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

‘I should be helping bring him back, I should be there.’

‘You can’t do anything: it’s all in progress. You weren’t next of kin, but I guess they’ll be in touch with you, they’ll be able to have a funeral at last. And an inquest, but that’s separate.’

‘An inquest ?’ The word was so ugly. ‘But we know what happened, I’ve said it all, we’ve been through it.’

‘I know, but it’s what happens when someone’s brought home. Same in the States as in the UK – just a formality. I’ll be there to support you, I promise … Sean, can you hear me?’

‘Yes.’ The grey sky pulsed above him.

‘You get yourself home, get back to Martine. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she’ll know what to do. Sean, say something.’

‘What were you talking to Danny about?’

He heard Kingsmith’s bark of a laugh.

‘Boy, are you persistent! But I’ve always liked that. OK, mea culpa, I put in a retreat, very small and last minute, a favour for a pal. I saw a void in the schedule and he’s paying top dollar. But this is hardly the time—’

‘I’m still the CEO. Everything goes through me.’

‘And if you are thinking like that at a time like this, you are the right man for the job. Point taken. Sean? You’re breaking up but I hope you can still hear me: you need to speak to your friend in Oslo, about keeping traffic away from Midgard – it’s important—’

The phone connection dropped out – Kingsmith’s signature goodbye. Sean stood alone on the dusty red plain of Hyde Park, barely able to breathe.

He started to run.

Martine was in the wet-room shower when he came in, sweat-soaked like it was raining. Still in his clothes, he walked into the torrent and held her. She smiled, her eyes closed – and then she looked and saw his stricken face.

‘Oh my god, what’s happened?’

Sean hit his forehead against the streaming wall. ‘They’ve found Tom.’

‘Stop! Come here.’ She held him to her, keeping them under the streaming hot water, undressing him until he was naked. She kicked the clothes away from the drain and held him until he stopped shaking, then she turned off the water and helped him out and into a robe. As she put on her own, he went into the kitchen. She followed, watching while he took a bottle of vodka from the freezer and poured a big slug into a tumbler.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Handle it without that. You don’t need it.’

He knocked it back. Then he told her, in the barest detail, about Kingsmith’s call, and the facts he knew, including the fact of the inquest. Martine nodded slowly.

‘I’m so sorry, my darling. But Joe’s absolutely right: this is closure at last, and if there’s an inquest we’ll get through it. I need to plan how we handle it. First thing is I’ll work on a statement on your behalf, and then we’ve got a bit of time.’

Sean listened to her as she walked around their dressing room preparing for work, thinking aloud. Joe was right, she had a good head on her well-set shoulders, working out which journalists could be trusted, how she would cancel certain invitations so they were not seen out enjoying themselves for a while …

He wished she had burst into tears. He wished she cared more about Tom, and less about damage control. Her voice went on as he stared at the rails of his clothes. Abruptly she was beside him.

‘I’m staying with you.’

‘No,’ he said, getting up. ‘Go to work. I’ll be OK.’ He pulled open a deep drawer and took out his Arctic travelling clothes, alien with lack of use. ‘I’m going to Midgard.’

Martine held his arm. ‘That’s crazy. You’re in shock. Look at yourself.’

He did. The mirror showed him a beautiful young woman standing there half-dressed, her dark hair wet, beside an older man who stared back at him, eyes haunted and dangerous. Sean turned away.

‘Joe put in a retreat. Without telling me.’

Martine frowned. ‘Really? He shouldn’t do that.’

‘It’s because I haven’t been there. I’ve dumped everything on the team.’

‘No. You’ve delegated. You can’t personally run every single one of your clubs, you pick right then you trust people.’

Sean threw some clothes into the bag and zipped it. ‘I’m letting everyone down.’

Martine tried again, embracing him and pressing herself into him from behind.

‘You’re not! Forget about last night, forget all that. Just come back to bed and let me look after you.’ She ran her hand down his chest and closed it over him. ‘Be sad in my arms. I won’t go in today.’

‘No, go. I’ll be OK.’ He kissed her, to deflect the rejection. She stared at him in the mirror as he went out into the bedroom and found his car key. She followed.

‘You can’t drive, you’ve just had a huge vodka. And if you’re on the afternoon flight you’ve got plenty of time – where are you going?’

Sean looked out into the square garden.

‘It’s bad to hear it on the phone.’

‘Oh.’ She moved away. ‘I see.’

‘Martine, please, you know how fragile she is.’

‘Actually no, I don’t think she is, not at all.’

‘She loved Tom as well.’

‘Fine. But I think she was prepared to pull any stunt to try to stop you leaving. I think she’s manipulative and angry and she’s turned your own daughter against you, and me , and it’s totally a mistake to keep being sentimental about a marriage that was over long before I came along.’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded harsh. I just want to protect you from more pain at a time like this. You shouldn’t go.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Yes, I am. But if you don’t want me to stay with you today, or to come with you to Midgard, if you want to just be alone with the bad feelings—’

‘Yes! I’m a fucking mess, I told you I was a bad deal—’

‘I never make bad deals.’ Martine pulled back and looked in his eyes. ‘But if you want healthy boundaries you’ll have them, and if you want to put yourself through the wringer, you’ll do that too.’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘So I really care that you’re so sad, but as you won’t let me help you, I am going to work. Let me know when you’re back. I’ll be here.’

He listened to her light step down the outer hall, then the click of the front door. He went back to the freezer, but stopped. Martine was right, of course. He was in no condition to drive.

The easiest way to learn, of course, was to inquire of an angakoq (wizard), and in the course of my long conversations with Igjugarjuk I learned many interesting things. His theories, however, were so simple and straightforward that they sound strikingly modern; his whole view of life may be summed up in his own words as follows:

‘All true wisdom is only to be learned far from the dwellings of men, out in the great solitudes; and is only to be attained through suffering. Privation and suffering are the only things that can open the mind of man to those things which are hidden from others.’

Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1927)

Knud Rasmussen

Sean once knew the sequence of lights so well that he never got caught on red. Now the route had become as alien as his old home and he misjudged every stretch. To keep his mind away from thoughts of Tom, he focused on driving impeccably and not as if he had gulped three fingers of vodka in the last hour – but the morning rush-hour traffic was infuriatingly slow and he suddenly felt self-conscious in his car.