She didn’t rise to the bait. ‘You can’t fix the ice cores with paracetamol and a sticky plaster. But …’ she pulled out a semicircular tube of ice ‘… we back it up. We split the cores down the middle with a table saw, so if there’s any doubt about the lab sample, we can double-check against the original.’

She counted them off, then swore. ‘One of them’s missing.’

‘I didn’t take it,’ I said reflexively. Probably sounded guilty as sin. I glanced at the body behind me. I thought how grudges stack up. ‘Could Hagger have taken it?’

‘The one that’s missing is a deep core, right from the glacier bed. Martin wouldn’t have been interested.’

‘Hagger’s got something on his hands,’ I said. I twisted the arm so she could see his palm. ‘Do you know what that is?’

She gave it a quick glance. ‘Do you?’

I did. But I wanted her to say it. ‘Some kind of stain.’

‘It’s Rhodamine B. Fluorescent dye. We use it to measure flow through the glaciers. It’s so concentrated, you can pour fifty mil into the top of a glacier, and a few hours later you’ll find it coming out the bottom.’

She played with the end of her hair. ‘It stains like hell if you spill it.’

‘Who else uses it on Utgard?’

‘My students.’

I let his hand drop and stood. ‘Any thoughts how Hagger got it on himself?’

‘We haven’t used it here since last summer. Rhodamine’s only any good in the ablation season — i.e., when there’s meltwater.’

I wondered if it had anything to do with the water that had soaked Hagger’s clothes. I decided it was time to be blunt.

‘What have you got on your hands, Annabel? Blood, maybe?’

She stared at me in disbelief. ‘God, you’re melodramatic. And mean.’

‘You were supposed to be Hagger’s partner on Saturday. You were alone with Tom Anderson when he fell in the moulin.’ Without really thinking about it, I’d started to move towards her. Annabel took a step back.

‘Do you think I didn’t think of that? I’ve seen the way everyone looks at me. For what it’s worth, I was as shocked about Anderson as anyone. I had to pull him out of that hole. As for Martin …’

‘As for Martin …’ I prompted.

‘He was an arrogant shit. But that doesn’t make him worse than any other man on this base.’

‘Present company excluded.’

‘Do you really think …?’ She laughed, as if the whole idea was too ridiculous to contemplate. ‘Maybe I should be flattered you think I’m such a stone-cold bitch I could do it. I suppose you’ve invented a motive.’

‘Revenge.’

‘For what?’ I made a you-know sort of gesture with my eyes. ‘That?’ Another incredulous laugh. ‘He was a fifty-something man with three divorces, receding hair and a career going down the toilet. Life was getting its own revenge on him.’

‘Then how do you explain the dye on his hands?’

‘I can’t.’

She held my gaze, defiant across the frozen room. The light flickered; the roof seemed to sag in. Suddenly, what had felt so certain a minute ago melted away.

‘Did you have any more mud to throw? Or have you finished?’

I mumbled something. She advanced towards me so that her face glowed yellow in the light.

‘Do you think this is easy? I’m the only woman scientist on a station full of men. Technically, I’m sure you’re all brilliant, but socially you’re hairy Neanderthals who haven’t emerged from the last ice age yet. Everyone here looks at me like I’m a fucking piece of steak they want to get their paws on.’

She moved to go, then thought of one more thing.

‘You know why you want to believe that I killed Hagger? Because the idea that a woman would kill a man for love flatters your egos. It makes you think you’re worth something.’

Seventeen

I hadn’t finished breakfast next morning when Quam called me into his office. He sat behind his desk, fingers working a rubber band fit to snap.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded.

‘I was hoping to finish my cornflakes.’

‘You know damn well what I’m talking about. I’ve had reports — from more than one of my staff — that you’re putting it about Hagger was murdered.’

‘You asked me to find out who was leaking data to DAR-X. I’m pretty sure it was Hagger. He even did a little unofficial work for them on the side.’

‘Hagger’s project had nothing to do with that.’ The rubber band was wound so tight it had cut off the blood to his fingertip. ‘I authorised it myself.’

‘And they were up by the glacier the day Hagger died.’

‘So were half the Zodiac personnel, for God’s sakes. You can’t be suggesting that DAR-X would do … that.’

‘No one ever accused oil companies of playing by the rules.’

I didn’t mention Annabel. I guessed she’d already told Quam what I thought of her.

‘This has to stop,’ Quam said. ‘We’re all living close to the edge. Hagger, Anderson, now the crash. More major incidents in a week than we’ve had in twenty years.’

‘Still, it’s three,’ I said flippantly.

‘Three what?’

‘Bad things come in threes. Maybe that’s the end of it.’

Quam didn’t see the funny side. ‘One man’s dead, two more nearly followed him. With the Twin Otter gone we’re cut off, probably for at least a week. If you ratchet up this paranoia any more, someone’s going to crack.’

‘Don’t you see the connection?’ I insisted. ‘First Hagger, then his assistant — and then the plane they were both on. The leak in the fuel tank — you think that was an accident too?’

‘Hagger was a busted flush. Shall I tell you a secret? His reputation, the big Nature paper — all built on lies. No one can replicate it, you know why? Because he doped his samples.’

‘He couldn’t have,’ I protested.

‘They emailed last week. They’re retracting the paper. We can’t have that kind of fraud here: the funding bodies would hit the roof. I told him to his face I was sending him home.’

That set me back. I knew he’d been having trouble with his work, but this was something else. A third of scientific articles, even the peer-reviewed ones, turn out to be wrong, but no one ever says anything. They’re swept under the carpet and forgotten. For a major journal to publicly disown a paper is almost unheard of. Even the fellows who faked cold fusion back in the eighties didn’t have that happen to them.

‘You sacked Hagger?’

‘That very morning.’ He stretched the broken rubber band. There was a nick in it: I could see it would snap again soon.

‘You think I’m proud of it?’ he said. ‘If anyone’s responsible for his horrible death, it’s me. I must have driven him to it.’

‘I still think we should look into it. If Hagger committed suicide, it doesn’t explain Anderson. Or the plane, or—’

‘Enough!’ Quam stood. His face had gone as red as his fingertip, as though someone had wound a rubber band around his neck. ‘You’ve got to stop spreading these rumours — I’m ordering you. You can’t go around making people think there’s some kind of murderer on the loose.’

Too late, he realised the door was open. Danny stood there, a dishcloth draped around his neck and his eyes wide. He’d started to shuffle back into the corridor, but Quam’s furious gaze brought him to a guilty stop.

‘Just wondered if Doc had finished his breakfast,’ he mumbled.

I’d lost my appetite. But back in the medical room, Anderson had woken up. He sat on the little bed, staring around like an abductee taking his first look at the spaceship. His face was grey, his hair was a mess, and five days of beard growth made him look like a tramp.

‘Where am I?’

‘Wednesday morning. And still at Zodiac.’

He rubbed the back of his head. ‘I’m not sure …’

‘Some short-term memory loss is normal. You mustn’t fret about it. It’ll come back in good time.’

‘I need to talk to Luke.’ He glanced at the clock on the wall, panic spreading. ‘He’ll be at school.’