The woman nodded. ‘Yes, and he was angry when he got home because some drunken thugs had pushed him into a ditch.’
Matthew could hear furniture being upended in the next room. He let go of the woman and rushed inside. Tupaarnaq had knocked over Sakkak Biilmann, who was lying on the floor beneath her, shrieking. She had a firm grip on his throat with one hand and was punching him with the other. His face glowed red from the beating and the lack of oxygen. Matthew had no idea what the man on the floor was saying, but he could tell from his panic that he was struggling for air.
‘If you ever touch your daughter again,’ Tupaarnaq screamed at him, ‘I’ll come back and kill you. And that’s not an idle threat. I’ll be watching you. Every day. One wrong move and you’re dead. Got it?’
The man yelped, but didn’t say anything.
Her hand reached across to his groin and gripped his testicles through his trousers. She squeezed them so hard that his yelp turned into the howl of a dying animal. Matthew watched her fingers tighten ever more. The man continued to scream, and then started to cry. Snot flowed from his nose as he whined and squirmed. She jerked her hand violently from side to side before getting up.
Whimpering, the man coiled into a foetal position. He was trembling as he rocked himself back and forth.
‘Touch her again,’ Tupaarnaq hissed, kicking his ribs hard with her booted foot, ‘and you’re a dead man, you piece of shit.’
43
Outside the apartment block, Matthew stopped and looked around. ‘What’s this place called?’
‘You mean the area?’
‘Yes.’
‘Radiofjeldet, I believe.’
Matthew took out Leiff’s note and handed it to her. ‘Then we’re not far from this woman.’
‘What about her?’
‘Someone from work gave me this address. He thinks my father used to live with her.’
‘Your father?’
Matthew shrugged. ‘He disappeared when I was four years old. My mother and I never heard from him again. Someone from the paper offered to look into it, and earlier today he gave me this address.’
‘But why on earth would your father be in Nuuk?’
‘He was stationed at the Thule air base. That was where my mother met him.’ Matthew looked down at the paving slabs. ‘I was actually born in Thule, as it happens.’
‘You’re kidding me?’ Tupaarnaq nudged his shoulder. ‘You’re made in Greenland? Shut up! You’re a dark horse.’
He returned her smile cautiously. ‘I was thinking of going to see her.’
‘And so you should.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘That is, if you can control… what’s going on inside.’
Matthew nodded distantly. ‘I stopped being angry when… nothing mattered. Including him.’
‘Do you want to see him—if he’s still alive?’
‘Yes… I’m just not sure if I want him back in my life after all these years.’
‘You have to go see her,’ Tupaarnaq said, looking up at the sky. ‘I hate men. I hate fathers. But that’s just me.’ She let out a quick sigh. ‘In ten years you’ll hate yourself if you don’t knock on that door, now that you know it’s there.’ She patted his shoulder. ‘I’ll catch you later. It’s only two blocks from here.’
He watched her back as she disappeared down the path. The black boots. The black combat trousers. The dark jumper. At the end of the path she gestured with her right arm towards the next apartment block, while she herself turned left without looking back. Matthew shook his head. He hadn’t kept his promise to Ottesen to keep an eye on Tupaarnaq very long.
Soon Matthew was walking across the rocks between the buildings, and before long he was standing outside the stairwell where Else Kreutzmann lived.
He had only knocked twice when the brown door opened. A petite woman peered out. She had salt-and-pepper hair and wore spectacles with oval lenses. She looked Matthew up and down before her eyes settled on his face. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you Else Kreutzmann?’
‘Yes.’
‘I got your name from a friend.’ Matthew shook his head. ‘Forgive me. My name is Matthew Cave, I work for Sermitsiaq and I live here in Nuuk. I’ve been told you might know my father?’
Else looked at him. ‘Your name is Cave?’
Matthew nodded. ‘Yes. Matthew Cave. My father’s name was Thomas Cave, but I haven’t seen him since I was four years old.’
‘You had better come in,’ she said with a weary sigh, and turned around.
Matthew followed her through a narrow passage and into a rectangular kitchen with a small table and two chairs.
‘Can I get you anything?’ she said, looking across the kitchen table, which, apart from some plastic tubs, a knife block and a microwave oven, was empty.
He shook his head. ‘No, thank you, but it’s kind of you to offer. I hope you don’t mind me coming here. I thought he might be here as well—Tom, I mean.’
She found a tin from a tall cupboard, put it on the table, pushed open the lid and took out a biscuit. ‘No, he’s not here, and it’s been a very long time since I last saw him.’
Matthew looked down at the smooth white tabletop.
‘He never mentioned a son,’ she went on. ‘Not once during the almost ten years I knew him… Have a biscuit.’
‘He was stationed at the Thule air base,’ Matthew said. ‘He was a soldier. We lived there until I was four years old, then my mother and I moved to Denmark. The plan was that he would follow us.’
‘That sounds just like him.’ She looked into Matthew’s eyes. ‘Not that I had any doubts. When I opened the door, I knew immediately.’
Matthew smiled. ‘The eye?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. There’s no doubt that the two of you are related.’
Matthew looked away again. ‘The last time I saw him was in 1990.’
‘That was when he came to Nuuk,’ Else said. ‘I knew him for almost ten years, then he disappeared. I’m sorry he never got in touch with you. I didn’t realise he had another family.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘He was always running away from something, so perhaps it should have crossed my mind. His invisibility.’
‘What do you mean?’
She sighed as she helped herself to another biscuit. ‘He was hiding from the army… the US Army. I don’t know why, but he was certainly hiding, always working under a false name. He never told the authorities his address.’
‘What did he do for a living?’
‘Well, while he was here in Nuuk, it was mostly cash-in-hand jobs. Sometimes it would be carpentry, other times he would work on the trawlers. But he made good money, so that was never a problem. He was strong and a hard worker.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what he did when he was in the army, but it troubled him—often he’d be in a world of his own.’ She looked at Matthew. ‘Then again, he could have been thinking about you. I don’t know.’
‘But he never mentioned me? Or my mother?’
‘I genuinely don’t think I’m wrong when I tell you that I never heard him utter a word about the time before I met him.’ She glanced at her watch and then at Matthew. ‘I’m sorry, but I need to be somewhere. I was just getting ready to go out when you knocked.’
Matthew leapt up from his chair. ‘Yes, I need to get going too. I… I was just curious.’
Else looked at him and ran a tired hand across her face. ‘Hold on.’ She turned around and removed a picture from the fridge door. ‘This is my daughter, Arnaq,’ she said, passing the picture to Matthew.
He took it and studied the young girl. She seemed taller than her mother, and with hair a little lighter.
‘We had her in ’98, Tom and I. He left us two years later.’
Matthew closed his eyes. He could feel icy shivers running up and down his arms and his back.
‘She’s at school in Denmark, but if you want me to I can tell you more about her.’
Matthew slumped. His throat felt constricted and closed.
‘Give me your number, if you like,’ Else continued. ‘And we’ll see.’
Matthew nodded.