With the wind so high, I couldn’t hear a thing. Certainly not Kennedy coming through the door. He has a knack, that man, of turning up when you least want him.

‘It’s blowing fit to wake the dead out there.’ He smiled, and picked up the printout before I could grab it.

I would have snatched it out of his hands — but he’d already read it. His eyes widened. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the books.’

I had nothing to do except go along, and tell myself that if Kennedy wanted me out of the way, he could have made sure I never came out of the coma.

‘It arrived the day Martin died,’ I said.

‘How did you get hold of it?’

‘I guessed his password,’ I admitted. ‘I was after his data.’

If Kennedy understood the subtext — if, for instance, he’d been responsible for deleting Hagger’s data — he didn’t show it. He seemed more interested in the time.

‘Eleven o’clock,’ he murmured. ‘And you’re sure Martin saw it?’

‘It was flagged as “read”.’

I put out my hand to take it back. Kennedy ignored me.

‘Let me show this to Eastman.’

‘Don’t do that.’

It came out sounding borderline hysterical. He leaned towards me, staring into my eyes as if checking me for signs of concussion. ‘Are you all right?’

‘It’s private,’ I mumbled.

A charming smile. ‘That may be, but neither of us has a leg to stand on in that department, do we really? Reading a dead man’s emails, I mean.’

And before I could do anything, he ambled off.

I logged off the computer and shut it down. Then I started getting my things together. Hagger’s samples, the microscope and slides, my map with the X’s marked. The beakers from my experiment I covered with cling film (not very scientific), and put in a cardboard box. The fragment of yellow pipe I’d put in the red sample yesterday morning was now almost completely gone, a sludgy residue at the bottom of the jar like old Weetabix.

The equipment filled three boxes and a backpack. No way I could carry all that through the storm in one go. I took it down to the boot room and got suited up. The wind gauge on the monitor said forty-seven knots, the temperature minus forty. The point at which Celsius and Fahrenheit read the same, I remembered from some ancient science lesson. I couldn’t conceive of what it would be like outside, so I threw on pretty much everything I had.

Even that was hardly enough. Just holding on to the railings going down the steps, the wind nearly tore my arms out of their sockets. By the time I’d found one of the sledges, parked in the gloom under the Platform, I was trembling. Looking up, I could see lights shining from the windows like the portholes of an ocean liner. A shadow moved inside, probably one of the students watching the storm from the comfort of the mess, and I felt a pang as I imagined them there curled up on the sofas, laughing and joking and drinking hot chocolate. What was I doing out there?

I should go back. I staggered to the bottom of the stairs and gripped the rail. The wind was full-frontal now, blasting me back off the slippery steps. I looked up.

The door opened. Yellow light flooded out, only for a second, as two bundled-up figures emerged on to the steps. I shrank back under the stairs.

Sifted snow showered over me as they came down the steps. They stopped at the bottom and looked around. I cowered back into the shadows, though there wasn’t much chance of them seeing me. Nor of me recognising them, but from their relative sizes I guessed Eastman and Kennedy. Were they going to the caboose?

They weren’t heading that way. They seemed to be following the flag line for the mag hut. That would explain why they weren’t carrying rifles. It must be nine o’clock.

I started up the stairs again, hauling myself into the teeth of the wind. Trying not to slip, or get blown away, I hardly looked beyond the next step. So I didn’t see the door open again, or the figure coming out, or even feel the vibration of his footsteps.

It was too dark for shadows, too much chaos in the air to catch any movement. But some deep sense, a survival instinct, made me look up. There he was, bearing down on me out of the blizzard.

With everything that’s happened, I was probably never more vulnerable than in that moment. I began to lift a hand to fight him off, but the moment I loosened my grip on the rail I was almost blown off. I was defenceless. He could tip me down the stairs, break my neck, make it look like an accident. It had worked for Hagger. The only one they’d blame would be me, an idiot out of his depth in an Arctic storm. Someone who should never have come.

My senses were so heightened, I swear I could see each individual snowflake in the air as the figure lifted his arm …

… and beckoned me forward. I couldn’t move. He beckoned again, more urgently, and almost lost his footing.

He wasn’t going to kill me. Adrenalin had mashed my mind so much I could hardly process the thought. I squeezed myself to one side, and we manoeuvred around each other, like two sumo wrestlers trying to get through a door. Arms round each other for stability, close enough that I could see the name sewn on to his jacket. Quam. Close enough he could read the name on mine. We bobbed our heads at each other in a strange, almost ritualistic greeting. Like penguins.

He disappeared into the storm after Eastman and Kennedy, following the flag line. Battling the storm every step, I loaded up the sledge with Hagger’s lab equipment. Last of all, I put a rifle on my shoulder, though I couldn’t imagine how I’d fire it in those conditions.

I put the rope around my chest and just about managed to drag the sledge to Star Command. At least I had the wind at my back. I’d reached the door, when I saw Quam coming out of the storm with a bundle of safety poles in his arms. He passed like a ghost; I don’t know if he saw me. Strange time to be rearranging the flag lines.

I turned on the light and the heater. No problem with the electricity, luckily. It was nearly 10 p.m., but there was no way I’d get to sleep with the wind howling around the caboose, and the adrenalin in my system. The power was still on. I unloaded Hagger’s samples, and got to work.

I feel like I’m living a double life. All around me, Zodiac goes on as normal. Through the mess windows, I can see the students decorating for Thing Night; Fridge tramps around base breaking ice off his instruments; Greta’s on the roof repairing storm damage. No doubt Danny’s cooking in the kitchen, and Quam’s flicking that executive toy on his desk. And me? I’m holed up in the Star Command caboose like a fugitive. I slept here last night, with a packing crate wedged against the door and a loaded rifle beside me. I wonder if anyone’s noticed.

Even with the heater on, the temperature in Star Command is touching zero. I’ve got Hagger’s samples in the fridge to keep them warm; I keep on expecting the thermal cycler and the mass spectrometer to pack up completely. I’ve had to insulate them with my jumpers so that I can get the samples hot enough to incubate. But I’m almost there.

The storm had died down this morning, but the wind was still rattling around the station. Even so, there was no mistaking the firm knock. I scraped frozen condensation off the porthole in the door and peered out. Greta stood there, in her pigtailed hat, holding a plate covered in foil.

‘Waffle day,’ she announced when I opened the door. ‘I brought you one.’

‘How did you know I was here?’

She uncovered the plate and handed me a fork from her pocket.

‘I hope you like syrup.’

Even the short journey from the Platform to the caboose had chilled it down. The waffle was flaccid and rubbery. Even so, I was more grateful to her than I knew how to say.