The Dark

by Emma Haughton

  I haven’t got a better idea, so climb onto the driver’s seat. I insert the keys I found in the vehicle bay cupboard, then hesitate, wondering what to do next.

  ‘Make sure it’s in neutral, then press the ignition button to turn on the engine,’ says Caro. ‘You’ll need to let it warm up a bit.’

  She sounds exhausted. Despite dosing her up with painkillers, I’m well aware of the toll even this short journey must be taking. She should be lying down, recovering, not venturing into the coldest and most hostile environment on earth.

  But the alternative, leaving her trapped on the base with a killer wielding a gun, doesn’t bear thinking about.

  Checking the gears, I push the button and the motor comes to life. I wait an anxious minute or two for the engine to warm up. Can I really do this?

  ‘Now turn the thumb throttle,’ Caro prompts.

  I do as she says and the skidoo lurches forwards, making Caro gasp with pain. ‘Sorry,’ I say, raising my voice above the sound of the engine.

  ‘Ease it gently,’ she replies, and I try again, and this time the skidoo glides across the tracking towards the doorway. Seconds later we’re out on the ice, the cold hitting us like a slap in the face as I tentatively pick up speed and turn in the direction of the summer camp, making sure to avoid the ropes that mark out the walkways.

  ‘You okay?’ I shout back to Caro, who’s clutching my waist with one arm and holding onto the skidoo with the other, but my voice is lost in the wind that’s whipping the snow into flurries and reducing visibility to a few metres. A second later my goggles freeze over. I lift a gloved hand and swipe it across the lenses, clearing my vision enough to keep going.

  I’m about a hundred metres from Alpha when it dawns on me what an incredibly stupid move this is. I can barely see where I’m going, and with no experience at driving a skidoo over the uneven ice, we’re in constant danger of overbalancing.

  I should turn around, return to the base. Find somewhere secure for Caro and her newborn.

  But where? As we crawl across the ice, as slowly as I dare without stalling the engine, I have to admit to myself that nowhere is safe from someone with a gun. Especially not Gamma, given it’s basically a couple of glorified tents. Our only hope is the killer won’t bother with us out there, that once Sonya arrives to care for Caro, I can go back to Alpha and deal with the situation before anyone else gets hurt.

  Because out here, teeth gritted against the wind, ice crystals swirling around us, I’m forced again to consider the killer’s end game – and mine. He knows, clearly, there’s little chance of getting off this station without being apprehended. Sandrine’s murder has changed everything – whenever UNA gets here, none of us will be allowed home before her killer has been identified.

  I have to find out who it is, and talk to him, I decide. Reason with him. Persuade him the best thing to do is give himself up now, rather than face a worse outcome later.

  With a rush of relief, I see the Gamma tents loom out of the darkness. A second later, the skidoo comes to an abrupt halt that almost pitches me over the handlebars. ‘You all right?’ I shout to Caro, reassured to feel her arm still around my waist.

  ‘What happened?’ she yells back into the wind.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Press the ignition button again.’

  I press it, but nothing happens. What the hell is wrong? I try again, suppressing a moan of frustration when the engine doesn’t respond. ‘It’s dead,’ I say, immediately regretting my choice of words.

  A silence as Caro thinks. ‘It’s probably the cold,’ she replies, voice flat. ‘These things aren’t designed to operate in temperatures below minus thirty. We should have warmed up the engine a bit longer.’

  I sit there for a moment, panicking. What now?

  Caro answers the question by climbing awkwardly off the skidoo. ‘We’ll have to walk.’ She grabs a torch and shines it into the darkness, but without the bright beam of the headlights we can no longer see the camp.

  Just keep heading in the same direction, I tell myself, trying to stay calm. It can’t be much further.

  ‘Do you think you can make it?’ I ask Caro, worried about her condition. She should be in bed, not trudging across the ice in sub-zero temperatures. I should have planned this more carefully, considered the risks.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  ‘Let’s go.’ Caro starts to walk in the direction we were heading. But she’s moving so slowly, with such evident pain and exhaustion, that I catch up with her in a few strides, even with the weight of the bags I’m carrying. I sling her arm over my shoulder, and we advance side-by-side, step by strenuous step, the cold piercing our clothing, creeping into our flesh, into our bones. We keep our faces down, sheltering from the wind, watching out for pitfalls in the snow.

  Our progress is agonisingly slow, my bad knee flaring with pain at every step. Fear starts to get the better of me.

  We’re not going to make it, I think. All three of us are going to die out here, and it will be entirely my fault.

  Caro stumbles on a ridge in the snow and we both lurch forwards, torch flying from my grasp. Thankfully it doesn’t go out, and as I crawl to retrieve it, I see we’re only thirty metres or so from the main tent. Clutching the torch firmly, I pick up the bags, and help Caro to her feet. We shuffle our way across the ice; I’m almost tearful with relief as we finally reach the entrance.

  The place is as cold as a morgue. Colder. I steer Caro into a little cabin at the rear of the main dorm and sit her down on one of the beds. As the emergency evacuation point, the whole of Gamma is equipped with everything we need to survive, and it doesn’t take long to find a couple of stoves and kerosene lamps and light them. I retrieve several sleeping bags from the cupboards and drape them around Caro and the baby.

  ‘Is she okay?’ I peer at the downy crown of head just visible inside Caro’s jacket.

  ‘I think so. I can feel her moving now and then.’

  ‘We’ll try feeding her again, as soon as it warms up in here.’

  Caro nods and lies back on the bed, closing her eyes. She looks utterly depleted, and I feel a terrible weight of responsibility.

  Can I do this?

  Can I keep them safe, warm, alive, until Sonya gets here?

  I lie on the bed opposite, shivering, and listen to the hiss of the stoves and kerosene lamps, the wind buffeting the side of the tent, for once grateful for the icy draught that flows into the cabin – we won’t suffocate anyway. As the temperature in the little room starts to lift, as warmth relaxes my muscles and my teeth stop chattering, I drift into an exhausted sleep.

  45

  7 July

  I come to with a jolt, suddenly alert. Take a few moments to remember where I am and how I got here. I glance over at Caro, asleep on the camp bed opposite, the baby still cocooned in her jacket.

  How long since we arrived? And hour? Two?

  I reach in my pocket for my phone to check the time, but realise it’s missing. Hell. I must have lost it when we fell on the ice.

  Where on earth is Sonya? I listen, alert for the sound of an approaching skidoo, but hear nothing outside beyond the low moan of the wind.

  Maybe she thought better of it? Or perhaps she couldn’t find a spare vehicle. I try not to dwell on worse alternatives: the killer cornering Sonya somewhere in Beta, wielding a gun … the killer attacking Arne …

  Arne.

  I remember how he leapt to my defence when Luuk started accusing me in the lounge, and I feel a sharp pang of guilt and anxiety. Try as I might, I cannot convince myself that Arne has anything to do with all this.

  But I didn’t tell him I was coming here. I didn’t tell anyone. Just went straight to the clinic, checked Caro was well enough for the journey, then we made our way to the garage, all the while praying we didn’t bump into any of the rest of the crew.

  How long till Arne realises we’re missing? More to the point, how long before the killer notices too?
Will he decide to come after us? After all, it won’t take much effort to work out where we are; it’s not as if we could hide away in the igloo, or Sonya’s meteorology hut.

  At best, all I’ve achieved is to buy us a little time, I realise, with a dragging feeling of dread. And time is no defence against a man with a gun, and the rest of the winter to use it.

  Stop.

  I shut down that train of thought before it spirals out of control, and get up to check the fuel levels in the stoves. Beside me, Caro stirs and wakes. I search through the bag of medicine Sonya packed and find the morphine.

  ‘Do you need another dose?’ I ask, figuring enough time has passed to minimise any risk.

  Caro nods. Watches quietly as I insert the needle into the phial and suck ten millilitres into the syringe. I help her sit and remove her jacket, her face contorting with pain at the effort of movement. Keeping the baby swaddled under the duvet, she pulls up her sleeve and extends her arm.

  ‘All done,’ I say, then turn my attention to the bundle on the bed, relieved to hear a small snuffling sound from the tiny infant.

  I feel a tug of tenderness. It’s a miracle she’s still alive. Caro too. All the odds stacked against them.

  ‘Shall I try feeding her?’ Caro blinks at me, her skin pink in the soft light cast by the kerosene lamps. I touch her forehead, glad to find no sign of fever.

  ‘She may not have developed a strong sucking reflex yet. But give it a go – if she can take a little colostrum that will be the best thing for her.’

  ‘Colostrum?’ Caro looks confused.

  ‘Your first milk. It provides condensed nutrients for new-borns. Antibodies too.’

  ‘But is it safe? After the …’ she nods at the half-used phial of morphine.

  ‘A small amount will get into your milk, yes, but not enough to affect her. It’s more important to control your pain or you won’t be able to feed her anyway.’

  Caro pulls up her T-shirt and exposes a breast, wincing as she tries to position the baby without putting pressure on her stomach. She hesitates, looking uncertain.

  ‘Nuzzle her mouth near your nipple,’ I suggest, trying to recall my stint on the maternity ward. ‘She’ll work out the rest.’

  I watch as Caro lifts her daughter to her breast, a smile breaking out on both our faces as the baby roots for a second or two, then opens her mouth and latches on. She sucks for a full minute, then her eyes close and she falls back to sleep.

  We both sit in silence, watching her breathe. This precious scrap in a place hostile to life of any kind. It’s at once awe-inspiring and terrifying, and again I feel that terrible burden of responsibility bearing down on me.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Caro says in a near whisper, sounding small and scared. Clearly she’s finding this as overwhelming as I am. ‘Anything to take my mind off … well … everything.’

  Everything. That one word sums up our predicament. The three of us alone, vulnerable, defenceless. Somewhere out there, a killer with a gun. Around us a vast wilderness of darkness and cold.

  And nobody coming to the rescue.

  I try to think of something that might take her mind off it all – mine too – but Caro gets there first. ‘Tell me about the accident.’

  ‘What accident?’ I frown, confused.

  ‘The one that happened to you.’ She lies back on the bed, pulling the duvet over herself and the baby. ‘It was a car crash, wasn’t it?’

  That accident. My chest contracts as I remember what I’d give anything to forget.

  ‘It was.’ I sigh, struggling to focus through the fog of my exhaustion and withdrawal. ‘But you don’t really want to hear—’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Caro cuts in. ‘I really do. You saved my life, Kate. I want to know what’s gone on in yours, what’s made you so unhappy. And I don’t mean just what happened to your face, because it’s obvious this thing is more than skin deep.’

  ‘Obvious?’ I frown again. ‘How?’

  Caro thinks. ‘It’s like … I’m not sure how to put it … it’s as if it’s always there, as if it never leaves you. Only sometimes, I get a glimpse of how you must have been before.’

  Jesus, am I really such an open book?

  ‘You never talk about it,’ she explains, ‘and it’s clear you don’t want people to ask. Like it’s … unmentionable. It’s obvious you’re not over it.’

  I gaze at her. I guess she’s right. ‘Okay.’ I inhale, steadying myself. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Were you on your own? When it happened?’

  I shake my head. ‘I was with my fiancé, actually.’

  Caro’s face registers surprise. ‘You were engaged?’

  ‘Yes.’ An image of Ben rises up in my mind. How he looked that night when we left the hospital after our respective shifts – hollow-eyed, exhausted, a fresh crop of stubble on his cheeks. We barely spoke as we walked to the car.

  ‘You want me to drive?’ I offered, knowing Ben had just spent six hours in theatre performing a particularly tricky bypass.

  He nodded, remaining silent as I steered out of the hospital car park and onto the streets of Bristol. I assumed the operation hadn’t gone well, that perhaps the patient hadn’t survived, but I didn’t ask. That was one of our rules. We never discussed work, never brought it home with us – the only way to manage it was not to give it space in your head.

  ‘So what happened?’ Caro prompts.

  I inhale. ‘Do you want the short version or the long one?’

  ‘The long one. I reckon we could be here for a while.’ She offers a rueful smile.

  ‘I was driving,’ I tell her. ‘Ben was really tired. He was a heart surgeon, so often in theatre for hours at a time …’ I stop, not sure how to say all this out loud. It feels formidable … impossible. I send Caro a helpless look, but she simply waits for me to continue.

  I take another deep breath and surrender to the gravitational pull of the past. I describe everything in all the detail I can remember – which is far more than I’ve ever let on to anyone else. How Ben’s silence endured through all my attempts at small talk. I thought he was listening to the news on the radio, the endless political turmoil of Brexit and the Middle East, but suddenly he reached out and switched it off.

  ‘You okay?’ I glanced at him as I took the turning towards Leigh Woods, the back route home. A bit longer, but less busy than the motorway. Plus I sensed there was something Ben needed to get off his chest. Perhaps he’d had another run-in with his ambitious colleague Deepak.

  ‘Kate,’ he said, swallowing. ‘I need to tell you something. The thing is … I’ve been offered a new job.’

  ‘Hey,’ I exclaimed, delighted. ‘That’s fantastic! Consultant surgeon?’ I glanced over again, expecting him to return my smile, but he kept staring out through the windscreen as if mesmerised, though at that time of night there was little to see.

  ‘Actually no,’ he said, after a pause. ‘It’s a position in a different hospital.’

  I took my eyes off the road for a second to look at him again. There was something in his expression I couldn’t fathom, and I felt the first twinge of foreboding. ‘Which hospital?’

  ‘In Michigan. The Holland.’

  ‘Michigan?’ I blurted. ‘You mean in America?’

  ‘Unless there’s another one I’m not aware of.’

  I gripped the steering wheel, trying to take this in. Since when had Ben been looking for jobs abroad? And why the hell hadn’t he said anything to me? I felt a shiver of anger. Did he simply assume I’d tag along, put my own career on hold and trail after him?

  Christ, I thought we were beyond that kind of patriarchal shit. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep my voice measured. ‘I didn’t know you were looking abroad. In fact, I didn’t know you were looking for a new job at all.’

  Ben grimaced, scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘Yeah. I should have told you.’

  ‘You think?’ I replied, unable to contain the sarcasm in my tone.


  A minute passed in relative silence. Just the low hum of the Mercedes’ engine. A few drops of rain pattering on the windscreen.

  ‘Are you going to accept it?’ I asked, feeling at once hollowed out and desperate. ‘When would we go? After the wedding?’ But that wasn’t for another six months yet. We hadn’t even planned it properly, beyond deciding we’d have the reception in his parents’ garden in Cheshire.

  Ben didn’t reply. I kept a tight grip on the steering wheel, making a conscious effort to slow around the sharp bends as we entered the woods.

  ‘Listen, Kate …’ Ben spoke quietly, faltering. ‘I …’ He rubbed his forehead. I glanced at him again. He seemed weary in a way that went beyond the stress of a long and difficult operation. And all of a sudden I knew what was coming was bad.

  Very bad.

  ‘Kate.’ Caro’s voice pulls me back to the present. ‘What did he say?’

  I realise I’ve stopped talking, have wandered off somewhere in my mind. I sigh, forcing myself on. ‘Ben told me he was going to accept it – and that he’d be leaving as soon as he’d worked his notice.’

  Caro’s expression turns to shock, my own emotions reflected on her face. ‘What the fuck? He expected you to just drop everything and go with him?’

  I clear my throat so I can continue, picturing Ben’s features as I focus on what he actually said. ‘I’m leaving at the beginning of March. I’ve already booked the flight.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’ I gaped at him, astounded.

  He shook his head, still refusing to meet my gaze. He chose this moment deliberately, I realised, so I had to keep my eyes on the road and he wouldn’t have to look me full in the face. A pain rose into my throat, threatening to choke me. A tight, suffocating sensation.

  ‘What about me, Ben? What about the wedding?’

  He swallowed again. Working himself up. ‘Actually, there’s another thing I need to tell you.’

  The moment the words left his mouth I knew what was coming. ‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’ I whispered, voice barely audible above the engine.

  But Ben heard me. ‘Yes.’