‘Thank you,’ Matthew said. The way things were going, he couldn’t even be sure if he would still be in Nuuk next week, let alone in six months. If Tupaarnaq went down for Lyberth’s murder, he would be dragged down with her and he would be finished here.
The glass door opened inwards and took them into a narrow but tall corridor lined with glass and grey concrete. Leiff greeted a couple of women cheerfully and patted a young man on his shoulder. From the angular hall they continued into a low passage with glass walls that terminated in a new, bigger hall two floors high. In the middle of the hall was a shallow, rectangular turquoise basin containing clean water. An old leather kayak was suspended above the basin.
‘We’re going up those stairs over there,’ Leiff said, pointing to the far side of the basin.
‘Did she tell you what she has found?’ Matthew’s gaze lingered briefly on an oil painting of a mountainous area in a soft, arctic winter light.
‘No, but we’re about to find out. Have you made any progress since we last spoke?’
‘I don’t know.’ Matthew looked down at the orange-brown tiles below them. ‘I think I’m going round in circles, so I’m hoping that we can track down someone from the seventies case—someone who’s still alive.’
‘Fingers crossed.’ Leiff’s gaze followed Matthew’s down to the tiles. ‘Did you really not bring anything other than those sneakers?’
Matthew shook his head. ‘I promise to get myself a pair of boots soon.’
‘Hi, guys.’ A tall, sturdy woman popped her head over the white-painted wrought-iron bannister. A long row of slanted windows in the vaulted ceiling cast so much light over the steps and the basin that the hall felt more like an atrium.
‘Hi,’ Leiff called out and waved to her once. He turned to Matthew. ‘This is my wife, Ivalo.’
‘I’m Matthew,’ Matthew said, sticking out his hand as they reached her.
‘And I’m Ivalo,’ she said, and showed them into her office. ‘Nice to meet you, given that I missed you when you came round for dinner. I’ve looked up the names Leiff sent me, and I have to say that there wasn’t much, but I found a few things. Do sit down.’ Her fingers tapped the keyboard. ‘It’s only recently that we’re starting to get a proper handle on what data we have here. It’s all thanks to a series of IT grants.’ She shook her head. ‘You won’t believe this, but before computerisation we had no real cross-referencing of basic information, so not only was it difficult for people to have their cases dealt with efficiently, it was also easy for people to disappear. Especially anyone whose details were still on paper. We didn’t bring the past with us when we went digital. However, all is not lost because the information is still in the archives. All you need is an old woman who knows where to look, and I’m that old woman.’
Matthew found it difficult to judge Ivalo’s age, but thought she was probably around sixty. She was taller than Leiff and more robust. Not fat, just robust. Her hair was black and cut in a short, wavy style.
‘I found them all in the basement archives, but only one of them has made it to our new IT system. All the men died in ’73, and I can find absolutely no trace of Jakob Pedersen after that year, but as far as I recall he was a police officer and was regarded as deceased. Isn’t that right, Leiff?’
‘Yes, I believe so. He disappeared during the investigation into the killings, and when neither he nor his body was found, he was presumed dead. Murdered. As you know, the whole thing was very suspicious. Some people thought that he was the killer, others that the murderer had killed him.’ Leiff shrugged. ‘Whatever the truth, neither the murders nor Pedersen’s disappearance was ever solved, and nobody seems to have wanted to delve deeper into it until you came along.’
Matthew was tempted to tell them about the notebook, but decided to keep the information to himself for a little longer.
‘It was pretty much the same when I started looking for the girls,’ Ivalo said, unprompted. ‘Two of them died of cancer when they were still in their early thirties, while one vanished without a trace in November 1973. The last girl also disappeared, but she turned up again. We have no information on her in the period from 1973 up until 2012, when she suddenly reappeared here in Nuuk, saying she had just moved here. She claims to have lived in a village one hundred and thirty kilometres south of here, but even so I still can’t find anything on her between 1973 and 2012. Like I said, it’s only recently that we have digitalised our basic data, and we still have many villages to add—maybe we’ll never get round to it. So she could easily have lived in some coastal village for all those years. She had no parents, as they died shortly before she herself went missing.’
‘They were killed,’ Leiff corrected her. ‘They were buried here in Nuuk.’
‘And the girl is in Nuuk now?’ Matthew was on the edge of his seat. ‘She’s alive?’
‘Yes—I’ve made a note of her address for you.’ She handed him a piece of paper.
Paneeraq Poulsen, it said at the top. Matthew looked out of the window by Ivalo’s desk. The daughter of the fourth victim. The one with a heart next to her name in Jakob’s notebook. ‘Thank you so much. You’ve been a huge help.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you sure it’s the right person?’
‘Yes. I don’t believe there’s any doubt about that.’
‘Paneeraq,’ Matthew whispered to himself. She would be over fifty years old now, and no longer a little girl hiding under Jakob’s blankets with her sea urchin.
Outside the windows, the weather had changed dramatically—more so in such a short space of time than any place Matthew had ever experienced. The sky had turned from blue to black, and the rain was sheeting down in dense, grey curtains.
‘What’s on your mind?’
Leiff’s voice scattered Matthew’s thoughts.
‘Sorry, I… I… What did you just say?’
‘That you’ll get your feet wet in this weather.’
‘Yes—how did that happen? Only a minute ago it was sunny.’
‘The North Atlantic is more fickle than a newly married Greenlandic woman,’ Leiff chuckled.
Ivalo looked at him sternly. ‘Watch it!’ She shook her head, then bent down to examine Matthew’s sneakers. ‘Are those your only shoes?’
‘Yes… I haven’t got round to buying anything else yet, but I’m sure I’ll be all right. I wear these all year round.’
‘I’m sure you do, my dear—in Denmark, but not in Greenland. You’ve no idea how quickly it can turn cold and wet here.’
‘Or how deep the snow can be,’ Leiff added.
‘What size are you?’ Ivalo was looking at her husband. ‘Leiff, you must have some boots in the basement? Let’s see if you have a pair that would fit Matthew.’
Matthew looked at his sneakers. ‘I can just go and buy myself a pair in the Nuuk Centre, if it becomes necessary.’
‘It has just become necessary,’ Ivalo said. ‘But let me check our basement first. There’s no need to spend money on new ones, if Leiff has a pair that will fit you.’
‘Why don’t we drive home and take a look now?’ Leiff said, his voice brightening up. ‘Anyway, it’s time for lunch.’
Matthew’s mobile buzzed in his pocket, and he quickly took it out. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘I’ve just got an email, and I was expecting—’ He ground to a halt. In his inbox was an email from jelly@hotmail.com, but there was no information about the sender other than a name at the bottom of the message.