Bear Island

by Alistair MacLean

  ‘And what does that mean?’ Smithy asked.

  ‘Some sort of quick-drying paint, I should imagine.’

  ‘Everything shipshape and Bristol fashion,’ Smithy said. ‘I wouldn’t have given Otto the credit.’ He shivered. ‘Maybe it isn’t snowing in here, but I’d have you know that I’m very cold indeed. This place reminds me of an iron tomb.’

  ‘It isn’t very cosy. Up and away.’

  ‘A fruitless search, you might say?’

  ‘You might. I didn’t have many hopes anyway.’

  ‘Is that why you changed your mind about their getting on with the making of the film? One minute indifference, the next advising them to press on? So that you could, perhaps, examine their quarters and their possessions when they’re out?’

  ‘Whatever put such a thought in your mind, Smithy?’

  ‘There are a thousand snowdrifts where a person could hide anything.’

  ‘That’s a thought that’s also in my mind.’

  We made the trip from the jetty to the main cabin with much greater ease than we had the other way, for this time we had the faint and diffuse glow of light from the Colemans to guide us. We scrambled back inside our cubicle without too much difficulty, brushed the snow from our boots and upper clothing and hung the latter up: compared to the interior of the submarine shell the warmth inside the cubicle was positively genial. I took screwdriver and screws and started to secure the window, while Smithy, after some references to the low state of his health, retrieved the bottle I’d taken from the provisions shed and took two small beakers from my medical box. He watched me until I had finished.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s us safe for the night. How about the others?’

  ‘I don’t think most of the others are in any danger because they don’t offer any danger to the plans of our friend or friends.’

  ‘Most of the others?’

  ‘I think I’ll screw up Judith Haynes’s window too.’

  ‘Judith Haynes?’

  ‘I have a feeling that she is in danger. Whether it’s grave danger or imminent danger I have no idea. Maybe I’m just fey.’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ Smithy said ambiguously. He drank some scotch absently. ‘I’ve just been thinking myself, but along rather different lines. When, do you think, is it going to occur to our directorial board to call some law in or some outside help or, at least, to let the world know that the employees of Olympus Productions are dying off like flies and not from natural causes either?’

  ‘That’s the decision you would arrive at?’

  ‘If I wasn’t a criminal, or, in this case, the criminal and had very powerful reasons for not wanting the law around, yes, I would.’

  ‘I’m not a criminal but I’ve very powerful reasons for not wanting the law around either. The moment the law officially steps into the picture every criminal thought, intent and potential action will go into deep freeze and we’ll be left with five unresolved deaths on our hands and that’ll be the end of it, for there’s nothing surer than that we haven’t got a thing to hang on anyone yet. There’s only one way and that’s by giving out enough rope for a hanging job.’

  ‘What if you give out too much rope and our friend, instead of hanging himself, hangs one of us instead? What if there’s murder?’

  ‘In that case we’d have to call in the law. I’m here to do a job in the best way I can but that doesn’t mean by any means I can: I can’t use the innocent as sacrificial pawns.’

  ‘Well, that’s some relief. But if the thought does occur to them?’

  ‘Then obviously we’ll have to try to contact Tunheim—there’s a Meteorological Office radio there that should just about reach the moon. Or we’ll have to offer to try to contact Tunheim. It’s less than ten miles away but in weather conditions like these it might as well be on the far side of Siberia. If the weather eases, it might be possible. The wind’s veering round to the west now and if it stayed in that quarter a trip by boat up the coast might be possible—pretty unpleasant, but just possible. If it goes much north of west, it wouldn’t—those are only open work-boats and would be swamped in any kind of sea. By land—if the snow stopped—well, I just don’t know. In the first place, the terrain is so broken and mountainous that you couldn’t possibly use the little Sno-Cat—you’d have to make it on foot. You’d have to go well inland, to the west, to avoid the Misery Fell complex for that ends in cliffs on the east coast. There are hundreds of little lakes lying in that region and I’ve no idea how heavily they may be frozen over, maybe some of them not very much, maybe just enough to support a covering of snow and not a man—and I believe some of those lakes are over a hundred feet deep. You might be ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep in snow. And apart from being bogged-down or drowned, we’re not equipped for winter travel, we haven’t even got a tent for an overnight stop—there isn’t a hope of you making it in one day—and if the snow started falling again and kept on falling I bet Olympus Productions haven’t even as much as a hand compass to prevent you from walking in circles until you drop dead from cold or hunger or just plain old exhaustion.’

  ‘“You, you, you”,’ Smithy said. ‘You’re always talking about me. How about you going instead?’ He grinned. ‘Of course, I could always set off for there, search around till I found some convenient cave or shelter, hole up there for the night, and return the next day announcing mission impossible.’

  ‘We’ll see how the cards fall.’ I finished my drink and picked up screwdriver and screws. ‘Let’s go and see how Miss Haynes is.’

  Miss Haynes seemed to be in reasonable health. No fever, normal pulse, breathing deeply and evenly: how she would feel when she woke was another matter altogether. I screwed up her window until nobody could have entered her room from the outside without smashing their way in—and breaking through two sheets of plate glass would cause enough racket to wake up half the occupants of the cabin. Then we went into the living area of the cabin.

  It was surprisingly empty. At least ten people I would have expected to be there were absent, but a quick mental count of the missing heads convinced me that there was no likely cause for alarm in this. Otto, the Count, Heissman and Goin, conspicuously absent, were probably in secret conclave in one of their cubicles discussing weighty matters which they didn’t wish their underlings to hear. Lonnie had almost certainly betaken himself again in his quest for fresh air and I hoped that he hadn’t managed to lose himself between the cabin and the provisions hut. Allen, almost certainly, had gone to lie down again, and I presumed that Mary darling, who appeared to have overcome a great number of her earlier inhibitions, had returned to her dutiful hand-holding. I couldn’t imagine where the Three Apostles had got to nor was I particularly worried: I was sure that there was nothing to fear from them other than permanent damage to the eardrums.

  I crossed to where Conrad was presiding over a three-burner oil cooker mounted on top of a stove. He had two large pans and a large pot all bubbling away at once, stew, beans and coffee, and he seemed to be enjoying his role of chef not least, I guessed, because he had Mary Stuart as his assistant. In another man I would have looked for a less than altruistic motive in this cheerful willingness, the hail-fellow-well-met leading man playing the democrat to an admiring gallery, but I knew enough of Conrad now to realize that this formed no part of his nature at all: he was just a naturally helpful character who never thought to place himself above his fellow-actors. Conrad, I thought, must be a very rara avis indeed in the cinema world.

  ‘What’s all this, then?’ I said. ‘You qualified for this sort of thing? I thought Otto had appointed the Three Apostles as alternate chefs?’

  ‘The Three Apostles had it in mind to start improving their musical technique in this very spot,’ Conrad said. ‘I did a self-defence trade with them. They’re practising across in the equipment hut—you know, where the generator is.’

  I tried to imagine the total degree of cacophony produced by their atonal voices, their
amplified instruments and the diesel engine in a confined space of eight by eight, but my imagination wasn’t up to it. I said: ‘You deserve a medal. You too, Mary dear.’

  ‘Me?’ She smiled. ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember what I said about the goodies pairing off with the baddies? Delighted to see you keeping a close eye on our suspect here. Haven’t seen his hand hovering suspiciously long over one of the pots, have you?’

  She stopped smiling. ‘I don’t think that’s funny, Dr Marlowe.’

  ‘I don’t think it is either. A clumsy attempt to lighten the atmosphere.’ I looked at Conrad. ‘Can I have a word with the chef?’

  Conrad looked at me briefly, speculatively, nodded and turned away. Mary Stuart said: ‘That’s nice. For me, I mean. Why can’t you have a word with him here?’

  ‘I’m going to tell him some funny stories. You don’t seem to care much for my humour.’ I walked away a few paces with Conrad and said: ‘Had a chance of a word with Lonnie yet?’

  ‘No. I mean, I haven’t had an opportunity yet. Is it that urgent?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think it may be. Look, I haven’t seen him there but I’m certain as can be that Lonnie is across in the provisions hut.’

  ‘Where Otto keeps all those elixirs of life?’

  ‘You wouldn’t expect to find Lonnie in the fuel shed? Diesel and petrol aren’t his tipples. I wonder if you could go across there, seeking liquid solace from this harsh and weary world, from Bear Island, from Olympus Productions, from whatever you like, and engage him in crafty conversation. Touch upon the theme of how you’re missing your family. Anything. Just get him to tell you about his.’

  He hesitated. ‘I like Lonnie. I don’t like this job.’

  ‘I’m past caring now about people’s feelings. I’m just concerned with people’s lives—that they should keep on living, I mean.’

  ‘Right.’ He nodded and looked at me soberly. ‘Taking a bit of a chance, aren’t you? Enlisting the aid of one of your suspects, I mean.’

  ‘You’re not on my list of suspects,’ I said. ‘You never were.’

  He looked at me for some moments then said: ‘Tell that to Mary dear, will you?’ He turned and made for the outer door. I returned to the oil cooker. Mary Stuart looked at me with her usual grave and remote lack of expression.

  I said: ‘Conrad tells me to tell you that I’ve just told him—you’re following me?—that he’s not on my list of suspects and never was.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ She gave me a little smile but there was a touch of winter in it.

  ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘you are displeased with me.’

  ‘Well.’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Are you a friend of mine?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ She mimicked my tone very creditably. ‘Dr Marlowe is a friend of all mankind.’

  ‘Dr Marlowe doesn’t hold all mankind in his arms all night long.’

  Another smile. This time there was a touch of spring in it. She said: ‘And Charles Conrad?’

  ‘I like him. I don’t know what he thinks about me.’

  ‘And I like him and I know he likes me and so we’re all friends together.’ I thought better of saying ‘of course’ again and just nodded. ‘So why don’t we all share secrets together?’

  ‘Women are the most curious creatures,’ I said. ‘In every sense of the word “curious”.’

  ‘Please don’t be clever with me.’

  ‘Do you always share secrets?’ She frowned a little, as if perplexed, and I went on: ‘Let’s play kiddies’ games, shall we? You tell me a secret and I’ll tell you one.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘This secret assignation you had yesterday morning. In the snow and on the upper deck. When you were being so very affectionate with Heissman.’

  I’d expected some very positive reaction from this and was correspondingly disappointed when there was none. She looked at me, silently thoughtful, then said: ‘So you were spying on us.’

  ‘I just happened to chance by.’

  ‘I didn’t see you chancing by.’ She bit her lip, but not in any particularly discernible anguish. ‘I wish you hadn’t seen that.’

  ‘Why?’ It had been briefly in my mind to be heavily ironic but I could hear a little warning bell tinkling in the distance.

  ‘Because I don’t want people to know.’

  ‘That’s obvious,’ I said patiently. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m not very proud of it. I have to make a living, Dr Marlowe. I came to this country only two years ago and I haven’t got any qualifications for anything. I haven’t even got any qualifications for what I’m doing now. I’m a hopeless actress. I know I am. I’ve just got no talent at all. The last two films I was in—well, they were just awful. Are you surprised that people give me the cold shoulder, why they’re wondering out loud why I’m making my third film with Olympus Productions? Well, you can guess now: Johann Heissman is the why.’ She smiled, just a very small smile. ‘You are surprised, Dr Marlowe? Shocked, perhaps?’

  ‘No.’

  The little smile went away. Some of the life went from her face and when she spoke her voice was dull. ‘It is so easy, then, to believe this of me?’

  ‘Well, no. The point is that I just don’t believe you at all.’

  She looked at me, her face a little sad and quite uncomprehending. ‘You don’t believe—you don’t believe this of me?’

  ‘Not of Mary Stuart. Not of Mary dear.’

  Some of the life came back and she said almost wonderingly: ‘That’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.’ She looked down at her hands, as if hesitating, then said, without looking up: ‘Johann Heissman is my uncle. My mother’s brother.’

  ‘Your uncle?’ I’d been mentally shuffling all sorts of possibilities through my mind, but this one hadn’t even begun to occur to me.

  ‘Uncle Johann.’ Again the little, almost secret smile, this time with what could have been an imagined trace of mischief: I wondered what her smile would be like if she ever smiled in pure delight or happiness. ‘You don’t have to believe me. Just go and ask him yourself. But privately, if you please.’

  Dinner that night wasn’t much of a social success. The atmosphere of cheerful good fellowship which is required to make such communal get-togethers go with a swing was noticeably lacking. This may have been due, partially, to the fact that most people either ate by their solitary selves or, both sitting and standing, in scattered small groups around the cabin, their attention almost exclusively devoted to the unappetizing goulash in the bowls held in their hands: but it was mainly due to the fact that everybody was clearly and painfully aware that we were experiencing the secular equivalent of our own last supper. For the interest in the food was not all-absorbing: frequently, but very very briefly, a pair of eyes would break off their rapt communion with the stew and beans, glance swiftly around the cabin, then return in an oddly guilty defensiveness to the food as if the person had hoped in that one lightning ocular sortie to discover some unmistakable tell-tale signs that would infallibly identify the traitor in our midst. There were, needless to say, no such overt indications of self-betrayal on display, and the problem of identification was deepened and confused by the fact that most of those present exhibited a measure of abnormality in their behaviour that would ordinarily have given rise to more than a modicum of suspicion anyway: for it is an odd characteristic of human nature that even the most innocent person who knows himself or herself to be under suspicion tends to over-react with an unnatural degree of casual indifference and insouciant concern that serves only to heighten the original suspicion.

  Otto, clearly, was not one of those thus afflicted. Whether it was because he knew himself to be one of those who was regarded as being completely in the clear or because, as chairman of the company and producer of the film, he regarded himself as being above and apart from the problems that afflicted the common run of mank
ind, Otto was remarkably composed and, astonishingly, even forceful and assertive. Unlikely though it had appeared up to that moment, Otto, normally so dithering and indecisive, might well be one of those who only showed of their best in the moments of crisis. There was certainly nothing dithering or indecisive about him when he rose to speak at the end of the meal.

  ‘We are all aware,’ said Otto briskly, ‘of the dreadful happenings of the past day or two, and I think that we have no alternative to accepting Dr Marlowe’s interpretation of the events. Further, I fear we have to accept as very real the doctor’s warnings as to what may happen in the near future.

  ‘Those are inescapable facts and entirely conceivable possibilities so please don’t for a moment imagine that I’m trying to minimize the seriousness of the situation. On the contrary, it would be impossible to exaggerate it, impossible to exaggerate an impossible situation. Here we are, marooned in the high Arctic and beyond any reach of help, with the knowledge that there are those of us who have come to a violent end and that this violence may not yet be over.’ He looked unhurriedly around the company and I did the same: I could see that there were quite a number who were as impressed by Otto’s calm assessment of the situation as I was. He went on: ‘It is precisely because the state of affairs in which we find ourselves is so unbelievable and so abnormal that I suggest we comport ourselves in the most rational and normal fashion possible. A descent into hysteria will achieve no reversal of the awful things that have just occurred and can only harm all of us.