by L. A. Larkin
‘Were you?’
‘Dad built boats. You and I never really talked.’
‘No, we didn’t.’
Luke released the throttle and let the engine stop. He tried uncurling his hand but it took several goes to flex his stiff fingers.
Maddie checked the compass as Luke sat on the edge of the boat, next to the engine, their bags at his feet. Apart from the soft wash of water against the rubber, there was silence. Luke took a tomato sauce bottle filled with water from inside his parka; he kept it there to stop it freezing. Luke drank sparingly and handed it to Maddie.
‘Unbelievable really,’ said Luke, looking around at the ice. ‘There’s water everywhere but only a sauce bottle’s worth to drink.’
‘Like the poem. You know, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”? How did it go?’ Maddie frowned, trying to remember.
‘ “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” I know how that sailor felt.’
Maddie’s smile was partially hidden by the thick collar of her parka, but Luke could see the upturned corners of her mouth peeking above the fabric. ‘I didn’t think you’d like poetry,’ she said, handing him back the bottle.
‘At school I was into anything to do with the sea and wildlife – oh, and ice, of course. I guess the sailor got what was coming to him after killing the albatross.’
‘Yeah, I remember thinking that too. But literature wasn’t my thing. It was biology. Apparently, as a kid I kept asking how, not why. How does the eye work? How does the phone work? I must’ve been a real pain.’
‘Explains why you’re so good at what you do. I’ve seen you solve problems nobody else could.’
‘Thanks, Luke. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said.’
‘My pleasure.’ Luke affected a bow, which made her laugh. ‘So what are you doing here then, Maddie?’
Her smile dropped like a blind across a window. ‘Oh, you know. It pays well. Adventure. No ties. The usual.’
Luke placed the bottle back in his pocket and leaned against the side of the boat. ‘Oh-kay,’ he said slowly.
Maddie’s reply was a little sharp. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing. Just from what I’ve seen, over-winterers tend to be either loners or running away from something.’
‘And which one are you?’ she shot back.
‘Neither. Antarctica is my home.’
‘Come off it, Luke,’ she scoffed. ‘Australia’s your home. This is just a job.’
‘No, not for me. This is where I belong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to be an Aussie, but I’m a bit of a stranger there. As a kid I ping-ponged from Australia to France and back, while my parents worked out how to deal with their mistake.’
Luke stopped, unwilling to disclose any more. He cleared his throat. ‘This was the first place I really felt happy. At home.’ He gestured around the bay, taking in the mountains behind him. ‘It’s just … gorgeous. And best of all, there are next to no people.’
‘So you are a loner, then?’
‘I just don’t get other people most of the time. Best to keep my distance. Where’s the harm in that?’ He pointed to a patch of pink ice high up the Hudson Mountains. ‘Look up there. Snow algae. Look at the colours: the pink algae, the white ice, the blue sky – it’s breathtaking. It’s untouched. Antarctica is like the Garden of Eden before man cocked it up. I want to keep it that way.’ His face clouded over. ‘Eventually, though, we’re going to fuck this up too.’
He rummaged in a bag for some energy bars and handed one to Maddie. ‘I mean, there’s never been a murder here. Until now. Now the innocence of the place is gone.’
‘You mean a bit like Cain killing Abel?’
‘Exactly. I’m guessing all this killing is about money. Not sure how. There’ve been rumblings recently about Antarctica’s untapped resources, so I’d have said mining, but if you wanted to mine here you wouldn’t set up camp on a moving glacier.’
‘I think I know where they’re from,’ Maddie said, chewing her muesli bar. ‘Mainland China. One of the soldiers spoke Mandarin.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I lived in Hong Kong for a while.’
Luke whistled. ‘That’s bad. China acceded to the treaty back in 1983.’ Luke stretched his arms above his head and then shook his hands to encourage the circulation. ‘I just can’t believe the Chinese would do this.’
‘Let’s hope AARO works out there’s something wrong and sends help soon.’
‘They will. We just have to stay alive till then,’ he said.
Luke prepared to help Maddie shift position so that she could steer, but she abruptly changed the topic. ‘So what about your boy?’
‘What about him?’
Maddie hesitated, her eyes darting about the boat, as if searching for the right words. ‘Well, you’ve got a lovely little boy, so why do you spend so much time here?’
‘What are you saying?’ His voice had deepened – a clear warning for her to be careful.
‘Well, he must miss his daddy, that’s all, and it must be hard for you too, being so far away,’ she mumbled.
‘It is,’ he said, frowning.
Maddie seemed about to drop the subject but then changed her mind. ‘When you’re back home, do you see him much?’
Her words were like sandpaper on his ever-raw guilt, and their earlier understanding evaporated. Luke leaned over the outboard motor and yanked the starter cable so hard that he nearly lost his balance.
‘You’ve got me all wrong.’
The engine spluttered into life and Luke began to steer through gaps in the sea ice. He stared fixedly ahead. Behind his tinted goggles, his eyes betrayed his fury. Maddie didn’t apologise and he didn’t say another word.
T MINUS 3 DAYS, 19 HOURS
7 March, 11:00 am (AEDT)
Wendy wove the bike effortlessly in and out of Parramatta Road’s heavy traffic and ran a red light. A car honked its horn as they nearly collided. She accelerated away, knowing she was driving recklessly but she had to get away from the morgue as fast as possible.
When she had first seen her father’s body she’d felt angry with him, which had surprised and disgusted her. She’d wanted to yell at him for leaving her alone. Now she would never be able to make amends, and he’d never know how much she loved him. Wendy hated herself for that.
The mortuary official had given her some time alone with him and she had told him everything she’d ever meant to say, her warm tears falling on his cold cheeks and the frigid metal trolley. Then her regret had morphed into fury again, and the only way she knew how to vent her anger was to get on her motorbike and ride like crazy.
She broke the speed limit all the way and burned rubber as the bike screeched to a halt in Castlereagh Street. She caught her breath as she noticed the sign above her father’s tailoring shop: ‘Jack Woo, Bespoke Tailor’, in baroque gold lettering on a black background. Through the glass shopfront, Wendy spotted a handwritten note on the inside of the glass door. ‘Closed. Mr Woo passed away. Sorry for inconvenience.’ She was struck by its absurdity.
As Wendy took the bunch of keys from her pocket, she realised she had forgotten to ask Chan for the alarm code. She dialled his number on her iPhone.
‘It hasn’t changed, my dear,’ he replied.
‘It’s still “Lori”?’
It was reassuring that some things were still as they had always been. Although Wendy never admitted it, to this day her whole world was anchored to her reliable dad. Without him, she knew a shy Chinese refugee kid could never have dared to work for one of the world’s largest banks.
‘Yes, I remember you with that rainbow lorikeet,’ said Chan. ‘You’d only just moved here from Darwin. My, you were a skinny little kid then. You started feeding that bird and named it Lori.’
‘Yes, he would sit on my shoulder. God, I was devastated when he disappeared. Dad said it was time to leave the nest but I always thought the neighbour’s cat got it.’
/>
Bidding Chan farewell, she tested a few of the keys. When she opened the door she heard the security alarm begin to buzz. She keyed in the code – 5674 – and to her relief the noise stopped. On her father’s mobile phone keyboard these numbers spelled ‘LORI’.
The shop’s interior was unnervingly quiet. No humming sewing machines, no chatter from the seamstresses, no clients lording it about, no Dad smiling graciously. Despite the sunny day, the shop was dark; the tall buildings opposite prevented the sunshine from reaching the street. But Wendy did not touch the light switch.
This tiny shop used to be her second home. She recognised the fabric sample books that lay on the glass table. She ran her fingers across the ties on display, which hung from racks in every colour imaginable, then entered the room where the seamstresses worked, smiling at the familiar mannequins dressed in partially completed suits. As an only child she’d often played with the mannequins, giving them names. But the sewing machines were covered in plastic hoods, like shrouds.
Wendy went to open the door to the area where her dad had measured and pinned and fawned over his clients. She began to tremble: this was where he had died. The door creaked and she paused with it ajar. What would she see? She pushed it open further to find everything in its place, including the leather chair. Don’t be an idiot, she told herself. He had a heart attack. What do you expect to see?
She stepped into the room, relieved that the broken glass had been swept away. Then she realised there was a large stain on the chair seat. She brought her hand up to her mouth and bit her finger as she guessed that the pain of the heart attack had caused her immaculate father to wet himself.
A sob escaped her and she slumped to the floor. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’
The clock on Jack’s desk ticked loudly as the minutes passed. Eventually, Wendy stood and washed her blotchy face at the kitchenette sink and dried it with a tea towel that had a whiff of whisky and aftershave.
She sat at her dad’s desk and turned on his ancient computer. He had refused to update it; why spend the money, he’d said, when it works just fine? While she waited for it to warm up, she checked through his filing cabinet.
‘Why, Dad? Who told you to do this crazy thing?’ she said aloud.
Wendy found records of client accounts and orders for new fabrics but nothing relating to Dragon Resources. As the ancient computer laboured through its anti-virus programs, the screen wallpaper appeared. It was an image of Wendy and her father taken during Chinese New Year celebrations five years earlier – before their big row.
Ever since he and Wendy fled China, Jack had worked to free his wife and bring her to Australia. Every avenue had been explored: letters for clemency, appeals to the Australian government for help, Amnesty International. That’s how they’d met Anthony Chan, who put them in touch with a human-rights lawyer in China. But after fifteen years of fruitless effort, Wendy had begged her father to stop. This had infuriated Jack.
‘Selfish girl! All you care about is money. How can you abandon your mother?’
‘She’s dead!’ Wendy had screamed. ‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s killing me and it’s killing you. I want to forget, don’t you understand?’
‘I will never give up!’
‘Then you’re on your own.’
They hadn’t spoken since.
Wendy wiped away a tear. How she regretted those words. She took several deep breaths and started to work systematically through Jack’s computer files. The shop was doing well but the mortgage on the home was for nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars, as Chan had told her. With further searching, she found details of the share purchase. Nine days before his death, Jack had bought seventeen thousand shares in Dragon Resources at fifty-five dollars per share for nine hundred and thirty-five thousand, after brokerage. Wendy checked the stock’s performance: at yesterday’s close, it was down three dollars since Jack’s purchase.
Using her iPhone to access her company’s systems, Wendy checked what the analyst covering Dragon Resources had to say. It wasn’t pretty reading. Unlike most other oil companies, which were diversifying – some into nuclear, others into renewables or geothermal – Dragon Oil had been slow to change. While Dragon Mining was doing well enough, its costs seemed to be spiralling out of control, and the company was listed as a ‘sell’, and most analysts avoided ‘sell’ recommendations.
It appeared that, a few years ago, a private-equity firm had taken a majority stake in Dragon Resources, so Wendy was surprised to see that the company hadn’t yet been kicked into shape. She’d never dealt with the Hood Group – they had no property clients and property was her area of expertise, and she only covered Australian companies anyway – but she had heard of their formidable success rate.
‘This must be a real dud.’
She suddenly had an idea and checked the most recent websites her father had visited, but there was nothing much of interest. The very last page he had accessed was a map of Antarctica. That’s weird, she thought. Was Dad thinking of going on a trip? She moved on.
She let her eyes wander around the room. Her father had loved tailoring. Wendy knew he would never have taken such a huge risk unless he was absolutely sure of himself. But how could anyone be sure that their shares would increase in value? Unless …
‘What did you know?’ she whispered.
T MINUS 3 DAYS, 18 HOURS, 55 MINUTES
6 March, 5:05 pm (UTC-07)
Luke had managed to keep going through the sea ice for another half an hour but they were now hemmed in. He used an oar to smash a path to a rocky outcrop where he beached the Zodiac. He unloaded the bags and then helped Maddie out of the boat.
She checked the compass and then finally broke the stony silence. ‘Luke, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘Let’s not go there.’ He cut her off.
‘So, which way?’ she asked.
‘We’ll skirt the Hudsons as much as possible. But we’ll have to cross that low ridge,’ he said, pointing ahead of them. ‘Bettingtons should be on the other side.’
‘How far is it?’
‘I don’t know. I’m guessing six kilometres, so, depending on how well you can walk, it could be a two or three hour trek.’ He scratched the dark stubble on his chin. ‘Can you put any weight on your foot?’
Maddie pushed herself up and tried walking. She stumbled forward and Luke caught her. ‘Holy shit!’ she said. She grimaced and sat down again. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this.’
He kneeled in front of her. ‘You’ll have to hop. I’ll hold you up on the other side. We’ll take it slowly.’
‘You’re kidding, right? Hopping for three hours? Are you out of your mind?’
‘I’m sorry but you have to. I’ll take most of your weight. Once we’re at Bettingtons we’ll have food and shelter and we’ll be safe. But we’ve got to get there first.’
She peered at the mountain as if weighing up her chances. ‘Okay, I guess I’m hopping.’
‘We can’t take everything with us. We’ll have to leave one bag in the boat. I can come back for it later.’
Maddie shook her head in frustration. ‘I hate being so helpless. I like to pull my own weight.’
‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘And I know you don’t trust me. But give me a chance, okay?’
Her silence confirmed he was right.
When they had finished sorting and repacking, Luke put the spare bag in the Zodiac and checked the boat was firmly grounded between the rocky outcrops. He hoisted the other pack onto his back, fastened the waist belt and helped Maddie stand.
She hopped a few paces, leaning into his shoulder, then stopped. ‘What about using an oar as a walking stick?’ she suggested. ‘Might be easier.’
‘Good idea.’
He grabbed one of the oars, removed the rubber paddle and soon Maddie got into a rhythm. They passed a penguin colony and Maddie paused for a moment to watch some of them slide down the slope on their belli
es. She was clearly in a lot of pain. Even the slightest jolt to her injured leg made her wince.
Luke removed his goggles and pulled them over her hat. ‘Your turn,’ he said.
She thanked him and pulled them over her sore-looking eyes.
They trudged on and soon a ridge of sharp rocks and small peaks appeared in the distance, piercing the ice sheet like islands in a vast white sea.
‘Nunataks,’ Luke said.
‘Volcanic, aren’t they?’
‘In this case, yes. What we’re seeing are isolated mountain peaks poking through the ice.’
Maddie turned her head to look at him. She was smiling. ‘Great! So now we have a volcano to deal with!’
‘Nah, these haven’t erupted for over two thousand years.’ Luke remembered his excitement at discovering volcanic ash in the glacier. That was only yesterday but it seemed a lifetime ago.
‘Knowing our luck, it’s about time for another blow,’ she said, laughing to herself. ‘How much further, do you reckon?’ she asked.
‘Maybe an hour. Do you need a rest?’
Maddie bent forward, puffing. ‘You sure? Only an hour?’
‘Yup. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘That’s not too bad. Let’s keep going.’
‘You’re doing really well.’ Luke was lying about the distance. But he had learned the hard way that delusion could be one of the keys to survival. He had to make sure Maddie didn’t get discouraged. And he had to keep telling himself that they actually could make it to Bettingtons. He refused to contemplate a night on the ice.
Forty minutes later, the ridge was closer but they still had a way to go yet. They stopped for a break. Maddie lay on her side, panting with exhaustion. ‘Only an hour, you said. Geez!’
Luke set up the little stove to make tea. He had grabbed Mac’s stash of teabags: only seven left. It looked like they’d have to take a leaf out of Sir Douglas Mawson’s book and reuse them several times each. He helped Maddie sit up and gave her the cup of hot liquid.
‘I’ve been thinking about … the killers,’ she said, still short of breath.
