On his way out of the apartment block, he paused on the first floor and took out his mobile to reread the email from jelly@hotmail. com. Then he pressed reply, and started typing with one finger:
Deal. We will meet as you suggest, Friday night. I’ll bring the notebook.
Next he opened a web browser and went to jubii.dk, where he created a new account and wrote:
Jørgen Emil Lyberth lies murdered on the second floor in Block 17, stairwell J, behind the door with the words ‘abandon hope all ye who enter here’.
As soon as he had sent the email to Nuuk Police, he deleted the account.
At the bottom of the stairwell, a man was sitting up against the wall on piles of junk mail and old newspapers. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, but it was hard to tell as he was wrapped in several layers of filthy clothing, and his face was grimy and weather-beaten.
‘Piss off home to Denmark,’ the man grunted as Matthew went past. His eyes followed the cigarette on its way to Matthew’s mouth. ‘Give us one,’ he said.
Matthew hesitated and took another drag. The man hadn’t been here when he arrived. Then he took out his cigarette packet and gave it to him. ‘You can have all of them, but if anyone asks, I was never here—understand?’
The man nodded as he pushed open the packet. Fifteen cigarettes were left in it.
‘Did you see someone run past just now? A woman, possibly? No hair?’
The man on the floor shook his head as he took out a cigarette. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
Matthew’s mobile buzzed in his pocket. He nodded to the man and pushed open the door. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Tupaarnaq. Can you pick me up from the police station?’
‘Yes… Pick you up? Why?’
‘The idiots have brought me in again. They just don’t get it, morons.’
Matthew looked up across Block 17. ‘Why have they arrested you?’
‘I can’t be bothered to explain that now. So are you coming or what? They’ll let me go as long as someone agrees to keep an eye on me… and I don’t know anyone else.’
42
Ottesen was the first person Matthew met at the police station. The officer smiled as he shook his head. ‘I get where you’re coming from, Matt Cave, but be careful. She’s a she-wolf.’
‘A she-wolf?’ Matthew echoed.
‘She’s a wild one. I would watch my back if I were you.’ Ottesen hesitated and tilted his head. ‘It was her who bit Ulrik the first time we arrested her.’
‘What happened?’
‘We were chasing her across the rocks… she runs like an arctic hare. Anyway, we reached the edge of the rocks, and I guess the drop was too steep so she turned around and slumped to her knees… just like one of those Olympic sprinters. And when Ulrik tried to grab her, she lunged at him with such force that they rolled a fair way down the rocks, and then she bit him. We heard them both snarling like wild animals.’
Matthew rubbed his upper lip. ‘So what has she done this time?’
‘She beat up a man behind Brugseni. She wanted us to arrest him because she had seen him groping his daughter, but there were no other witnesses and the girl clammed up. In the end we had no choice but to bring Tupaarnaq in so that she could calm down. We never intended to keep her very long.’ He patted Matthew on the shoulder. ‘Are you getting somewhere with your story?’
‘I’ve been out and about looking for information. I think I might be close to finding a witness. Fingers crossed.’
‘A witness? I hope you’ll keep me in the loop.’
Matthew nodded. ‘When I asked you about the eight-millimetre films and the 1973 case… are you absolutely sure you’ve never seen any film reels here at the station?’
‘Totally,’ Ottesen said. ‘Now, I can’t know what happened forty years ago, obviously, but I’ve never heard about any films, and I’m sure we haven’t got them now.’
‘Okay,’ Matthew said. His gaze wandered past Ottesen without ending up anywhere.
‘Are you all right?’
Matthew shook his head lightly. ‘Yes, yes.’
‘Good. I’ll go and get the she-wolf,’ Ottesen said with another smile, and he disappeared through the door to the corridor where Matthew and Malik had met with him earlier.
Matthew could hear her footsteps in the corridor before the door was even opened. Angry footsteps attacking the floor.
‘She’s all yours,’ Ottesen said with a friendly sweep of his arm towards the double doors.
‘I’m not anyone’s,’ Tupaarnaq snarled. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Yes,’ Ottesen said. ‘Absolutely, but a word of friendly advice: it’s a short road back to prison for someone who has only just been released.’
She eyeballed him until he looked away.
Tupaarnaq shoved Matthew aside and pushed open the glass door so hard it banged against the porch outside.
Matthew looked wearily at Ottesen, then traipsed after the incandescent woman, who was already well ahead of him. ‘Where are you going?’ he called out to her.
‘To talk to a man.’
‘About what?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘I went to take a look at Lyberth.’
‘Idiot. Why?’
‘He can’t just lie there, and they haven’t found him yet.’
‘I’d guessed as much, you halfwit, or those morons at the station would never have let me go.’
‘I’ve emailed the police to tell them where he is.’
‘You really are an idiot.’ She stopped for a moment and slapped his forehead hard with the palm of her hand. ‘What if they had found him while I was still in custody? Eh? You really don’t think things through, do you, caveman?’
‘How was I to know you’d beaten someone up? I thought we had agreed to keep a low profile.’
‘And you think emailing the police telling them that their venerated statesman and major pervert lies murdered in my apartment is keeping a low profile?’ She slapped Matthew’s forehead another three times. ‘I’ve just spent twelve years in prison for killing some other sick bastard who couldn’t keep his disgusting dick in his pants, for fuck’s sake.’ She spun around and continued her furious march towards the low housing blocks in the distance.
Someone had written ‘Fuck the state’ with green spray paint next to the door they went through. She continued up the stairs. Her strides were so long that she took the steps two at a time. She stopped on the second floor and checked the name on the letterbox before she started banging on the door.
‘How did you know his name?’ Matthew wheezed.
‘The other officer who attended mentioned it, and I bet there aren’t many men called Sakkak Biilmann living around here.’
Matthew didn’t have time to say anything else before the door was opened.
‘Is Sakkak in?’ Tupaarnaq demanded to know.
The short woman who had appeared in the doorway nodded quietly, then looked anxiously up and down Tupaarnaq’s tattooed arms, where the two skulls snarled at her.
‘Good,’ Tupaarnaq hissed and pushed the woman aside.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Matthew exclaimed and grabbed the woman, who was about to fall over.
‘What does she want from us?’ the woman whispered.
Matthew shook his head. ‘Not much, I hope. Did your husband go into town with your daughter today?’