‘I told you she was dangerous,’ Ottesen said, and he pressed his lips together for a few seconds. ‘We can’t say anything for certain yet, as there are several things we need to establish, so… Whatever you reporters may hear, please would you restrict yourselves to just writing that he was found in Block 17, and that police are treating his death as suspicious? Just until tomorrow. Then I promise you there will be an official press briefing at the police station or the Town Hall.’
‘Sure,’ Matthew said, and he inhaled air deep into his lungs. ‘We’ll hold off. It’s all right.’
‘Thank you.’ Ottesen rubbed his upper lip between two fingers. ‘You know that notebook I gave you?’
Matthew felt the sweat break out all over his body.
‘I know that Lyberth was keen to get his hands on it. Do you have any idea why?’
‘I think he was mixed up in some scandal in the early seventies.’
‘Does it say so in the book?’
Matthew nodded again. ‘I thought you had read it?’
‘I have.’ There was silence. ‘We should probably put that notebook back.’
‘All right—I’ll go and get it.’
‘Okay. Matthew,’ Ottesen hesitated. ‘About Tupaarnaq… You’ve seen quite a lot of her recently, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Matthew croaked.
‘You went seal hunting together, and now you’re the guy she calls when we pick her up?’
‘She asked me. I… I…’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m just trying to work out who she is.’
‘And who is she?’
‘She’s not who everyone thinks she is.’
‘Good.’ Ottesen inhaled deeply through his nose. ‘Because right now there’s a lot to suggest that you’re wrong. Have you ever been inside her apartment?’
‘No… No, she wouldn’t let me.’ He ground to a halt and stared at the floor.
‘Wouldn’t let you?’
‘She’s not ready for visitors yet. She has just been locked up for twelve years, don’t forget.’
Ottesen smiled briefly. ‘You’re right. It does funny things to people.’ Then he shook his head. ‘I’ve never liked prisons. Right—you bring me that notebook, okay? And if you see Tupaarnaq, please tell her that we really want to talk to her.’
‘Okay.’
‘And you need to stay here in Nuuk.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’t leave town until we say so.’
55
The twilight was slowly gathering in the long shadows of the fog around the houses in Kolonihavnen when, just under two hours later, Matthew and Malik stood in front of the house where Jakob Pedersen had lived forty years earlier.
Matthew tried to visualise the layout as Jakob had described it in his notebook. He knew that the living room with Jakob’s armchair must be behind the windows to the right of the front door.
‘Are you sure this is the place?’
Matthew saw a glowing cigarette pass his face.
‘It’s the address that Paneeraq gave me, and it fits the description in the notebook.’
Most of the houses around them could easily be more than forty years old. The distance to the nearest neighbouring house also matched the information in the notebook.
‘Let’s take a closer look,’ Malik said, making a beeline for the front door. ‘It doesn’t look as if anyone lives here now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘What would I know? Only it looks empty.’ His eyes scanned the exterior. ‘And it could seriously do with a lick of paint.’
The path towards the house was narrow and obscured. It had been wider once—they could tell from the gravel strip winding in and out between the rocks—but the walkway didn’t look as if it was in use much now, having been overrun with low grasses.
The rain had almost ceased, but the cloud cover had grown heavier and lay so densely over the roofs and the rocks that it felt as if the clouds had merged into one with the moisture between the rocks and the brown and green shrubs. The house, which had been visible only a few minutes ago, now vanished into a fog so intense that it felt like cold, damp breath on their skin. Matthew watched Malik dissolve halfway up the path and hurried after him, wiping the moisture from his face with one hand.
A loud knocking penetrated the fog and Matthew jumped. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m knocking on the door. The place really does look abandoned.’
Matthew could barely see his own feet, but he walked in the direction of Malik’s voice, which sounded close by. The house emerged from the fog with its red, peeling paintwork. ‘You can’t just knock on the door!’ he protested.
‘We can always do a runner if anyone is in,’ Malik grinned. He stepped past Matthew and up to the window, where he cupped his hands around his face. ‘It’s pitch-black in there. Hold on.’ His fingers rummaged in his trouser pocket and he pulled out his mobile. Soon the torchlight from the phone was shining through the window. ‘What are we looking for?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Matthew said, stepping up beside Malik.
The light wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate every corner, but it was enough. An old-fashioned living room was hidden behind the window. Nut-coloured, glossy Brazilian rosewood furniture. Deep-pile rugs, one blue and one grey. Along one wall was a bookcase with books, Greenlandic figures, an ulo and lots of rocks.
‘Could you point the light towards the bookcase again, please?’
Malik tilted the mobile so the light shone brightest on the bookcase with the stones.
Matthew nodded to himself. ‘The guy from the notebook,’ he whispered. ‘He lived in this very room.’
‘You mean this house?’
‘Yes, but also this living room. It’s a perfect match for the description in his notebook.’
‘Okay, all right. So you’re saying the guy—who might be our mummy from the ice cap—used to live here, and everything has just been left as it was?’
‘The living room certainly has.’
‘You’re kidding me! It must be forty years ago.’
‘Forty-one, almost.’
Malik turned to Matthew. ‘Bloody hell! This place gives me the creeps.’ He stretched out his arm and pushed up his sleeve. ‘Do you think he’s still in there?’ he added, and resumed peering through the window. ‘Or what if his spirit is?’
‘Of course it’s not.’ Matthew took a few steps back, and then walked up to the front door. ‘If he’s inside, it’ll be because he’s still alive, but no one can hide in a house in the middle of Nuuk for forty years. Hang on.’ There was a letterbox near the door, and a small nameplate in the top right-hand corner with the name Abelsen. ‘One of the men who got him killed lives here now.’
‘Holy shit! Then I’m one hundred per cent sure that his spirit is in there,’ Malik exclaimed, looking about him. ‘I’ll just take a walk around the house.’
‘What? Why?’
‘I need to check something.’
Matthew grabbed a shovel that was by the door and walked down the front steps and onto the gravel. The fog had closed around Malik the moment he moved, and nothing but moisture remained. ‘Malik?’ Matthew called out nervously.
‘Over here.’
His voice came out of the fog. Possibly from the other side of the house. Or maybe it was nearer. The sound was bouncing around the drops of dense air.
‘Oh, screw it,’ Matthew grunted and stuck out a hand. He found the wooden cladding of the house and started moving in the opposite direction to the one Malik had taken, in order to find the kitchen. On the day Jakob was hit in the head by the stone thrown through the very window they had just been looking through, he had seen a silhouette approach the house. And the next day he had written in his journal that the snow outside his kitchen had been severely disturbed—that there had been pebbles and soil mixed up in it.