Tundra

by Tim Stevens

  Lenilko saw Anna pick up the phone and glance over her shoulder at him. He was already striding across to his office as she opened her mouth.

  Behind his door, he picked up the phone.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s been a complication.’

  Lenilko waited, holding his breath.

  ‘Somebody tried to kill the journalist, Farmer.’

  Lenilko breathed out, trying to process what he’d heard.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  The delay on the line gave Lenilko a moment to think. This was unexpected. This didn’t make any sense.

  He listened to the Englishman’s clipped account. On the return journey from the field trip, the fuel tank of Farmer’s snowmobile had exploded. Farmer was unhurt, but it had been a close thing. A leak, it was assumed, but the mantra repeated itself through Lenilko’s mind. There are no coincidences.

  He said, ‘We have an identification of sorts. Of Farmer.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Lenilko told him of the Martin Hughes link.

  The silence was so prolonged that Lenilko thought the connection via the satellite must have been cut off.

  At last Wyatt said: ‘Yes. That must be where I remember him from. The Tallinn photograph.’

  ‘If an attempt has been made on his life at the station, he can’t be working with them.’

  ‘It appears that way, yes.’

  ‘Any further information?’ But Lenilko already suspected the answer.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You need to isolate him. Interrogate him on his own.’

  Again, a pause. ‘I get the feeling he wants to do the same with me,’ said Wyatt.

  Lenilko leaned back in his desk chair, stared at the ceiling. Wheels within wheels, turning in opposing directions. The larger picture was difficult, impossible, to discern.

  Wyatt continued: ‘The others don’t trust him. Some of them, anyway. It’s interesting observing their reactions to him. And he seems to be drawing them out, somehow. Them as well as me.’

  ‘All right.’ Lenilko made his decision. ‘Forget what I said about isolating him. Watch him, and watch the others. Only move directly if the situation becomes urgent.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Wyatt’s voice disappeared, and with it the station seemed to recede into the unbroachable distance.

  Nine

  Once again Purkiss checked his room for the traps he’d laid, for signs that someone had searched it. Once again he found nothing of note.

  The relative comfort of his quarters now held nothing but menace. Wyatt would make a second attempt to kill him, of that there was no doubt. He might try a more straightforward approach next time, an ambush in the dead of night, or something as bizarre as poison in the toothpaste. He was working for Russian Intelligence, after all, an organisation which had been known to use radioactive material to assassinate its opponents abroad.

  A direct confrontation with Wyatt wouldn’t be the wisest course of action at this point. Purkiss knew he could make the man talk, but because he knew nothing about what the man was doing at Yarkovsky Station, he’d have no way of knowing if what Wyatt told him was anywhere near the truth. First, he needed to find an angle, something to base his line of investigation on.

  The others were the key. At least one of them knew about Wyatt’s agenda. Purkiss was sure of it. At least one, and probably more.

  And Purkiss thought he knew where to begin.

  They’d returned to the station from the outpost at six in the evening. It was now close to eight, the time when the evening meal traditionally took place. Purkiss headed back to the dining room, found everybody except Wyatt, Haglund and Medievsky there. The small woman, Oleksandra Budian, was moving about the kitchenette, ladling some kind of stew into bowls.

  As when He’d first arrived the night before, every head turned Purkiss’s way. This time the unease was greater than the curiosity.

  ‘You okay, man?’ asked Avner.

  ‘Fine,’ said Purkiss. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve been through worse. At least there was nobody shooting at me. Had that before, as an embedded hack in Syria.’ He headed for the kitchenette. ‘It smells wonderful. Let me give you a hand.’

  Budian gave a curt smile and instead of offering protests, passed him a second long-handled saucepan. Purkiss filled the bowls. The aroma was rich and heady, the meat generous.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  From the table, Avner piped up. ‘Mountain hare. A Saturday night treat. None of the dried or canned crap we usually get.’

  ‘You hunt them yourselves?’

  ‘Gunnar does. Guy could hit a playing card at a hundred yards in the dark. Bags five or six of the little bastards every week.’

  Purkiss handed the bowls to Montrose and Keys, who’d come to collect them. He said, ‘Gunnar’s quite the jack of all trades.’

  ‘Hell, yeah.’ Avner sounded genuinely admiring. ‘He’s not here right now, as you can see, because he’s in his workshop trying to figure out exactly how you managed to fuck up his machine.’

  At his shoulder, Purkiss saw Budian glance up sharply at him, as though gauging his reaction. Keys winced and turned away.

  But Avner’s comment had broken the ice.

  Purkiss said, ‘I’ve been a bit of a disruptive influence, haven’t I?’

  He sat down between Clement and Montrose, both of them shuffling their chairs over to give him room. A litre bottle of vodka stood on the table, already drained below the neck. To Purkiss’s mild surprise, Clement reached for it and unscrewed the cap and poured a measure into each of the plastic tumblers that were arrayed haphazardly between the bowls and the plates piled with hunks of hot bread.

  Avner raised his cup. ‘To not getting blown up by faulty snowmobiles.’

  The tumblers were raised, and Purkiss risked a swig. The liquor scorched his throat. The lightening of the atmosphere was too valuable for him to risk it by seeming not to partake.

  They set to their meal with the appetites of a group of people exposed to prolonged extreme cold. Purkiss savoured the dense pungency of the stew, feeling its vitality spread slow warmth through his system. The near miss on the snowmobile had sent his adrenal glands into overdrive, depleting his body’s reserves, and he needed the nourishment of protein and carbohydrate more than he’d realised.

  As the food was consumed and the vodka flowed, the conversation began to settle into a comfortable pace. There was talk of the day’s work, the weather conditions, current affairs. For the first time, Purkiss heard Budian speak at length. She was, he reflected, the person at the station with whom he’d had the least interaction since his arrival. Her accent was denser than Medievsky’s, the guttural Russian vowels more pronounced.

  Avner, directly opposite Purkiss, laid down his spoon and poked the peak of his cap back with a finger and said: ‘Okay. John. What’s your story? You’re going to be interviewing all of us, so... a little about yourself first. You married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’re shacked up, right?’

  Purkiss thought of Hannah. Their relationship had begun in extreme circumstances last summer, after she’d saved his life when a car bomb had gone off in a south London street. The intensity of their first six weeks had been brought to an abrupt halt when Vale had dispatched Purkiss to a supposedly brief job in Copenhagen, one which had led on to a two-month stint in eastern France involving a complex sting operation. By the time Purkiss returned to England, Hannah, who worked for the Security Service, MI5, had herself become caught up in a painstakingly meticulous undercover project in Birmingham. They’d continued to see one another ever since, but their days and nights together had become the exception rather than the norm.

  ‘Kind of,’ said Purkiss.

  ‘Ah. Yeah. Like that.’ Avner tipped his tumbler at Purkiss. ‘I’m getting a sense of, don’t even go there.’ He laughed mirthlessly, took a drink.

  Beside Avner, Bud
ian leaned in swiftly and said, ‘You have done science reporting before?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Purkiss. ‘I was at the G8 climate change summit last year. But I was just relaying what the leaders discussed. This is my first time in the field, as it were.’

  ‘Are you enjoying it?’ Montrose hadn’t addressed Purkiss directly so far, and his voice was startling. Purkiss looked at him. He wasn’t drunk, not in the slightest.

  Purkiss decided to play along. ‘Well, apart from the small matter of the exploding snowmobile... yes, I am. Very much.’ He looked at his watch. ‘In fact, if it’s not too late, I wonder if one or two of you would be prepared for me to interview you this evening. About your particular field of expertise.’

  There were shrugs, nods. Purkiss glanced round the table.

  ‘Dr Keys? You first?’

  Keys stared at Purkiss, as though he hadn’t been listening and had just caught the mention of his name. ‘What?’

  ‘Care to talk to me a little about your work here at the station?’

  Keys looked at the others, as if soliciting help. Then he examined his nails, raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Why not.’

  *

  Keys’s office was through the small infirmary, which in turn was located in the western wing, the one containing the laboratories. The infirmary itself held six beds, a complicated piece of apparatus Purkiss recognised as an anaesthetic machine, and an array of monitors. The harsh ceiling lights and clinical smell lent the room the atmosphere of a morgue.

  Purkiss came in with the recording equipment he’d collected from his room. Through the open door of the office he saw the doctor leaning back in his swivel chair, his bulk compressing it, his thin legs outstretched. The office was a chaos of journals and books crammed haphazardly onto shelves. No family photos adorned the walls or the desk.

  Without being asked, Purkiss closed the door behind him and sat across the desk. ‘It’ll help with the recording. No echo from the infirmary this way.’

  Keys grunted, gazed at Purkiss through red-rimmed eyes. ‘So what do you want to know?’

  Purkiss took a deep breath, hesitated on the edge, plunged. ‘How long have you been using?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Heroin. How long have you been a heroin addict?’

  Purkiss hadn’t until that moment fully grasped the meaning of the word aghast. Keys’s mouth dropped open, his eyes flaring. He remained pressed back in his chair, his feet pushing the wheels a few inches backwards across the floor.

  Purkiss tapped his own arm on the inside, near the elbow. ‘Track marks. I saw them when you were examining me earlier. You’d rolled your sleeves up a bit too far.’

  Keys swallowed, his eyes never leaving Purkiss’s. ‘I’m diabetic.’

  ‘You might be, or you might not. Either way, it’s a cover. You use it to explain to the others your sweating and irritability, your needles, your tendency to disappear every now and again.’ Purkiss nodded at Keys’s arm. ‘Those were IV tracks. Not the way insulin is administered.’

  While the doctor continued to stare at him, a sheen appearing once more on his forehead, Purkiss looked around the office. ‘Where do you keep your stash? Hidden in here? In your bedroom? Or, I’ll bet, disguised among the other medications out there in the infirmary.’

  ‘Who are you?’ It was a whispered rasp.

  ‘A journalist,’ said Purkiss affably. ‘This is what we do. Sniff out facts.’

  For a few seconds both men were silent, and Purkiss felt Keys teeter on the cusp of brazening it out.

  Then he sank forward in his chair, the hydraulics wheezing beneath his weight, and pressed his hands over his mouth. His eyes flicked back and forth across the desk.

  ‘My God,’ he muttered behind his hands. ‘My God.’

  Purkiss sat back and watched him.

  Without meeting Purkiss’s eye, the doctor said, ‘How much?’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘How much do you want?’ Keys’s voice was steadier now, the level monotone of a man who’d rehearsed the question before. Or perhaps even asked it.

  ‘I’m not blackmailing you,’ said Purkiss.

  ‘I can make some calls,’ Keys went on in the same dead tone. ‘Have it deposited –’

  ‘I said, I’m not blackmailing you.’

  Purkiss sat up straight, watched Keys recoil in his chair. ‘Look, Keys. I understand what it means for you if this gets out. You’ll be struck off the register. Prosecuted, probably. You’ll lose your pension. All this hanging on you’ve been doing for the last few years, keeping things together just long enough until you retire... it’ll have been for nothing. I’ve no interest in destroying someone like that. So I’ll keep your secret.’

  The shock in Keys’s eyes had been replaced by wariness. He was breathing heavily, his white face blotched unevenly.

  ‘But I need you to tell me who else knows about you. About your habit.’

  The doctor’s lips moved soundlessly. He licked them drily, tried again.

  ‘Nobody.’

  His hand came up and wiped his mouth.

  It was the most basic “tell” of all.

  Purkiss said: ‘You’re lying.’

  Keys shook his head.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Purkiss. ‘You can’t keep a secret like this in such a confined environment, for months on end. Someone must have found out. Look how quickly I noticed, and I’ve been here just twenty four hours.’

  ‘Nobody,’ said Keys, his voice rising and cracking.

  Purkiss held up a hand, began ticking off fingers. ‘Medievsky. It can’t be him. There’s no way he’d tolerate something like that on his watch. Montrose. Possibly. He wants Medievsky’s job, he might be planning to use you to embarrass the boss. Clement. Again, a possibility. She’s here to observe you all. She might have persuaded herself there’s some twisted justification in allowing an opiate-addicted doctor to continue practising unnoticed, might be fascinated by the dynamic it creates or whatever. Avner. Unlikely. He’s –’

  ‘Please.’ It came out as a sob. ‘For God’s sake. Please. Nobody else knows.’

  The knock on the door made Purkiss jump. Keys let out a stifled whimper and cringed away, hugging his arms.

  Purkiss thought: Damn.

  ‘Just a minute,’ he called. To Keys he said, his voice low, ‘You’re having a hypoglycaemic attack. I’ll stall whoever it is.’

  He went to the door and opened it. Medievsky stood in the infirmary, Haglund beside him. Haglund cradled one hand in the other, his palm upturned. A cloth which might once have been white but was now stained a deep crimson was wrapped around his fingers.

  ‘Is the doctor with you?’ said Medievsky.

  ‘He’s just had a bit of hypo,’ said Purkiss. The blood was seeping past the makeshift bandage around Haglund’s hand and dripping onto the tiled floor, guttering in the grouting. Haglund’s face was tight.

  Keys appeared behind Purkiss. ‘What’s the problem?’

  Purkiss turned. The doctor appeared ashen and a muscle in his cheek was twitching, but he’d composed himself to a remarkable extent.

  ‘Bloody hell, Haglund.’ Keys shouldered Purkiss aside and reached for a pack of surgical gloves, peering at the bloody hand.

  ‘I cut it on a piece of metal from the snowmobile,’ muttered Haglund, staring at Purkiss as though he was responsible.

  Purkiss watched as Keys urged Haglund over to the nearest bed and got him to sit on it. Carefully he peeled back the sodden wrapping, unleashing a thick slash of semi-coagulated blood.

  Keys looked over his shoulder at Purkiss. ‘Out.’

  Purkiss nodded and made his exit. He’d collect his recording equipment later; it was for show, in any case.

  He headed down the corridor with the sense that he’d just tossed a match onto a petrol slick.

  Ten

  ‘Do you know, Mr Farmer, of the Road of Bones?’

  Oleksandra Budian stood before the huge wall map o
f the region, Purkiss at her side. She’d suggested they conduct her interview in the laboratory, as it wasn’t currently in use, and because, as she put it, she was more herself there than anywhere else.

  ‘The Kolyma Highway,’ said Purkiss. ‘Built by Gulag inmates during the Stalin era.’

  She reached up and traced an uneven line in the upper right quadrant of the map with her finger. ‘More precisely, it is this section of the highway, between Khandyga and Magadan. As you say, built by the labour of slaves, over twenty years. Their bodies were buried under the road, hence the name.’ After a few seconds’ pause: ‘My grandfather was one of Stalin’s slaves. Imprisoned in the Gulag in 1940. My grandmother never discovered which camp, or the exact date of his death. One day he was dragged from their apartment at three o’clock in the morning. The next thing she heard, two years later, he had died in the camp.’ Again she traced the course of the highway. ‘His bones are part of the road. I know it.’

  Purkiss had been on his way back to the living room when he’d encountered Budian in the corridor. She’d gazed up at him through her owl glasses and said, ‘You wish to interview me, now?’ and Purkiss had thought: why not. He needed, after all, to conduct some further interviews to obscure the fact that he’d singled Keys out.

  Budian had been an engaging interviewee, perched on the stool at the lab bench and talking lucidly about the work she conducted. She made the minutiae of soil sample analysis sound like the juiciest gossip. Despite himself, despite the torrent of thought and emotion the episode with Keys had triggered within him, Purkiss found himself utterly absorbed in Budian’s lecture, which was what it amounted to.

  Gradually he’d segued into questions about her background. She was a former head of department at Moscow University – but I belonged here on the ground, not up there in the towers of ivory, she told him clumsily – and had even presented a brief but popular science programme on Russian state television nine years earlier. At the end, unasked, she’d shown him round the lab, describing the workings of the various pieces of equipment, and the projects she and Medievsky were engaged in, with a quiet, passionate reverence.