The Ice Quake: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella (Greenland Missing Persons Book 22) by Christoffer Petersen

Author:Christoffer Petersen [Petersen, Christoffer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press for Arctic Noir, Action Thrillers and Greenland Crime
Published: 2024-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

10

Liisa was skinny and fast. She raced out of the store, hair blistering in the wind, as she curved around pockets of residents, snow pluming from her feet in powdery spurs. I followed, running to keep up, amazed that Liisa’s short legs could outpace mine. But she had the advantage of knowing where she was going, and with no way of anticipating where she was running to, I stopped trying to outthink her, and picked up the pace.

Liisa slowed when she reached the sturdy wooden steps of a red house. She kicked the toes of her boots against the wall to knock the snow off before yanking the door open and disappearing inside. I did the same, taking a little more care to get rid of more snow from the thick tread of my police-issue boots before I stepped into the house. There was the usual small mountain of assorted shoes, sneakers, and boots to climb over, and then, following the sounds of activity in the utility room, I found Liisa shucking her threadbare jeans in favour of thick, child-sized, polar bear skin salopettes. She lifted her head and nodded at more furs and skins hanging on sturdy wooden pegs nailed into the wall and started a stream of rapid Greenlandic that I struggled to follow.

“Liisa,” I said. “Slow down.”

“Can’t,” she said, snapping the straps of the salopettes over the shoulders of her grubby fleece. “Ata needs us.”

“Yes…” I said, wondering how I was going to stop the twelve-year-old dynamo from racing onto the ice. “But we need to take things slowly, Liisa. You need to tell me where Napparut is, and then I can go and get him.”

“You won’t find him,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s in his special place.”

“And where is that?”

Liisa shook her head again and then pressed her finger to her lips. She made an exaggerated shushing noise and followed up with a stern look that would have made Atii proud.

“I can’t tell you,” she said. Liisa beckoned for me to come closer as she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Ata said I can’t tell anyone.”

“Why?” I said, frowning as thoughts of a more chilling nature drifted into my mind. Liisa showed no obvious signs of mistreatment, not even on her legs that I glimpsed when she stepped into the salopettes. But if Napparut’s special place was somewhere, only he and his granddaughter were allowed to visit… Well, it didn’t take much to make the leap from loving grandfather to paedophile.

And then, at another look from Liisa, I felt my cheeks burn as she seemed to guess what I was thinking.

“He’s not that kind of ata,” she said. “My ata is kind. And he’s very, very sad. We need to find him.”

It might have worried me that a twelve-year-old girl knew that there were different kinds of grandfathers, and even more if what she knew had been learned through experience, but Liisa had moved on with a no time to waste sense of urgency that resulted in her pressing different items of clothing into my hands.

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