She looked at him without really daring to look.
‘It’s yours now,’ he added, and got up from the bed.
Her clenched fist disappeared under the quilt, as did the rest of her face. Only a little tuft of hair continued to stick out. He wished he could stroke her hair, but he didn’t dare touch her.
‘Good night,’ he whispered, and turned off the light. ‘I’ll leave the door ajar.’
The quilt said nothing. It didn’t even move.
Jakob carefully pulled the door to, leaving a gap. He went over to the sideboard and got out the projector. When he had brought Paneeraq back to his house, another bag had been hanging on the doorhandle. Jakob had removed it and opened the door as if nothing had happened. Through the thin plastic he could feel the box with the reel between his fingers, and had known that the contents were important. But he had set the bag aside and concentrated on Paneeraq’s homework and dinner instead.
Now he set up the small projector next to his armchair again, and mounted the new reel. He looked at the door to the bedroom for a long time before starting the projector. Light filled the room, as did the clicking sound from the motor, feeding the film from the reel through the heart of the projector.
The camera was static. Mounted in the corner that was facing Najak. The light came and went. Jakob jumped every time. Not because the light and the darkness were frightening in and of themselves, but because every interruption came without rhythm or order, and so felt like a shock. Because the little girl was still curled up in the far corner of the shiny tinfoil hell, which would alternately scream in light and reflection and then be lost in total darkness. Her body was scrunched up. Wrapped around itself. Her hair was messier. Uncombed. Rat-tailed. It was several days since the last recording, it would appear. Her feet were bare now. Her tights were gone. Her legs bare and stained with dirt. The seconds stood still. Najak looked lifeless.
Jakob tried to keep his gaze fixed on the glowing square with the girl in the corner. The room around him came and went in time with the light on Najak. He could see only a little of her face. She was chewing monotonously, sucking one hand. There was no other movement. Traces of tears on her cheek. Smeared. Dried.
The film kept on playing. It was the longest one so far.
Jakob got up and fetched himself a large whisky and four painkillers, before collapsing back into the armchair. The film continued playing, but there was no movement other than the light going on and off, and the child sucking her skin.
He disappeared inside himself. The film carried on. As did everything else. Without noticing it, he slipped into an uneasy, shallow slumber.
38
Jakob shot up from his armchair so fast that he nearly blacked out, but he grabbed the back of the armchair for support and regained his balance. The spots stopped dancing in front of his eyes. He could tell from the clock on the wall near the kitchen that it was ten-thirty in the evening. The reel had run out. Someone was knocking on the door and, still dazed, he looked towards the hall. It was the knocking that had woken him up. No one ever visited him at night. Especially not on a winter’s night when the cold was this fierce.
He looked about him, then quickly unplugged the projector and hid it in the sideboard. More knocking on the door. He took a few steps towards the hall.
There was another knock. This time it was hard and insistent, and Jakob felt his terror pulling at the cut on his forehead. He swore softly under his breath, and grimaced before he took the last few steps towards the door, which he unlocked and opened. The cold air swept inside immediately and enveloped his upper body, like the breath of an icy demon.
He recognised two of the three men outside, but the third, who was still standing with his fist raised to knock, he had never seen before. He was a broad, ruddy-faced man with messy red hair, a bushy red beard and two gruff, ice-blue eyes hidden under thick eyebrows. He wore an Icelandic sweater, jeans and black clog boots.
‘Jakob,’ one of the other two men said, putting his hand on the red-haired man’s shoulder to move him aside. ‘We’ll just come in for a moment.’
Jakob wanted to protest, but the three men had already pushed their way past him.
‘I’m sorry that you’ve had a wasted journey in this cold,’ Jakob said, following the three men into his living room. ‘But can’t it wait until tomorrow?’ His heart was pounding.
The two men stared at him, while the man with the red beard walked around, inspecting the furniture and the jigsaw puzzle on the table. Jakob knew one of the two men, a young Danish lawyer called Kjeld Abelsen. He was thin, bordering on gangly, and so light-skinned that the contrast between his black hair and his pale face made him look like a black-and-white photograph stripped of any softer shades. He was clenching his jaw so tightly that his lips almost disappeared, and his eyes were shiny and piercing. He had only been in Godthåb for a few years, but had already earned himself some status and respect. He had—in Jakob’s opinion—an uncanny ability to always know on which horse to bet.
The other man he recognised was Jørgen Emil Lyberth, and his round body and head made him Abelsen’s physical opposite. He was an Inuit, and one of the members of the Greenlandic Provincial Council who made the most noise when debating secession from Denmark and leaving the European Economic Community.
Jakob knew exactly what the two men represented, both individually and together, but he had no idea what they were doing in his house with a red-haired Icelander late one night with biting frost and wind. To the outside world, Lyberth and Abelsen were opposites in terms of politics and vision, but behind the scenes they were, as far as Jakob had worked out, a strangely secretive pair who might very well turn out not to sing the same songs in darkness as in daylight.
‘What do you want?’ Jakob demanded to know, unable to hide his irritation that the young men and their older, red-bearded attack dog had forced their way into his home.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Jakob,’ Abelsen said with a cold look.
‘I’m fine standing.’
‘I think you should, or I’ll have to ask our friend from the Faroe Islands to help you.’
Jakob looked at the robust man, who had moved close to him. ‘I’m fine standing,’ he reiterated angrily.
‘Suit yourself,’ Abelsen went on. ‘Then again, you’ve never seen him gut a pilot whale, but never mind, the fall will be the same wherever he drops you.’
Lyberth had sat down on the sofa, but he got up again. Abelsen looked towards him and made a quick gesture with one hand. Lyberth nodded grimly.
‘You have a nice home.’ Abelsen picked up a rock from a shelf and tapped it against his forehead. ‘But I see that you keep injuring yourself. Then again, being a police officer is a dangerous job, isn’t it? And we’re up to our necks in murders right now.’
Jakob thought frantically about the murders, the film reels and Najak. He did his best to keep an eye on the bedroom door and Paneeraq, while at the same time trying not to send even a fragment of his attention in that direction. ‘What’s this about?’
‘We have a conflict of interests, Pedersen,’ Abelsen said, almost without moving his narrow lips. ‘And you would do well to keep your nose out of our business. Some investigations end up being shelved, as you well know. In the public interest.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Wind up your investigation.’ Abelsen had walked right up to Jakob so their faces were close. ‘Conclude that the murders were committed by a Greenlandic man, and people will lose interest.’
‘But we don’t know that they were,’ Jakob objected, looking to Lyberth. ‘We can’t just pin the blame for three murders on an innocent man.’