‘A former officer with Nuuk Police.’
‘Yeah? Well, screw you,’ Ulrik grunted angrily.
Matthew felt Ulrik’s boot collide with the back of his right leg, and he buckled and crashed onto the floor on both knees.
‘Hey,’ Tupaarnaq shouted, taking a step towards Ulrik. ‘What the hell are you doing, you psycho?’
Ulrik punched her hard in the face with his clenched fist. ‘You bitch,’ he screamed. ‘Shut your mouth, you fucking slag!’ He leaned forward and followed up the punch with a blow to her stomach. ‘I’m going to rip that fucking costume off you. You’re no Greenlander anymore.’
Matthew tried getting to his feet, but received a hard kick to his thigh at the same time as Ulrik grabbed his head and yanked it backwards. The blow to his face made him black out.
64
Matthew woke to a fierce pain shooting through his body from the right side of his ribs.
Ulrik was bent over him, staring into his eyes. ‘I’m going to beat you to a pulp,’ he snarled as he drew back his clenched fist.
‘Ulrik,’ a voice interrupted him. ‘I know why you’re here.’
‘Shut up, you old fool,’ Ulrik hissed.
‘But you’re wrong,’ Jakob continued from his armchair. ‘I investigated your family’s murder from a distance, based on all the evidence I could find, and I’m absolutely sure that your sister didn’t kill your mother or your sisters.’
‘That’s it—I’m going to bloody well kill you first,’ Ulrik bellowed, getting up from the floor. ‘Don’t you dare say another word about my mother, you bastard! Do you understand?’
He reached Jakob in seconds and pulled the hood from the old man’s head, revealing his white hair and pale, wrinkled face. The old man’s ice-blue eyes bored into the young Inuit’s boiling brown void, even as Ulrik gripped Jakob’s throat.
‘What the hell?’ Ulrik was suddenly taken aback. ‘You… You… How would you…’
‘Tupaarnaq never killed your family,’ Jakob continued in a wobbly voice as Ulrik’s hand was still clamped around his soft neck. ‘Your father shot your mother and your two sisters. Then Tupaarnaq came home and presumed that her father had been caught raping her sisters, just like he had raped her. And perhaps that was what had happened—I don’t know. So she cut open your father like he had cut her open. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
He continued to fix the horrified young man with his eyes. ‘Everyone assumed that Tupaarnaq had shot her mother and her sisters first. No one ever suspected your father of having raped them, because Tupaarnaq dressed your sisters before the police arrived. She didn’t want them to be found naked. That explained why their blood was on her hands and arms. She dressed them after your father had killed them. Do you follow?’
Ulrik’s grip tightened around Jakob’s neck so that his fingernails dug into Jakob’s skin. Something inside crunched.
‘The case was a no-brainer,’ Ulrik sneered. His mouth distorted and his nostrils flared. ‘They were dead, and that… that fucking cunt was covered in everyone’s blood… She was sitting on the floor, clutching an ulo, right next to my dad, who had been gutted… Fuck. Gutted. Like a seal.’
‘That killing represented years of hatred and pain,’ Jakob said hoarsely, still not taking his eyes off Ulrik for a second. ‘Many hours of being pressed against the bed. But the killing wasn’t prompted by her own violation. It was because your father had done to your two little sisters what he had done to her, and afterwards he had killed both them and your mother.’
The hand around Jakob’s neck loosened and slipped away.
‘Are you so blind, Ulrik, that you can’t see the truth? Even when its blood is dripping from your own hands?’
Ulrik slumped back.
‘Your father killed your mother and your sisters when he discovered that he wasn’t your real father. I think he went berserk and killed them in a rage when your mother revealed that his only son wasn’t his.’
‘Now you’re just guessing, you son of a bitch,’ Ulrik said, straightening up. ‘This is bullshit. Are you out of your mind?’ He pressed his lips into two thin lines, while he stared at his clenched fists and a growl rose from deep within his throat.
‘Look in the mirror,’ Jakob continued calmly. ‘Neither of your parents had so narrow a face or was as tall as you.’
‘Shut up!’ Saliva frothed around Ulrik’s mouth as he raised his arm, preparing to deliver a blow. ‘Fucking shut up!’
‘Do you remember,’ Jakob continued, still calm, ‘that they were dressed? Your sisters. When they were found. Do you remember that there were no bullet holes in the clothing, even though they had been shot with a rifle right through their chests? Why would Tupaarnaq have taken off their clothes, shot them and then dressed them again? Can you tell me that?’
Matthew’s mobile rang in his trouser pocket. He turned his attention to Paneeraq on the sofa. Her expression was distant and her cheeks streaked with tears. She was rocking back and forth, and staring at the white candles with Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
His mobile rang again.
‘No one ever questioned that,’ Jakob’s voice continued. ‘But for me that has always been the key to Tupaarnaq’s innocence. Your sisters were killed naked, but found dressed. That is a fact. Your father raped your sisters. Your mother found out and told him, out of rage and impotence, that he wasn’t your real father. Your father lost his temper and killed them all. She took his son, he took her daughters.’
Ulrik stepped back and stared frantically out into the yard below, while he wiped his palms hard on his shirt. ‘It’s too late!’
Matthew watched Ulrik before turning to look at the others in the room. ‘Paneeraq,’ he whispered towards the sofa. ‘Paneeraq?’
There was no reaction from the curled-up figure, who continued rocking back and forth.
‘Paneeraq?’ he said again. ‘Where’s Tupaarnaq?’
‘It was you who killed Aqqalu out on the ice cap, ilaa?’ Jakob went on. ‘They thought I was the mummy, didn’t they? Abelsen and Lyberth? You were supposed to get rid of my body, but something went wrong, ilaa?’
The mobile buzzed again in Matthew’s pocket. Refusing to be ignored.
Ulrik turned and glanced at Matthew. ‘Shit… Lyberth told me that the guy on the ice cap wasn’t an old mummy, and that I had to make sure that the body was never sent off for any tests.’ Ulrik pounded his forehead with his fists. ‘It can ruin everything and cause even greater division in Greenland, he said. Our careers are at stake… I was meant to get rid of it. The body and the pictures and everything.’ He looked up. ‘I didn’t know they were covering up a murder… I didn’t know.’
Jakob took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘I know. What about Aqqalu?’
‘Aqqalu,’ Ulrik groaned. His face was smeared with snot, and he kept wiping it with his hands. ‘Fuck… He… he wouldn’t let me take the body, even though I explained to him that it was essential for Greenland’s future. He didn’t want to… Bloody idiot… He banged his head on one of those crates with an iron edge… From the university. He…’
‘And then he died?’
Ulrik nodded again and wiped more snot from his face, while he sniffled loudly and small sobs erupted from his throat. ‘Abelsen…’ He gasped for air. ‘Abelsen promised to fix it. All I had to do was get out of there.’
‘And so Aqqalu was gutted to make it look like your father’s murder.’
Ulrik howled and rubbed his fists against his face. ‘I didn’t know… I didn’t know… that… he was going to do that… I… It’s so we can pin the blame on your sister, he said… My fucking sister. I didn’t even know that she had been let out.’