done to investigate the computer system. Thora herself wouldn’t have found much there without the assistance of Fri?rikka and Eyjolfur, who knew the system like the backs of their hands.
‘They’ve found something.’ Finnbogi seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to the others as he leaned on the table and stared into his lap. ‘They’re acting differently to yesterday.’
Thora agreed with this, and from the look on Matthew’s face he did too. The policemen seemed much more serious, avoiding looking any of them in the eye and if they addressed them at all they did so in short sentences, stiffly polite. ‘I should hope they have,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘They’re not here for a holiday. With all these personnel, they must have come up with something. But it’s in our interests that their investigation succeeds. We’re all looking for the same answers, aren’t we?’ Christ, it would be good to get home and no longer have to constantly be the group’s cheerleader.
There was a knock at the door and a Greenlandic policeman walked in. At first Thora thought he had a gun, but then she realized it was a black radio attached to his belt. The radio crackled for a moment, but no voice was heard. ‘I would like to speak to you two further.’ The man pointed at Fri?rikka and Eyjolfur. ‘Am I right in thinking that you are employees here?’
Eyjolfur sighed but Fri?rikka appeared not to have heard the man. ‘Does this have to do with anything in particular?’ asked Thora. She did not trust them to help the investigation in their current states. ‘Neither of them was at the place where the bones were found. Fri?rikka had stopped working here by then, and Eyjolfur was only here occasionally. Besides that, they’d never been to Greenland until after Usinna died.’ She hoped this was true. ‘I’m just wondering whether this is something Matthew or I could help you with. Those two are rather tired.’
The policeman opened his mouth and appeared on the verge of bawling her out when his radio started crackling again. An unfamiliar name was called and the officer brought the radio up to his mouth. ‘I’m here. Over.’ The officer turned his back on the group. ‘I’m not alone.’ Through the static they heard someone say in Danish: ‘I think you need to come. It’s impossible to describe this. I’ll send someone for you.’
‘There they are,’ Matthew called from the window. He was speaking to Thora, but naturally everyone heard him and tried to see what was going on. A car drove extremely slowly along the track to the camp and entered the parking area. Thora thought it resembled a funeral procession, and judging by how quickly the policeman had left them it was entirely likely to be one. He had rushed out but come back in to the meeting room almost immediately to get the keys to Berg Technology’s jeep, since there were too many people for one car. The jeep had then sped off. At least two hours had passed and everyone in the stuffy meeting room had been a bit bleary-eyed by the time he returned and informed them of what was going on.
The cars were parked outside the cafeteria, but their chrome bumpers and exhaust pipes could be seen from the meeting room, gleaming as they pumped their fumes into the cold, still air. ‘I’m going out.’ Thora took Matthew by the arm. ‘Come on. The man didn’t say anything before he left about us being banned from getting fresh air.’
‘He just forgot to say it,’ said Fri?rikka shrilly. ‘We shouldn’t go anywhere. What if they have body bags in the cars? I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Fine. Then you stay, but I’m out of here.’ Thora yanked determinedly on Matthew’s arm. ‘Come on.’ After one final unsuccessful attempt to see into the cars through the window he followed her, but was clearly reluctant.
‘They’ll herd us back in as soon as they see us. We’re getting dressed for nothing. It’s also blatantly obvious what we’re doing. Who goes out into this weather without having urgent business?’
Thora had already thought of this. ‘Loan us some cigarettes, Bella. We’ll just say we came out for a smoke.’
‘Me too.’ The doctor had become just as excited as Thora. ‘I’m coming with you.’
Bella held tight to her cigarette packet, just in case they tried to take it off her.
‘Okay, okay. Let’s go.’ The more time they wasted standing there bickering, the more they would miss. In the end four of them went outside, while Eyjolfur and Alvar stayed inside with Fri?rikka, who was still lecturing them about what a bad idea it was as Thora shut the door behind them. They beat all speed records putting on their coveralls and snow boots and showed the same swiftness in lighting their cigarettes on the landing outside, before walking in the direction of the cars. Thora didn’t dare not smoke her cigarette properly, but it took all her willpower not to retch. She noticed that the doctor appeared to be having the same problem. Matthew, however, exhaled a grey cloud and beamed at her.
They stopped a short distance from the cars. From there they could see everything that was happening without running the risk that the police would herd them back inside. The police noticed the smokers but didn’t appear too worried about them, since they were busy unloading one of the pickup trucks.
Thora was relieved when she saw that it was a number of bags each too small to contain the body of an adult individual, though they seemed heavy. The men were silent as they carried the grey bags into the cafeteria building. Their seriousness was compelling; the smokers all forgot to keep up the pretence of activity and even Bella’s cigarette burned up slowly and evenly. Finally the last two bags were carried towards the house. One of the policemen was careless and slipped on a patch of ice. He landed on his tailbone with a great shout, but it was not concern for his possible injuries that made the four ‘smokers’ gasp. When the man dropped the bag, an arm rolled out of it.
‘What the hell was that?’ Bella hung her coverall on a hook that was already overloaded and the bulky orange garment ended up in a heap on the floor. She didn’t bend down to pick it up, and no one made any comment. They had other things to think about.
‘That was an arm. Without a doubt.’ The doctor leaned up against the wall to kick off his boots. ‘I don’t know whose it was or where it came from, but it was an arm.’
‘I don’t think there are many candidates to whom it could have belonged,’ said Thora. ‘It would be quite something if it
‘What should we tell the others?’ Finnbogi held hesitantly on to the knob of the door to the corridor. ‘I’m not sure Fri?rikka will take this well.’
‘We’ll say nothing. Simply that we didn’t see anything,’ said Matthew. ‘We’ll find out soon enough who this is and what happened and until then there’s no need to upset her any further. I think an animal must have attacked someone. Under normal circumstances people’s arms don’t fall off.’
Thora was silent, but she thought about the frightening video that was the main reason for their expedition from Iceland. She remembered how the splayed feet had jerked abnormally and how before the jerking there had been a whistle that ended with a dull thud. This had been followed each time by a splash of blood. She remembered clearly thinking that it looked as if either a corpse were being dismembered or someone were being killed, and now she had the feeling that it hadn’t been a polar bear or a rogue walrus that had separated this arm from its body. The landing outside creaked, the main door opened and in walked three policemen. The first was the Greenlander who Thora was certain was directing the investigation. ‘Well.’ His manner was dry, which was nothing new, but now his voice was tempered with anger. ‘I need to speak to each of you privately and then get one of you to come and identify some human remains. I understand that you’ve seen what’s going on and I must express my disappointment that you didn’t stay inside.’
‘We wanted to have a cigarette. The smokers’ room is too wet, from the snow that was in there when we arrived.’ Matthew had sidestepped the policeman’s accusation rather neatly, in Thora’s opinion. ‘We had no idea what awaited us, or we’d have just smoked out of the window.’
It was impossible to tell whether the police officer believed him. ‘Well, it can’t be undone,’ he said. ‘I would simply ask that you don’t waste any time trying to read anything into it.’
His last statement obviously went in one of Bella’s ears and out the other, because she immediately piped up, ‘Did a polar bear attack someone?’
The police officer stared coldly at her. ‘No one has died here from a polar bear attack for seventeen years, and the last one happened by mistake. An old woman walked too close to a bear in a whiteout and it swiped at her, knocking off the top part of her head. The bear neither ate her nor tore off her limbs. She died in hospital from her head wounds. Polar bears don’t attack people except under very unusual circumstances.’ He turned to look at Finnbogi. ‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’ Finnbogi replied that he was. ‘We were hoping to get your opinion on something we’ve found. No one can get here until tomorrow, weather permitting, and it would help us to get some confirmation on a few things.’ He didn’t elaborate any further.
