‘Could you identify any of the first three men you saw?’ Jakob didn’t want Inge-Lene to know that what she had heard was undoubtedly a dying Ari’s hands bashing the floor as he was being gutted alive.
She shook her head. ‘Only one of them.’
33
Jakob had only managed to sink a few centimetres into his armchair before there was a knock on his front door. He scowled at the dark windows and heaved a sigh. The knocking persisted, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to disappear so deep inside himself that only the silent night would remain.
The next sound to reach him came from the window. Fingers tapping the glass lightly. ‘Wake up, Jakob.’
The voice was female. It belonged to Lisbeth. He opened his eyes and hurried to the door.
‘Lisbeth, do come in,’ he said, smiling, with a glance at the folded blanket in her hands.
She stared at his forehead. ‘Good heavens—does it hurt?’
‘Hurt?’ Jakob touched his forehead. ‘No, it’s fine. Nothing to worry about. I hope you haven’t—’
‘I’ve brought you some rissoles,’ she interrupted, nodding at the blanket. ‘I didn’t think you should be on your own after being attacked yesterday.’ She looked down. ‘Or have you already had dinner?’
‘Why don’t we eat together?’ he suggested, taking a step backwards. ‘I love rissoles.’
He followed her into the kitchen, where she unwrapped a dish from the blanket.
‘Is it all right if we eat at the coffee table?’ he asked. ‘There’s a jigsaw puzzle on the dining table.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. You’re in charge.’
He looked at her back and at her long, black plait hanging down. ‘It smells good.’
‘Thank you. I hope it tastes even better.’ She turned around and looked at him. ‘If you don’t mind setting the table, the food will be ready in just a sec.’
Jakob found a couple of plates and carried them to the living room. ‘Do you drink wine?’
‘Yes, indeed I do.’ Her voice was soft and vibrant. ‘But I’m not sure it’s a good idea with that cut to your head.’
Jakob opened a door in the sideboard behind the dining table, and took out two wineglasses.
‘Do you have a trivet?’ She had appeared from behind, holding the steaming dish in two oven gloves.
He nodded and put the glasses on the coffee table, then rushed back to the kitchen. ‘I can’t find one,’ he called out, reappearing in the doorway. ‘We’ll just use a book.’
She smiled and set down the dish when he placed a book on the table. ‘Shall I do the honours?’
He nodded while he poured the wine.
‘Cheers,’ Lisbeth said, raising her glass. ‘And thank you for inviting me.’
He looked up at her with a frown.
She smiled and winked. ‘I’m just teasing you, Jakob.’
‘Cheers… And thanks for the rissoles. It was kind of you to think of me.’ He put down his glass. ‘Have you always lived in Godthåb?’
‘No, I’m from Qeqertarsuatsiaat.’
‘Qeqertarsuatsiaat,’ he echoed. ‘I haven’t been there yet.’
‘Only a few hundred people live there now,’ she said. ‘But my grandmother is still there. She doesn’t want to move to Godthåb.’
‘We could go down there one day in the police boat,’ he said. ‘I mean, if you would like that.’
‘You know how to sail?’ A big smile had spread across her face, all the way into her eyes. ‘I’d love to, but I don’t want to cause problems for you. Promise? It would probably take us all day.’
‘I have a lot of time on my hands,’ he said.
She sipped her wine and smiled. ‘That would be wonderful. I miss my grandmother. She’s the kindest person I know.’
‘I can imagine.’ Jakob topped up their glasses and raised his own to his lips. He rarely drank wine, even though he enjoyed the taste.
‘Are you getting anywhere with your investigation?’ She put down her cutlery, which clattered softly.
He shook his head in despair. ‘We’re not getting anywhere at all.’
‘I guess I shouldn’t ask you about it.’
He took a big gulp of his wine. ‘It’s not the killings. Well, don’t get me wrong, the murders are terrible, but they’re just men. Grown men who weren’t good people in any sense of the word, and frankly I would happily have beaten Anguteeraq Poulsen to a pulp myself, although it’s very wrong of me to think like that.’
Lisbeth tilted her head and tucked up her legs underneath her. He could see her black tights where the grey marl skirt ended around her knees.
‘I understand,’ she said quietly.
‘I just don’t get men like him. I mean…’ He ground to a halt as he tried to articulate his thoughts. ‘Surely the most natural feeling in the world is to love your child?’
‘It certainly ought to be,’ Lisbeth said.
‘Yes, it should, shouldn’t it? Surely nothing is more important than that. I wish it was like that for all children. No child should ever suffer abuse.’
Jakob reached out and grabbed the bottle in order to share the last of the wine between them.
‘The same goes for adults,’ she said softly. ‘The older we get, the more introverted, fearful and frightened of love we become.’
He nodded. This wasn’t his area of expertise at all, but the wine and the food had loosened his tongue. ‘Adults carry their childhood sorrows with them all their life. That’s why it’s so important to love your child, so that it can grow up knowing that love exists, and that it’s safe to accept that love and to love in return.’
She looked at him with a gaze that was simultaneously wistful and warm. ‘Do you have a child back home in Denmark?’
He looked down and shook his head.
‘Only suddenly it sounded as if you had. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘That’s quite all right. However, I’m very concerned about child abuse.’
‘You would make a good father,’ she said, and drained her glass. ‘I used to go hunting with my father. It was always me who butchered the seals. My mother taught me how to slide the ulo in between the blubber and the skin, and slowly remove the skin from the body. I was ten years old when I flayed my first seal. My father had cut open its belly so the intestines spilled out—the rest was my job. I cut free its guts. Intestines, heart, lungs. Everything. We always had to taste the liver. It makes you strong, my father would say.’ She shook her head. ‘My arms could barely reach right round the seal while I cut it.’ She looked at her hand. ‘The warm sensation of the blubber… and of the body.’ She looked down. ‘My father nudged the seal with his boot. He never really helped me. It’s women’s work, he would say. You’re a woman now.’ Her gaze disappeared in the deep-pile rug. ‘I knew that he saw me as a woman. Whenever I cut up an animal, I would think of him. Sometimes I would be covered in blood all over. In some strange way I enjoyed it.’
Jakob looked at his plate. He pushed his empty wineglass further onto the coffee table.
Lisbeth shook her head. ‘I talk a lot of nonsense. I’m sorry. I think I had better be going.’
‘It’s not nonsense,’ Jakob said, looking at her face. Her freckles and her black hair gleamed in the electric light. ‘Many people have deep wounds that no one ever sees. I’ll walk you home, if you don’t mind. It’s a dark and cold night.’