The Empty Camp: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella (Greenland Missing Persons Book 21) by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press for Arctic Noir, Action Thrillers and Greenland Crime
Published: 2023-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

9

The wind pushed small waves with white crests across the sea and the hull of Maratse’s dingy thumped through carpets of brash ice calved from an iceberg. I zipped my jacket up to my chin and stuffed my hands into my pockets. Maratse smoked, cigarette clamped in his mouth, one hand on the tiller, the other in his pocket. I turned around on the thwart seat to put my back to the wind and to make it clear to Maratse that he was about to tell me everything. I clawed long strands of my hair back behind my ears, and then gave up, letting my hair stream towards Maratse as he smoked, as he steered the dinghy, and as he talked.

Finally.

Maratse’s story was Uinnaq’s story, and he told me about the first time he met her in the store in Upernavik. She was working at the checkout; he had just arrived and was shopping for food.

“My credit card didn’t work,” Maratse said, finishing his cigarette, puffing a last cloud of smoke above his head. “Uinnaq helped.”

“How?”

It might not have been relevant, but as Maratse never really spent any money, I struggled to believe his card had been declined.

Maratse shrugged and said, “She paid for my food.”

“She did?”

“Iiji.” Maratse nodded. “That was the first clue.”

“Clue?”

Maratse nodded again and then explained. “She’s from Ittoqqortoormiit,” he said. “She recognised my accent, and she helped me out. She paid in cash. I saw bundles of two hundred kronor notes in her bag when she had it on her lap.”

“Bundles?”

“Iiji.” Maratse reached for his packet of cigarettes, caught my eye, and then snapped the pocket closed again. “I didn’t think she had stolen the money.”

“But you didn’t think she had earned it, either?” I said, pleased he wasn’t going to smoke for a while, curious that I had that effect on him.

“Someone gave her the money,” Maratse said.

He stopped talking for a moment, turned his head and then tapped my leg for me to look as a whale breached the surface less than thirty metres off the dinghy’s port side. It’s always exciting to see a whale, and it was a big one.

“Fin whale?” I said, and Maratse nodded.

I laughed when he confirmed it. My hunting skills really were on fire, and I wondered how long it would last. But when we lost sight of the whale behind an iceberg, my thoughts drifted back to Uinnaq and the bundles of cash in her bag.

“So, who gave her the money, and why?”

Maratse said nothing for a moment, just stared at me with his brown eyes, testing me, I think, until the name popped into my head. I chewed it over a few times before blurting it out.

“Looqi,” I said, and Maratse confirmed it with another nod, just like he had done with the whale. “And where did he get the money?”

“Where do you think?”

It was another test, but a relatively easy one. The most lucrative source of illicit money was the sale of hash, cannabis resin.

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.