Chapter 13

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Maratse watched the hotel boat moor at the jetty. There was a small buzz of people waiting for Nivi Winther and her ex-husband to arrive, Karl and his wife, Buuti, among them. The news of Nivi’s positive identification of her daughter’s body had spread quickly, and the preparations for her funeral had been arranged shortly afterwards.

Maratse sipped at his coffee as Karl and Edvard helped Martin Winther, and three other men, lift the coffin containing Tinka Winther from the deck, and carry it along the jetty to the beach. Nivi walked behind the men carrying her daughter to the graveyard overlooking the fjord and the people of Inussuk followed. There were at least three reporters among the mourners, and it surprised Maratse that Nivi seemed not to notice when they took her picture at various points along the way. But then, her level of grief was probably such that she didn’t care, certainly not before the pictures were on the front pages of the newspapers, at which time it would already be too late. Maratse finished his coffee and straightened the black tie he had borrowed from Karl.

He walked to the hall, pleased that he had learned to ignore the pain in his legs. He slipped his feet inside his boots. It was still a trial to tie his own laces, but the stairs were useful. When he was finished with his boots, he heaved himself onto his feet with one hand on the banister and the other on the windowsill. When he walked out onto the deck the puppy looked up from where it guarded the seal bone Maratse had given it, something to occupy it while he was away.

“Is that the First Minister?” Sisse asked, from where she stood on the deck of her house.

“Iiji,” Maratse said, and walked down the steps to the beach.

“Do you think I can go up there?” Sisse pointed at the procession of family and mourners following the men carrying Tinka Winther up the steep side of the mountain. “Or would it be inappropriate?”

“I’m going,” Maratse said. “You can come with me.”

Sisse reached inside the door of her house and grabbed her jacket. Her partner offered to keep an eye on Nanna while she was away. She pulled on her jacket and jogged to catch up with Maratse, as he walked along the beach towards the path. The sky was heavy with snow, and the first flakes fell as Sisse tugged the zip all the way to the collar. She stuffed her hands in her pockets and switched sides to avoid the smoke from Maratse’s cigarette. They climbed in silence, stopping several times as Maratse took a break. When they reached the graveyard the service was nearly over, and the snow fell heavily on the mourners.

“Let’s wait here.” Maratse stood to one side of the white picket fence that ran around three sides of the graveyard. The cliff face served as the fourth and final side, a natural barrier protecting the dead from the sea. Maratse stuffed the stub of his cigarette inside the packet and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He blinked in the flash of a reporter’s camera, and realised that he probably should have borrowed an overcoat from his neighbour too. The yellow and green police emblem on his jacket was clearly visible on the right breast.

“They are taking our picture,” Sisse said, as the two other reporters joined the first in documenting what the papers would probably report as a police presence at the funeral.

“Hmm,” Maratse said. He ignored the cameras and watched as Nivi laid a wreath of plastic flowers beside her daughter’s grave. Karl and Edvard would arrange the flowers on top of the grave later, but for now, as the snow fell, so did the flowers, as the mourners took turns to place a wreath before saying their last goodbyes and walking down the mountain for the wake. Buuti had arranged it, and agreed with the present occupants of Nivi Winther’s childhood home, that they would hold it there. It was to be a small gathering, she had explained to Maratse.

Maratse watched as Nivi put her arm around Tinka’s father, pulling him close as he sagged at the side of the grave. He slipped to his knees. Nivi laid one hand on his shoulder and clasped the other over her mouth. Her sobs were quiet, but they filtered through the snowfall blanketing the graveyard.

“Why are they leaving plastic flowers?” Sisse whispered.

“Have you seen real flowers in Greenland?”

“No,” she said. “But plastic…”

“Is forever,” he said, and watched as Nivi pulled away from her ex-husband, and searched for a way out between the mourners, somewhere she could be alone, just for a moment. She started to walk away from the grave, saw Maratse, and walked straight towards him, growing stronger with each step. She smiled at Sisse as she approached and then looked at Maratse.

“You’re a policeman?” she asked.

“I was,” he said. “My name is Maratse.” He shook her hand, surprised at how cool and firm it was.

“You found my daughter.”

“Iiji,” he said, and nodded at Karl standing close to the grave. “We found her.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It must have been difficult.” Nivi looked at Sisse, and said, “Please excuse us.” She hooked her arm through Maratse’s and walked with him towards the edge of the mountain, pausing as he slowed. “You’re hurt?”

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m recovering from an injury.”

Nivi nodded and let go of his arm. Snow brushed her short hair as she looked out at the fjord, glancing once at the mourners as they passed and began to walk down the path. “I grew up here. Perhaps you knew that?”

“Iiji,” Maratse said. He turned as Martin Winther was guided down the path, and Karl and Edvard began to cover Tinka’s coffin. They were alone but for the soft slice of the spades in the dirt.

“Tinka and I used to come up here, when her grandparents were still alive. We climbed this path every day,” she said, and pointed to a small knoll to one side. “We would sit there and watch for whales.” Nivi caught a tear as it rolled down her cheek and wiped it away. “That’s why I wanted to bury her here, so that she can look for whales. Is that silly?”

“Eeqqi,” Maratse said. “It is a good place.”

“You’re from the east? Tasiilaq?”

“Ittoqqortoormiit.”

“But you chose to move here?”

“For a while.”

“Why?”

“A new start.”

“I understand,” she said. “I need your help, Constable.” Nivi looked at Maratse. She took a breath and bit her bottom lip, as if she was making a decision, wondering if it was the right one.

“I’m not a policeman anymore,” he said.

“But you still wear the jacket?”

Maratse shrugged. “It is a good jacket.”

Nivi tried to smile, and said, “I want you to find out how my daughter died. I know,” she said, as Maratse started to speak, “Sergeant Jensen is working on the case, and the Commissioner himself has assured me they are doing everything they can, but…” Nivi sighed and clenched her fists. She looked out to the sea, licked a stray tear from her lip, and took a deep breath. “I just don’t think they have the necessary drive to find the answers.”

“Drive? I don’t understand.”

Nivi tried another smile. “Forgive me, what I meant to say was I’m not sure they are stubborn enough.”

“And you think I am?” Maratse frowned.

“Stubborn enough to walk up a mountain when you are clearly in pain,” she said with a glance at Maratse’s legs.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I have friends in the Nuuk police department. Sergeant Jensen, for example.”

“And I have the greatest respect for Sergeant Jensen, but she will be tied by time and the law.”

“I will not do anything against the law,” Maratse said.

“Gosh, no, I don’t mean that you should. But you could ask questions, in an unofficial capacity. Anything you learn, you could pass on to the police, to Sergeant Jensen.”

Maratse shifted on his feet, biting back a flash of pain. “I don’t think it is a good idea,” he said. “I’m not the right person to help you.”

“I think, Constable, that you are exactly that person, and I also think that it is no accident that you are here, in Inussuk, and that it was you who found my daughter.”

“I don’t know.” Maratse shook his head. “I think…”

“Please,” Nivi said, and reached out to touch his arm. She pulled back her hand and took a breath. “They examined Tinka in the hospital. The official report says that she died in a boating accident. But what was she doing in a boat, here of all places? I need help, Constable,” she said. “Don’t decide now. I am leaving tomorrow. We can talk in the morning. I will also pay you,” she said, and added, “from my own pocket. Unlike some of my colleagues, I do not believe in dipping into the party war chest when it becomes convenient.” She pressed her lips into a tight smile. “If you can help me help the police, and find out how my daughter died, then you will give me the peace of mind I need to move on.” She tilted her head and looked Maratse in the eye. “Can you do that?”

“I will think about it,” he said.

“Thank you.” Nivi squeezed his arm and looked over at Tinka’s grave, as Karl and Edvard laid the flowers over the soil and snow. “I heard they buried a baby last Monday, and now they have buried mine. Perhaps they will give each other some comfort.” The snow crunched beneath Nivi’s boots as she walked towards the path and made her way down the mountainside.

Maratse watched her leave, and cursed himself for being so fond of his jacket. And yet, he wore it for a reason. He wasn’t ready to let go of his former life, not just yet. Perhaps he should help Nivi Winther discover what happened to her daughter? Had he not already speculated about the clothes Tinka was wearing when he pulled her out of the water? The name tag intrigued him. But Petra was working the case, and he knew she would keep him informed, no matter how much he pretended not to be interested.

He tapped a cigarette into his hand from the packet in his pocket, lit it and rolled it into the gap between his teeth. He waved at Karl and walked to the graveyard, stopping every other step to draw a cloud of smoke into his lungs, and to allow the pain to settle in his legs. When he reached the grave he offered Karl and Edvard a smoke, lighting their cigarettes before slipping the lighter inside the packet. It had been a small private funeral, and would remain so until the reporters returned to their hotel rooms in Uummannaq and uploaded the images. He could hear the engines of the hotel boat cough and start as they smoked, and soon he would be able to see it, as it sped across the fjord to the town.

“Five,” Karl said, as he finished his cigarette.

“What’s that?”

“Five graves left.” He bent down to extinguish the cigarette butt in the snow, and then slipped it into his jacket pocket. He nodded at the remaining graves.

“And if it is not enough?” Maratse asked. “What then?”

“That depends on the winter,” Edvard said and glanced up at the sky.

“Hmm,” Maratse said.

Karl and Edvard picked up their shovels and started walking towards the path. They waited for Maratse, but he waved them on, pointing at his legs.

“I’ll be there later,” he said. He watched them leave until they disappeared from view, and then he looked down at Tinka’s grave. “Your mother wants me to find out what happened to you. What do you want?”

Maratse lit another cigarette, taking his time to light it, as if the longer he took, the more time Tinka would have to think it over. The truth was, he knew, that the decision was his, and the dead were dead, forever. He smoked as the skies darkened from graphite to charcoal, and the first real night of winter descended on Inussuk. He realised the path would be obscured, and also that he didn’t care.

“I’d have to travel,” he said, his voice loud in the cocoon of snow swirling around the graveyard. “And what would Petra think?” He smiled at the thought of seeing her again, and at the realisation that he was speaking more to himself and to a dead girl, than he usually did in the company of others.

He turned at the sound of something padding across the snow. The puppy slowed as it approached the entrance to the graveyard, and Maratse growled a command to stop it before it passed through the gate. Maratse walked away from Tinka’s grave, but carried her with him in his thoughts as he followed the puppy down the mountainside, past the store, all the way to Nivi’s family home. The lights were on and there were candles burning in the windows. Nivi was alone on the deck as he climbed the steps, one at a time, and turned to shoo the puppy back to the beach.

“Is it yours?” Nivi asked as he joined her on the deck.

“I think it is.”

“Soul mates,” she said and pointed at the puppy. It rested on the snow, eyes fixed on Maratse. “Have you thought about what I asked you?”

“You said I had until tomorrow.”

“I did,” Nivi said, “but I think you have made your decision already.”

“Iiji,” he said.

“And?”

“If I help you, I will share everything I find with Sergeant Jensen, before I tell you.”

Nivi nodded. “If that’s important to you.”

“It is.”

“Then I accept,” she said.

Maratse thought for a second, and then said, “I don’t know what to call myself.”

“Call yourself?” The candlelight flickered across the wrinkles on Nivi’s brow. “I don’t understand?”

“I’m not a policeman anymore. Private investigator fits, but I don’t like the sound of it,” he said, and shrugged, chewing over the title in his mind.

“How about my own private Constable, if that makes you feel easier?”

Maratse nodded. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

“Everything matters, Constable,” Nivi said. “Everything should matter. Just like my daughter’s death should matter.” Nivi brushed the snow from the shoulders of her jacket. “Come on, there is food inside, and it’s cold out here.” She tucked her arm through Maratse’s and walked with him to the door.

Maratse heard the telephone ring as he climbed the steps to his house after the wake. He grunted as he kicked off his shoes and walked to the window to pick up the phone.

“Maratse,” he said, as he held the receiver to his ear.

“This is Simonsen.”

“Hmm.”

“Have you forgotten what we talked about on the boat?”

“Eeqqi.”

“I don’t speak Greenlandic,” Simonsen said.

“No, I haven’t forgotten.”

“Then why did I just get a call from someone telling me about you helping the First Minister? Investigating her daughter’s death? Do I have to remind…?”

Maratse ended the call and made his way to the sofa. He slumped onto the cushions, reached for his book on the coffee table, and started to read. Simonsen’s veiled threats were forgotten as he concentrated on the small English type in the thick book, distracted in part by the thought of travelling back to Nuuk with the First Minister the following day. He caught a smile as it twitched at the corners of his lips, leaned back and closed his eyes.