Zodiac Station

Twenty-one

Ash sat on a rock and rubbed snow out of his beard. If it surprised him to have two colleagues pointing guns at him at four in the morning, here on the upper edge of nowhere, he kept it to himself. Perhaps he expected it.

‘How did you guess?’ he said. No pretending.

‘Jensen told us he dropped you off here. We worked the rest out ourselves.’

‘I thought he might. I could see he wasn’t happy, not after what happened to Hagger.’

A pause.

‘You killed him,’ said Eastman.

Ash closed his eyes and nodded silently.

‘Why?’ I wanted to know.

‘I had no choice. He came at me, I had to protect myself.’

‘Why?’ I repeated. Eastman cut me off.

‘What about DAR-X? They were there too?’

‘They’d been around. I saw their Sno-Cat. I don’t think they saw me.’

‘And then you went back and pretended nothing had happened.’

He shrugged. ‘What else could I do? It would have been the end of my career if I’d confessed I shot him.’

That gave me a jolt — like a spelling mistake that jars you out of a book.

‘What are we talking about?’ I said.

Ash looked puzzled ‘What are we talking about?’

‘Martin Hagger,’ said Eastman. ‘And why you killed him.’

Ash blinked. He looked slowly between me and Eastman, started to say something, then shook his head. Strange to say, he was smiling.

‘You think I killed Hagger?’

‘You just admitted it,’ said Eastman.

Ash stood and turned towards the cave. Eastman’s rifle twitched, but it didn’t seem to bother him any more.

‘I’ll show you.’

Eastman and I followed Ash in with our head torches. The cave was just high enough to stand in, if you stooped. Perhaps it had been an attempt at a mineshaft; if so, they hadn’t got very far. A few metres in I could see a corrugated-iron wall blocking off the passage, with a heap of snow blown against its base.

Except the wall wasn’t corrugated iron. As my torch caught it, I saw colours, writing. Pictures of broccoli and tomatoes, spaghetti letters and smiling beans.

It was cans. Tin cans, all stacked up as you might find them at Aldi. Soups, vegetables, baked beans, spaghetti hoops — the whole fifty-seven varieties. So many, they walled off the back of the cave.

‘You been stealing from the kitchen?’ Eastman asked.

Ash looked as if he was about to cry. He shook his head and pointed to the floor. Then I understood.

The wall wasn’t corrugated iron — and the wind-blown snow at its base wasn’t snow.

Too soft; more yellow than white. As I shone the torch beam down, I made out two legs, the crease of a floppy tail. Further forward, I could see an outflung paw and a black nose resting on it. Much smaller than the bear that had chased me the day before. Just a cub.

Eastman got it a second before me. ‘Jesus Christ, Ash. You shot a baby polar bear?’

‘When did it happen?’ I asked.

‘The day Hagger died.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘I’m a zoologist. What do you think would happen to my career if it came out I’d shot a polar bear cub. I might as well take up whaling.’

‘But you said it was in self-defence.’

‘As if they’d care about the details.’

Eastman wiped his face. Out of the sun, the sweat he’d built up running had started to freeze. He was shivering.

‘I think some detail here would be good.’

Our torches were fading, the batteries sapped by the cold. In the failing light, the bear carcass seemed to swell up before my eyes.

‘Let’s get out.’

We went back to the snowmobile and shared a cup of hot water from Ash’s Thermos. Eastman hammered a chocolate bar until it snapped.

‘I don’t know what Jensen told you,’ Ash said. His eyes kept darting back towards the cave. ‘We’d flown around all morning looking for bears, no luck. Then Zodiac called — they wanted him back for something. I couldn’t afford a wasted day, so I had him drop me off here. I’d heard a rumour there might be a bear near Vitangelsk.’

He scratched the back of his head. ‘It’s like all these things — the wood for the trees. I was so busy looking for a bear, I didn’t see the one that was there. But he saw me. He must have been watching for a while: they’re used to being patient.

‘I found the cave. I thought there might be a bear denning inside, so I took a peek. No bear, but I saw those strange tins at the back. I went in, looked around. Couldn’t understand what so much food was doing there.

‘I went back out. That was when I saw the bear. Juvenile, probably a year old, but with my eyes not used to the daylight, rearing up, he looked like death incarnate. No time to think. I just fired.’

He wiped his mitten across his cheek, where a tear had fallen.

‘I shot him right in the heart, just the way they teach you. Greta would have been so proud.’

Another tear appeared. He jerked his head angrily, trying to shake it away. There’s not many sights as pathetic as seeing an old man cry.

‘It was him or you. We’d all have done the same,’ I said.

‘Would you?’ He stared at me. ‘Maybe I could have done it differently. He wasn’t charging, just making a display. Trying it on. Maybe a warning shot would have scared him off.’

‘A polar bear that had you trapped with your back to the cave?’

‘That’s not the point. It’s not what might have happened; it’s what I did. One of those moments when you don’t have time to think, to intellectualise it or worry what other people will say. That’s when you find out who you really are.’

‘What you are is alive,’ said Eastman, impatiently. Ash gave him a cold look.

‘There are more important things.’

‘Not in my world.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

Ash shrugged. ‘It’s better now. The secret was murdering me. Now I know what to do.’

‘Yeah?’ said Eastman.

‘I’ll tell Quam I’m quitting. I won’t tell him why — unless either of you gentlemen feels the need to disclose it. I shan’t blame you.’

‘I can give you a medical note,’ I offered. Ten minutes ago, I’d been ready to shoot him. Now I had nothing but pity.

Eastman looked back across the valley to Vitangelsk. ‘Did you come here yesterday?’ he asked.

‘I was at Zodiac all day. Then Anderson mentioned you’d radioed in, that you’d found a bear here. I thought …’ His gaze drifted back to the cave. ‘That’s why I came.’

‘We did see a bear,’ I told him. ‘Very much alive — and all grown up.’

‘Maybe your little dead guy’s momma,’ suggested Eastman.

Ash winced. So did I. There was still a bear out there — quite possibly an angry bear nursing a grudge. And worse. If Ash wasn’t the man who’d shot at me on the tower — and you couldn’t possibly think so, looking at that poor broken man — then he was still out there too. I looked around the desolate valley, the black cliffs too steep for snow. Plenty of places for someone to hide, to watch us. I listened so hard, the silence sang in my ears.

I exchanged a look with Eastman. After a cold, sleepless night, and then this bizarre episode, I just wanted to go home.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.

It was only when we were in the helicopter, safely on the way back, that I wondered what all those cans of food had been doing there.

The door opened. A sailor poked his head around the door.

‘Ops said you wanted to know when the other guy woke up?’

Franklin stood. His legs had started to go to sleep from sitting listening so long. On the bed, he could see Kennedy’s one good eye watching from behind the mummy mask.

‘Eastman?’

‘He’s ready to talk.’