The Dark

by Emma Haughton

  What would Jean-Luc want me to do?

  Exactly this, I decide, forcing myself on. I check inside the other bag. More clothes, and two books, both in French, one novel and a slim volume of poetry. A hair brush and various toiletries, but no sign of a notebook, or anything Jean-Luc might have used as a journal.

  I peer at the shelf above. Find a jumble of personal belongings, including several unopened packets of mints and an assortment of pens. I spot a photo frame and lift it down, shining my torch on the front. A picture of the doctor with a pretty woman with a halo of chestnut hair, who I assume is his wife, flanked by two small boys, both beaming at the camera. Judging by Jean-Luc’s dark hair and unlined complexion, this was taken some time ago, but all the same it gives me an ache of sadness. I think of that family in France, this woman widowed, his sons now fatherless. Probably still in the first ravages of grief.

  I remember my own pain at losing my father. That feeling of being rudderless, cast adrift. Up until his death I hadn’t appreciated how much I needed him to be here in the world, a buffer against misfortune. A steady presence in my life.

  The sight of those boys renews my resolve. What I’m doing may not be right, but it’s not as wrong as doing nothing at all – whatever Sandrine may think. If Alex’s theory was correct, if Jean-Luc’s death was no accident, then I owe it to his family to get to the truth.

  Replacing the photograph on the shelf, I shine my torch around one last time to make sure I haven’t missed anything. No laptop, or notebook.

  I push the locker door shut, praying nobody will discover it’s unlocked before I can retrieve the keys again to secure it. Then let myself out of the storeroom, creeping back to the sleeping quarters.

  A moment later I turn a corner and collide into a large male body. I give a squeak of alarm, jumping backwards.

  Tom peers at me through the low-level lighting that illuminates the base at night. Or rather he’s looking slightly to the side of me, eyes refusing to meet mine, making him seem furtive and shifty. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘I was going to the canteen. For a sandwich.’ He finally meets my gaze. ‘Where are you going?’

  Heat rises to my cheeks. ‘The soap’s run out in our bathroom,’ I improvise. ‘I went to get some from the store.’

  Tom looks confused. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The soap.’ He gestures at my empty hands. ‘You haven’t got any.’

  I gawp back at him, mind blank. ‘I remembered I had some in my room.’

  ‘Okay.’ Without another word, Tom heads off towards the canteen.

  I stand there, feeling panicky and stupid, imagining Ben’s reaction had he been here. I picture the way he’d roll his eyes whenever I did something foolish – or pretty much anything he disagreed with.

  Silly Kate.

  I wait until I’m sure Tom isn’t coming back, then hurry to the sleeping quarters. Skirting past my own room, I slip into Alex’s, shutting the door quietly behind me, turning on my little torch instead of the overhead light. I stand there, heart pounding despite the Valium.

  What am I so afraid of? I ask myself. Not just Tom returning or another winterer catching me in the act.

  It’s more than that. Something is very wrong here, I realise. No … worse.

  Someone is very wrong here.

  All at once my doubts and misgivings fall away, and I’m filled with the conviction that everything Alex told me was true. Too many things are starting to add up. The missing notebook and laptop. Jean-Luc’s disappearing video logs. The bruises on Alex’s ankles.

  Somebody stole Jean-Luc’s computer and diary, and it doesn’t make sense that it was one of the summer staff. The laptop maybe, but why on earth would anybody take his journal? There’s only one explanation – the thief wasn’t concerned with their value, but with what they might reveal.

  And whoever it is, they’re on this station, amongst us, right now.

  Staring me in the face, another, more chilling conclusion: if Sandrine knows I’ve been digging around, asking questions, examining the data on the activity bands, then there’s a good chance this person … this killer … knows too.

  I’ve put myself in grave danger.

  I lower myself onto the chair by the desk, gripped by indecision and panic, facing a stark choice: either I shut up and sit tight until the first plane arrives and carries me home to safety – or I push on and hope that I can uncover the truth before it’s too late.

  Before anyone else gets hurt.

  Oh God. I feel caught in some waking nightmare, my whole existence taking on the texture of a bad dream.

  At that moment, as if my fear and confusion conjured them into, I hear footsteps in the corridor. I freeze, heart in throat, listening. What if someone heard me? What if Tom realised I was lying about the soap and has come looking for me?

  I force myself to move, switching off my torch and squeezing into the gap between the wall and the door jamb – if somebody walks in, there’s a chance they won’t see me.

  I wait, petrified, breath held, legs trembling, as the footsteps approach the doorway, but they pass on without pause. A second or two later, the telltale click of the bathroom light and the whirr of the extractor fan. I release my breath slowly, but don’t move until I hear whoever it is return to their cabin.

  Get a move on, I urge myself, before somebody does discover you.

  I turn my torch back on and shine it around the room. It looks like nobody has touched the place since Alex died. I study the rumpled bed, the clothes slung across the bunk above, the empty coffee mugs on the tiny bedside table. On his desk, a clutter of objects: a stick deodorant, various magazines and books, a bunch of keys on a ring, a little teddy bear wearing a T-shirt with ‘I love Galway’ printed on the front.

  No photographs, thank goodness – Alex stored all of those on his phone.

  His phone. Though useless for making or receiving calls, we still use our mobiles to take pictures, listen to music, play video games or puzzles. I saw Alex on his dozens of times.

  So where is it?

  Carefully, quietly, I open the drawers in his bedside table and desk. Go through their contents as quickly as I can. Nothing. I check the wardrobe – no sign of it anywhere. I make a mental note to ask Caro tomorrow. Or Sandrine, perhaps. No trace of his vape pen either. Luuk must still have it.

  What else could I have missed? I glance around, but staying here any longer may push my luck to breaking point. So I switch off my torch and leave, closing the door softly behind me.

  I don’t go back to bed – I’m way too wired for sleep – so divert instead to my clinic. Sinking into the chair by my desk, head in hands, I try to think through the thick fog of tiredness. But my thoughts swirl around like snow in a blizzard, refusing to settle.

  It’s no different to making a diagnosis, I decide. Survey the evidence you have. To what conclusion is it pointing?

  What do I actually know?

  Alex believed Jean-Luc was killed deliberately, by someone tampering with his equipment. Which could have been anybody on that expedition.

  What else? That Alex’s death was no suicide. Somebody lured or forced him outside in the dark of midwinter. After a struggle, they tied him up and left him to freeze to death on the ice – which would have taken only a matter of minutes, given the sub-zero temperatures and how little Alex was wearing.

  I close my eyes, visualising the scene. Allow myself to be sucked into the vortex of his terror, as Alex lay there, in those last few minutes. No one to hear any shouts for help, his desperate attempts not to succumb to that monstrous cold.

  Did his murderer stand there, watching him die, waiting to untie him again and remove any trace of their crime? Did they gag him? Or listen to his pleas for mercy?

  Oh Jesus … My throat constricts with emotion. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

  Who could have done such a thing?

  And how? Alex wa
s a tall, strong guy, outdoor fit, and would have put up a hell of a fight.

  I sit up straight, trying to steady my breathing. Where does the evidence point, Kate?

  Think.

  But all that fills my mind is the craving for something more to take the edge off, to calm myself down. I get up and unlock the cabinet, survey my stock. Picking up a packet of tramadol, I open it up and pop a couple of pills from the blister pack, then replace it in the box and reseal it. That way it won’t be so obvious I’ve been helping myself.

  I pause. It won’t be so obvious …

  I pull out the first pack of sedatives and open it up. Checking that none of the little bubbles has been perforated, I work my way slowly through the next few boxes, but find nothing amiss.

  Forget it, Kate. You’re wasting your time.

  But I know I won’t rest until I’ve gone through the lot, so I push myself to continue, opening each packet and checking inside. A couple of dozen later and I’ve still found nothing. My head thumps with exhaustion and I’m desperate to go back to bed, but I press on, moving on to the sleeping pills.

  No sign of tampering in the first couple of dozen packets, but when I remove the next, I can see the sticker seal has been peeled off then carefully stuck back into place. I open it up, pulling out the patient information leaflet wrapped around the pill sachet. My heart stops and my hand starts to tremble.

  Two of the blisters have been ruptured, their contents removed.

  Fuck.

  I check the five remaining boxes. Each has two pills missing, the blister pack replaced inside the leaflet and the seal stuck back down so nobody giving it a perfunctory glance would notice anything wrong. Wouldn’t register, either, that the box was lighter than usual.

  I lay the six sachets on my desk, staring at them. Twelve pills missing in total – 180 milligrams. More than enough to render someone of Alex’s body weight unconscious – or at the very least extremely drowsy.

  I think back to that evening, watching The Thing together after our midwinter supper. Remember Alex’s slurred words, his staggering gait as he returned to his room.

  Did somebody slip the pills into his drink … or into his food? These things, as I well know, have barely any flavour at all, and stay in your system for hours.

  Don’t jump to conclusions, Kate. Perhaps another winterer, worn down by fatigue and sleeplessness, broke into the clinic and helped themselves? But why would they? I ask myself again, remembering the stash stolen from my cabin. Everyone knows I’ll prescribe what people need.

  I sit back in my chair, rubbing my aching forehead. Could it really be true? Did someone drug Alex, then drag or lure him out onto the ice?

  It just doesn’t seem possible.

  And yet …

  One small shred of comfort, I realise. If I’m right, then Alex didn’t suffer as much as I feared – there’s a fair chance he’d barely been aware of anything.

  So what the hell am I going to do? I stare down at the packets lined up on my desk.

  But there’s no time to formulate an answer. A second later, I hear a sound out in the corridor. I spin around, frozen to the spot, eyes wide with terror as the door handle turns, and someone enters the room.

  28

  5 July

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Arne stands in the doorway, his gaze fixed on the heap of medication on my desk. For a moment or two neither of us speaks, then he raises his eyes to mine. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks again.

  I stare back at him, speechless with surprise.

  ‘What’s happening, Kate?’ Steel in his voice as he asks a third time, and something in his expression prompts a cold rush of fear.

  Arne. Could it be Arne?

  Why not? It could be anyone.

  With a swift movement he strides towards my desk. I flinch away, but he doesn’t touch me. Just picks up one of the sachets and reads the label. For an instant, time freezes: Arne absorbing the import of what he’s caught me doing, me considering my next move.

  I leap from my chair, making for the door, but I’m not fast enough. Arne grabs my arm and pulls me back. I try to wrench away, but he holds me firm.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ I yelp, and with that Arne abruptly lets go. I stand there, breathing hard, wondering whether to run or scream for help.

  Then I register the look on his face. He seems bewildered.

  ‘Kate? What’s the matter?’ Arne’s voice is agitated, anxious rather than angry. ‘Did you take any of those pills?’

  His gaze flicks to the sachets on the desk then back to me. I stare at him, trying to decide what to do. What to say.

  ‘Kate, please, tell me. Did you just swallow those drugs?’

  He’s scared, I realise – or doing a damn good impression of it. I clear my throat. ‘No,’ I say, firmly. ‘I haven’t taken any of them.’

  Not tonight, anyway.

  ‘You sure?’ His expression hovers between relief and disbelief. ‘You’re not lying to me? Because if you are, Kate, I’ll wake Sandrine right now and we’ll make you vomit them up.’

  For one moment I have the urge to laugh. How would they do that, I wonder?

  ‘Listen, it’s not what …’ I inhale, forcing myself to sound calmer. ‘Not what this looks like.’

  Because I can see now exactly how this appears. Me, here, in the middle of the night, surrounded by a heap of dangerous medication. ‘I am not trying to kill myself,’ I say emphatically. ‘I promise.’

  Arne eyes me suspiciously. ‘So what’s going on?’ He sifts through the sachets. ‘Why have all of these got some missing? That’s not how you prescribe them, is it?’

  I rub my forehead. ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘So what are you doing?’

  I sigh, try to buy myself more time. ‘It’s a long story,’ I say, hoping he’ll leave it at that. Knowing, of course, that he won’t.

  Arne sits in the desk chair. ‘Well, we’ve got all night.’ He checks the clock on the wall. ‘Or at least the rest of it.’

  ‘What are you doing up anyway?’ I ask.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. I was heading to the canteen to make a drink, and saw the light under your door.’

  It sounds plausible, but there’s no way of knowing whether that’s true or not.

  ‘Look,’ Arne adds, making an effort to soften his tone. ‘Let me get you one too, then come to my cabin. So we can talk.’

  I consider his request. ‘I should go back to bed. I’ve a lot to do tomorrow.’

  Arne shakes his head. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight for the next couple of hours. Not until I’m absolutely sure you …’ he glances at the pills again ‘… you haven’t done anything silly.’

  For the first time in what feels like for ever, my lips twitch into a smile. This man is far from stupid, and his concern seems genuine.

  Seems, echoes a warning voice.

  ‘Okay. I’ll have a cup of tea,’ I concede, gathering up the medication and locking it back in the cabinet. ‘But let’s drink it in my cabin.’

  ‘Deal.’ He gets up and moves towards the door. ‘And then you can explain exactly what is going on.’

  29

  5 July

  ‘Here.’ Arne places the mug of tea beside my bed. ‘I made decaf. So you’ll be able to sleep.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Right, tell me,’ he says, settling on the chair. ‘What were you doing with all those pills?’

  I study his face, searching for clues. Can I trust this man? Common sense dictates I should proceed with caution; on the other hand, I’m desperate to talk to somebody about how I think Alex died. And Arne is here, now.

  ‘I was sorting them out. Jean-Luc left things in a bit of a mess.’

  Arne looks doubtful, but doesn’t push me any further. Just sits there, gauging my expression, obviously wondering if he can trust me either. ‘Does this have anything to do with Alex’s death?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’ I’m unable to hide my s
urprise.

  He falls silent. Stares into his mug as if searching for an answer.

  ‘Do you believe it was suicide?’ he asks finally.

  I hesitate, considering how to respond. ‘Sandrine seems pretty clear,’ I reply evasively. ‘That’s what she’s told UNA.’

  ‘So I gathered.’ Arne pulls a face.

  ‘Don’t you believe her?’

  ‘Sandrine? Our revered leader?’ he says in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone.

  I frown at him in surprise. ‘You don’t like her, then?’

  Arne doesn’t answer, and picks at something on his jeans. He’s fully dressed, I notice. Which is odd, come to think of it – didn’t he say he’d got up to get a drink because he couldn’t sleep? Why not just pull on a dressing gown?

  ‘Arne?’ I prompt.

  ‘It’s not that I dislike her.’ He sighs, rubs his cheek – he clearly hasn’t shaved for a few days. ‘Actually, I had more of a problem with Jean-Luc.’

  I frown. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ he raises an eyebrow at me. ‘About him and Sandrine?’

  I stare at him. ‘What do you mean? Are you saying that they were lovers?’

  Arne nods, and I try to digest what he’s just revealed. Sandrine and Jean-Luc were having an affair?

  ‘But he was married,’ I blurt, then feel foolish. After all, it’s part of ice station culture for people to pair up for the duration – ice husband or wife, as they’re called – then return to their families. What happens in Antarctica stays in Antarctica, at least in theory.

  But Jean-Luc and Sandrine? I sift through a mix of emotions. Shock. Disappointment in my predecessor, who I’d taken for a committed family man. Embarrassment too – I am, it seems, always the last to know.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ I ask Arne, feeling genuinely hurt.

  He gazes at me. For a second I sense something in his look, something unspoken, but the moment passes.

  ‘I …’ he hesitates. ‘I’m not sure. I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t want to stir things up. I hate all the gossip and backbiting that goes on in this place.’

  Or was it simply that Arne didn’t trust me? My chest feels tight with disappointment, and I realise I care very much what this man thinks about me.