The Girl Without Skin

25

High above Block 17, the sun was halfway through its journey to the mountains on the far side of the cold fjords.

Matthew put down the notebook and rubbed the corners of his eyes with one hand, while the fingers of his other hand sank into the ground underneath him. The scent was alive, spruce-like and sharp.

A world of dwarf plants was hidden among the rocks. Grasses, crowberries, blueberries, thyme, dwarf willow, yellow lichen and small arctic flowers crawled densely in and out of every crevice, like a soft, prickly quilt covering the rock. Sometimes the growth was so deep and springy that his feet sank into it as he walked; in other places it was merely a thin membrane, adapted to survive the long, harsh winter.

His fingers closed around a tiny flower made up of even tinier flowers, the size of pinheads, each complete with pink petals and a yellow stigma. Somewhere in his notebook Jakob had described such a flower. Maybe not quite the same one, but it was close.

Matthew took out his mobile and pressed Malik’s number.

‘We need to rattle some cages,’ he said the moment Malik picked up. ‘Are you able to set up a meeting for me with Jørgen Emil Lyberth? Tell him that I’ve found Jakob Pedersen’s private diary from the winter of ’73. That should do it.’ He hung up.

A shadow broke the light around him. ‘You still here?’

Matthew turned his head towards the voice, which he recognised immediately. Tupaarnaq’s face and body were in deep shade with the sun behind her.

‘Have you found your killer?’

He shook his head.

‘You will.’

She stepped out of the shadows and became a living woman, her gaze so intense that he had to look away. She had scattering of light brown freckles—one on her nose looked like a heart. She held a laptop.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked tentatively.

‘To pick up my stuff from the police before they close for the day.’

He nodded and pressed his lips together, then said: ‘I’m heading the same way. Can I walk with you?’

‘That’s up to you,’ she said, and stepped past him.

Matthew grabbed his jumper and Jakob’s notebook as he rose to follow her. Her movements were calm. Not quick and angry, like earlier. ‘I need to speak to Lyberth,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I think he’s one of the big villains in all of this,’ Matthew said, holding up the notebook.

‘They won’t like that at the top. One of their national father figures with his dick buried in little girls.’ She shook her head. ‘Ah, well. He wouldn’t be the first politician here who can’t keep his dick in his pants.’

Matthew felt a tingling under his skin. ‘I’ve let him know that I have this notebook.’

Tupaarnaq glanced at Matthew. ‘Then you’d better start looking over your shoulder.’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘Bunch of bastards. All of them.’

Her footsteps were angry again, but she wasn’t walking any faster. Her heels just hit the tarmac harder.

They reached the new, fashionable apartment blocks not far from the police station.

‘Why did you buy a gun when you came back?’ he asked, not daring to look at her.

‘So I could go seal hunting.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Yes, just like that. Surely it’s better than hunting men?’

There was no challenge, no aggression in her voice. It was a statement. Nothing more. Gutting a seal was certainly better than gutting a man.

They followed the road around the corner, where Tuapannguit and Kuussuaq streets meet. Mount Ukkusissat loomed far off on the horizon between the houses in midtown, the Nuuk Centre and Nuussuaq. Back in Jakob’s day, Mount Ukkusissat had been known by its Danish name, Store Malene.

‘I’d like to hike up there one day,’ Matthew said, pointing towards the mountain. There were a few patches of snow on the peak. From this distance they looked like frozen puddles, but up close they were probably several hundred metres long.

‘Then do.’

‘I don’t know the way. And I’ve been told that you should always hike in pairs… for safety.’

‘Okay… and when you eat something, do you also have someone watching you in case you choke?’

‘Eh?’

She shook her head. ‘It’ll take you a couple of hours, max, to reach the top from the city centre, so if you want to go there, then do it. It’s as simple as that.’

She sounded impatient, but he noticed her footsteps had grown quiet again. ‘Are there any seals near where you live?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, but when I go hunting I’ll take a boat, so I can get away for a bit.’

Matthew’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You have a boat?’

‘Tell me, just how thick are you?’

‘But you just said—’

‘I’ll borrow one and then I’ll return it. You’re really not from around here, are you.’

‘I’ve been here two months.’

‘Time to get you blooded.’

‘Blooded? What do you mean?’ Matthew nearly tripped, but managed to keep up with her.

‘I’ll take you hunting later—see if it makes you run home to Denmark.’

By now they had reached the police station.

‘Is this where you’re going as well?’ she asked him.

He shook his head. ‘No, I… I don’t know what I’m doing.’

She nodded towards the door. ‘Come with me, then. Can’t do any harm, given how nice and Danish you look.’

Five minutes later they were standing in front of the counter. The petite woman on the other side had called an officer to deal with the matter.

‘We can’t release your weapons,’ the officer said, nodding at the computer monitor, which was facing away from them. ‘The case hasn’t been closed, and there’s a note here saying that your items can’t be returned.’

‘Like I’ve just explained to you,’ Tupaarnaq said, ‘there was no case, so—’

‘That’s no use to me,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about weapons that haven’t been signed off for release.’

Tupaarnaq took out some papers, which she placed on the counter. ‘Here are my receipts for the rifle and the ulo… And here you have my proof of residence and my tenancy agreement.’

He looked at her quizzically.

‘Were my rifle or my ulo used in the commission of a crime?’

The officer stared stiffly at the screen.

‘I’m happy to help you,’ Tupaarnaq said. ‘They weren’t, nor were they illegally in my possession.’

‘You were just arrested for murder,’ he mumbled.

‘Unlawfully,’ Tupaarnaq said calmly. ‘I was released the same day because the charge didn’t stand up. It didn’t. And you know it.’

The officer sighed. ‘Your property, however, was listed as potential evidence, and it’ll take time to get it released.’

‘Not in Nuuk, surely?’ Matthew heard the anger in her voice now, but she kept her cool. ‘Now, listen to me. I’m not an idiot, though you may think I am. My rifle is just around the back, and you know that not a single shot has been fired from it, or you would never have released me so fast. So if you could just go out and get it for me, that would be great.’

‘Your rifle is in our possession.’

‘Why?’ She leaned her upper body across the counter.

He looked back at the screen. When they’d arrived, the reception area had hummed with quiet office life. Now it was silent.

‘Unless you can produce a valid reason for retaining my property, or you can show me, in writing, that the Weapons Act here in Greenland has been tightened within the last few minutes, then you must give me back my belongings. If you won’t, please provide me with details of your complaints procedure, together with a form to be completed when reporting a case of theft.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. Make your mind up. Those are your choices. I can always get hold of the forms myself, and then I’ll write to the authorities and the media in Denmark about how you are personally obstructing the rehabilitation of a recently released, traumatised young woman, who would like to return to her life as a hunter and fisherwoman after being locked up since she was fifteen years old. And of course I’ll mention the brutal arrest and police harassment based on nothing but misogyny and circumstantial evidence. So what’s it to be?’

26

Matthew held Tupaarnaq’s laptop while she swung her rifle over her shoulder. ‘There are few things on this earth I hate more than men,’ she said. ‘None, in fact.’ She took out her mobile and checked the time. ‘It’s too late to go hunting today.’

‘Today? You were going to go hunting today?’

She nodded and took her laptop from him. ‘Absolutely, but it’s too late now. Spending the night at sea would be stupid.’ She took a deep breath and nodded resolutely. ‘We’ll go early tomorrow morning.’

‘I—’

‘What?’ she said, glancing sideways at him. ‘You have something better to do?’

He shook his head hesitantly.

She sighed. ‘Listen, if I wanted you dead, I would have flayed you by now. You’re coming with me so that we can see what you’re made of. I can’t work with a wimp.’

Matthew frowned. ‘We’re working together?’

‘Yes. Your notebook, the murders and me being arrested—they’re all connected. Only I don’t know how yet.’

The thought of their paths merging was dizzying, and he felt something unravel inside him as they walked. ‘You were pretty impressive back at the police station.’

‘He had no idea what he was doing,’ she said. ‘This is Nuuk, not Copenhagen. If the police want to act within the law, they have no grounds on which to retain my property.’

‘You certainly sounded as if you knew what you were talking about.’

She stopped. They were on the path that went over the steep rocks in between the apartment blocks where she lived.

‘I was locked up for twelve years. While I was in prison, I sat my finals and then I read law. You could say that I had plenty of time to study.’

She started walking again. Matthew looked briefly at her back before following. ‘You’re a lawyer?’

‘Well, I’ve got the degree, but I don’t expect I’ll ever practise as a lawyer, with my background.’

The long, grey apartment blocks emerged from the rocks. Solid concrete. Rows of dark windows. Matthew followed Tupaarnaq up a weathered wooden staircase and into a shabby gallery that ran along the building’s ground floor.

‘I want to show you something,’ she said. ‘You can come with me up to my place, but you’ll have to wait outside the door. I don’t want anyone coming inside.’

Matthew followed her through first one heavy swing door and then another. Both were old and wonky, and it looked like it was a long time since either of them had shut properly. Behind the doors were concrete stairs that led up to the first floor. Matthew tried in vain to close the second door before he followed Tupaarnaq up the steps. There had to be a massive draught in the winter once the storms and the frost got hold of the headland—especially in this block, which bordered the dark deep of the North Atlantic. The walls around them were covered with simple graffiti. Names. Years. Profanities. There was a skull with the caption: xixx—u wil di in 12 day—c u in hel.

Matthew and Tupaarnaq went out through the door to the first-floor gallery and upstairs to the second floor. This door was even more damaged than the ones downstairs. Its plastic window had been torched, and had shrivelled into long, brown, melted scars.

‘This is it.’

She stopped in front of a white door to the right of the stairs. Above the door someone had written in red spray paint: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

‘Wait here.’ Tupaarnaq looked at him sharply to make sure he had understood before she took out a key and let herself in. She gave him a last look from under her eyelids before disappearing into the apartment. All Matthew had time to see was a totally empty hall. Absolutely nothing but the floor and the walls had been waiting for the woman who had just entered.

He walked on as the door closed with a quiet click, and continued towards the external gallery. This heavy door wasn’t as damaged as the previous one, but it couldn’t be closed properly either. He pulled it open and looked across the rocks and the sea. He identified the spot where he had been reading Jakob’s notebook earlier that day. The fingers of his right hand instinctively moved to his left collarbone, and he glanced back towards the closed door.

After a while Matthew returned to Tupaarnaq’s apartment. It was quiet behind her front door, not that he had expected anything else. He had no idea what it might be like inside. Or what it must have been like to be locked up at the age of fifteen and not let out for twelve years.

He jumped when the door opened. She looked at him, nodded and handed him a USB stick. ‘Take a look at this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Just some stuff. Remember, there are two sides to every story, always, and the truth is often found in the details of a lie.’

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a look at it when I get home.’

‘Good. See you tomorrow. Be here at eight.’

Matthew steeled himself and nodded. ‘Okay. Eight o’clock it is. See you then.’

‘Put on some old clothes. Killing is messy.’

As soon as he got home, he inserted Tupaarnaq’s USB stick into his laptop. It contained several folders with files saved either as PDFs or JPEGs, and as he opened them he realised that they were all pictures of articles about the killing of her family in Tasiilaq in 2002.

Matthew read the files one after the other. There was no doubt that Tupaarnaq had been convicted even before the first news reports reached the public. The murders were brutal and the newspapers explicit in their coverage of the tragedy in the east Greenlandic village. A picture of two dead girls lying on a double bed was published in several papers. The blood from their bodies had soaked into the quilt and mattress. A woman was lying on the floor not far from them. The pictures of the father had all been taken when he was alive, but according to the papers he had been shot with his own gun and then cut up with an ulo. The newspaper Politiken wrote that it was the most gruesome murder ever on Greenland’s east coast—a tragedy in which the family’s oldest daughter had killed everyone except her younger brother, who hadn’t been at home that afternoon.

Matthew continued looking through the files. The intervals between the stories grew longer until the verdict came. Tupaarnaq had only ever admitted to killing her father, and had refused to speak about anything else throughout the entire trial. She was convicted of all four counts of manslaughter: guilty of killing her father, mother and two little sisters. Contrary to the advice of her legal counsel, she had not appealed the sentence.

Matthew picked up his mobile and checked the time. Then he found Leiff’s number and texted him. The girl who killed her family in Tasiilaq. Do you know anything about her younger brother who survived?

Once he had sent the message, he texted Malik as well. Have you heard from Lyberth?

Outside, the sun had set fire to the evening sky over Nuuk. The orange light from the flaming clouds cast a glow so strong that it looked as if the living room walls were burning.

He found his cigarettes and went out onto the balcony. His thoughts circled tentatively around the notebook, the landscape, Tupaarnaq, and the many loose ends, wondering how they were all connected. The cigarette smoke soothed him, allaying his unease.

He finished smoking and went back to the sofa, where he picked up his mobile. He had two messages. Leiff had written: No, but I will look into it, while Malik’s reply was more comprehensive. He hadn’t heard from Lyberth, but Ulrik had written to him saying that the police wanted the notebook back. Malik had replied that he didn’t know where it was, which had prompted Ulrik to call him and complain bitterly. Malik could tell that Ulrik was calling from home rather than the police station, because Lyberth’s daughter had said something in the background.

Just then a new message from Malik appeared at the top of the screen. Ulrik has spoken to Ottesen and knows that you got the notebook from him. Just so you know.

27

The sea was calm and reflected the scarred, round peaks of Mount Ukkusissat the next morning when Tupaarnaq and Matthew sailed out between the rocks in the small harbour by the public swimming pool. It hadn’t taken Tupaarnaq many minutes to pick a boat and get it started. On the way to the harbour she had told him that it was better to borrow one without a steering wheel, as such boats always required a key. She couldn’t be bothered to short-circuit one when all they needed for a quick trip was a low dinghy with an outboard motor and a tankful of petrol.

The boat slammed against the waves, and the wind swept across the open hull. Matthew shivered in his blue anorak and zipped it all the way up to his neck, while he looked enviously at Tupaarnaq’s thick woollen jumper and black boots. The forecast had promised sun all day and up to twenty degrees Celsius, but out at sea the conditions were different. The bouncing of the boat caused his half-empty stomach to lurch, and the wind whipping across the sea was so cold that it felt like frost against his skin.

At the bottom of the boat lay a long stick with an iron hook on one end. The dark stains on the hook bore witness to the animals who had bled before they were pulled out of the sea. Tupaarnaq’s rifle lay next to it, gun-metal grey with a wooden stock.

The boat listed to the right, and Matthew’s body moved in the opposite direction. He had no idea where they were going. Tall mountains grew out of the sea around them.

Tupaarnaq sat next to the motor, the tiller under her arm and behind her so she could look ahead and steer them between the arms of the fjord.

Matthew’s thoughts returned to the files on the USB stick, and he reviewed the information in his mind. Why hadn’t she appealed her sentence? Surely an innocent person would have appealed a conviction for murdering their own mother and little sisters?

Tupaarnaq knocked on the hull to get his attention, then pointed at the sea in front of the boat. He turned and saw a lump of ice the size of a truck pass close by. ‘They can be several hundred metres tall, if you go further up the coast.’ She was practically shouting to drown out the engine and the wind. ‘Above the water, I mean. Below the surface they can be one kilometre.’ She pulled the tiller and the boat made a soft arc around the lump of ice, which shone white and turquoise in the morning sun.

‘It’s the first time I’ve been this close to an iceberg,’ he shouted back. ‘It’s amazing.’

‘It’s not an iceberg, it’s a growler. Icebergs are bigger.’

‘But it’s still beautiful,’ Matthew whispered to himself. The growler had a long shelf right below the surface of the sea, and the water over it glowed turquoise and was so pure that he felt like jumping in.

The mountains continued everywhere. In some places they rose steeply. In other places there were long slopes covered with grass and shrivelled shrubs. They were going in the direction of Kobbe Fjord, in between Mount Ukkusissat and Mount Kingittorsuaq. Or Store Malene and Hjortetakken, as they were called in Danish.

Tupaarnaq switched off the engine, and once the boat settled on the sea, the icy wind mostly eased off.

Matthew started to relax. ‘Aren’t we going ashore?’ He looked briefly at her before turning his gaze to the plain at the foot of Mount Kingittorsuaq.

She shook her head. ‘No, we shoot seals out here. If you want to go reindeer hunting, you’ll have to wait. It can take days before we spot any.’

‘No, no… This is quite enough for me.’ He stretched his neck, which had grown stiff and sore from the wind and the bumping waves. ‘I was just wondering if we could go ashore and take a look at the landscape instead.’

‘There,’ she said, pointing across the sea. ‘And there!’

‘What are you looking at?’ he asked, his gaze scanning the waves in vain.

‘The small black dots on the sea. Can’t you see them? They’re seals. There are lots of them.’

She leaned forward and picked up the rifle with one hand. The other slipped into her pocket and reappeared with a small black magazine filled with cartridges.

‘I can’t see anything.’ He narrowed his eyes and continued his search.

‘They pop up and then they disappear again,’ she explained and raised her rifle to her cheek. ‘They come up for air.’

The slim rifle seemed a part of her. As if she was born to have this long weapon close to her body. The butt was pressed against the thick jumper covering her shoulder, and her left hand merged with the wood and metal in a firm grip. She lowered the weapon and smiled contentedly. ‘Plenty of seals.’ Then she cocked the rifle. The bolt clicked in place, with a cartridge in the chamber.

She raised the rifle to her face again and wedged it against her shoulder, while she pressed her cheek against the glossy wood of the butt and closed her left eye. Her right eye stared into the telescopic sight.

He heard how her breathing slowed and became heavier. He couldn’t see any of her tattoos. Not a single leaf or a flower. No skulls baring their teeth. No deep shadows. There was only her face and shaved head. The freckles around her nose.

Suddenly a shot rang out. Her body was rigid. Frozen in the shot. She continued to stare into the solitary eye of the telescopic sight, then she put down the rifle and grabbed the tiller. The engine awakened from its slumber with a roar and the boat began leaping across the sea, wave after wave, until she released the tiller and let the boat coast until it came to a standstill.

‘There,’ she said, pointing diagonally to her left. She nudged the tiller slightly with one knee, so they were heading straight towards the animal in the water. It wasn’t dead, but it was struggling. Its head and eyes were above the water, while its body lay just below. It tried to swim but its body refused; the water along the left side of the animal was red from blood.

Matthew looked up at Tupaarnaq. ‘Aren’t you meant to kill it outright?’

‘Hang on.’

She turned and switched off the engine, before straightening up and pushing the boathook towards him with her boot. ‘You jab the hook into its neck once I’ve shot it a second time.’

‘Eh? But… it’s—’

She looked at him. ‘Are you going to help me or what?’

The seal splashed about in the water. It was trying to escape, but the bullet in its body and the onset of paralysis trapped it at the surface of the sea. Its small black eyes stared backwards. It waved a flipper.

‘I…’

She took aim and fired the rifle. The seal’s body jerked. The amount of blood in the sea grew explosively. The rifle ended up at the bottom of the boat again, while Tupaarnaq grabbed the hook and plunged it into the seal. ‘The least you can do is help me land it.’

Matthew reached out nervously. They had to employ all their strength to haul the smooth, wet body over the gunwale. The seal flopped down into the bottom of the boat in a sudden gliding movement. Its eyes were still two staring black beads, but there was no life left in them. Blood flowed quietly from the two dark holes in its skin.

Matthew slumped back in his seat, while Tupaarnaq grabbed a flipper and turned the seal onto its back, baring its speckled silver and black belly. The sun’s rays played in the hairs of the wet fur. She produced a hunting knife from her side pocket and stuck it into the seal, deep between its tail flippers. She tightened her fingers around the handle as the blade opened up the seal to its middle. The fat layer of blubber glowed pink; it looked like an open eye in the animal’s lower body. The meat was dark, black almost. Her hands delved into the warm body and pulled out a long ribbon of pink intestines. Somewhere deep inside the animal, she managed to loosen them so they came out in one piece.

Matthew watched the intestines go over the gunwale and plop into the sea. ‘You’re just going to throw them away?’

‘Well, I’ve no use for them.’ She turned to look at him. Her stare was hard. ‘You need to join in.’

‘It’s so gory.’

She gave a light shrug. ‘It’s just hunting.’ Then she turned her attention back to the seal, and carried on removing its organs and throwing them overboard. Only a quivering dark lump was dumped in the bottom of the boat.

When everything had been cut out and disposed of, she sank the knife back into the seal near its tail flippers and cut the skin around them free from the skin on its body. She did the same with the two flippers along the animal’s sides. Then she slipped the knife under the skin by its belly and started separating the skin from the fat and the body in soft movements, until only the glistening, flayed body remained. The skin itself she rinsed in the sea, then she tossed it at Matthew’s feet.

He looked at her, stunned.

‘It needs cleaning.’

‘What do you mean?’

She took out her ulo and grabbed the skin. Carefully but steadily, she used the round blade to remove any blubber still attached to it. ‘This is how you do it.’

Matthew took the ulo and bent hesitantly over the fur. The blubber was warm and greasy. Softer than he had expected, but viscous and tough to cut. It stretched, before snapping back like an elastic band.

‘You need to get right down to the fur, leaving absolutely no blubber,’ she told him. ‘But be careful. The skin is worthless if you cut holes in it.’

He hesitated. He squished a piece of skin and blubber between his fingers. ‘Do you eat this the way you eat whale skin?’

‘You mean mattak? No, this stuff tastes like shit.’ She took the ulo from him and let it glide in rocking movements along a piece of skin, leaving it clean and smooth. ‘Like this.’ She passed the ulo back to him.

‘Will you be eating the meat yourself?’ he asked, looking at the bloody body resting near him. She had even flayed its head, exposing the flesh and the sinews. The black eyes stared out at him from the flayed face.

‘No, I don’t eat meat. I’ll sell it down at Brættet. I need the money to buy a few things.’

The ulo rested in his hand. His fingers were glossy with fat and blood.

‘You need to taste the liver,’ she said, holding out a piece of the dark, quivering lump she had saved earlier.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust and felt his throat contract with nausea. ‘No, thanks.’

‘It wasn’t a suggestion,’ she snapped. ‘You can’t come home after your first seal hunt without having tasted warm liver. Those are the rules, and they apply to you too.’

‘I can’t,’ he croaked, staring at the small piece of raw seal liver. ‘I’m going to throw up.’

‘Not my problem. Eat it!’

His eyes sought refuge at the bottom of the boat. His sneakers were soaked with salt water and smeared with blood and guts. Her knee slipped into the picture, and when he looked up, she was squatting down right in front of him. A distant yet also present smile was playing on her lips.

‘You either eat it yourself or I shove it down your throat.’

‘Okay, okay, okay. I’ll eat it. Relax.’ He exhaled, then he frowned. ‘Have you ever tasted it?’

‘We all eat it. Some even by choice. As if it were candy.’

He took the liver from her hand. It felt soft, grainy and delicate between his fingers.

‘It’s just blood,’ she said, and she ran two fingers down his face, leaving broad, dark traces on his skin.

The liver grew in his hand. His eyes were drawn to the flayed, dead body of the seal. The skin and the blubber at his feet. The ulo. The intestines. The seal’s belly as it had surrendered to the knife and sprung open in a fleshy wound.

He started hyperventilating. He swallowed saliva that wasn’t there. Suppressed his nausea. His fingers found their way to his mouth. The liver went in. His teeth cut through the soft, jelly-like substance. The meat burst. A taste of metal filled his mouth. His throat tightened.

‘Go on, spit it out,’ Tupaarnaq said with a short grin. ‘I need you to be able to walk. You’ll be carrying half the seal to Brættet.’

He spat into the sea. ‘I think I just failed your test,’ he spluttered. ‘No, you didn’t. I don’t want a companion with a taste for blood.’

Matthew looked at what was left of the seal with a frown. ‘But you… We just…’

She nodded grimly. ‘It’s the easiest way to make money right now. It’s how I was brought up.’

28

The black plastic bag with the large chunks of freshly killed seal weighed heavy on Matthew’s back. He could feel the bones from the animal digging into him through the plastic and pressing into his back. His shoes and trousers were stained with salt water and seal blood, and he had no idea whether he had successfully washed the blood off his face.

Tupaarnaq walked alongside him in her old, thick jumper, with a bag similar to his slung over her shoulder. Rust-coloured patches were drying on the light-grey wool; her rifle hung from the same shoulder and bounced slightly with every step she took.

‘How far is it?’ he said. The weight of the meat was sending jolts of pain up his crooked neck. He gave in to it and shifted the bag, so that it rested against his shoulder.

‘You don’t know where Brættet is?’

‘Is it next to Brugseni?’ he ventured.

She nodded. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes.’

He only had himself to blame. He had refused to get on the bus with the bags. Blood was dripping from their seams, and the thought of sitting on the bus and watching blood run across the floor was more than he could handle. When she told him how far it was to walk, she hadn’t mentioned how many rocks and steps they would be going up and down. He was worn out already, and his back hurt as much as his neck.

Sweat trickled down his forehead and under his jumper. He looked back at the path they had walked. When he’d switched shoulders, more blood had run out of the bag, leaving on the gravel a small, dark puddle of death.

Brættet was busy when Matthew and Tupaarnaq entered through the glass door. To their left were several steel tables with big lumps of dark meat, and very close to them lay two heads and the fins from a couple of porpoises. To their right were several white plastic crates with different kinds of semi-gutted fish.

‘I’ll just find a buyer for this,’ Tupaarnaq said.

Matthew let the bag slip from his shoulder so it dangled from his hand and arm. There was blood on several of the steel tables. Puddles on the floor below them. The two small whales looked as if their heads had been chopped off with one violent blow. The display seemed to have been set up so that you could see the porpoises’ smile. Further into the market was a seal, gutted like theirs. Its bloodstained body had been spread out into flat halves.

Tupaarnaq was busy talking to a man, who rummaged around in her bag.

The biggest tables were at the back of the market, and on them lay large chunks of dark meat. He had never before seen such big, firm pieces of meat without any bones in them. They looked like the thigh muscles of a dinosaur. On a sign taped to the table he read the words ‘fin whale’. The man behind the desk had a solid hold of a chunk the size of his own torso while he spoke to a woman in Greenlandic. He nodded and started slicing the meat with a long, thin-bladed knife.

‘Give your bag to that guy over there.’

Matthew jumped. He spun around and looked at Tupaarnaq. ‘Okay. Did you manage to sell everything?’

‘Yes. As I expected.’

Matthew turned back to the man with the big lumps of meat. ‘Is he cutting whale steak?’

‘Yes, and we can buy one, if that’s what you fancy.’ She took the bag from his hand. ‘Only not for me—I’m not having any.’ Then she went over to the man who had bought her seal meat and chucked the bag on the table next to the other one.

The man in the white coat pushed down the plastic bag to get a good look at the reddish-brown lumps of meat. He picked up a broad piece with the ribs exposed and turned it over a couple of times, then nodded contentedly and looked at Tupaarnaq. He put the meat down on the table again, where it left a bloody outline on the steel.

Tupaarnaq nudged Matthew’s shoulder. ‘You’re completely away with the fairies. You’re quite sure you don’t want some whale?’

He shook his head slowly without turning to her.

‘Just ask the guy over there if you fancy trying some. He’ll cut you a steak… my treat.’

‘I…’ Matthew hesitated as his thoughts moved back and forth between the dying seal in the sea and the flayed, fleshy skulls staring emptily at him from the steel tables. ‘No, not today. I think. Neither seal nor whale.’

‘Okay—it’s up to you. You can always come back another time.’ She nudged him again. ‘I’m off. Are you coming?’

‘Yes,’ he gulped and raised his eyebrows. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m going home,’ she stated firmly. ‘Alone. I’m not used to being outside, so I need some time on my own now.’

He smiled and followed her out of the door.

She turned to him outside in the square. ‘I just need to get a few things.’

‘From Brugseni?’

‘Yes, but I’ll do it on my own.’ A short grin crossed her lips. ‘I’m glad you tasted the liver today. If you hadn’t, I would have thrown you into the sea.’

She was smiling but he wasn’t at all sure that she was joking. His gaze moved to the small, simple stalls put up on the square outside Brugseni. Low tables, rugs and cardboard signs. The hawkers sold everything from figures carved out of reindeer antler to knitwear, seal mittens and old DVDs. They also sold pink frozen prawns, and one sold second-hand toys.

‘Why did you give me the USB stick?’

‘You wanted to know who you were going hunting with.’

‘But the articles don’t tell me that, do they?’

She exhaled deeply and looked him in the eye. ‘I gave it to you because you wanted to understand about murder and what it means to kill. And that was also why I took you with me today. Perhaps it’ll make sense when you switch off your light tonight.’

He frowned.

‘Causality,’ she went on. ‘If you want to understand why a ball is rolling, you need to find out what set it in motion. The rest is nothing but effect, and the effect is visible to everyone. The explanation is found in the cause.’

29

The smoke seeped slowly out of the corner of Matthew’s mouth. He was lying on the floor with a pillow under his neck near the balcony door, and could feel the cool air creep in around him. In one hand he held an almost empty Musk Ox beer, and a cigarette rested between the fingers of the other.

Tine was never a fan of smoking. Everything reeks of smoke, she would say when they had been among smokers.

He took a deep drag and let his hand flop back to the floor.

He had bought his first packet of cigarettes the day after the accident. He had been standing by the till, looking at his shopping, and when the cashier had smiled to him he had asked her for a packet of twenty Prince. With or without filter? she had asked. Back then he had still worn his ring.

To begin with, he had been so numbed by the smoke that he experienced a mild rush. Even the smoke filling his lungs had a calming effect he had never expected. He couldn’t explain it. Sometimes he would take a break from smoking for several days in order to experience again the feeling of getting high on the smoke.

His mobile buzzed in his pocket, and he leant over to drop the cigarette butt into the beer bottle and read the message.

Are you home? Tupaarnaq. That was all it said.

Yes, he replied, and pressed send. He heard nothing for several minutes. Why? he added eventually.

I’ll be there in five minutes.

He got up immediately and pushed the balcony door fully open. He tossed the beer bottle into the kitchen bin and stacked his dirty cups and plates in the dishwasher.

You need to be alone. Am almost there.

He pulled out a drawer, found some pink tea lights, put them on a plate and lit them. Like pretty much everything else in the apartment, they had been here when he moved in. Now their time had come. The smell of warm candle wax began to spread immediately, and he set the plate down on the small dining table between the kitchen and the sofa.

His mobile buzzed. Let me in.

He put down his mobile and went out to the entry phone.

The pale-yellow walls and large, light-grey tiles shone more brightly than the ceiling lamps out on the landing. The lift hummed behind the steel doors, and he reached for the ghost wedding band on the ring finger of his right hand.

‘Inside,’ she commanded the moment the lift door opened.

He allowed her to push him backwards. ‘Okay…’

She had already marched past him and into his hallway. ‘I need to borrow your bathroom and a T-shirt.’

Her thick jumper was draped over her arm, but this time it wasn’t the dark tattoos on her arms and shoulders that attracted his attention. It was the blood on her fingers and hands. They had washed off the seal blood out at sea, and after Brættet her hands had been as clean as his. Now they were smeared with dried blood.

‘I’ll find you a top. What happened?’

‘You won’t be talking to Lyberth,’ she said hoarsely. ‘He’s lying on the floor at my place, gutted.’

Matthew had to grab the doorframe for support. The words echoed in his mind. ‘What?’ he managed to whisper.

‘I don’t know why he’s there, but he’s very dead.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘You’re not expecting any visitors, are you?’

‘No,’ Matthew said. Then he wondered whether it might not be wise to text Malik and tell him not to come over, in case he was planning on it, but concluded that doing so would probably arouse more suspicion, given everything else that had happened. ‘Can I get you anything?’

‘Yes, a T-shirt—but first let me tell you about Lyberth.’

‘And you’re quite sure that he’s dead?’

‘More sure than I was about the seal we sold down at Brættet.’ She turned on the kitchen tap, squirted washing-up liquid onto her hands and started rubbing them together under the water. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen a dead body since…’ Her back arched and her head slumped a little. ‘It has been a while.’

‘But why would you kill Lyberth? I mean, the two of you didn’t even know one another, did you?’

‘It just so happens that I didn’t kill Lyberth. But no, I don’t know him, and that, if nothing else, would be a requirement for my having a motive.’

‘So someone killed him in your apartment, thinking that you would be the obvious suspect and that they would get away with it?’ ‘Perhaps. I don’t know. It seems far-fetched, but then again it’s what very nearly happened when they brought me in for the murder of those two men.’

‘Aqqalu and the fisherman?’

‘Yes, of course. Them.’ She paused and carefully dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘The three murders are connected.’

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded and sat down in the black recliner at the end of the coffee table. ‘Lyberth had also been gutted.’

Matthew buried his face in his hands. ‘And he’s in your apartment right now? And no one else knows?’

‘The killer knows he’s there. As do you. But apart from that, yes.’

‘Shouldn’t we call the police?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘They’ll bring me in immediately. He was killed in my apartment in the same way as…’ She ground to a halt. ‘I touched the body. I don’t know why. I’m such an idiot. I mean, I could see that he was already dead. This time I’ll get life.’

‘But you were with me all day, and—’

‘I could have killed him afterwards,’ she cut in. ‘There’ll be forensic evidence implicating me. The location. Fingerprints.’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘It was exactly what happened when they found my… father.’

‘But what about motive? It was you who told me always to look for the cause.’

‘Yes, for the defence. Not for the prosecutor. There, it’s the burden of evidence that weighs most heavily.’

They were silent for a few minutes. Her upper body rocked back and forth a little.

‘If you don’t go back to your place when there’s a dead body inside it, that could also look bad during a trial.’

‘The police just need to find the killer quickly.’

‘But they’re not going to do that if they believe you did it. They’ll just keep looking for you until they find you.’

‘Then I’m going to have to find the killer myself.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s like I told you. Our cases are connected. Oh, shit.’

‘You mean they’re connected to the murders in the seventies?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. He… arghhh!’

Matthew looked at her. Sitting in the recliner she suddenly seemed smaller than ever. ‘What will the police find at your place, if they discover the body themselves?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ she said, staring vacantly into the air. ‘What will they find?’ She got up and went over to the balcony door. ‘This is so messed up. His hands and feet are nailed to the floor, like some crucified Jesus. A sock was stuffed into his mouth, and he was blindfolded. He’s completely butchered.’

The sofa felt cold and dead under Matthew.

‘His stomach was cut open,’ she continued. ‘Right from his groin and up to his breastbone. His skin had been pulled out to the sides, and everything in his abdomen had been ripped out and thrown onto the floor around him.’

‘Was there an ulo?’

‘No, there wasn’t. And he wasn’t killed with an ulo. The cuts are far too straight and clean.’

‘And he’s lying there now?’

‘Yes, I think so. I don’t remember locking the door behind me. I just grabbed my stuff and got out of there.’

‘And where are your things now?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She narrowed her eyes and rubbed her scalp. ‘Mind if I have a shower? I… it’s gross. All of it. I… I’ve been kicked twelve years back in time.’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, and got up immediately. ‘Let me get you a towel and a T-shirt.’ He hesitated. ‘I accidentally smashed the door to the bathroom, so it doesn’t close properly.’

‘Idiot. Well, I’m still going to have a shower, but don’t you dare come near me, do you hear?’

‘I’ll go for a walk,’ Matthew said, handing her an old black T-shirt. ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

‘You can’t leave while I’m here,’ she said. ‘Or I won’t be able to stay. The police might turn up. Anything could happen.’

He slumped and looked down. ‘I was just going down to the cemetery to smoke a couple of cigarettes.’

‘You can smoke inside, if you like. But if you leave now, I’ll leave too. I have to.’

‘It’s okay,’ he replied with a nod. ‘It was a stupid idea. I… I’m just shocked.’

‘Smoke your cigarettes in here. It’s your apartment.’ She tried to fix him with her eyes. ‘So are you staying or what?’

‘Yes… Yes, of course.’

‘Okay. Then I’ll have a shower.’ She finally made eye contact with him. ‘And you stay in here or you’re finished.’

‘Okay.’

He waited behind the recliner until he heard the water being turned on. Then he took out his cigarettes and lit one. His hands were shaking so much that the tip of the cigarette quivered.

Matthew had only just flopped onto the sofa when he remembered that he hadn’t given her a towel to take to the bathroom.

The door hung crooked on its hinges and revealed most of the bathroom. The shower was concealed behind a thick pane of glass that reached from the floor to the ceiling. The steam had already clouded the glass, so he could only see her silhouette. He looked at the towel in his hand. He could see her body in the mirror.

It wasn’t just her arms, shoulders, chest and neck that were tattooed. Everything had colours. Her body was completely covered by flowers and leaves. Not delicate and pretty, but lush and winding. Camouflage.

Her toes were free. Her feet almost. The growth started around her ankles where it blossomed, reached out and covered most of her. Concealing her. She wasn’t there. She didn’t exist. There were just plants winding and curving. The flowers breathing. The shadows and the two mouths of death. Everything was covered up, and the dark didn’t release its grip until her neck. That was her existence. She was two feet, two hands, and a face. That was all. The rest was a dark wilderness.

The water in the shower must have been boiling hot, given how much steam it generated. She stood still under the jet. Picked up the soap and started soaping herself. She covered every part of her body before she grabbed a razor and let it grip her. She followed the movements of the plants along her muscles and shaved her legs, her groin, her belly, arms, armpits, her throat, her face and her scalp. She scraped away the outer layer of herself in slow, viscous movements, and let it wash away down the drain.

Only the colours remained.

Her body was slim. Sinewy. The muscles in her arms tensed. They stood out in all the colours that were her. That was all she was. Muscles and colours.

Matthew took a step forward in order to leave the towel just inside the open door. She reacted to the movement and turned her gaze on him at that very same moment. It burned. Forcing him to the floor.

‘You’re finished,’ she hissed.

Matthew disappeared into the living room, where he turned on the TV and ended up watching an English TV series.

He could hear Tupaarnaq muttering harshly while she got dressed, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying. Not until she came back to the living room.

‘You’re no better than the rest of them,’ she said, hurling the damp towel at him. ‘Fucking pig. You’re a bunch of perverts… all of you.’

He wanted to say something. Defend himself. But she was gone.