I’d wondered what Hagger did with that. I thought about telling the truth, and couldn’t see any reason why not.

‘It’s mine,’ I said. ‘I gave it to Hagger. I was getting interference with my instruments. One day, I was playing around with frequencies trying to figure it out and I picked up this fragment. Nothing else, just a series of numbers. I showed it to a few people at Zodiac to see if it had anything to do with their work. Hagger didn’t know, but he was interested. He liked crossword puzzles; said he’d see if he could do something with it.’

Anderson looked it over. ‘The twos are what make it odd.’

Smart cookie. ‘That’s what we thought. Zeros and ones could just be any kind of binary, what you’d expect. The twos make no sense.’

‘And this is all you managed to get?’

‘Yeah.’ I gave him back the paper; it was only a copy. ‘Did you ever find out what Hagger wanted up on the Helbreen? I mean, his major work was on sea ice, right?’

‘It’s possible Hagger had traced some sort of chemical in the sea ice. He thought it might be coming off the glacier in meltwater.’

I dismissed that. It might have been what he was looking for, but it wasn’t what got him killed. ‘Nothing about DAR-X in the notebook?’

‘That was a different project.’ He slid off the stool so I could take a look through the microscope. ‘Some micro-organism in the water was corroding their pipes. They asked Hagger to analyse it.’

I was more interested in the pipe than the bugs in the water. I hoped I’d find something inside it, fibre optics or antenna cable. So far as I could see, it was just a hollow tube.

‘How about that key?’ I asked. Casual as I could. ‘Last I heard, we didn’t have any locks at Zodiac.’

A strange look crossed his face, like he wished I hadn’t seen it. I could see him thinking about what to tell me.

‘I found it where Hagger died, by the crevasse. It must have fallen out of his pocket.’

That got my attention — if it was true. ‘Did Hagger have a filing cabinet, or a desk drawer he kept locked?’

He waved his hand around the lab. ‘I’ve looked everywhere. As you say, there aren’t any locks at Zodiac.’

‘No secrets among friends,’ I said cheerfully.

‘Maybe it was his house key and he forgot it was in his pocket.’

‘Maybe he had a secret liquor cabinet chilling in the glacier.’

We both laughed.

‘I have to go,’ I said. ‘Need to check my emails. Let me know if you find anything.’

‘Right away,’ he promised.

I could tell he wanted me to leave, so I didn’t linger. I went straight out in the corridor. Of course, I left the door open a tad. The corridor’s so dark, you wouldn’t really see someone watching you through the crack.

As soon as I was gone, Anderson took the key off the bench and hid it in a drawer. I guess he wished he could have locked it away safe — but there are no locks at Zodiac. Nothing to stop a guy going into a lab at night and taking something out of a drawer.

Back in my room, the reply had come in from Malick.

I’m in meetings all day, but hopefully can get to it tomorrow. Levels >1400 definitely something worth talking about.

He couldn’t make it until tomorrow. I remembered what Greta had said and called up the weather forecast. It didn’t look good. A polar low was heading our way from Greenland: I could see the comma cloud coming together on the satellite, the long tail starting to turn. Those things move almost as fast as a hurricane. When it hit, it was going to get ugly.

But I had to get back to Vitangelsk, and see if the key fitted the lock.

Twenty-five

I could have just snuck off, and taken Quam’s shit later. But if anyone noticed me gone, I didn’t want them sending out search parties with a storm coming in. So, next morning, I spun him a line.

‘One of the struts buckled on my radio telescope,’ I told him. If you’re going to lie, lie consistently. ‘If I don’t get it fixed before the storm comes, the whole thing could go.’

Of course he said no. ‘Safety is paramount.’

‘I’ve just been shortlisted for a million-dollar grant from the NO double A. You want me to tell them I can’t bring it to Zodiac because my instruments got trashed in a storm?’

Everyone has weaknesses. Quam’s were more transparent than most. Mention a grant, you could almost see the dollar signs ring up in his eyes.

‘Everyone has experiments running out there.’

‘So don’t tell them. I won’t sign out; I’ll check in directly with you on the satphone. No one has to know.’

‘But you can’t go on your own.’

I pointed out the window, to the upper slopes of the mountain behind us. Clouds dashed over it.

‘I’m not going far.’

Quam played with the Newton’s cradle executive-toy thing he had on his desk — the classic bureaucrat’s move. I tell you, Captain, only the fucking Brits would send a vanilla guy like that to run a place like Utgard. Maybe he was good at cricket.

‘Don’t let the others see you,’ he said.

Just as I was leaving, I pretended I’d thought of something else.

‘Don’t worry if I’m out for a while. If the weather goes south too soon, I’ll stay in the caboose up there.’

I thought he’d complain. Perhaps he wanted to, but didn’t have the strength. He slouched in his chair as if something had snapped inside of him.

‘Please don’t let anything happen to you. It’s my job, if anything else happens.’

‘It’s my life,’ I pointed out.

I didn’t much care about the storm. If it got too bad, I could hole up in one of the buildings at Vitangelsk until it passed. I made sure I packed fuel for the MSR, and plenty of food. Plus a few pieces of equipment from my lab that had nothing to do with survival.

The hardest part was getting away. There’s no quiet way to drive a snowmobile. In the end, I had to disengage the drive belt, and push the thing around the base of the hill like a broken-down car. If anyone heard it from there, they could think what they liked. I opened up the throttle, turned on my iPod and let rip.

Was I scared? Not really. At that speed, you feel invincible. The clouds built their castles in the sky; the wind cried against my helmet. The flat light smoothed the terrain so you couldn’t see the bumps, but I didn’t care. I was riding the storm.

I got to Vitangelsk early. I parked my snowmobile in the square and made a circuit of the town, to be sure there wasn’t anyone waiting. If you think a frozen ghost town is freaky, wait until you’ve been in a frozen ghost town with a storm building. Down the valley, I could see dark clouds gathering out over the ocean. The moment I took my helmet off, the ice in the air stung me so bad I had to put it back on. But with my ears covered, I couldn’t hear a thing. I took it off again. I should have brought goggles, but all I had was my sunglasses. When I put them on, the dark day got darker. Every shadow was rendered deep black, every building looked like the House on Haunted Hill. Even the fucking snow looked dark.

I didn’t see anyone else in town. That didn’t mean they didn’t see me. I kept looking over my shoulder as I went back to the HQ building. The moment I was through the door, I took off my sunglasses and got to work.

The padlock was still there. A Yale lock, just like I remembered. I had Greta’s bolt cutters with me, but first I wanted to try something. I took out the key I’d borrowed from Anderson’s lab and pushed it in the lock.

It fitted. I twisted and it turned, smooth as butter, no hint of rust or age. The hasp popped open and the lock dropped into my hand. I stared at it like it had fallen from outer space.

‘And what in hell were you doing with that key, Dr Hagger?’ I asked aloud.

I put my shoulder against the steel trapdoor and heaved. It resisted a second, but only because of the weight. Nothing wrong with the hinges. The door swung up and clicked into the upright position.