The Boy with the Narwhal Tooth: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella (Greenland Missing Persons Book 1) by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press for Arctic Noir, Action Thrillers and Greenland Crime
Published: 2020-06-29T22:00:00+00:00

Part 12

“My son was a great hunter,” Aluusaq said. He pointed his crooked finger at a picture hanging on the wall, and I walked around the couch to look at it. Aluusaq’s words followed me, describing the ghosts in the photograph. “He had the strongest dogs, the fastest qajaq, and the keenest eye. He could see…”

“Narwhals fencing at the very edge of the ice,” I whispered, my face pressed close to the photograph, as Aluusaq sang the familiar praises of his son. I was curious as to what I should think about Rassi, the great hunter, the great drinker. Twice now, I had heard men complement Rassi on his prowess as a hunter, and both men – Tuukula first, and now Aluusaq – had also described the other Rassi, the one who scared his son so much he fled the village with the double narwhal tooth.

I looked at the man in the photograph, imagining a younger Aluusaq in his stead, with a thick head of black hair, bushy black eyebrows protruding above keen eyes in a sun-beaten face. The boy standing beside Rassi in the photo was no taller than Luui – perhaps the same age when the photo was taken. While Rassi looked straight at the camera, Isaja looked up at his father. There was a depth in the boy’s eyes suggesting he had seen too much, and that he could see into the future.

“Isaja was four and half when they took that picture,” Aluusaq said.

I made a note in my notebook and returned to sit beside Aluusaq, glimpsing Luui, just visible in the kitchen, playing with a jigsaw puzzle at the kitchen table as I sat down.

“Aluusaq,” I said. “What happened to your son?”

The old man gave a slow shrug. “No one knows. He disappeared, like Isaja. People say he went through the ice.”

“Where?”

“On the way to Siorapaluk. Fifty kilometres,” Aluusaq said, pointing. “To the north and west.”

“He was never found?”

“No.”

“Then why do people say he went through the ice?”

“Because they found his team. The dogs ran all the way to Siorapaluk.”

“Did they search for him?”

“It was mid-winter.” Aluusaq shook his head. “Minus fifty. It was crazy to make the journey. The wind was blowing.”

“But if it was minus fifty,” I said. “Wouldn’t the ice be thick?”

“There is one place,” Aluusaq said. “Where the ice is always thin. The tide runs quickly there, eating away at the ice in the bay. You can be unlucky,” Aluusaq said. “I think Rassi was unlucky.”

The old man looked away and I expected him to wipe at a dry tear on his parched cheeks. But he kept his fingers in his lap, clenched, as if suppressing something.

“But what about his dogs?” I said. “You said they ran all the way to Siorapaluk. They must have crossed the ice.”

“He would have cut the sledge from the traces,” Aluusaq said. “They came in a fan of dogs. But no sledge.”

“This was mid-winter?”

“Aap.”

“Earlier this year?”

Aluusaq nodded. “In February.”

I sucked at my teeth as I did a quick calculation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.