by Ann Turner
As we touched down at Base Martinez, waiting for us were two British detectives, Ben and Heather, mid-thirties, untalkative, and an Argentinian detective, Carlos, who was whippet thin with warm, animated eyes and a grin as broad as Georgia’s. I took one look at him and burst into tears again, remembering my vivacious friend. David squeezed my hand impatiently. ‘Keep a lid on, Laura,’ he whispered. ‘We need you to concentrate.’ A white heat of anger blazed through me. Here was the patronising David I’d left behind. Rather than explode, I walked away, gazing at the sea to try to calm down. Focus, I told myself, just as two sleek, black humpback whales came cruising through the water, a mother and her calf. A sign.
When I walked back to the group I was strong. And full of rage.
We just fitted into the small propeller plane that had skis beneath its wheels. As soon as we were strapped in, the plane took off. David and the detectives leaned towards each other and spoke soft and fast. I didn’t know why I was being left out but I didn’t care. I thought only of my boy.
South Safety Island came into view and my heart skipped a beat. It was a sparkling afternoon and I could make out pods of whales – humpbacks, orcas, southern right and the small minke – gliding through the pristine water. On the giant blue icebergs, Adélie penguins huddled, staring at the water until one brave bird went first and the others followed in a mass of black and white.
Small bits of icebergs, growlers, floated in the deep blue ocean, and smaller bergy bits bobbed about. Summer had arrived.
As we banked over Alliance Bay and flew above the red rooftops of Fredelighavn, the giant, bleached whale bones stood out starkly on the beach. At Alliance Point, the Adélie rookery was packed with hundreds of thousands of birds stretching up the hill as far as the eye could see. Leopard seals roamed the water beneath the cliff. Elephant seals lolled on the beach and Weddell seals swam between the rusted hulks of the abandoned ships.
As we circled and came in again I saw the gentoo penguin colony and, a short distance away, off to one side, a tent. Kate must be staying with her penguins. I couldn’t see her but I hoped it was the reason she hadn’t returned my earlier messages – that she’d been out of phone range.
The plane landed on its skis in the vast white ice behind the village. As I stepped out I sucked in the crisp air and put on my gloves. David handed us torches, strong police ones. The pilot stayed guarding the plane with Ben, one of the British detectives, as the rest of us headed off.
I led the way, not missing a turn as we hurried through the streets, a tight commando unit. When we arrived at Ingerline’s orange house we rushed up the stairs and into the hallway. I glimpsed Ingerline’s portrait staring at me as I ran up the passage and felt a sudden chill, like an icy hand on my back pushing me forwards. But I didn’t believe in ghosts.
As I pulled open the pantry door I understood why the shelves were empty – to allow greater ease for opening and closing the route underground.
‘Step aside,’ David ordered, pushing past, grabbing the middle shelf and pulling with all his strength. He staggered back as the shelves swung out easily, revealing a stairway down into the ice. I peered in, amazed – I was staring at a tunnel. Its walls were reinforced with timber and tar. The air had a strange smell, one I couldn’t immediately place. Not musty, but not fresh either. Clinical, like a hospital. And mixed in was the distinct odour of sweaty socks.
We turned on our torches and David went first, followed by Heather and then me. Carlos came last. All three had guns, standard-issue police revolvers. I was the only one unarmed. There was an unreality to being surrounded by cops. It should have made me feel protected but it didn’t. The fact their bullets could kill a person filled me with dread. Whatever Snow and Connaught had done, I didn’t want them to end up like Georgia. I wanted them in prison. For life.
Our torchlight beamed off the walls. It was warm underground, the ice insulating. Before our tunnel went down, there was another that branched off at a ninety-degree angle to the right. Did it connect to Erling’s house? It would be in the right direction – and would explain the sudden disappearance of Ingerline’s ghost that day.
We went deeper into the ice. The tunnel plunged at a steep decline and then levelled out suddenly, where it widened and went off in three directions. We stopped, shining our torches down each tunnel. ‘Laura, come with me,’ said David in a hushed voice, and indicated for Heather to take the left tunnel and Carlos the right.
David and I went straight on, and after a few minutes we came to a fork. David stopped and whispered urgently, ‘Which way?’
I tried to get my bearings. Were we beneath the cinema by now? But maybe we hadn’t come that far. My attention was taken by shelves along the left-hand tunnel, full of bottles of liquor. David followed my gaze. The shelves stretched into the distance. We followed them. And then we heard shouts from behind – men’s voices; one sounded like Connaught, another was definitely Snow. A gunshot echoed through the tunnel.
David and I looked at each other. A surge of care ran between us like an electrical current. ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘Turn off your torch and don’t move.’ I obeyed, and he ran off towards the sound of another gunshot. I waited until he was swallowed into the gloom, praying he’d be all right, and then I flicked on my torch and quickly moved in the direction we’d been heading. I knew the tunnels must lead to rooms somewhere, and I couldn’t wait, I had to find my boy.
My ears were ringing from the gunshots as I started to run flat out, my torch beam bouncing in front. The light was announcing me, so I shone it down close to my feet and kept going.
Another fork. I stopped. The harbour would be on my right. Or was it? Would the rooms be close to it or further away? I may as well have just tossed a coin. I went left. I could be anywhere.
Up ahead, light spilled around a corner – it seemed more stable than torchlight. I stopped, breathing hard. I needed to quieten my breath. After a few moments I went on, placing each foot carefully in front of the other to make no noise.
I turned left into a blazing corridor, lit from above by electric lights, and saw a room behind a glass door. A bright, white laboratory. There was no one in it, but at the back of the room was another solid door leading to a further room.
I opened the glass door and went inside, struck by an overwhelming smell of disinfectant. I looked at the vials of samples along one wall and tried to understand what was marked on them. They were long formulas, and that was only part of the sequence of numbers; fuller mathematical equations were taped on the bench below each sample. If I had to guess, I’d say they were genetic sequences.
Several microscopes stood on a bench on the opposite wall. I looked closely at each, but they were empty, no slides in the glass. A tap dripped suddenly into a sink and I nearly screamed. It kept dripping, running through my body like a freight train. I walked up to the door at the back and opened it a crack.
I couldn’t believe my eyes: a man in a white coat turned, as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
I knew his face. The brown hair greying at the temples, the smooth skin, pale and unwrinkled. The black eyes, as dark as my own.
‘Hello Dad,’ I said.
20
Professor Michael Green was so shocked he couldn’t speak. He looked right through me, as though he couldn’t understand that I was standing there. I was having a hard time believing it myself. I’d longed to see him for so many years, and here he was. In completely the wrong place, and nothing like my fantasies of how it would be to meet up with him.
‘Laura?’ His deep voice finally came, now not in a phone message, but in real life. Goosebumps crowded my arms. I didn’t know what to say. My mind was scrambled. We stood staring at each other. From the next room I could hear the tap dripping.
I glanced at test tubes sitting in holders on benches around the room. Mike Green was a microbiologist. His specialty was influenza. The last article I’d read of his came flaring back: he was researching a cure for a flu p
andemic.
‘What are you doing to the boys?’ I said, but I feared I already knew. It wasn’t a paedophile ring at all. They were testing human guinea pigs.
‘If I told you that I’d have to kill you,’ he deadpanned. ‘And then I’d have to face your mother.’ He smiled, cool under pressure. I obviously took after the emotional Spanish side: I wanted to lunge and punch him. I’d seen my boy’s face. Terrified. Screaming. Desperate for help.
‘Where are they?’
‘Who?’ He was surveying me, taking me in. It was over a decade since we’d met in the flesh – he was appraising how much I’d changed. Part of me couldn’t help but feel flattered that he was taking an interest. I caught myself. Don’t be absurd.
‘I have people with me, Dad. Detectives from Australia, England and Argentina. It’s over. There’ve already been gunshots. If I can say you helped me, maybe they’ll go more lightly on you. So please take me to the boys.’
‘Why do you think what we’re doing is illegal?’ he said, full of confidence.
‘Because I saw the boys when they were let off in Venice.’
Now he was taken aback.
‘Nothing about them seemed legal, Dad.’ A wave of nausea swept through me. The world suddenly stood still. My adrenalin drained. Here was the man I’d admired my whole life. An immoral criminal, experimenting on children, out of the world’s gaze. Abusing his scientific knowledge, or, no doubt in his mind, using his phenomenal skills for the greater good. My head spun.
He seemed calm but a bead of sweat trickled from his temple towards his eye.
‘We pay them, Laura. They’re employees. They send money back to their families and we do safe experimentation with the drugs. It’s a win–win. No one gets hurt. I would never test anything if I thought it was dangerous.’
‘Then why not do it back in Australia or America?’ I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. With my brilliant scientific father, who’d been my god. If he was capable of this . . . who was I? Professionally, I’d styled myself in his image. I felt my world crashing in.
‘The climate down here. It’s a perfect environment for what I need. Laura, you’re a scientist, you should understand.’ His dark eyes pierced mine. ‘Are there really police with guns?’
‘Yes.’ I walked over to a test tube. I wanted to start smashing them one by one until he told me where the boys were, but I knew that wouldn’t be safe. I thought I could scare him at least. I picked up the one that had the most paperwork beneath it, hoping it meant it was the most important. He rushed at me.
‘Put that down right now, Laura!’ I was suddenly eleven years old and he was back to being my father. I turned with the test tube stuck out like a sword. ‘Tell me where they are or I’ll drop this. What is it, anyway? It’s something genetic, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a superstar,’ he said, his voice a mix of pride and anger. Superstar. The same word I’d seen when I’d looked up Snow’s research online.
‘This is important to you, I can see, but what’s a rock star doing here?’ I taunted.
‘A superstar, Laura. A random gene, one in a trillion that behaves like no other. With this gene, we can stop a pandemic that could kill half the world’s population.’
His eyes were blazing.
‘And it works. My vaccine works. Those boys you saw, all healthy, right?’ He was starting to puff up with self-importance.
‘If I drop this, will we get infected?’
‘You wouldn’t be so stupid.’
I couldn’t see what else I could threaten him with. I tossed the vial at him and he caught it, horrified. And then I ran. I fled down the corridor, passing scientists in white coats running in the other direction, not stopping to wonder who I was. They were flushed with fear.
I looked for another room. There was a fork ahead. I listened for my father, but he wasn’t following.
I tried to think where I might be but I couldn’t focus. I turned left. Then I changed my mind, retraced my steps and turned right. Halfway along the passage, there was a glass door. It was a classroom, with a whiteboard out the front, colourful posters on the walls and a dozen desks with computers.
I went in and looked around. They were teaching the children down here. Boyish handwriting was scribbled on a pad. Notes of some kind. I blinked – it was in Spanish. We’re in room two doors down, on right. I ripped off the page and ran.
Which way did he mean? It must be further on. I’d never had so much trouble thinking in my life.
The door was solid, I couldn’t see in. I pushed it open. At the front of the room stood the ghost of Ingerline, wearing the 1950s dress, blue with white bands. But she wasn’t a ghost, she was flesh and blood: the tall, blonde woman I’d seen in the mirror. She was a teacher. In front of her sat a group of teenage boys. Half were dressed in 1950s checked shirts and trousers, and half in modern T-shirts, jeans and tracksuits, no doubt a part of my father’s experiments. All were staring at me – but I was looking straight at the boy in the ice. And this time he was grinning, dark eyes shining, his black hair, longer, hanging shaggily around his imp’s face. He was wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans, and seemed just like I imagined Hamish would have been at that age. A sweet, handsome boy.
He leaped up and ran into my arms. ‘Que hayas venido!’ he cried. ‘You’ve come.’
21
I was hugging my boy so tightly I was worried I’d crush him, but he was clinging to me just as fiercely, his thin pale arms as strong as a lion. I could smell his skin, soft and fresh, and a soapy shampoo in his hair. His warmth infused me.
‘Quickly, we must go,’ I said in Spanish. The other boys sat frozen. The teacher hadn’t moved.
‘They’re too scared,’ he said.
We spoke in Spanish. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked gently.
‘Santo.’ He looked into my eyes and hugged me again, sighing. ‘I left T-shirts. And I moved the diaries to the church. You found them. I knew you’d come and get me.’
I covered his hand in mine. ‘We must leave.’ Santo nodded emphatically but the other boys wouldn’t budge. The teacher watched us mutely, terrified. I was desperate to get Santo safely away, and he started to tug, trying to lead me out of the room. ‘I’ll come back,’ I promised the boys, as Santo yanked me into the corridor. ‘Which way out?’ I cried as we broke into a run.
‘To Ingerline’s house?’
‘No, not there.’
‘To Erling’s place? Or Olaf’s?’ So there were entrances in all three houses. But I didn’t want to go in that direction.
‘No.’
‘The church?’
An entrance there too. But if Santo knew it, his captors would too.
‘The ice cave, where you saw me?’ he offered. ‘But the door will be locked.’
I tingled at the memory of Santo screaming in the cave and my eyes clouded with tears. I’d found him.
‘Have you ever been to the cinema?’ I asked.
‘We watch films there. We get to chase the seals away. And after the movie they let us play with the penguins on the hill.’
My temper flared. Not only were they doing human experiments, they were letting children out among the wildlife. I could only imagine what teenagers in an angry mood might have done to the Adélies.
‘Is there a tunnel up to the cinema?’
‘No, we walk there from Ingerline’s.’
‘If there was a tunnel, could you tell where it might run off down here?’ I kept flashing to Helen’s description of where her brother had fallen through the ice. And if Santo didn’t know of the tunnel entrance in the cinema, maybe nobody else did either. If it existed.
Santo gripped my hand tighter and stopped. He thought for a moment. My heart was pumping so fast I hoped it didn’t give up on me.
‘This way,’ he said and we retraced our steps before he pulled me down another corridor. We wove around in the labyrinth of corridors until we started to rise on an incline.
‘Is there
really an entrance into the cinema?’ he asked, amazed.
‘I don’t know. I hope so.’ It was only the slightest thread of a hunch. It seemed unlikely to me that Helen’s brother had fallen directly through the ice into a tunnel; more likely he’d gone underground, where something awful had happened.
Santo stopped suddenly. ‘I think here,’ he murmured, and turned into a tight passage that was so dark I hadn’t noticed it. ‘I’ve always wondered where this one went,’ he said.
I flicked on my torch and the beam lit the way like a beacon. There was a flight of narrow stairs, rising steeply. We clambered up about thirty steps, having to take great care not to slip. The steps were poorly made, and dangerous. At the top, there was a landing, and a small steel door, crawl-height, blocked the way. I tried to open it but it was locked from outside. There was nothing I could unlatch from this direction. Santo swore under his breath.
‘Stand back,’ I said, and started to kick as hard as I could. Santo wanted to help, and when I was completely out of breath he took over. He was making a loud clanging, and when he tired, there was silence for a moment. And then there was clanging from the other side, the sharp twang of metal on metal. Someone was trying to hammer the lock open. I froze.
Santo grabbed my hand and pulled me back as the door swung inwards, nearly knocking us off our feet.
Torchlight slashed my eyes. I couldn’t see who was there.
But I knew the voice.
‘She’s here,’ said Kate. ‘With a boy.’
‘I’ll help you out.’ The torchlight swung away and Travis grinned down. Relief surged through me as he reached in and took my hands.
‘Santo first.’ I stepped back. ‘This is Travis,’ I said to Santo. ‘A good friend.’
Santo sprang into Travis’s arms and Travis barked with laughter.
Then as Travis pulled me out I felt a wave of fear. ‘Where are the seals?’