Matthew heaved a sigh and shook his head at his photographer, then headed back to the helicopter.
He stopped when he reached the archaeologists. ‘Excuse me. Which one of you is from the museum?’
‘I am,’ said a middle-aged man of medium build.
Matthew couldn’t decide whether he looked more Danish or Greenlandic. Not that it mattered. Genetically, Scandinavians and Inuit had been well and truly mixed up over several centuries.
‘Can I ask you a question about the discovery?’
‘Yes, of course. This find will give us a great deal to talk about.’ The man raked his fingers through a dense, greying beard. ‘There’s every sign that this is a unique discovery.’
‘Yes, that was my question. Just how unusual is it?’
The man straightened his back. ‘As far as I’m aware, no one has ever found a mummified Norseman from the Viking age. Bog finds and skeletons, yes, but none mummified, and that’s crucial, because his skin, bones and possibly his stomach contents will have been extremely well preserved.’ He paused, but Matthew could see he had more to say. ‘Have you heard of Ötzi from the Tyrol? That’s how important this discovery could be. The mummy might be a valuable source of knowledge once we open him up. But we need to proceed carefully or vital evidence could be lost. This is an exceptional discovery for Scandinavia, and possibly for the world.’
‘So you’re sure that he’s a Norseman from a Viking settlement in West Greenland?’
‘I find it hard to believe otherwise. We haven’t collected samples for analysis yet—we need to wait for the police technicians—but I’d expect all our assumptions and theories to be confirmed in due course.’
‘You compared him to Ötzi just now—is that because there might be some dramatic reason that he ended up all alone in the crevasse?’
‘You’re thinking murder, or death in battle?’
‘Yes, something like that.’
‘I haven’t seen any marks on him yet, but we definitely can’t rule it out. We know that the Norsemen disappeared completely from their many settlements after living here for about four hundred years, so something drastic must have happened. If this man lived during the Norsemen’s last days in Greenland, then injuries from weapons or the contents of his stomach could certainly help explain their fate.’
‘So he might have been killed?’
‘Yes, he might easily have been killed.’
The sun was still high over the Atlantic when Matthew got back to his apartment. Both he and Malik had headed straight home from the airport to work undisturbed. They had agreed to meet early the next morning, so they could upload Matthew’s story and Malik’s photographs to Sermitsiaq’s website.
As Matthew began writing, he felt his skin tingle. It was a long time since he’d last experienced that sensation. It reminded him of the time he got top marks in his final exams, and when Tine had told him she was pregnant. A sense of being untouchably alive. The feeling was coming back to him now—not as strongly, but it was close. Before noon tomorrow, much of the world would have read his story, or heard about the discovery because of it.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE LAST VIKING—A more than 600-year-old Norse Viking emerged from the Greenlandic ice cap this week. His fair hair and a worn reindeer skin were all he had with him after a journey of several centuries. According to archaeologists, the mummified man is in such good condition that he will provide them with crucial information about the lives of the Vikings, and also, more importantly, may help them understand why the Norsemen disappeared from Greenland after having lived there for over four hundred years. Was it war, famine or the harsh conditions that drove them back to more densely populated areas of Scandinavia? And what about the Norsemen who reached North America?
As soon as he had emailed his story to his editor, Matthew shut the lid of his laptop and flopped back on the sofa. He reached for a plate of crispbread topped with thin sheets of chocolate that he’d prepared before sitting down to write.
Crispbread was one of Tine’s things, preferably served with a thick layer of butter and thin sheets of milk chocolate. During the early years of their relationship they would often go bike riding, and Tine would always pack crispbread for their trips. A white manor house had been a favourite destination. They would cycle along a path through the forest and picnic at the far end of the park. Tine rode a green bicycle with a white basket at the front where she kept the crispbread and bottles of water.
The crispbread crunched in his mouth. Dry, soft and sweet. He wished he could tell Tine that he loved her. Properly. Intimacy and openness had never been his strong suit.
6
The wind had changed direction overnight and dense fog had settled over Nuuk in the morning hours. Visibility was down to ten metres. Everything was swallowed up by this grey North Atlantic blanket, whose moist breath licked the houses and the mountains and caused everything to run together in a foggy, cold cloud.
Everything was obscured. Erased. Even the sea and the mountains Matthew could normally see from his flat. He inhaled the smoke from his cigarette deep into his lungs and let it take effect for a few seconds before releasing it into the fog.
When he first arrived in Nuuk, he’d imagined that he would just find himself a place to live. No private rentals had been available, but a company had offered him one of their apartments. It was on the second floor of a grey and yellow block with huge windows. Several items of furniture had been left behind, and he’d quickly decided to stay there as the place had everything he needed and more. There were two bedrooms and a living room with wonderful views over southern Nuuk, the sea and some distant mountains, and it was only a five-minute walk from the city centre.
He flicked away his cigarette butt and watched it fall towards the street, then he took a step back and closed the balcony door before returning to his bed.
He picked up his iPhone from the floor beside him and checked the time. It was only seven-thirty here, but eleven-thirty back home in Denmark. Home. Nuuk was his home now. He had taken the job with Sermitsiaq for an indefinite period of time because he had nothing to go home to. He opened his mailbox and skimmed the new emails. He had sent his story to his editor late last night so it could be uploaded early the next morning, once it had been edited.
The reply from his editor was short and to the point:
Great work, Matthew. I’ve only changed a few minor things. Get it translated today, upload both the Danish and the Greenlandic version, and don’t forget that I also want it uploaded in English today, so we can send links across the world. Tell me you got some good pictures? Please report back when it’s online, then I’ll take a look at it and send links to the major news agencies.
Matthew opened the edited document and carefully went through the text twice to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything, then he saved the new version and emailed it to the Greenlandic translator.
Then, with some reluctance, he untangled himself from the bedclothes a second time and sat up on the edge of the bed. He reached for his jeans and pulled them on, before going to the bathroom.
The man in the mirror looked exhausted. Pale, skinny and haggard. Coming to Nuuk hadn’t put much colour in his cheeks, although the air here was clear and pure like nothing he had ever known. The problem was that he didn’t spend enough time outside in it. His cheeks and chin were covered by a fine layer of reddish-blond stubble. He turned his head slightly and craned his neck to examine the stubble under his chin.