His hands fumbling across the rough wood, Matthew edged his way around the house. The fog held him in a firm grip. If he let go of the house, he would have no idea in which direction to walk. His feet searched for a foothold between stones, rocks and low scrub. He set down his shovel, took out his mobile, and switched on the torchlight. It wasn’t a huge improvement, but it was enough for him to see his feet and the red wooden wall. He turned a corner, and a few metres later another dark window appeared. He carefully moved right up to the glass, and pointed the mobile’s light inside.
He couldn’t see much, but it was definitely Jakob’s kitchen. Matthew recognised the hard, marled plastic kitchen table with the dark-brown edges from the notebook. Even the white kitchen cupboards with the grey metal handles looked the same.
Matthew jumped when someone put a hand on his shoulder. His mobile slipped from his grip and glittered as it whirled towards the ground where it landed face-down in the gravel.
‘Relax,’ Malik said with a grin. ‘It’s only me.’
Matthew bent down to pick up his phone. ‘Shit, Malik. I’m standing here staring into a dead man’s home.’ He straightened up and breathed out, patting his chest softly a few times with his left hand. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry, mate. And I didn’t even mean to.’ Malik grinned again, but stopped quickly. ‘There’s nothing to see here, and there’s definitely no one at home.’
‘No, I agree. But Abelsen does live here, and there’s probably a reason for that. I just don’t understand how he could live here for forty years without making any changes at all.’
‘He’s always working,’ Malik said. ‘He doesn’t have a wife or children, and he’s known as the coldest and most powerful man in Greenland.’
‘I think it’s a trophy.’
‘A trophy? You mean, like a pair of antlers?’
‘Yes, exactly. This house is Abelsen’s hunting trophy. Acquired through a chase that cost many people their lives, and helped him up the last few steps to the throne.’
Malik turned up his nose. ‘An old house like this is hardly what I would call a trophy.’
‘It probably looked better in ’73, but it’s not the house as such that’s the trophy. He moved into it purely to demonstrate his power. He was untouchable even to the police and the politicians.’
‘I believe he still is,’ Malik said. ‘What are you doing with that shovel?’
‘It was just a daft idea. Somewhere underneath us is the skeleton of an eleven-year-old girl who was killed by an overdose in November 1973. Abelsen and Lyberth were both involved in the girl’s death.’
‘And now Lyberth is dead.’
‘And now Lyberth is dead.’ Matthew stared at the house. ‘If this is Abelsen’s trophy, then I want to get inside.’
‘Inside the house? Now? You mean, we break in?’
‘Yes. Now. We need to get inside that house while Abelsen is out.’
‘And you’re quite sure that he’s out?’
‘Yes, for a little while. Come on. You were the one who was all gung-ho about knocking on the door a minute ago.’
Malik nodded. ‘There are no open doors or windows. I checked when I walked around the house.’
‘Maybe there’s another way in.’ Matthew glanced around. ‘I’ll just take another look at the front door.’
Back outside the front door, he grabbed the handle and pushed it down hard a few times, before he gave up and started looking for a key in the porch. It didn’t make sense for a man like Abelsen to leave the key in such an obvious place, but you never could tell. While Matthew searched under some boxes stacked against the wall by the door, his ear picked up a sound. It was coming from the inside. Behind the door. He jumped up, and when the door opened at the same time, he stumbled back down the porch steps.
‘We’ve finally made a breakthrough,’ Malik stated proudly, beaming at Matthew from the doorway.
‘What? How did you get in?’ Matthew grabbed the railing and pulled himself back up.
‘Those old windows are so brittle… I’m afraid one of the kitchen windows just came apart in my hand.’
‘We’d better get a move on.’ Matthew walked past Malik, through the hall and into the living room. ‘We’re looking for anything from ’73. Film reels and so on.’
‘All right, but everything in here is from the seventies.’
‘Just start looking. Check the cupboards.’
Malik got to work immediately, opening cupboards and drawers and rummaging around in them. ‘How about magazines, cups, stuff like that?’
‘No, I think we’re looking for films, or something technical, like a notebook…’ Matthew ran his hand across Jakob’s coffee table, and looked at the grey rug underneath it. ‘Possibly a jigsaw puzzle of Godthåb.’ He continued towards the tall bookcase, which was laden with police magazines, books and rocks. There was nothing that pointed directly to the case.
‘Did you say films?’ Malik asked. He was sitting on the floor near the sideboard, and in his hands he held an old film projector. ‘I’ve also found four reels of film,’ he said, reaching his arm into the sideboard. ‘Is this what we’re looking for?’
‘Yes, I think so. Very much so.’ Matthew glanced about the living room again. The harpoon. The figures. Everything that was Jakob’s. The Hemplers’ things. ‘Right, let’s get out of here.’
‘With the reels and everything?’
‘Yes—we’ll keep them at my place.’
56
Matthew had only been back in his apartment for a few minutes when his entry phone buzzed. He looked down into the street. Darkness was starting to settle on Nuuk, but it felt lighter because the fog had moved up towards the night sky.
‘It’s me.’ He heard Tupaarnaq’s voice in the handset. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and buzzed her in.
The lift hummed and the door opened with its clicking sounds.
‘You’re back late,’ she said, marching past him and into his apartment.
‘Yes, I… Have you been waiting for me?’
She unlaced her boots and kicked them off. She was wearing a new jumper—a black knitted rollneck. Her trousers were the same black ones with pockets down the sides. On top of her head was a thin, dark membrane of millimetre stubble.
‘They’ve found Lyberth,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She held up a black rucksack. ‘Do you have wi-fi?’
He watched her narrow back disappear into the living room, and went to get the code for the router from the bedroom.
‘What’s happening out there?’ she asked when Matthew returned to the living room, where she had sat down on the sofa, cross-legged, balancing her laptop.
He handed her the small white router lid with the code. ‘There were quite a lot of police around, and someone asked me why I had come to the police station with you and why we had gone seal hunting.’
She nodded slowly without looking up.
‘They want to talk to you,’ he added.
‘That’ll have to wait,’ she said, and looked up at him. ‘Do you have anything to eat?’
‘Food?’
‘Yes, food—what else? I haven’t had anything to eat all day.’
‘I don’t know what there is,’ he said, and went to check the fridge. ‘Do you eat eggs?’
‘Yes, I don’t mind eggs.’
Matthew took out a bowl and put a frying pan on the stove. ‘I’ll make you an omelette, then.’
She fell quiet behind him. He stood for a moment, looking at her hunched body in the yellow glow by the sofa. Her nose was small, and from where he was standing he couldn’t see a single freckle. She had pulled off the black rollneck jumper and was wearing a dark sleeveless vest underneath, like the first time he saw her at Cafe Mamaq. Her tattoos seemed alive in the artificial light, and the swirling, dark-green leaves reminded him of a dragon’s scales.