Out of the Ice (14 page)

‘I’m not leaving you alone. You really are the most annoying person I’ve ever met.’

‘Blame my Spanish mother, she made me stubborn. Thank you. We’ll have a look around, and if we can’t find anything, we’ll go and get the penguin.’

Kate sighed. ‘We’re going to be very late back to base.’

‘So we miss dinner. We’ll still get to the lab. Lucky it’s the graveyard shift. Connaught’s done us a favour.’

At the rookery, tens of thousands of penguins were hunkered on their nests. We gave them a wide berth as we headed towards the ice cliff by the sea. I photographed everything, just in case my eyes missed something.

There were crevasses in the ice filled with deep green shadows, but nothing that looked like it could be an entrance down. None was wide enough, even for a slender boy. As we walked along, the Adélies watched from a distance, honking and crying and making an ear-shattering racket.

I moved to the water’s edge and peered down. I couldn’t see any cave entrance from this angle, so I walked on the top of the cliff, up the coast. After an hour of searching, Kate grabbed my shoulder.

‘Time to go,’ she said. ‘We’ve done what you wanted. There’s nothing here.’

•  •  •

Again we donned our protective gear. I went to the cupboard while Kate prepared the blue body bag. The penguin lay as before, but this time I could get closer, and when I did I stepped back in shock. I looked at the head, eyes shut like it was sleeping; at its black and orange beak and little black wings; at the angle of its flippers. ‘It’s different,’ I said, anger surging through me. ‘This is a different penguin.’

Kate shot forward and took a look. ‘It’s the same one, Laura.’ Her voice was sharp, her expression fierce. ‘Keep it together. I can’t afford for you to lose the plot down here. That is the
same penguin
.’

I grabbed my camera and took photographs, then compared them to the originals. They did look exactly the same. I bit my lip. I could tell this penguin was different. I didn’t know how, but every instinct in my body was saying it. The head looked the same, the body looked identical. But I’d been in the field long enough to know to trust my instincts. Somewhere, something was different.

Kate pushed past me and picked up the penguin with all the tenderness of a mother with a baby. She placed it gently on the blue nylon and zipped up the bag.

We scrubbed the cupboard and table and benchtops with bleach.

‘We’re out of here,’ Kate said. At the front entrance we took off our protective gear and sealed it in a plastic bag. Then we headed off through the icy streets, Kate carrying the blue body bag that I tried not to notice looked the size of a small child.

•  •  •

I found Jasper in the dining room, eating with a group of scientists.

‘You took your time,’ he said. ‘We were just thinking of sending out a search party.’ By the looks of his friends I doubted it. They didn’t even bother to say hello.

‘Where can we put the penguin?’

‘I’ll open up. Then we can go back later at our allotted time.’

I thanked him as I trotted after him. His long legs meant that even his slow walk was rapid.

‘We left the penguin in the Hägglunds.’

‘Well, off you go.’

By the time I arrived at the shed, Kate had put our diving gear away. She picked up the body bag carefully and we walked to the main building, where Jasper was waiting outside the entrance. He put his eye to a camera and his right hand on a pad, and the heavy door swung open.

‘Sophisticated,’ said Kate.

‘Saves a lot of time and messing around,’ replied Jasper. ‘No keys or codes.’

We went to follow him in, but he held up a hand. ‘Uh-uh, you need to do the same.’

Even though the door was open, we followed suit. ‘But how could it recognise us?’ I asked. ‘We haven’t been here before.’

‘It will now. You won’t be able to get out otherwise.’

‘Wild,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve never been to a British base before. Are they all like this?’

‘No,’ said Jasper moving off, the door swinging tightly shut behind us. ‘They’re all different.’ He didn’t elaborate further.

He strode down a long neon-lit corridor, its floor polished linoleum like those in a hospital. We passed closed, windowless doors. I longed to know what was inside them.

Rounding a bend and walking up another corridor, Jasper stopped mid-way. Again he put his eye to a tiny camera and his right hand on a pad. The door swung open. The lab looked like any typical one I’d been in. A clean white examination table stood in the middle of the room; microscopes sat on sterile benches around the edges, and there were computers at one end. At the back, there was a door with a window into another lab, where two men were working, looking through microscopes.

‘What are they doing?’ I asked.

‘You know I can’t tell you that.’ Jasper grinned. ‘Nice try, Doctor Alvarado.’ He indicated the examination table. ‘Leave the penguin here in its bag.’

Kate placed the Adélie down carefully.

‘Now you go and have supper. You must be famished?’

Kate agreed enthusiastically. I wasn’t hungry at all.

At both the door to the lab and the main entrance, we had to stop for the retina and hand scan to be allowed to leave. The hair on the back of my neck rose. I wasn’t used to being locked in by security.

•  •  •

Travis sat with us as we had dinner, and Jasper joined us too. I kept thinking about what had happened in the ice cave. Could it have been a boy?

‘I’m amazed you don’t have rules about that down here,’ said Kate, indicating Jasper’s bottle of rough white. ‘Drinking while on duty?’

‘Connaught’s pretty easy in that department,’ replied Jasper. ‘And I have the constitution of an ox. Not to mention, this wine’s as weak as tap water.’ He downed another glass to prove his point. Travis poured another beer for himself.

‘So, I wonder what killed that penguin, eh?’ said Travis and I found myself hoping he had nothing to do with it.

‘Find anything interesting at Fredelighavn today?’ asked Jasper casually.

‘No,’ Kate and I replied simultaneously and Jasper raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, that
does
sound interesting,’ he said. ‘Tell all.’

‘Nothing to tell,’ I said. ‘Just a routine visit, to collect the penguin.’

He gave a sly smile and lowered his voice. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing what we can see on that penguin front.’

Suddenly I wondered who Jasper really was. Had he volunteered to help tonight, as he claimed?

At eleven o’clock we made our way to the lab, saying goodbye to Travis as we arrived at the main building. Despite Jasper’s assertions about his constitution, the bad white wine had lent a slight sway to his walk.

We each placed our eye and hand in position and entered. There was no noise at all apart from our boots making soft squelching sounds on the linoleum. At any other laboratory I would have found the mood peaceful but here it was unsettling to feel so alone.

Jasper stopped outside his lab door. ‘Let’s try and make this quick, I’m knackered,’ he said, before gaining entry. As the door swung open he stood back to let us go in first. The body bag was where we’d left it on the table. We donned protective gear – eye goggles, disposable overalls, face masks, paper booties over our shoes, and finally thin latex gloves. Kate unzipped the bag and together she and I lifted the penguin onto the table. Jasper adjusted a lamp to shine brightly on the bird and brought over a tray of sterilised instruments.

Kate chose a scalpel and proceeded to make a long slit down the Adélie’s chest and stomach. She worked fast and confidently. ‘She’s a young female,’ she observed.

I documented everything, visually and with notes, which took my mind off worrying about the boy. There were small fish and tiny krill in the penguin’s stomach. Everything looked normal.

Kate bagged the contents. We spent the next few hours going through them, placing smears on glass slides and viewing the slides under a microscope.

Jasper yawned and slumped onto a stool. Every so often he’d stare at me with a bored expression, which I found distracting. Kate took blood from beneath the penguin’s skin and we moved on to analysing the blood, skin and feathers under the microscope.

We could find nothing out of the ordinary. Black circles were forming under Kate’s eyes and my own were gritty and dry.

Kate frowned down at the Adélie. ‘It would seem she died of natural causes but I have no idea what. She didn’t starve. And if there’d been unusual heat we would have seen more corpses in the rookery. We’ll need to keep looking.’

We put more samples on slides and kept analysing. Jasper groaned. ‘Enough. It’s six-thirty. The morning shift will be arriving and I’m meant to start work in two hours. I’m sorry I volunteered for this rubbish. I thought you two were experts.’ He peered hard at me and my blood flushed as his insult stung.

‘We’ve just not seen this before,’ said Kate firmly. ‘Maybe you could tell us why, Jasper?’

‘Perhaps we should go back to our own base and do this there,’ I said. ‘At least everyone would be onside.’

‘Cheers. Thanks a lot. I’ve just wasted my entire night for you,’ retorted Jasper.

I turned to him. ‘I’m wondering if you really volunteered. Did Connaught put you up to this?’

‘You’re full of crap, Laura. And you should learn manners. Come on. Out. Both of you. Time’s up.’

‘And we
are
grateful to you,’ said Kate, giving Jasper a little smile, trying to calm the waters.

Jasper gave a half-hearted acknowledgement. ‘Put the bird – or what’s left of it – back in its bag and I’ll put it in an isolated freezer. I’ll give you a container for your slides. And then you have to sterilise the lab.’ A grim smile split his lips. ‘See you later.’

‘You’re leaving us alone?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Don’t do anything stupid. Everything, and I mean
everything
, in these labs is filmed. Smile and look pretty. You’re being recorded for eternity.’

‘Then why did you have to stay the whole night?’ I said, unnerved.

‘Standard procedure. But I have no intention of watching you clean up. If there’s anything out of place, you won’t want to be alive, I promise.’

‘We’re professionals,’ I said. ‘Give us that.’

We set about disinfecting everything and by the end, Kate and I were so exhausted we could barely move. We didn’t speak to each other, knowing we were being filmed.

Once we’d completed our chores, we dumped our protective clothing in a bin and headed out. The doors we passed were so tempting but I knew I couldn’t get through them. The place was impenetrable. I thought of the chamber that went down into the ice. Could there be an underground network that stretched all the way to Fredelighavn? But the distance was surely too far – it was about twenty kilometres.

Back in our room, Kate let out a long groan. ‘I hate this place. Why did you bring me here?’

‘I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I hate it too. Do you think they swapped that penguin?’

Kate made no reply. Frustrated by her lack of response, I flipped open my computer and started to look at the photographs, blowing them up larger to compare the penguin we’d initially found in the cupboard to the one we’d retrieved today. They looked identical.

‘They could have changed my images,’ I said tiredly. ‘They went through all my devices on the first day.’

‘Mine too,’ said Kate.

‘So, they can probably get in and do anything they want. And before you say it, I know I sound paranoid.’

‘Quite the opposite,’ Kate replied. ‘I think it’s the sanest thing you’ve said all day.’

I turned, amazed, and Kate produced three small vials of blood in a sealed bag from her pocket. ‘I didn’t want to analyse these there. They need to be left for twenty-four hours and I wouldn’t trust Jasper not to fiddle with them if they showed something the creeps down here are trying to hide.’

‘Kate, we were being filmed – they would have seen you take those!’

‘Don’t sweat, I’d already noticed the cameras.’ She wiggled her hips. ‘So I
dids my moves
and covered my handiwork. And Jasper was too bored to notice how many vials I’d filled.’ Kate pulled out a portable analyser from her bag. ‘I brought my field centrifuge.’

She put it on the desk. I’d seen her use it many times to analyse her penguins’ blood, but I wasn’t keen on her using it here in our room with this Adélie sample. ‘What if there are cameras here?’ I looked around the ceiling and walls; they were smooth and bare.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Kate with certainty. She proceeded to carefully place the vials in the machine. ‘Everything’s sealed,’ she reassured me. ‘If there’s anything infective in the blood it won’t leak. You know I’m more paranoid about viruses than you.’ She dialled up specifications for each blood sample and then pressed the on switch.

‘You’re absolutely sure nothing can leak?’ I asked nervously.

‘There’s no choice but to do it here. And anyway, I’m meticulous.’ She disappeared into the bathroom and had a quick shower. I stood over the centrifuge, reassuring myself it was working properly and praying nothing went wrong.

Kate came out and hopped into bed. ‘And now, I sleep.’ She yawned. ‘We can talk more in the morning. Oh, it
is
morning. Don’t wake me for many, many hours.’

Before I could reply, she was asleep, snoring quietly. I longed to join her but instead I went through everything again. The penguin still looked like the one bird. There was nothing in the ice cave that looked like a cavern, and no sign of the boy. I pored through the photos for hours, examining each one multiple times.

Finally I showered, changed into my pyjamas and lay down beside Kate, grateful for her warmth. My mind kept obsessing on the boy: his brown eyes, his hands pressed against the ice. His screaming mouth. I reminded myself it wasn’t Hamish; that was an impossibility. I’d lost my baby at birth. He hadn’t gone missing. Tears misted my eyes.

Now the boy wasn’t in the cave, but in my old childhood home by the sea at windswept Grange. He was looking out the window at me. I was on the beach, but there was water around my feet. He raised his hands and pressed them against the glass. I tried to walk through the water but it was thick red toffee, sticking hard. It started to weep blood, pouring everywhere until it was a tide. Running down my legs, hot and red, joining the pool that was as vast as the ocean. Bubbling red blood like a cauldron. ‘Hot jam donuts! See them being made, cooking, cooking, cooking all the time!’ a voice cried to carnival music.