by Laline Paull
‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘I know the Midgardbreen glacier, I’ve been in that cave system. What can I tell you?’
‘How it might have collapsed,’ said the coroner. ‘How Mr Harding’s body might have emerged. And how, out of interest, Mr Cawson managed to get out.’
‘Isn’t that last part interesting?’ said Professor Kelly. ‘Suggests a hidden structure of tunnels, made accessible by the shifting of the glacier. That’s probably what caused the collapse of the caves. They’ve been on record since the end of the nineteenth century, then the Oxford Air Arctic Expedition mentioned them in 1929. At least, the Great Hall was mentioned, named after college hall, I believe. Sounds to me like that chamber collapsed unevenly, part of it dropping into a chasm and part of its structure falling to block that drop.
‘Looking at the footage, I think it’s possible that after the initial collapse the whole inner structure of the chamber called the Great Hall slipped down a very long way within the interior of the glacier – and was eventually forced out as an underwater shooter during that calving event witnessed by the cruise ship. Fascinating, but diabolic in meaning.’
He looked over at the press bench.
‘The most likely cause of this cave collapsing is climate change. We know for a fact that the warming seas are increasing rain over the Arctic, creating lakes of meltwater all over the ice caps. They look very beautiful as you fly over, but it’s one of the worst sights in the world, because now it’s not snow collecting and compressing any more, it’s just water. So it seeps through into the glacier, weakening its structure. Caves collapse. Calvings increase in magnitude and frequency. The summer sea ice has gone twenty years ahead of predictions. People who want to get at the minerals unlocked by the thaw, or to exploit new sea routes, want us to believe this is a good thing. Accelerated warming, rising sea levels, increased disruptions of global weather patterns – how is this a good thing?’
‘Professor Kelly, if you could confine yourself to the singular matter of this particular cave system.’
‘Sorry, but I absolutely cannot, any more than we would sit here feeling safe if there was a fire raging in the next room. I have shifted everything to be here this afternoon – and the press bench need to report my testimony, not least so that Mr Harding’s very valuable life’s work might also be supported by his death.’
‘Professor Kelly, this is not a political forum—’
‘I’m sorry, Your Honour, but we’re in a burning building together! Tom Harding died in a caving accident, which can itself be attributed, I believe, to the reckless endangering of our planet by every industry that ignores the environmental recommendations for how to operate, and to every government that fails to abide by the Paris Agreement and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases to 1.5 degrees – 2 degrees is not enough! The world is going crazy, the president of the United States calls climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese – the world is governed by lunatics and we just sit quiet?’
‘Professor Kelly, you will please vacate the stand—’
‘I will. But only when I have told you it is my expert and considered opinion that the destabilisation of the ice-caves was a direct consequence of climate change.’ He looked to the press bench: ‘Those exact words please – and if you have space, also that the seeping of the meltwater down from the Midgard ice cap probably fatally compromised the structural integrity of the caves. I believe this is why they collapsed, and also that Mr Cawson escaped with his life because in the collapse a hitherto unknown section of these same caves was opened up, with a shallower lateral exit. Tom Harding’s body probably emerged through that same action, the water taking him out into the fjord. We’re seeing this in Greenland at an unprecedented rate and at glaciers all over the polar ice cap.’
Professor Kelly noticed the stewards at the doors and came off the platform before he could be ejected. ‘Wake up!’ he called out. ‘Wake – up!’
They broke for the day, Professor Kelly at the centre of Tom’s family group, Ruth Mott part of it. The journalists vanished. Sensitive to their tension, Sawbridge left Sean and Martine to walk back together.
The late afternoon was balmy for October, the cathedral bells were ringing. Martine had lied in court, and Sean did not know what to say to her. She talked brightly about the benefit – and again he had to force himself to acknowledge that it was still going ahead, and he was an integral part. A grand black-tie dinner, in forty-eight hours’ time, at the Carrington. He had to make a speech; Martine assumed he had it all ready and it was easier to lie. The main thing was to get through the inquest.
The restaurant was full when they arrived and she was pleased at her acumen in finding out about it and booking it, despite how busy she was. Sean listened to her talking about stress, and agreed with her advice of what to order, and what wine. He listened until the wine made the lights seem softer and beautiful Martine sat there with him, her skin gleaming gold over her bones. It was relaxing just to listen, after the intensity of the courtroom. He didn’t argue when she told him he was exhausted, and they should both go away after this was over, maybe on Kingsmith’s yacht, as he had suggested.
Brisingamen, the nearest thing Kingsmith had to home, was an exquisitely converted Canadian frigate whose muscular capacities lay hidden beneath the best taste in ocean-going luxury. Sean had been on her a long time ago during his stint as Kingsmith’s assistant – but things were different now. There would be no admin to keep at the forefront of his mind, Kingsmith liable to ask him about anything at any time. With Midgard under his belt and Martine in a bikini, he would feel distinctly equal to his mentor. Life was going to improve, unlike the steak, which was overdone – he’d ordered rare. He raised his hand for the waiter, who turned from a nearby table and came over.
‘How can I help you?’ Tom asked through his crushed and purpled face.
Sean leapt up, overturning his chair and wineglass. He looked at Tom in horror.
‘Sean!’ Martine scanned around. ‘What is it?’
‘I know.’ Tom winked gruesomely at him. ‘I look all washed out.’ He offered the menu.
‘Get away from me.’ Sean backed into another table.
‘Sean!’ Martine grabbed him. ‘Look at me.’
He saw her. Then he saw the waiter standing there in confusion, a young man in a black apron, a frightened stranger. Sean looked around the restaurant. Diners stared in astonishment. He bent to pick up the bottle of wine that had spilled all over the pale boards and took a napkin to blot it with. He enjoyed how the red soaked into the white. In the distance he could hear Martine’s voice, paying, apologising, lying.
They walked back, her arm through his like a mother shepherding a child after a tantrum. He was not at all OK, she told him, he needed a break, the coroner must adjourn, Sawbridge would want that too – and he must share with her what just happened in there and not treat her like a stranger.
They reached the White Bear. Martine’s voice was percussion against his head. Sean still could not speak and to stop her talking he turned her to him and kissed her. He needed air, he would be up soon. When she left him, he sat on the flint wall in great relief. For the first time since morning, he was alone. He stared into the darkness. He had seen Tom and although the sight was shocking, there had also been something perversely cheering about the encounter. Sean remembered the feeling of true friendship, a feeling he had missed for so long.
In Svalbard, in Midgard Lodge where the October wind slammed and screamed at the windows, Danny Long sipped his coffee and checked his screens. He went wide, checking on the number of vessels in line, slowly making their way over the North Pole. He clicked on them for their vital statistics, port of origin, flag of registration – and found the one he was looking for. The Zheng He, coming from Dalian. Making steady progress, in very sporty conditions. He wondered what sort of bonus the captain would be getting when he exchanged cargoes in West Africa. Then he put it from his mind, and rang down to Anna Bjornsen to see what
she was cooking.
The Great Bear
A woman whose child had died left her home and walked away. Then she came to an igloo and went inside. She found the skins of bears, left like coats. The people who lived there were bears in human form, and she stayed with them.
The big bear would put on its skin and go out to hunt. It might stay away a long time but it always came back with food.
The woman had stayed away from her people a long time and felt homesick. She wanted to see them again. So the bear spoke to her:
‘Do not speak of us when you return to men,’ it said. It was afraid lest its two cubs should be killed by the men.
The woman returned to visit her people, and the need to tell burst inside her. One day she said to her husband,
‘I have seen bears.’
And now many sledges drove out, and when the bear saw them coming towards its house, it felt so sorry for its cubs that it bit them to death, to spare them falling into the hands of men.
Then the bear hunted down the woman who had betrayed it, and broke into her house and killed her. But when it tried to return home the dogs closed round it and fell upon it. The bear struck out at them then all at once they rose up in brightness to the sky, and became the stars called Qilugtussat, which look like a bear beset by dogs.
Since then, men speak carefully of bears, for bears hear what men say.
Inuit legend, as told to Knud Rasmussen, 1921
Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1927)
Knud Rasmussen
29
Dr Ruth Frances Mott took the secular oath, the picture of academic respectability in her black linen suit and white blouse, her thick hair neat in a ponytail. Sean reflexively studied her the way he did all women, for sex appeal. Still those bright eyes and air of focus he’d found so alarming when they were all young, still that don’t-care style, a provocation to this day. That beautiful girl in the pub with Tom had the same quality, but at a lower strength.
Martine glanced at him, then back at Ruth Mott, now answering the coroner’s questions.
‘I am a marine biologist specialising in ice-obligate mammals of the Arctic. Over twenty-five years I’ve gone from being a generalist on different species of whales, to studying the walrus, the population dynamics of different seals – bladdernose, ringed, harp – then specifically, the polar bear, focused on the reproductive cycle of the female. My most recent peer-reviewed work is on the denning behaviour of the East Greenland population, the least studied of the twenty-two known population groups.’ She looked out at the court. ‘At least, that’s what I was doing until the area I was studying was destroyed by mining activity.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Now I work in the tourist sector, in my capacity as a biologist. Lecturing. That was the reason I was in Svalbard for the weekend of the eclipse, and met Tom again.’
‘Thank you, Dr Mott.’ The coroner made a note. ‘Would you please describe your relationship with Mr Harding?’
‘We were mates.’
‘As in, friends?’
‘As in, the primal bond.’
Mr Thornton paused.
‘I’m not sure I know what that is. Would you give me a context in time?’
When Ruth smiled, Sean saw that, unconsciously, people mirrored it. Except Sawbridge, still and watchful.
‘First at college,’ Ruth said. ‘Then we lived together in London, before our careers started pushing us apart. Tom finished law school and went straight into activism and journalism, so he was off the whole time. I was getting positions on different field studies in the Arctic, but we’d find different places to meet. We were together in Alaska when the Parrish oil pipeline failed, which was when he joined Greenpeace full-time. I was taking part in a field study in Nunavut for the season.’
She paused. ‘That was the beginning of our end. It was too painful to go on trying. We kept hurting each other. So we let it go.’
Sean counted the brass studs on the chair-back in front of him. He could smell the mints someone was eating, and the tired air in the room. He wanted to be outside.
‘Except,’ he heard the coroner say, ‘when you met in Svalbard, the day before the eclipse. But that was not planned.’
‘Not unless that bear planned it.’ Ruth Mott’s smile faded. ‘I followed up on the autopsy results, and it came from East Greenland, from the very population I’d been studying when my project was cancelled.’ She looked out across the court. ‘Is Joe Kingsmith here?’
‘He’s coming later, Dr Mott. Please confine yourself to answering my questions, not asking them.’ The coroner held her eyes. ‘But why do you ask?’
‘I think Tom found something out he didn’t like. I think something happened at Midgard that led to his death. I don’t think it was an accident.’
It was not her words so much as the complete silence that followed them.
‘You know, Dr Mott, that there is no doubt the ice-cave on Midgardbreen collapsed, trapping Mr Cawson and Mr Harding.’ The coroner leaned forward and spoke clearly. ‘You are making a serious allegation, so please explain it.’
She nodded. ‘You know how we met at the airport because I was performing the autopsy on the bear that was shot in the tourist incident. Tom invited me to join them for dinner at Amaruq, and I did. They all invited me, or I wouldn’t have gone. I should say that Sean and I had sort of fallen out sometime before, so I was pleased he did that.’ She looked at him. ‘I really was.’
Everyone in the courtroom turned to look at Sean.
‘Is that falling out with Mr Cawson significant, Dr Mott?’
‘I interfered in a marriage. I was wrong. I’m sorry, Sean.’
He shook his head – it no longer mattered.
Sawbridge leaned closer to Sean.
‘No more of that please.’
The coroner observed the silent exchange with a raised eyebrow.
‘Dr Mott. Regarding your opinion that Mr Harding’s death was not an accident: I would like to know more about that.’
‘I was really shocked Tom was involved in Midgard Lodge. Like a lot of people, all I knew was that some British group had bought the property and developed it, and it was all top secret. The rumour was that it had nothing to do with environmental concerns and everything to do with protecting the satellite company over the ridge, or something like that. Why else would they be allowed to fly in and out with helicopters? No one else on Svalbard had those privileges. It seemed crazy that Tom was involved – even after he explained about the retreats.’
‘When did he do that?’
‘At dinner. They all gave me sound bites about what a great thing it was and how global rapers and pillagers of the environment would come on Arctic jollies and do deals and some of the fee would go to Tom to fund climate change education, or something like that. I told Tom he was a lackey – and then there was another row.’
‘Another one?’
Ruth nodded and pushed her hair back in the way Sean remembered, her tell before steaming into some ethical brawl and ruining a nice evening. Tom was the only person who could ever rein her in.
‘If I’d known that Joe was Joe Kingsmith, I’m not sure I’d have gone. Because he was the owner of the mining company that closed down my survey in East Greenland.’
‘Objection, Your Honour, this really can’t be allowed.’ Sawbridge stood up, smiling. ‘My client does not recall the events as Dr Mott relates them. Additionally Dr Mott has no evidence for her irrelevant accusations against Mr Kingsmith. After she left the restaurant she took part in no further conversation.’
‘I did,’ she called to Sawbridge. ‘Tom spent the night with me after leaving the restaurant.’ Sawbridge looked quickly to Sean, and she almost smiled at their shock. ‘You didn’t know?’
Sean did not. His mind raced. Ruth nodded slowly.
‘At the airport, I thought whatever god there was that I didn’t believe in, had brought Tom back to me. Then at the restaurant, I thought he’d sold
out, and I was so upset I had to get back to my shitty broom cupboard of a room where I could cry.’ She paused, and when she spoke again, everything about her was softer. ‘But he followed me. He tracked me and found me.’
‘And … you talked?’ The coroner sounded almost embarrassed.
‘Talk? Oh yes … we talked … all night. And we planned that when he came back from Midgard Lodge we would be together. We’d both been long enough in the wilderness but we’d found each other again. Suddenly it was easy.’
‘But you said you thought his death was not an accident.’
‘That’s right. We talked about what Sean was really doing up there. About Kingsmith. I don’t know about the other two. Radiance was into shipping and hotels. Tell me how that’s a good thing for the Arctic. The other one, Sean’s current whatever, she’s just into the money, as far as I could make out.’
Sean felt Martine glitter in anger beside him. Part of him wanted to high-five Ruth Mott for being as combative and difficult as he had ever thought her.
‘In the morning, Tom left me and went to the hotel very early to meet them and go on to Midgard Lodge. We thought it was better to be discreet, for him not to say anything. That was the last time I saw him. We joked about bailing on everything and staying in bed – but he wanted to see Midgard. He completely believed in Sean again. Even though he’d apparently already told him not to bring me – “for confidentiality”, but I knew it was because I’d upset his billionaire friend Kingsmith.’ She looked at Sean. ‘I did, didn’t I?’
The press bench turned its hydra head to observe Sean for reaction.
‘Dr Mott.’ Mr Thornton was impatient. ‘This is not a platform for debating matters that do not concern my inquiries. Did you discuss the matter of Midgard Lodge and its affairs with Tom?’