Laline Paull - The Ice - A gripping thriller for our times from the Bailey’s shortlisted author of The Bees

The story does not say how the survivor died.

The Last Kings of Thule (1956)

Jean Malaurie

As the ministerial car with darkened windows headed south, Sean assumed he was meeting Stowe at Westminster, and all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was Parch’s misplaced sense of drama, intended to impress Sean with his own command of perks. But they skirted Parliament Square and sped east along the Thames, and Parch begged Sean’s forgiveness in not saying more.

By the time they were passing the Tower of London, Sean guessed they were en route to Docklands, and by Canning Town and the highly visible police presence on the streets, he remembered seeing some protest on the news about the bi-annual arms fair, held at ExCel Centre. Parch rolled his eyes.

‘Word to the wise: we say Defence Expo.’ They looked out. A dense crowd of respectable-looking businessmen, and a few women, waited at the main entrance. Many had flight cases. ‘The British Government would not dream of sponsoring something as mercenary as an arms fair. Oops, don’t say that either.’

‘What, mercenary?’ Sean enjoyed his temporary Whitehall gravitas, reflected in the faces of the armed police waving their car through security. ‘Or Arms Fair?’

‘I’m serious. I can’t tell you why you’re here because all I know is that Stowe’s keen to meet you, so I crow-barred some daylight in his diary then chased you down, like the good dog I am. I’m guessing it’s a one-shot opportunity, but who for I don’t know. DQM, or poor Parch will be thrown off the gravy train.’

The car passed through tall steel gates and into the shadow of a line of battleships, moored outside the conference centre. As they got out they paused with a small crowd, watching a black-clad commando team demonstrate how they would take a ship, from a rigid inflatable boat several storeys below on the brown water of the Thames. Six men in balaclavas shot lines that attached to the freeboard of the ship, which they then scaled with extraordinary strength and dexterity. Sean felt soft and inadequate.

‘Here’ – Parch slipped a lanyard over his head – ‘you’re an MoD consultant for the day. Anyone asks if you’re a journalist, leave them in no doubt. One weaselled in yesterday under false pretences, then refused to leave. Started shouting about freedom of information. Like he’d know what to do with it. Come on, I’m starving.’

Parch’s ‘super-cool pop-up’ was in the Officers’ Mess of the Indian naval destroyer Kali . At the top of the gangplank a phalanx of dazzlingly starched officers waited to welcome them and Parch was as airy in his greetings as if he were the British Defence Secretary himself. He led Sean through to the source of the delicious aromas – a buffet hidden behind a wall of tall and broad khaki, navy and black backs, gold braid abundant on their shoulders. There was no getting through for a while, so he and Parch accepted samosas and bottled Cobra beer from passing waiters. Parch looked wistful.

‘We did one on ours, yesterday. A lunch. Friends, allies and countrymen, poached salmon and Coronation effing chicken, who thought of that? I wouldn’t say the tumbleweed blew, but it was nothing like this. Waft a bit of curry around, et voilà! Prey and predator at the watering hole. Spend on the catering, that’s the motto.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Problem with old Team GB is, their tastes were formed at public school. No gristle in the custard, they send it back.’

Sean tried not to stare. The mess looked like a fancy-dress party before people had had enough to drink. The bristling moustaches did not look real, and the braid and ribbons were comically bright. Out of a porthole he could see a golf-buggy full of men in Arab robes stopping at the bottom of the gangplank. One had a large hooded bird on his wrist.

At that moment, a volley of laughter burst from a nearby group and Sean saw the face of the British Defence Secretary, animated at its centre. The Indian commodores and generals around him were vastly amused.

‘Probably just mentioned Coronation Chicken,’ Parch murmured, smiling deferentially at his boss. Stowe nodded to Sean and held up his finger. Like Kingsmith, he thought. Sit, stay, up for a biscuit. But … good biscuits.

‘Before I go,’ Parch said in a low voice, ‘he’s very pro your price. For what you’ve pulled off, everyone thinks you deserve it.’

Sean took a slow pull at his Cobra.

‘My price?’

‘Come on.’ Parch looked at him sideways. ‘A Special K. You said you wanted one.’

‘Wasn’t that some kind of old nightclub drug?’ Sean knew exactly what it was, slang for a knighthood. But how on earth did Parch know he wanted that?

‘I believe it might have been. Didn’t you mention it at that brilliant party after Wimbledon last year? Or was it Royal Ascot? Land of Hope and Glory ring any bells?’

‘Not really.’ Sean looked at his new watch. He remembered all too well. It was at a post-racing party in Berkshire held on the Last Night of the Proms. Things had been very bad with Gail – or rather, he had behaved extremely badly yet again and only a massive bender could anaesthetise his shame.

It had all culminated at this party. At first all was well – the beautiful horses in their stables and the Union Jack bunting, the strangers who shared their coke, the cocktails – and then out of nowhere he was talking about his marriage, any marriage, surely everyone knew marriage was hard, surely everyone needed help?

The coke grabbed him by the lapels and announced through his drunken mouth that he didn’t mean to be such a shit, he was going to fix that just like he’d fixed himself his whole life, he wasn’t finished yet, and one day it was his ambition – he was up on a table by this stage – his ambition to serve his country and do something that mattered. He would show the world that he was a man of honour and the proof would be that he, Sean Cawson from nowhere, would win a fucking knighthood. For his country. He loved his country even if it didn’t love him. People had clapped, someone had helped him down. No. He had fallen. He shuddered at the memory.

‘I was totally fucked up too,’ Parch confided, ‘ much worse than you, don’t even worry. I only remember it because it was such a rousing speech. You were like Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he’s going to kill the one with the twisty face. I thought, aha now, there’s a man to watch. And wasn’t I right? By the way, I even heard you mentioned at Chatham House the other day, in the same breath as the words: paradigm shift. Before you won the bid. Certain people have been watching you very closely. Obviously I can’t reveal who.’

‘Obviously.’ Sean went to drink his beer and found it empty. While Parch wittered on, name-dropping the latest world leaders and giving the impression he was almost on sleepover terms, Sean kept an eye on Philip Stowe. The new Defence Secretary paid smiling and intent attention to each of the Indians in the circle. Sean could not decide which way the interview was going – or if it were a circle of wolves deciding whether they would eat the creature in the middle. As he looked at his watch, Stowe disengaged from the group and came over.

‘Go away, Parch.’ Philip Stowe had a pleasant voice and twinkly eyes, which he kept on Sean. He offered his hand. ‘Good of you to come.’

‘And you to ask.’ Sean shook with equal brevity and firmness. Stowe had asked for the date, let him lead.

‘How’d you do it?’ Stowe didn’t mess around. ‘Midgardfjorden. Not the biggest, not the prettiest, ruled out weeks ago – but suddenly you’ve got the ring on your finger.’

‘Charm?’ Sean picked up his beer again. Parch was already on the far side of the mess, hooting with laughter at someone’s joke. Stowe didn’t smile.