Plain Clothes Problems is a fun story set in the Greenland Missing Persons series, featuring Petra and Atii, to name a few.
SOS: Stories on Saturdays
I’m trying something new… again. SOS: Stories on Saturdays. Free stories featuring favourite characters, published on this website. I’m still working on the idea, but on one or more Saturdays each month I will post a story, linking to it via a blog post. Here’s a link to the SOS page (scheduled for Saturday*) with a sneak preview of the cover for the first short story: Plain Clothes Problems. The SOS page is nested under FREE. The stories may be bundled and published at a later date.
*The page with the story is scheduled for publishing at midnight on Saturday July 24, 2021.
Free Constable Maratse short story
I’ve challenged myself to write a short story every week in 2021. It’s going well so far, i.e. I have yet to miss a week. If you’re curious, then feel free to grab a copy of A Bright Pink Hat featuring Constable David Maratse.
It’s a gentle character piece, in which we follow Maratse on a tiny adventure at the end of a long day. Here’s the blurb:
At the end of a long day… there’s trouble in Greenland!
Constable David Maratse is ready to slump on the sofa with a book at the end of a long shift. But when a sledge dog puppy carrying a bright pink hat crosses his path, Maratse is compelled to investigate.
A Bright Pink Hat is a short and gentle character piece for new readers and existing fans of Greenland’s most popular fictive Police Constable.
Don’t buy this anywhere! Grab your free copy via this link. It is available in Kindle, ePub and PDF formats, and you can add it on Goodreads here.
And on the 12th day…
I realised that this is not the way I write. For better or worse, I am a planner. I don’t write by the seat of my pants. So, this whole discovery writing approach is screwing around with my way of working. This story needs out, but not like this. I apologise if you’ve been following this series of blog posts, but what felt like a good idea on New Year’s Eve simply isn’t any longer, at least not for me. Twelve days into the new year and I’m ready to stop messing about and finally get to work. There’s books to be written!
Maratse 365 #011
Maratse found a table as Gaba ordered at the counter. The tall SRU sergeant weaved a winding route to their table as he chatted on his phone, leaving Maratse to his thoughts, fingers pressed against the brushed stainless-steel rim of the round glass table. Pancake and hot chocolate smells mixed with the scent of ground coffee from the espressos Gaba ordered, forcing the memory of bloody seal and whale meat out of Maratse’s nose as Gaba joined him at the table.
“Espresso,” he said, as a young woman brought their coffee. “I got you a double, so it feels like a whole coffee.”
“Qujanaq.” Maratse fiddled his finger and thumb into the tiny handle of the espresso cup, then gave up and gripped it around the rim. Gaba laughed and made a point of extending his little finger as he lifted the cup to his lips.
“You’ll get used to it,” he said.
“Hmm.”
Gaba put his cup down and opened the plastic-wrapped cinnamon biscuit the waitress placed on the side of their saucers. “So, Constable. What news?”
“News?”
“You and Petra, in Nuuk. That’s news.” Gaba snapped the biscuit in two and popped one half into his mouth. “You left Inussuk. I never thought it would happen.”
“Petra needs to work. Her job is here.” Maratse paused as he thought about the promise he and Gaba made a few years earlier, that no harm would ever come to Petra again; a challenging task given the nature of policework. “She tried commuting, once a month, but…”
“It was too expensive.”
“I was going to say too long apart.”
“So you gave up the north for Petra.”
“Iiji.”
“And now you’re in the city…”
“Living in Petra’s apartment.”
“You’ll stay out of trouble?”
Maratse shrugged his shoulders and reached for his coffee.
“You see, Constable, that’s what makes this difficult.” The legs of Gaba’s chair scraped along the floor as he pushed back from the table. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “We had a deal, Maratse.”
“I don’t look for trouble.”
“Right.” Gaba lifted his head to look at Maratse. “Only we’ve been here before, Constable.” He nodded at Maratse’s jacket. “Wearing that doesn’t make you a cop. What happened in Inussuk, in Uummannaq, that can’t happen here. I can’t help you here. Not like that. Things are different in the city. You have to be different here. Do you understand?”
“Iiji.”
“I mean really understand.”
Maratse doubted that Petra knew about Gaba’s pep talk, but he didn’t doubt the sergeant’s love for her, how it had developed over the years he had known Gaba, from the careless love Gaba had shown Petra when they were together, to the deep affection and respect that he showed her now.
“Nothing will happen to Piitalaat,” Maratse said. “I’m not looking for trouble. But sometimes…”
“Trouble finds you.” Gaba laughed, then leaned back in his chair. He stretched one long leg over the other, adjusted his utility belt, and then reached for his coffee. “I know,” he said.
To be continued…
Copyright © Christoffer Petersen, 2021.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Maratse 365 #010
He left the eagles to make coffee, fumbling with the controls of Petra’s coffee machine for a few minutes before giving up and boiling water in her kettle. He dumped several spoonfuls of coffee grounds into a filter and let the water seep through it as he searched the bookshelf for a suitably thick science fiction novel. The meagre selection of books he owned combined with new opportunities now that he lived in the city, gave Maratse a purpose for the day.
“Library,” he said, pushing a well-read and tattered book back onto the shelf. He took his coffee with the ravens and left the apartment half an hour later.
Maratse caught the bus into the city centre, walked through the pedestrian area to the library, pausing at the hunter’s market, searching the plastic fish trays for something interesting, before wandering over to the richer, darker seal and whale meats. He left with the familiar scent of blood in his nostrils.
Maratse buried the sudden thought of his team of dogs on the beach in Inussuk, telling himself that midsummer in Nuuk was midsummer father north, that there was no ice, that the dogs were resting, that Karl…
Karl.
Maratse pictured his older neighbour, the gravedigger, the hunter.
Friend, he thought, swapping the smell of blood for the smoke of cigarettes as he two old men smoking on the street. Prince. Karl’s brand. Maratse nodded at the men and moved on, enjoying thoughts of his friend, following the thread across the short stretch of beach, up the stairs to Karl’s deck, then into his house, where Buuti placed a steaming pot of narwhal stew on the dining table.
Maratse stopped at the steps to the public library, felt his stomach growl, and clapped his hands across the front of his dirty jacket to stop it.
“You look lost, Constable.”
Maratse turned and nodded as Sergeant Gaba Alatak strode towards him. The sun caught the sergeant’s newly shaved head, and together with his height and his firm grip as he greeted Maratse, Gaba exuded strength and vitality, as he always had.
“Gaba,” Maratse said.
“I heard you came with Petra, but I had to see it to believe it.” Gaba tucked his thumbs behind his belt buckle and studied Maratse. “How’s city life?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
Maratse shrugged as if there was nothing more to say.
“You’re still wearing your jacket.”
“Iiji.”
“Still not ready to give up on being a policeman.”
“It’s what I know.”
Gaba nodded. “Police work and hunting.”
“Hmm.”
“It’s the same thing, Maratse.” Gaba leaned to one side and nodded at a café behind Maratse. “Come on, Constable. I’ll buy you a coffee and you can tell me about your romantic trip to Antarctica.”
“Romantic?”
“That’s what Petra called it. Although,” Gaba said, as they walked towards the café. “I heard different. She won’t say much about it, despite Atii pumping her for information, but the headlines.” Gaba laughed. “Yes, Constable, the headlines reached as far as Nuuk.”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“No? So, the death of a Chinese spymaster and his protégé – now gone rogue – loose on the streets…”
“Xiá is suffering,” Maratse said. He followed Gaba up the steps to the café entrance. “She’s misunderstood.”
“Aren’t we all,” Gaba said, as he opened the door.
To be continued…
Copyright © Christoffer Petersen, 2021.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.