Out of the Ice (11 page)

‘What is it?’ I asked.

Kate flicked her torch nervously around the cinema and then unspooled more film, studying the frames, looping celluloid onto the ground.

‘Careful,’ I warned.

‘This film’s not from the fifties, it’s more recent. I’ve seen it. It’s Australian. A kind of horror film, or kind of not, with a child. Children. I reckon it was made in the late eighties because I was a kid when Dad showed it. It made an impact. Whoever’s doing this is shoving it in your face. They’re playing games, Laura.’

‘Maybe they thought we wouldn’t notice because of the seals.’

‘And where
are
the seals? Out to sea, or have they been driven away?’

I took a look at the film, but it didn’t mean anything to me, and then we walked around the empty cinema. The icy drifts lying about were too frozen for anyone to leave footprints.

‘It still smells like seal,’ said Kate, wrinkling her nose.

But my attention had been taken by something under a seat: a piece of popcorn. I photographed it. ‘Look at this. Do you think it’s fresh?’

Kate frowned. ‘One way to find out.’ She bent down and picked it up. And popped it in her mouth.

‘Eh, you’re destroying evidence!’

She swallowed. ‘That’s fresh, just as I thought. It’s not only seals coming to these movies.’ She made a face. ‘Yuck, it’s got a bit of a rancid seal aftertaste.’

I aimed a filthy look at her. ‘You shouldn’t have eaten that.’

‘It was a scientific experiment.’ She ignored my death stare. ‘So who’s having movie nights? And why old films?’ Kate moved around inspecting the room.

‘Can we find the title of the film?’

‘Sure.’ Kate went over to the projector. ‘Want a viewing?’

‘How?’

‘Let’s see if it works.’ She followed a lead that ended in an old rectangular battery pack the size of a large shoebox.

‘Surely not,’ I said. Kate turned a knob and the projector sprang to life, film spooling upwards with a jolt. Kate groaned and quickly turned it off.

‘Wasn’t expecting that,’ she said as she threaded the projector properly. I moved to the battery pack and took photos. ‘How old is this?’ I asked.

‘No idea,’ replied Kate.

‘Surely it would be drained after all these years?’

‘Not if it’s been recently charged,’ observed Kate matter-of-factly. ‘Okay, here goes.’

I slumped into a comfortable chair, ignoring the oily texture and fishy smell as a beautiful, leafy summer’s day blasted onto the screen. It reminded me of where I grew up in Melbourne, although this was set during the Cold War in the 1950s. The childhood games were menacing and by the mock hanging at the end I was glued.

‘Why would they be watching this in particular?’ asked Kate.

‘How fresh was that popcorn?’

‘Very.’

‘They’re brazen if they’ve come while I’m doing my report.’

‘Unless they thought you wouldn’t be in here again because of the seals.’ Kate stared at me intently. ‘Maybe they spiked your drink so you’d feel scared and wouldn’t look around down here as thoroughly as you might otherwise.’

A shiver ran through me. ‘Well, they got that wrong.’ I paused, straightening my back, willing myself to stay strong. ‘Let’s go into some more houses. There might be something else you can eat.’ I sounded more upbeat than I felt. My nerves were jangling. I took one last photo of the projector and the battery. The film was an odd choice for a group of men – I would have expected Hollywood fare, not a dark film about childhood.

The sun seared my eyes as we emerged back into the street. I quickly put on my dark glasses and again had the sensation of being watched. I turned abruptly and looked everywhere.

‘What’s wrong?’ Kate followed my gaze.

‘I get the feeling someone’s watching us.’

‘That’s funny – me too. I thought I was just being paranoid. Do you think the man’s here?’ Kate shuddered.

‘If Connaught’s given permission . . .’

‘But why would he? It’s obvious when we take the Hägglunds, there’s all that paperwork. They could just wait till we’re not here and do whatever they want.’

I walked over to the building opposite, which was brick with a tin roof, and stared up under its eaves. ‘Or they could have cameras here and are watching us from Alliance.’ I realised, perhaps too late, that if I was right, it wasn’t wise for me to be talking about it. ‘Then again I doubt very much that’s the case.’ I opened the door of the building and peered inside.

‘I don’t know. Sounds plausible to me,’ said Kate.

I shrugged and kept quiet. I’d be saying more to her once we were away from Fredelighavn. I shone my torch around the interior, filled with large old brick ovens and stacks of wire racks piled on top of each other.

‘Wow,’ said Kate. ‘A bakery.’

We investigated, finding sacks of flour at the back behind the ovens. There were stainless-steel basins where the bread must have been mixed, and sinks and stools. A large marble bench still sported wooden rolling pins, laid neatly in a row. I took photos and added to the growing folder of notes on my tablet. As I named it
Bakery – Well-preserved
, I thought again of Pompeii, a town that bristled with the ruins of tiny bakeries.

We left and marched up a street that swung back towards Alliance Point. I kept looking up, trying to find cameras, questions rushing through my mind. Why would there be cameras? Why had the man been here the other day, for that matter, and come back and picked up that piece of red fabric? And what about the film in the cinema – was it just scientists letting off steam, excited by the forbidden, or could it be more?

The buildings creaked and groaned in the cold as Kate voiced my next thought.

‘I still feel like I’m being watched,’ she said.

‘Do you?’ I said, trying to sound light.

‘If you’re not worried, then I’m not,’ she replied.

I stopped by a much smaller brick structure sitting between tin-clad sheds. It was different from anything I’d seen. I opened the door and whistled: it was full of shiny banks of electrical meters and three giant generators. A power station. I poked my head back out and looked along the street. Up the hill, a distance away, was a cluster of round oil tanks. There must be underground pipes for the oil to feed the generators, which in turn would have distributed the electricity around the plant. It made sense that the powerlines were also underground, out of the wind and ice.

I photographed everything, then went back outside. We were in what seemed like an industrial area. I walked to the nearest shed. The doors were closed; Kate stood back, rubbing her arms. ‘I don’t like the vibe of this one,’ she said.

Kate took another step away.

‘Feels okay to me.’ I tried to open the doors. They were stuck. ‘It’s locked,’ I said, surprised.

‘Give it here.’ Kate moved me out of the way and pushed her full weight against the doors. Nothing happened. ‘Well, that’s interesting. First building that’s locked. Or did you see some the other day?’

I shook my head. ‘This is the only one.’

Kate peered hard at the space where the doors joined. ‘We need a jemmy bar.’

‘Let’s see if we can find one.’ I led the way to the next shed, which had a huge blue timber door. I turned the handle and it flung open. There was rusted equipment: large harpoon heads – which would have been fired from the harpoon guns into the whales – stacked neatly in wooden crates; huge knives, and coils and coils of thick rope. There were also stacks of boxes, some of which we tentatively opened: reams of blank paper, pens, tinned fruit and vegetables. Supplies for everyday life.

‘Toilet paper,’ called Kate. ‘Totally preserved.’

I inspected cans of smoked haddock, or so I thought from the image on the box. The writing was in Norwegian.

There were huge bags of flour and sugar. They must have divided them up into smaller portions for the residents. It was like a quartermaster’s store.

Kate pulled out a box containing cartons of cigarettes in silver packaging. There were only a few left. ‘Reckon someone’s been here?’

I walked over and took a closer look. ‘Hard to tell. Travis and his mates could have taken them,’ I said, annoyed. ‘Or I guess supplies could have just been low.’

‘But everything else – there’s so much of it. And why
did
they leave here, Laura? It’s like a ship had just come in with everything they needed for the whole year.’

‘I thought it was because they hunted the whales to near extinction. But I’m not certain.’ I really needed to find this out. Not knowing was starting to gnaw at me.

•  •  •

The next two houses were empty apart from beds stripped down to mattresses, and a couple of old sofas.

Kate stood frowning. ‘It’s like some people knew they were going, were organised and packed things. While others didn’t.’

I started to wonder whether the House of the Carvers might be an oddity.

The third house, a vivid red, took us by surprise. It was full of boxes of cigarettes stacked high in the lounge room and ground-floor bedroom. They were covered in Norwegian writing and sported an image of a slick man puffing away in a suit that looked very much of the 1950s.

‘How completely odd,’ said Kate. ‘Why did they leave them?’

I took photos. ‘Maybe they were selling them illegally and couldn’t take them on the ship back to Norway?’

It was yet another Fredelighavn mystery. A village that made less sense the more we looked around.

Upstairs were two more bedrooms, one with two single beds, the other with a sagging double bed, all with exquisite bedspreads of embroidered wildflowers.

‘The smuggler had a wife,’ I said.

‘I still think it’s strange he left it all.’

‘Perhaps it was the wife doing the smuggling and someone clamped down.’ I thought of Ingerline, who had organised the building of the church steeple as well as the cinema. Perhaps she needed extra funds? ‘Or maybe they just quit smoking.’

We smiled, but neither of us felt like laughing. The place was draining us.

Downstairs in the kitchen, light streamed through a large window onto a table set for ten people, with beautiful navy and white plates, crystal glasses and silver cutlery. There was a large copper pot on the coal-burning stove, but it was empty.

‘This looks set up,’ I said, my neck stiffening as it occurred to me that someone could be playing a game with us.

‘Like a dinner party before they started cooking,’ said Kate.

‘I mean rigged up. For us. It just seems too weird.’

‘It’s no odder than anything else,’ shrugged Kate as she looked into the cupboards, which were neatly stacked with food, beautiful copper cookware and more cigarettes. ‘Perhaps this was the house of a whaling captain?’ she said.

I photographed the kitchen, with a growing unease that someone could have set it up just for me. Could they have come down and done it while I was passed out after my drink was spiked? But why?

Next door, the house was painted russet red. Long icicles glinting with rainbows hung off intricate white fretwork around the porch. We headed inside.

And stopped short. It could have been in a current architectural magazine. The floorboards were the colour of rich honey, their wax looked fresh. In the lounge room, the furniture was whitewashed: two wooden, beautifully carved miner’s couches, an antique coffee table, a small white piano. Sunlight filtered in through fine lace curtains. The fireplace had been set with coal. ‘Is this new or old?’ whispered Kate in awe. ‘It’s amazing. Scandinavian chic.’

I led the way down the passage, which had whitewashed walls that glowed in a pearly hue. There were four bedrooms, two on each side. Everything was white and beautiful; each held a single bed. Paintings of ships hung tastefully. The bed linen was all white and smelled of the sea.

‘I could have a beach house like this. Or even a main house,’ said Kate as we entered the kitchen. Light flooded in through two colonial paned windows. A whitewashed wooden table sat in the middle of the room with nothing on it.

I flung open a cupboard, eager to see what was inside. And screamed.

There was a dead Adélie penguin.

‘How did it get in there?’ said Kate, concerned. The penguin was lying with its eyes shut like it was asleep. There was no sign of deterioration, and when I moved closer it smelled oily and salty and fishy like an average Adélie penguin.

I took copious photos.

‘This is fresh,’ I said.

Kate came up close. ‘Someone’s killed it and put it here,’ she said fiercely as she went to touch it. I pulled her arm away and led us both into the middle of the kitchen. ‘Jasper said they’re researching viruses up at Alliance. What if they’re doing something with the penguins? God knows what this poor fellow died of,’ I warned, a wave of horror rippling through me.

‘If they’re capable of doing that, they’re capable of doing anything.’ Kate’s face pinched up.

‘And don’t care about the law.’ I could barely contain my anger.

‘But they knew you were coming. Wouldn’t they have removed anything that could implicate them?’ Kate pointed out.

‘Maybe they’re so arrogant they didn’t want to disturb their experiment.’

‘We couldn’t catch anything from it, could we?’ Kate wrapped her scarf around her nose and mouth. ‘I’m terrified of viruses,’ she said in a muffled voice.

I stepped forward tentatively and opened all the cupboards along the wall, and stopped, surprised. There was a gaping hole to the exterior up one end. And no partitions internally between cupboards. A sick penguin could have made its way in and died of natural causes.

‘Oh,’ said Kate, seeing what I’d just discovered and pulling down her scarf. ‘I guess it mightn’t be that odd.’

I took more photos. ‘Let’s explore all possibilities. I’ll request a response kit and a lab to carry out tests.’

We knew the drill: if there was ever any uncertainty about a wildlife death in Antarctica, there were strict protocols to follow. We went outside, scooped up snow and cleaned our boots. Then we went straight back to the Hägglunds. We could walk nowhere else today at Fredelighavn. If the penguin had died of disease, we couldn’t risk spreading germs to any further wildlife.