time. Then he found Leiff’s number and texted him. The girl who killed her family in Tasiilaq. Do you know anything about her younger brother who survived?
Once he had sent the message, he texted Malik as well. Have you heard from Lyberth?
Outside, the sun had set fire to the evening sky over Nuuk. The orange light from the flaming clouds cast a glow so strong that it looked as if the living room walls were burning.
He found his cigarettes and went out onto the balcony. His thoughts circled tentatively around the notebook, the landscape, Tupaarnaq, and the many loose ends, wondering how they were all connected. The cigarette smoke soothed him, allaying his unease.
He finished smoking and went back to the sofa, where he picked up his mobile. He had two messages. Leiff had written: No, but I will look into it, while Malik’s reply was more comprehensive. He hadn’t heard from Lyberth, but Ulrik had written to him saying that the police wanted the notebook back. Malik had replied that he didn’t know where it was, which had prompted Ulrik to call him and complain bitterly. Malik could tell that Ulrik was calling from home rather than the police station, because Lyberth’s daughter had said something in the background.
Just then a new message from Malik appeared at the top of the screen. Ulrik has spoken to Ottesen and knows that you got the notebook from him. Just so you know.
27
The sea was calm and reflected the scarred, round peaks of Mount Ukkusissat the next morning when Tupaarnaq and Matthew sailed out between the rocks in the small harbour by the public swimming pool. It hadn’t taken Tupaarnaq many minutes to pick a boat and get it started. On the way to the harbour she had told him that it was better to borrow one without a steering wheel, as such boats always required a key. She couldn’t be bothered to short-circuit one when all they needed for a quick trip was a low dinghy with an outboard motor and a tankful of petrol.
The boat slammed against the waves, and the wind swept across the open hull. Matthew shivered in his blue anorak and zipped it all the way up to his neck, while he looked enviously at Tupaarnaq’s thick woollen jumper and black boots. The forecast had promised sun all day and up to twenty degrees Celsius, but out at sea the conditions were different. The bouncing of the boat caused his half-empty stomach to lurch, and the wind whipping across the sea was so cold that it felt like frost against his skin.
At the bottom of the boat lay a long stick with an iron hook on one end. The dark stains on the hook bore witness to the animals who had bled before they were pulled out of the sea. Tupaarnaq’s rifle lay next to it, gun-metal grey with a wooden stock.
The boat listed to the right, and Matthew’s body moved in the opposite direction. He had no idea where they were going. Tall mountains grew out of the sea around them.
Tupaarnaq sat next to the motor, the tiller under her arm and behind her so she could look ahead and steer them between the arms of the fjord.
Matthew’s thoughts returned to the files on the USB stick, and he reviewed the information in his mind. Why hadn’t she appealed her sentence? Surely an innocent person would have appealed a conviction for murdering their own mother and little sisters?
Tupaarnaq knocked on the hull to get his attention, then pointed at the sea in front of the boat. He turned and saw a lump of ice the size of a truck pass close by. ‘They can be several hundred metres tall, if you go further up the coast.’ She was practically shouting to drown out the engine and the wind. ‘Above the water, I mean. Below the surface they can be one kilometre.’ She pulled the tiller and the boat made a soft arc around the lump of ice, which shone white and turquoise in the morning sun.
‘It’s the first time I’ve been this close to an iceberg,’ he shouted back. ‘It’s amazing.’
‘It’s not an iceberg, it’s a growler. Icebergs are bigger.’
‘But it’s still beautiful,’ Matthew whispered to himself. The growler had a long shelf right below the surface of the sea, and the water over it glowed turquoise and was so pure that he felt like jumping in.
The mountains continued everywhere. In some places they rose steeply. In other places there were long slopes covered with grass and shrivelled shrubs. They were going in the direction of Kobbe Fjord, in between Mount Ukkusissat and Mount Kingittorsuaq. Or Store Malene and Hjortetakken, as they were called in Danish.
Tupaarnaq switched off the engine, and once the boat settled on the sea, the icy wind mostly eased off.
Matthew started to relax. ‘Aren’t we going ashore?’ He looked briefly at her before turning his gaze to the plain at the foot of Mount Kingittorsuaq.
She shook her head. ‘No, we shoot seals out here. If you want to go reindeer hunting, you’ll have to wait. It can take days before we spot any.’