‘Kate?’ The voice again.
Not a dream. ‘I’m here!’ I shout again, as loud as I can, waving my arms idiotically, although no one can see me. There, finally, I catch a faint beam of torchlight in the distance and start limping towards it.
‘What the fuck, Kate?’ Arne says as he reaches me, Drew close behind him. ‘What are you doing out here? We only just realised you were missing.’
‘I couldn’t find my torch.’ My words come out as a gulping sob. ‘Someone took it.’
‘You sure?’ Drew scours the ice with his own flashlight, but we’re too far now from where I was standing.
‘I had it with me,’ I insist, teeth chattering uncontrollably. ‘And then it was gone.’
‘Never mind.’ Arne turns his attention to my leg. ‘You’re limping.’
‘I fell over. Wrenched my knee.’
‘We’ll give you a hand.’ Drew hooks his arm under my shoulder and gestures Arne to do the same. ‘Let’s get you inside before you die of hypothermia.’
13
12 June
By the time we reach Alpha and climb the stairs to the boot room, I’m shaking so hard I can barely stand. My face tingles with a thousand tiny needles from the ice crystals that have formed in my skin – I know if I looked in the mirror I’d see the red flush of frostnip, the precursor to frostbite.
‘Thanks,’ I stammer to Drew and Arne as they release me and I sink onto a bench.
‘You okay?’ Drew’s eyes lock with mine for a beat or two.
‘I think so.’
‘Anything you need? Hot drink, something stronger?’
‘No, really, I’m fine. Honestly. Thanks, Drew.’
He nods. ‘I’d better find Sandrine and let her know you’re safe. Have a hot shower – that’ll warm you up fast.’
I think longingly of the bathtub back in my flat in Bristol. What wouldn’t I give right now for a long hot soak. I try to remove my outdoor gear, but my fingers are too numb. I fiddle with the zip of my jacket until Arne comes to my rescue.
‘Here, let me do it.’
Feebly, I let him peel it off me, then pull off my boots. My feet are so cold it’s almost painful. ‘Keep your salopettes on,’ he advises. ‘Wait till you warm up a bit.’
I nod, following him to my room, my injured knee throbbing painfully. Arne pulls back the duvet and I flop onto the bed, still fully clothed. ‘Forget that shower, I’ll fetch you a hot drink instead. I insist.’
I do as he says. Pull the duvet over me, and lie there shivering. Tentatively, I lift my left leg and try to bend my knee; a dart of pain, but I reckon the ligaments are okay. It’s never been quite right since the accident, and clearly falling on the ice hasn’t helped.
I reach underneath the mattress for some of the painkillers I’ve hidden and quickly swallow them down. Then lie back again, ignoring the discomfort in my leg and focusing on a lingering sense of unease.
What happened to my torch? How did I manage to lose it?
My chest still feels tight with the terror of being out there, lost, alone, growing ever colder and more convinced I was going to die on that unforgiving ice. ‘I told everyone you were okay.’ Arne returns, a mug in each hand, a bottle of bourbon tucked under his arm. He sets the mugs on my desk and tops them up with generous measures of alcohol. ‘Here.’
I try to take it from him, but I’m shivering too hard.
‘One sec.’ He disappears again and returns this time with a metal straw and a large blanket. Dropping the straw into the mug, he places it on my bedside table, then drapes the blanket over my duvet.
I lean over and take a sip. It’s delicious – sweet hot chocolate, with a distinctive nip. Within moments a welcome warmth spreads into my core.
Arne pulls up the desk chair and sits. He studies me, looking concerned. ‘You all right?’
‘I will be. Thank you for coming to my rescue.’
He nods, and carries on scrutinising my face. Despite his height, his formidable physical presence, Arne doesn’t seem to take up much space in the room. Something to do with the quiet confident way he holds himself, perhaps, a kind of internal poise.
‘Somebody took my torch,’ I say. ‘I put it on the ground by my feet, and I didn’t move the whole time.’
Arne frowns, and I realise how paranoid I sound. ‘Kate,’ he says gently, ‘it’s very easy to get disoriented out there, to lose track of things. We shouldn’t have left you, even for a few minutes. We assumed you were following on behind.’
I have another sip of my drink, then rest my head on the pillow and close my eyes. Maybe he’s right. I must have lost track of what I was doing – easily done, after all, when your attention is fixed elsewhere.
Then I remember my missing pills. No easy way to explain those.
‘If you like, I’ll take the skidoo out tomorrow,’ Arne offers. ‘I’ll go and find your torch.’
‘Would you?’ I give him a grateful smile. I can’t face going back out there myself. I flash back again to that enveloping darkness, the horror of being alone in its deadly embrace.
Stop it, Kate. I force my attention to the here and now. I’m warm, and safe. A soft glow inside from the hot chocolate and the numbing effect of the painkillers. I run my fingers over Arne’s blanket. It’s hand-knitted, a mix of complicated geometric shapes in natural tones of grey and brown, giving off a faint aroma of sheep.
‘Has Sonya seen this?’ I ask. ‘It’s lovely. And very cosy.’
Arne grins. ‘It’s made with yarn from Icelandic sheep. Their wool is well known for its thermal properties.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘My girlfriend knitted it, actually. Took her months. She was cursing me by the end.’
‘I bet. What a lovely gift.’
I watch stealthily as he leans back in the chair, inspecting my room. Again, I’m struck by his appearance. Not in-your-face handsome like Drew, but quieter, more affecting.
His girlfriend must really miss him.
‘You feeling any better?’ he asks, stretching out his legs until they almost touch the base of the bed.
I nod. I’ve finally stopped shivering, and the warmth is now flowing out from my core to my extremities. ‘Have you seen Alex, by the way?’
Arne shakes his head. ‘No sign of him all evening.’
I finish the rest of my drink and replace the mug on my bedside table. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Have you seen Alex smoking at all? Marijuana, I mean.’
Arne gives me an assessing look, evidently weighing his answer. ‘I haven’t. Why do you ask?’
‘It could explain a few things.’ Despite both Alex and Caro denying he smokes, it made sense. ‘I thought it could account for his behaviour, his conviction that someone tampered with Jean-Luc’s equipment.’ It would explain, too, how he might have missed stuff, how accidents might happen, but I don’t say that to Arne.
‘It could,’ Arne agrees. ‘Have you talked to him about it?’
I wince, remembering Alex’s outrage when I brought it up six weeks ago. I’ve tried several times to speak to him since, but he shut me down immediately. There seems little point in persisting.
‘Where do they get the stuff anyway?’ I sidestep Arne’s question with one of my own.
He shrugs. ‘Possibly Luuk brought it over, or somebody sent it to him. There’s a rumour that it’s grown somewhere on the station, using hydroponics, but that’s just another Antarctic urban legend. You get those kinds of stories on every base.’
I think of Drew, his hydroponic system for the salad. The neighbours down the road from me who were arrested for growing weed in their roof space. ‘Doesn’t sound that implausible,’ I say.
‘You can’t keep anything hidden here for that long. Sandrine turns a blind eye to people smoking, but there’s no way she’d tolerate them cultivating their own supply.’
I consider this. He’s probably right.
�
��So you’re cool with it?’ he asks, studying me. ‘People smoking out here?’
I shrug. ‘It’s probably better than getting drunk.’
‘Jean-Luc hated it. Said it screwed up his experiments and that it was too risky out here. Some people react really badly to the stronger strains, especially skunk.’
My predecessor had a point. I’ve seen quite a few cases of psychosis in my time on the ER, some caused by the super-strength cannabis sold on the streets.
‘For what it’s worth, I agree with you,’ Arne continues. ‘But Jean-Luc believed Luuk and anyone else caught using drugs should be thrown off the station.’
‘Was that why you didn’t get on with him? Luuk implied the two of you didn’t see eye to eye.’
Arne lets out a long breath that turns into a sigh. Sits up and rubs his cheek, as if checking whether he needs a shave. ‘He could be very … what is the word. Dog …’
‘Dogmatic?’
‘Yes. Inflexible.’
We sit in silence for a minute, both thinking. I grapple around for more conversation, finding I very much don’t want him to leave. ‘Do you have any idea why Alex said that stuff in the laundry room? About Jean-Luc being murdered.’
Arne adds more bourbon to the remains of his hot chocolate and takes a swig. ‘They were very close. Jean-Luc was a sort of father figure to him. His death hit Alex hard.’
‘Yes, it seems to have really knocked him for six.’
‘For six?’ Arne frowns.
‘Sorry, it’s a colloquialism, from cricket. It means you’re out of the game, devastated.’
‘I see. Yes, knocked him for six.’
‘Can you think of any reason why someone might want Jean-Luc dead?’
Arne’s mouth turns down in a kind of shrug. ‘No, I can’t.’ He sighs again, then fixes his gaze on mine. I get the sense he’s making his mind up about something. ‘Did Alex mention Jean-Luc’s things? His journal?’
‘No.’
‘When they got back – it took several days to return from the crevasse – Alex claimed somebody had stolen Jean-Luc’s laptop and journal from his room.’
‘Surely nobody would actually steal a dead man’s belongings?’ I raise my eyebrows, aghast. ‘Anyway, how did Alex know they were missing?’
‘I assume he checked Jean-Luc’s room before they cleared it out. It’s possible someone decided that since he was dead, they might as well help themselves.’
My frown deepens. The laptop perhaps, but the doctor’s journal? Why on earth would anybody want that?
‘Anyhow, Alex was pretty upset about it. He insisted Sandrine investigate.’
‘And did she?’
‘Briefly. She had enough on her hands trying to find a replacement doctor, and dealing with the aftermath of the accident. From what I heard she concluded one of the summer crew took them.’
Maybe not, I think, wondering if I should mention the theft from my own room. Impossible though. I can’t tell Arne without admitting what was stolen.
‘Alex was pretty upset about it,’ he adds. ‘He demanded Sandrine report it to UNA, but she refused.’
I reflect on Sandrine’s clipped manner. Her coldness. There’s a weariness behind it, I suspect, a barely contained anxiety. After all, she’s responsible for this whole station and the safety of everyone in it – not an easy burden at the best of times.
‘What happened to the rest of Jean-Luc’s stuff?’ I ask. ‘Was it flown home?’
‘It’s locked in a cupboard in Beta. I guess it’ll get shipped out in the spring.’
I frown. ‘How come? Don’t his family want his things back sooner?’
‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask Sandrine about that – it was her decision.’ But I detect evasion in Arne’s expression, the way his eyes won’t quite meet mine. There’s something he’s not telling me, I sense, but decide not to press him further.
‘What was Alex like,’ I ask, changing the subject, ‘before all this happened?’
He chews his lip, mulling this over. ‘That’s the thing – he was a pretty chilled, relaxed kind of guy. Happy. Completely different to how he is now.’
I picture Alex in that photo, standing next to Jean-Luc, arm draped over his shoulder. I can imagine that.
‘Why didn’t he go home afterwards? If it was so difficult for him to be here.’
‘I believe he felt … feels … that people would see it as an admission that it was his fault. He thought he had to stay … He—’ Arne stops, seems to change his mind about whatever he was about to say.
‘He thought what?’
Arne sighs again. ‘Alex said he wanted to get to the bottom of it, what happened to Jean-Luc.’
I think this over, then throw caution to the wind. ‘I heard there’d been an incident out in New Zealand.’ I’d tried, a while back, to unearth more detail on the internet, but found nothing except a brief report in a local paper. A couple of paragraphs that hadn’t added much to what Drew had already told me, beyond the girl’s name.
‘Yeah. Poor kid.’
‘The girl, or Alex?’
‘Both. It’s a tragedy either way you look at it.’
‘You don’t think it was Alex’s fault then? What happened out on the ice, with Jean-Luc.’
Arne shakes his head again. ‘I’ve worked with Alex, he checks everything three times. If he’s paranoid about anything, it’s about something failing.’
I study him, confused. ‘So you, what, agree it was sabotage? That somebody deliberately tampered with the equipment?’
‘No, Kate.’ Arne pauses, picking his words carefully. ‘This is Antarctica. Shit happens. Things don’t perform the way they do at home. It’s a high-risk environment, we’re working at extremes. I think it was a very unfortunate accident.’
‘And that girl in New Zealand?’
Arne shifts on the desk chair, clearly uncomfortable. ‘Just because it’s rare for something to go wrong, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen twice. Bungee jumping is also high risk, after all.’
He’s right, I decide, with a pang of pity for Alex. What a shitty hand he’s been dealt. I just hope he can find a way back from it all.
I make a fresh resolution to try to pin him down tomorrow, perhaps talk about medication; after all, I have a whole cupboard full of antidepressants.
‘Alex will be okay,’ Arne says, as if reading my mind. ‘He just needs to get off the ice and away from all this.’ He stretches his legs and stands. ‘And you look as if you could do with some sleep.’
‘Don’t forget this.’ I hold out the blanket.
‘Keep it as long as you need.’ He picks up the mugs, then lingers at the door. ‘And be careful in future, eh? Losing one doctor might be regarded as misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’
With that he exits, leaving me gazing after him in surprise. A vehicle mechanic who watches Tarkovsky and paraphrases Oscar Wilde.
That’s not someone you meet every day.
14
15 June
A knock on the clinic door one afternoon as I’m updating the blood results. Nothing unusual, though most of us are showing low levels of vitamin D – I need to make sure people are taking their supplements.
I’m pleased to see Caro’s face appear, but my smile fades as I spot a telltale redness around her eyes and nose.
‘You busy?’ she asks.
‘Not at all. Have a seat.’
She sits opposite, grasping a crumpled tissue. I feel a twinge of alarm. What’s this about? Has she had another run-in with Luuk?
‘Has something happened?’ I put a reassuring hand on her arm.
Caro fidgets with the tissue, visibly swallowing. Suddenly she bursts into tears. Great convulsive sobs shake her whole body, her breath emerging in ragged gasps. But she still doesn’t speak.
‘Caro,’ I prompt, increasingly anxious to see this level-headed girl in such a state. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
She swipes her eyes
with the tissue, then inhales. ‘I’m pregnant.’
I stare at her, open-mouthed, trying to process this. ‘Pregnant?’ I repeat dumbly. ‘Are you sure?’
She nods. ‘I haven’t had a period in a while.’ She swallows, looks away. ‘A long while, actually.’
Oh God. I sit there, winded, unable to disguise my shock.
Pregnant.
Holy fuck.
Of all the medical emergencies I’ve trained for out here – or conjured up in my head in the dead of night – this is not one of them. UNA makes it clear to all female staff that they must maintain reliable contraception – a pregnancy out here in the middle of winter could be disastrous.
‘Oh shit.’
Caro flushes, and I realise I’ve said it out loud.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I’ve been completely fucking stupid. I should have told you earlier.’
‘It’s a surprise, that’s all.’ I pull myself together. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘That’s not exactly true, is it?’ Caro grimaces.
‘It takes two,’ I retort, wondering about the father. Is it someone currently on the base, or one of the summer team? I contemplate asking, but decide it’s none of my business. ‘Do you remember the date of your last period?’
Caro looks uneasy. ‘I’m not certain, to be honest. I was using a contraceptive patch for a while, and there was never much … only spotting. That’s …’ More tears roll down her cheeks. ‘That’s how I didn’t realise … for so long, I mean.’
I glance at her belly, but it’s impossible to discern anything under those baggy dungarees.
Fuck. What the hell am I going to do?
‘Right.’ I take a breath, collecting myself. ‘First things first. Let’s do a test to confirm, okay?’
I get up, knee twinging despite the support bandage I’ve worn since wrenching it on the ice three nights ago, and root around in the supplies cupboard. Do we even have pregnancy tests? I can’t remember seeing any.
The Dark Page 12
