Алистер Маклин - Ice Station Zebra

‘You’d make a pretty good prosecuting counsel yourself, Commander. But wouldn’t you think there is just too much superficially against Hewson? That a clever man wouldn’t have allowed so much superficial evidence to accumulate against him? You would have thought that, at least, he would have indulged in a little firefighting heroics to call attention to himself?’

‘No. You’re overlooking the fact that he would never have had reason to expect that there would be any investigation into the causes of the fire? That the situation would never arise where he – or anyone else, for that matter – would have to justify their actions and behaviour if accusations were to be levelled against them?’

‘I’ve said it before and I say it again. People like that never take a chance. They always act on the assumption that they may be found out.’

‘How could they be found out?’ Swanson protested. ‘How could they possibly expect to have suspicion aroused?’

‘You don’t think it possible that they suspect that we are on to them?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘That wasn’t what you were saying last night after that hatch fell on me,’ I pointed out. ‘You said it was obvious that someone was on to me.’

‘Thank the Lord that all I have to do is the nice uncomplicated job of running a nuclear submarine,’ Swanson said heavily. ‘The truth is, I don’t know what to think any more. How about this cook fellow – Naseby?’

‘You think he was in cahoots with Hewson?’

‘If we accept the premise that the men in the cookhouse who were not in on this business had to be silenced, and Naseby wasn’t, then he must have been, mustn’t he? But, dammit, how then about his attempt to rescue Flanders and Bryce?’

‘May just have been a calculated risk. He saw how Jeremy flattened Kinnaird when he tried to go back into the radio-room a second time and perhaps calculated that Jeremy would oblige again if he tried a similar but fake rescue act.’

‘Maybe Kinnaird’s second attempt was also fake,’ Swanson said. ‘After all, Jeremy had already tried to stop him once.’

‘Maybe it was,’ I agreed. ‘But Naseby. If he’s your man, why should he have said that the radio room door was jammed with ice, and that he had to burst it open. That gives Kinnaird and Jolly an out – and a murderer wouldn’t do anything to put any other potential suspect in the clear.’

‘It’s hopeless,’ Swanson said calmly. ‘I say let’s put the whole damn’ crowd of them under lock and key.’

‘That would be clever,’ I said. ‘Yes, let’s do just that. That way we’ll never find out who the murderer is. Anyway, before you start giving up, remember it’s even more complicated than that. Remember you’re passing up the two most obvious suspects of all – Jeremy and Hassard, two tough, intelligent birds who, if they were the killers, were clever enough to see that nothing pointed the finger against them. Unless, of course, there might have been something about Flanders and Bryce that Jeremy didn’t want anyone to see, so he stopped Naseby from going back into the cookhouse. Or not.’

Swanson almost glared at me. Watching his submarine plummeting out of control beyond the 1000-feet mark was something that rated maybe the lift of an eyebrow; but this was something else again. He said: ‘Very well, then, we’ll let the killer run loose and wreck the Dolphin at his leisure. I must have very considerable confidence in you, Dr Carpenter. I feel sure my confidence will not be misplaced. Tell me one last thing. I assume you are a highly skilled investigator. But I was puzzled by one omission in your questioning. A vital question, I should have thought.’

‘Who suggested moving the corpses into the lab knowing that by doing so he would be making his hiding-place for the cached material a hundred per cent foolproof?’

‘I apologise.’ He smiled faintly. ‘You had your reasons, of course.’

‘Of course. You’re not sure whether or not the killer is on to the fact that we are on to him. I’m sure. I know he’s not. But had I asked that question, he’d have known immediately that there could be only one reason for my asking it. Then he would have known I was on to him. Anyway, it’s my guess that Captain Folsom gave the order, but the original suggestion, carefully camouflaged so that Folsom may no longer be able to pin it down, would have come from another quarter.’

Had it been a few months earlier with the summer Arctic sun riding in the sky, it would have been a brilliant day. As it was, there was no sun, not in that latitude and so late in the year, but for all that the weather was about as perfect as it was possible for it to be. Thirty-six hours – the time that had elapsed since Hansen and I had made that savage trip back to the Dolphin – had brought about a change that seemed pretty close to miraculous. The knifing east wind had died, completely. That flying sea of ice-spicules was no more. The temperature had risen at least twenty degrees and the visibility was as perfect as visibility on the winter ice-pack ever is.

Swanson, sharing Benson’s viewpoint on the crew’s over-sedentary mode of existence and taking advantage of the fine weather, had advised everyone not engaged in actual watch-keeping to take advantage of the opportunity offered to stretch their legs in the fresh air. It said much for Swanson’s powers of persuasion that by eleven that morning the Dolphin was practically deserted; and of course the crew, to whom Drift Ice Station Zebra was only so many words, were understandably curious to see the place, even the shell of the place, that had brought them to the top of the world.

I took my place at the end of the small queue being treated by Dr Jolly. It was close on noon before he got round to me. He was making light of his own burns and frostbite and was in tremendous form, bustling happily about the sick-bay as if it had been his own private domain for years.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘the pill-rolling competition wasn’t so fierce after all, was it? I’m damned glad there was a third doctor around. How are things on the medical front?’

‘Coming along not too badly, old boy,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Benson’s picking up very nicely, pulse, respiration, blood-pressure close to normal, level of unconsciousness very slight now, I should say. Captain Folsom’s still in considerable pain, but no actual danger, of course. The rest have improved a hundred per cent, little thanks to the medical fraternity: excellent food, warm beds and the knowledge that they’re safe have done them more good than anything we could ever do. Anyway, it’s done me a lot of good, by jove!’

‘And then some,’ I agreed. ‘All your friends except Folsom and the Harrington twins have followed most of the crew on to the ice and I’ll wager that if you had suggested to them forty-eight hours ago that they’d willingly go out there again in so short a time, they’d have called for a strait-jacket.’

‘The physical and mental recuperative power of homo sapiens,’ Jolly said jovially. ‘Beyond belief at times, old lad, beyond belief. Now, let’s have a look at that broken wing of yours.’

So he had a look, and because I was a colleague and therefore inured to human suffering he didn’t spend any too much time in molly-coddling me, but by hanging on to the arm of my chair and the shreds of my professional pride I kept the roof from falling in on me. When he was finished he said: ‘Well, that’s the lot, except for Brownell and Bolton, the two lads out on the ice.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ I said. ‘Commander Swanson is waiting pretty anxiously to hear what we have to say. He wants to get away from here as soon as possible.’