Previous Books by the Author
Dead Letters (Murder is Academic, US)
Stage Fright
Footfall
Invisible
Deep Water
Christine Poulson was born and brought up in North Yorkshire. She studied English Literature and Art History at the University of Leicester, later earning a PhD. She went on to work as a curator at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and at the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith before becoming a lecturer in Art History at Homerton College, Cambridge. As well as writing fiction she has written widely on nineteenth-century art and literature, and her most recent work of non-fiction was The Quest for the Grail: Arthurian Legend in British Art, 1840–1920. Her short stories have been short-listed for several awards, including the 2016 Margery Allingham Prize. She lives in a watermill in Derbyshire with her family.
www.christinepoulson.co.uk
Blog: www.christinepoulson.co.uk/a-reading-life
Twitter: @chrissiepoulson
Text copyright © 2017 Christine Poulson
This edition copyright © 2017 Lion Hudson
The right of Christine Poulson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by Lion Fiction
an imprint of
Lion Hudson IP Ltd
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road
Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com/fiction
ISBN 978 1 78264 216 9
e-ISBN 978 1 78264 217 6
First edition 2017
Acknowledgments
Cover images: ice © myshkovsky/iStock; scalpel © contrail1/iStock; heart © Peter Hatter/Trevillion Images
Scripture quotations taken from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown’s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
To the memory of my husband Peter Blundell Jones
(1949–2016)
“We all have our own White South.”
Ernest Shackleton
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice.”
“Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.”
Apsley Cherry-Gerard, The Worst Journey in the World
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER 1
NORTH NORFOLK
As Flora drove up the rutted track to the cottage, she thought for a moment that someone had switched on a light upstairs, but it was only the setting sun striking fire from a bedroom window. She parked the svelte Porsche Panamera that had been Michael’s wedding present. It was still a new toy and she’d enjoyed the drive from Cambridge. She got out of the car and shivered, pulled her coat around her. The sun had gone down behind the little grove of pines that served as a windbreak. It was the first time she’d been here alone and it occurred to her that another woman might have felt uneasy. The nearest neighbour was a farmer a mile or two away across the fields. But she wasn’t the nervous type, and she was looking forward to having time to herself.
She took the cat carrier from the car. Marmaduke, her long-haired mackerel tabby, liked it here and could be trusted not to run away. “Off you go, little tiger,” she said, as she let him out. He snuffed the air, and set off with a purposeful air to patrol the garden.
She had to put her shoulder against the front door to open it. The wood must have swelled in the damp. Cold, clammy air came out to meet her. It was early February and they hadn’t been here since the previous autumn. She turned on the water and the heating and decided that she’d have a fire that evening. On the morning of their last visit Michael had swept out the hearth and laid a fire ready for the next time they came. That gave her a cosy feeling, as if he were looking after her at a distance.
She unloaded everything that she would need for her stay, including a stack of ready meals. Michael was the domesticated one and that suited her just fine.
When they had first visited the cottage, she’d been surprised that there wasn’t a landline, let alone Wi-Fi, but Michael had explained that that was the point, to get away from everything. And now she appreciated the isolation. Mobile coverage was poor too, but never mind. She thought with pleasure of the three weeks stretching ahead of her. She had her lab books to write up, and a new research proposal to plan. She had no commitments until mid-March when she’d be meeting Lyle and his investors in London. She needed to be fully prepared for that meeting, perhaps the most important of her life.
As she arranged the meals for one in the fridge, she took stock. It had been hard work, but it had all paid off. She was where she wanted to be: married to Michael, her career taking off. The breakthrough in cancer research had been exactly what she needed to establish herself. A shadow fell across her thoughts. Suppose someone were to find out that… But no, she wasn’t going to go there. She’d always been lucky and her luck wouldn’t fail her now. The patent was in the bag and nothing could stop her. She let herself daydream. Large grants, her own lab, a personal chair, fellowship of the Royal Society, maybe even a Nobel Prize. And then there was the money. Yes, it was all possible. She was only thirty-five. All that was ahead of her.
She ought to ring Michael to let him know that she’d arrived. He was in Melbourne on the first leg of a lecture tour of Australia. She looked at her watch – they were twelve hours ahead so that meant six o’clock in the morning. She put her coat back on and went out into the garden, the only place where she’d be able to get a signal.
The temperature had dropped. There would be a frost tonight. The sun had sunk out of sight and a few stars had appeared in the sky. Far off across the fields a light twinkled from the adjacent farm.
She sent a text to see
if Michael was awake yet. Thirty seconds later her phone rang. He was awake, suffering from jet lag.
They agreed not to worry about being in touch over the next three weeks. The time difference made things awkward, not to mention the lack of mobile reception, and they were both going to be very busy – Michael moving from city to city and she immersing herself in her work. In any case she wasn’t the kind of person to need constant reassurance and neither was he.
As they hung up, and she made her way back into the house, she reflected that theirs wasn’t the greatest love story ever told, but she didn’t mind that, preferred it really. There was a twenty-year age gap, but that was just fine. What was it they said? Better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s fool. Definitely! For one thing he understood that her work came first and he wouldn’t be putting pressure on her to have children – he already had a couple of grown-up kids from his first marriage. And there were all sorts of advantages to marrying someone in the same field, especially someone as eminent as Michael. He had already given her more than one leg up in her career. She knew that for his part, he liked playing the mentor and enjoyed showing off his attractive younger wife. It had been almost like an arranged marriage – one that she had arranged herself. She had known what kind of husband she needed and when she’d met Michael she’d known he was it. She smiled to herself. It was a pity that he’d been married to someone else, but really, once she had set her sights on him, he hadn’t stood a chance.
She made herself a cup of tea and lit the fire. She spread out her papers on the table in the sitting room. She went into the kitchen and put down food for Marmaduke. She was crouching by the fridge, trying to decide between lasagne and fish pie for supper, when she heard something outside. What was it? A cat maybe? Or some wild animal? A fox? She stood still and listened. There it was again. Something in distress. And yes, that pathetic mewing: it was definitely a cat, close to the house now, and it was in pain. It wasn’t Marmaduke, he’d gone upstairs.
She drew back the bolt and opened the back door.
* * *
Upstairs in the bedroom Marmaduke yawned luxuriously. He was tired now after patrolling the boundaries of his territory. There had been no sign of his enemy, the tom belonging to the farm across the fields. Marmaduke was lord of all he surveyed and his kingdom was full of the rustle of small, furry creatures. He had already found and eaten a mouse and he had topped that up with the food Flora had put down in the kitchen. All was well.
He hesitated between the bed and Flora’s open case. He was allowed to sleep on the bed when Michael wasn’t there, and he would be turfed out of Flora’s case when she saw him, but it was too tempting. He climbed in, turned around a few times, and settled himself down on Flora’s brushed cotton pyjamas.
There was a crashing and a bumping downstairs. His head shot up. He waited, listening in the dark. The noise stopped as abruptly as it had started. He heaved a sigh and let his head sink down on his paws. He was drifting off to sleep, when he heard a car driving away. Then there was silence.
CHAPTER 2
ELY
Katie paused on the towpath to drink in the familiar scene: the boats in the marina, the picturesque jumble of buildings with the streets leading up to Ely cathedral. It was one of those faded February days when the water was the same colour as the sky. The distant trees were as flat as a frieze and the Octagon Tower of the cathedral was lost in the mist. And yet there was a feeling that spring was just around the corner. The sun was struggling to break through and somewhere a bird was singing.
But Katie wasn’t going to see the gradual unfolding of the spring, nor the summer nor the autumn, come to that. I am going to have two winters in a row, she thought, as she walked down the towpath. One less summer in my life.
Rachel waved to her from the deck of the Matilda Jane. She looked tired, and the short, dark, curly hair was threaded with grey. Caring for a child with a chronic illness took its toll.
Katie climbed on board the barge and they embraced.
“It’s just wonderful, what you’ve managed to do,” Katie said, looking around at the wheelhouse. The boat had been badly damaged by fire the year before last and restoration work had only just finished.
“You’re our first guest. Dan’s gone to fetch Chloe from her ballet class. Fancy a glass of prosecco while we’re waiting?”
“I presume that was a rhetorical question!”
They went down the stairs into the combined sitting room and kitchen. The sun came out, sending ripples of reflection across the wooden floorboards and brightly coloured rugs. The wood-burning stove gave off welcome heat.
Rachel went to the fridge and got out a bottle.
“Here, before I forget,” Katie said, delving into her backpack and bringing out a long, narrow box wrapped in red and gold paper. “For your birthday.”
Rachel frowned, “But it’s not my birthday until – oh.”
Katie saw realization dawn.
“You won’t be here,” Rachel said. “You really are going?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t? After all those interviews and these months of training.” She brought out another box wrapped in pink paper decorated with fairies. “You’d better hide this before Chloe sees it. I hope she likes the paper. She is still keen on fairies?”
Rachel sighed. “I keep hoping she’ll switch to something less girly. Dinosaurs, maybe…”
“Come on, Rachel, she’s only five. Give the kid a break. Besides, there’s Lego inside. And that’s not pink.”
Rachel drew out the cork with a pop and poured out two glasses. She handed one to Katie and they clinked them.
They sat down opposite each other at the kitchen table.
“I’m going to miss you,” Rachel said.
Katie looked with affection at her friend. On the face of it they might not have seemed to have that much in common: Katie, a young scientific researcher in her early thirties, single and childless; Rachel, a wood restorer ten years older, with a husband and child. They had first met when Katie was doing research on Diamond Blackfan Anaemia, the genetic blood disorder that Chloe suffered from. Katie had grown very fond of Rachel and Chloe in the fifteen months or so that she had known them.
“When are you flying out? Saturday?”
Katie nodded.
“So this time next week,” Rachel said, “you’ll be in Rothera. Here’s to new beginnings all round.”
Katie hesitated, the glass halfway to her lips. “Well, actually, it’s not going to be Rothera.”
“It’s not? But I thought you said –”
“It was going to be,” Katie admitted, “but I had a call from the British Antarctic Survey just now when I was on my way here. I’ll be going to the Edward Wilson base instead.”
“But can they do that at the last moment?”
“Someone had an accident there and had to be flown out. They need a last-minute replacement. And I did agree to go wherever they sent me.” Katie knew exactly what Rachel was thinking. She’d always been doubtful about Katie going to Antarctica. Rothera was bad enough, but the Wilson base! It had only been open for two years and was the smallest and most remote of the three British Antarctic research stations.
“You’ll be cut off for even longer there, won’t you?” Rachel said, frowning. There was something of the mother hen about her – and it could be irritating.
“Yep. I’ll be on the last flight in and then that’s it until the beginning of November. It gets so cold that the engine oil gelatinizes. But Rachel, there’s always email and satellite phone. It’s not like it was in the days of Scott and Shackleton and conditions are pretty good on the base. We even have our own chef.”
“What’ll you be doing there?” Rachel asked.
“I’ll be taking over this guy’s research project – I’m well qualified for it. It’s about the way human beings adapt to darkness and isolation. Lack of light suppresses the action of the pineal gland with the result that less melatonin is produc
ed. And that’s the hormone that sets our body clock. People wintering over tend to get out of kilter, like people suffering from jet lag. They can lose their sense of night and day and become ‘free-running’, slipping into a cycle that’s shorter or longer than twenty-four hours. So I’ll be measuring their melatonin levels among other things.”
Rachel said, “I wish you didn’t have to go. It’s so unfair that you couldn’t get more funding for your research.”
Katie sighed. “I told you, didn’t I, what happens to whistleblowers? Other scientists don’t like you breaking ranks and you get a reputation as a troublemaker. But Rachel, no one’s forcing me to go to Antarctica – and it’s not the scientific equivalent of joining the Foreign Legion! It’s the opportunity of a lifetime and I was very lucky to get on the programme.”
They had talked it over so many times, returning again and again to Katie’s decision to expose a case of scientific malpractice. At the time it had scarcely felt like a conscious choice. Katie had been drawn on from one discovery to the next and had had no way of knowing that it would all end in disaster.
Rachel leaned forward and said, just as she always did, “You did the right thing. Once you suspected, you couldn’t let it go. What’s that saying: ‘Let justice be done though the sky should fall.’”
Sometimes Katie envied Rachel’s moral certainty and behind it the religious faith that Katie couldn’t quite share.
She said, also not for the first time, “I do regret it sometimes. What good did it do? Careers ruined – mine included maybe – a death –”
“Stop it, Katie. You couldn’t have seen any of that.”
“Yeah, yeah. The law of unintended consequences…” Time to change the subject. “By the time I get back people might have forgotten about it. Now tell me, how’s Chloe? How’s the new therapy working out?”
“We go back to the consultant in a couple of weeks.” Rachel hesitated. “If it works, it’ll make all the difference –”
But before she could say anything further, there was a clattering and a banging overhead. The door to the wheelhouse opened and a small person came skittering down the stairs and headed for Katie like a heat-seeking missile. Katie got to her feet just in time to be clasped around the waist and to feel a head pressed against her side. She couldn’t help laughing. Chloe’s sheer joie de vivre was infectious.
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