The Ice

by Laline Paull

  ‘That’s so pretty, would you like to see?’

  A smiling sales consultant was already unlocking the case before him, and lifting out a black ceramic watch with a diamond bevel. Sean took it from her. Yes, it would look good on Martine. The sales consultant cocked her head.

  ‘Someone special?’

  ‘Is it waterproof?’ He imagined it dripping on Martine’s wrist when she wore a black bikini. He knew she wanted to be invited onto Kingsmith’s beloved yacht Brisingamen, the nearest place he had to a home. He would ask him about it over lunch, and Kingsmith would say yes or no, or more likely not even acknowledge the request, but he would definitely remember. As if by telepathy, his phone trembled in his pocket and he grabbed it at once – Joe never let it ring more than three times before hanging up.

  The name Rupert Parch flashed on the screen. Sean knew him vaguely, he was not quite sure how, but apparently he had given him his number.

  ‘Rupert.’

  ‘Is that the famous polar explorer?’ said an enthusiastic voice. ‘I said I’d get you. I’m testing this amazeballs app from the MoD, locates your contacts. Asymmetric intel, heard it here first. Probably not though, you’re well clued up. DQM, though.’ Which in Parch-speak meant: don’t quote me. ‘That’s a nice watch, by the way, you should get it.’

  Sean spun round. Parch’s voice was in his ear, and also coming up behind him in person, a big smile on his beaming face, his hand out-thrust. Sean took it and Parch pumped enthusiastically.

  ‘You – are – the coming man! Massive congrats!’ He looked around conspiratorially. ‘Ah, but maybe you’re still keeping the schtum-powder on it? Shouldn’t bother, everyone’s talking about you. Sean Cawson has never been so sexy. True dat.’

  Somewhere in his early forties, Parch still looked like a naughty schoolboy, with bright colourless eyes that sparkled, pale brown hair he wore to one side, a slim frame and a rapid, confident delivery. Sean was never quite sure what Parch actually did; he seemed to move around a lot, like some kind of cleaning fish, his exuberance commensurate with the status of his current host. Large, by his manner.

  ‘Have you just traced me, illegally?’

  ‘Illegally? As if! I just happened to be in the area. Although sadly not dropping sixty grand on man-candy like the plutocrat I’ll never be, hashtag sighs. No, definitely not illegally. But you have correctly sussed that Parch has gone up in the world. And my master is terribly impressed with your latest news.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘Don’t freeze me out.’ Parch looked even more innocent. ‘Anyway, he desires me fetch you to him for a spot of luncheon, were you available at such short notice.’

  ‘And your master is?’

  ‘Philip Stowe. I’m his new private secretary. Proud to say I’ve already outlasted my predecessor. Very talented man.’

  Sean had heard many other things too. Stowe had seized the post of Defence Secretary after a vicious and decimating Westminster rumble of his own creation. Sean waited for his payment to be processed. Stowe had sent for him? He felt Parch’s eyes on his back and smelled his soapy cologne.

  ‘Might you be free? Offers like this don’t tend to repeat. Unlike my master, but I shall never mention that. By the way, there’s a car waiting outside, on a double yellow. Only if you had no other plans. I’ll run along if you do.’

  Sean’s phone buzzed again, this time Kingsmith. He had never before dropped his call. But the money was banked, the deal done, and Midgard Lodge was his. The buzzing stopped, and Parch turned from the display case over which he’d busied himself.

  ‘Nothing vital?’

  ‘I’m free.’

  ‘Good man! Hope Indian’s OK? One of those pop-ups, all the rage. And if you don’t mind my saying, you look like you could kill a Cobra.’

  Inouarfigssouak, Grand Massacre Bay

  Grand Massacre? Kratoutsiak explained it in a few words. The story, though old, is worth telling. It remains in all memories.

  Two boys were fighting on the shore of an island – the island where we were. A little brutally perhaps, like most children. One of them fell over. He shouted. The other, to keep him quiet, pummelled him with feet and fist. By chance, the grandfather of the fallen boy saw him. He ran up and joined them as he ought. There was a battle. Full of anger he hit so hard that one of the boys fell dead upon the rock. The other grandfather was furious and intervened. So did fathers, shrieking mothers, mothers-in-law, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. The whole camp was fighting. Injuries, invectives, horrors. All were in a state of unspeakable fury. They threw stones and bones at one another’s heads. Someone pursued a woman with a bloodstained harpoon. They destroyed themselves. Of the whole village only one person was left.

  The story does not say how the survivor died.

  The Last Kings of Thule (1956)

  Jean Malaurie

  11

  As the ministerial car with darkened windows headed south, Sean assumed he was meeting Stowe at Westminster, and all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was Parch’s misplaced sense of drama, intended to impress Sean with his own command of perks. But they skirted Parliament Square and sped east along the Thames, and Parch begged Sean’s forgiveness in not saying more.

  By the time they were passing the Tower of London, Sean guessed they were en route to Docklands, and by Canning Town and the highly visible police presence on the streets, he remembered seeing some protest on the news about the bi-annual arms fair, held at ExCel Centre. Parch rolled his eyes.

  ‘Word to the wise: we say Defence Expo.’ They looked out. A dense crowd of respectable-looking businessmen, and a few women, waited at the main entrance. Many had flight cases. ‘The British Government would not dream of sponsoring something as mercenary as an arms fair. Oops, don’t say that word either.’

  ‘What, mercenary?’ Sean enjoyed his temporary Whitehall gravitas, reflected in the faces of the armed police waving their car through security.

  ‘I’m serious. I can’t tell you why you’re here because all I know is that Stowe’s keen to meet you, so I crow-barred some daylight in his diary then chased you down, like the good dog I am. I’m guessing it’s a one-shot opportunity, but who for I don’t know. DQM, or poor Parch will be thrown off the gravy train.’

  The car passed through tall steel gates and into the shadow of a line of battleships, moored outside the conference centre. As they got out they paused with a small crowd, watching a black-clad commando team demonstrate how they would take a ship, from a rigid inflatable boat several storeys below on the brown water of the Thames. Six men in balaclavas shot lines that attached to the freeboard of the ship, which they then scaled with extraordinary strength and dexterity. Watching them, Sean felt soft and inadequate.

  ‘Here’ – Parch slipped a lanyard over his head – ‘you’re an MoD consultant for the day. Anyone asks if you’re a journalist, leave them in no doubt. One weaselled in yesterday under false pretences, then refused to leave. Started shouting about freedom of information. Like he’d know what to do with it. Come on, I’m starving.’

  Parch’s ‘super-cool pop-up’ was in the Officers’ Mess of the Indian naval destroyer Kali. At the top of the gangplank a phalanx of dazzlingly starched Indian naval officers waited to welcome them and Parch was as airy in his greetings as if he were the British Defence Secretary himself. He led Sean through to the source of the delicious aromas – a buffet hidden behind a wall of tall and broad khaki, navy and black backs, gold braid abundant on their shoulders. There was no getting through for a while, so he and Parch accepted samosas and bottled Cobra beer from passing waiters. Parch looked wistful.

  ‘We did one on ours, yesterday. A lunch. Friends, allies and countrymen, poached salmon and Coronation effing chicken, who thought of that? I wouldn’t say the tumbleweed blew, but it was nothing like this. Waft a bit of curry around, et voilà! Prey and predator at the watering hole. Spend on the catering, that’s the motto. A beast with a full belly is safer.’ He dro
pped his voice. ‘Problem with old Team GB is, their tastes were formed at public school. No gristle in the custard, they send it back.’

  Sean tried not to stare. The mess looked like a fancy-dress party before people had had enough to drink. The bristling moustaches did not look real, and the braid and ribbons were comically bright. Out of a porthole he could see a golf-buggy full of men in Arab robes stopping at the bottom of the gangplank. One had a large hooded bird on his wrist.

  At that moment, a volley of laughter burst from a nearby group and Sean saw the face of the British Defence Secretary, animated at its centre. The Indian commodores and generals around him were vastly amused.

  ‘Probably just mentioned Coronation Chicken,’ Parch murmured, smiling deferentially at his boss. Stowe nodded to Sean and held up his finger. Like Kingsmith, he thought. Sit, stay, up for a biscuit. But … good biscuits.

  ‘Before I go,’ Parch said in a low voice, ‘he’s very pro your price. For what you’ve pulled off, everyone thinks you deserve it.’

  Sean took a slow pull at his Cobra. Stowe could have arranged a meeting in London at any time. Why here, why now? Whatever he wanted must be important.

  ‘My price?’

  ‘Come on.’ Parch looked at him sideways. ‘A Special K. You said you wanted one.’

  ‘Wasn’t that some kind of old nightclub drug?’ Sean knew exactly what it was, slang for a knighthood. But how on earth did Parch know he wanted that?

  ‘I believe it might have been. Didn’t you mention it at that brilliant party after Wimbledon last year? Or was it Royal Ascot? Land of Hope and Glory ring any bells?’

  ‘Not really.’ Sean looked at his watch.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Parch pleaded.

  Sean drank his beer. He remembered all too well. It was at a post-racing party in Berkshire held on the Last Night of the Proms. Things had been very bad with Gail – or rather, he had behaved extremely badly yet again and only a massive bender could anaesthetise his shame.

  It had all culminated at this party. At first all was well – he liked the beautiful horses in their stables and the Union Jack bunting, he liked the strangers who shared their coke, he liked the cocktails – and then out of nowhere he was talking about his marriage, any marriage, surely everyone knew marriage was hard, surely everyone needed help?

  The coke grabbed him by the lapels and announced through his drunken mouth that he didn’t mean to be such a shit, he was going to fix that just like he’d fixed himself his whole life, he wasn’t finished yet, and one day it was his ambition – he was up on a table by this stage – his ambition to serve his country and do something that mattered. He would show the world that he was a man of honour and the proof would be that he, Sean Cawson from nowhere, would win a fucking knighthood. For his country. He loved his country even if it didn’t love him. People had clapped, someone had helped him down. No. He had fallen.

  ‘I was totally fucked up too,’ Parch confided, ‘much worse than you, don’t even worry. I only remember it because it was such a rousing speech. You were like Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he’s going to kill the one with the twisty face. I knew you meant every word and I thought, aha now, there’s a man to watch. And wasn’t I right? By the way, I even heard you mentioned at Chatham House the other day, in the same breath as the words: paradigm shift. Before you won the bid. Certain people have been watching you very closely. Obviously I can’t reveal who.’

  ‘Obviously.’ Sean felt his heart beating faster at that terrible memory. He had never taken coke again, nor seen those people again. While Parch wittered on, name-dropping the latest world leaders and giving the impression he was almost on sleepover terms, Sean kept an eye on Philip Stowe. One more minute, then he would leave. The new Defence Secretary ensured he paid smiling and intent attention to each of the Indians in the circle. Sean could not decide which way the interview was going – or if it were a circle of wolves deciding whether they would eat the creature in the middle. As he looked at his watch, Stowe disengaged from the group. He put down his beer and wiped his hands.

  ‘Go away, Parch.’ Philip Stowe had a pleasant voice and twinkly eyes, which he kept on Sean. He offered his hand. ‘Good of you to come.’

  ‘And you to ask.’ Sean shook with equal brevity and firmness. Stowe had asked for the date, let him lead.

  ‘How’d you do it?’ Stowe didn’t mess around. ‘Midgardfjorden. Not the biggest, not the prettiest, ruled out weeks ago – but suddenly you’ve got the ring on your finger.’

  ‘Charm?’ Sean picked up his beer again. Parch was already on the far side of the mess, hooting with laughter at someone’s joke. Stowe didn’t smile.

  ‘Well done. However you did it. Wanted to congratulate you in person, not bloody email. How many do you get a day? Don’t tell me – I don’t care. Give me a proper problem, that’s my pleasure.’ His smile flashed. ‘So, the Midgard Consortium—’

  ‘Trust. It’s a trust.’

  Stowe’s eyes flickered at his misinformation.

  ‘A trust. Registered in Tortola, administrated through Jersey?’

  Stowe was guessing. He had no legal power to compel Sean to shed more light, and was himself known for many obscure directorships. He knew all the routes. Sean smiled. Stowe looked irritated for a second.

  ‘So that’s your management company for the consortium. Private British equity with some foreign partners, correct?’

  ‘Correct, sir.’ Sean intuitively added the sir, not from respect but because he’d sized up Stowe as not nearly as rich as he was grand – and therefore likely to resent the far greater wealth of the self-made man. Whatever deal was on the table, Sean wanted him to feel superior. That was when people revealed themselves.

  Stowe’s eyes were also recording Sean. ‘You got, what? Forty, forty-five per cent majority?’

  ‘Fifty-one.’ That much Stowe could discover; he would save him the trouble. ‘The balance shared between my foreign partners, one of whom has dual Swiss-American citizenship. But in both law and cultural perception, Midgard Lodge will be a British enterprise.’

  ‘You’re the CEO. Buck stops with you.’

  ‘One hundred per cent. The work has begun and should be completed next year. The season is very short.’

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘I commissioned the plans when I made the proposal to the vendors. I’ve had the architect and contractors on retainer.’

  Stowe raised an eyebrow and Sean knew what he was thinking. How expensive. But instead the Defence Secretary looked thoughtful.

  ‘Midgard. Norse mythology. The world of men.’

  ‘That’s the name of the fjord, since whaling days. Maybe because the mountains are in the shape of—’

  ‘Fascinating political environment, Svalbard.’ Stowe looked up as the Middle Eastern golf-buggy passengers with the hawk entered. He paused to catch their eye and raise his hand, before turning back to Sean.

  ‘Our Norwegian friends are relieved it was bought by a British citizen.’

  ‘Rather than …?’

  Stowe twitched a smile. ‘The Russians still believe Svalbard is theirs. Svalbard and a large part of the Arctic up to and including the North Pole.’

  ‘Because of the Lomonosov Ridge.’

  ‘Exactly. We’d do exactly the same if we could. Shetland doesn’t quite cut it.’

  ‘But don’t Norway and Russia have an amicable relationship on Svalbard?’

  ‘Amicable is a word that only ever implies tension.’

  Sean thought of the email from Gail’s lawyer, waiting in his inbox first thing that morning. The word ‘amicable’ had been used. The Arab group were moving closer, the bird now unhooded and staring around with fierce golden eyes. A nervous waiter came up with a saucer of raw meat. The bird turned away.

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ Stowe didn’t look. ‘They’re early. Bringing the falcon’s a good sign. We’ve got too many pigeons. Tell me the real reason they chose you.’

  ‘Tell me
why I’m here.’

  ‘You’re attracted to power. You’re curious.’

  Sean decided he liked Stowe after all.

  ‘OK: the money was right, but we’re small, British, environmentally committed – we’re not a threat.’

  Stowe leaned forward.

  ‘Bullseye. No flags on the seabed, no subs turning up unannounced with two hundred men for an unscheduled sleepover, no new settlements under construction. You’re a legitimate British business with an environmental champion at your helm, a clean tech hedge fund filling in, and a Chinese partner bringing stability and responsible investment to Guinea Bissau and the DRC.’ The eyes twinkled again. ‘Or do I mean the Central African Republic?’

  ‘Both.’ Sean didn’t smile. ‘It’s like you’ve read the confidential bid proposal. It’s like you can see my emails.’

  Stowe waved that away. ‘You’ll offer different security details for each retreat?’

  ‘I’m anticipating we’ll have VIPs, I hope political as well as corporate.’

  ‘Bit of a faff, isn’t it? All that bureaucracy with the Sysselmann’s office each time, all those different permits?’

  ‘We’ll manage.’

  ‘And you trust all your partners.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Even though you know Greenpeace does more to ruin brand GB than—’

  ‘That’s contentious. Anyway, Tom left Greenpeace over five years ago. I trust him with my life and his participation is the reason we closed the deal.’

  ‘And in so doing, created a unique opportunity to serve your country.’

  Time slowed for Sean. The great door was opening at last – to what, he didn’t know. But the Defence Secretary of Great Britain was definitely offering him something.