The enzymes aren’t in the glacier — they’re under it.

I’m lying on my bed catching up my diary. So much work, but I’ve got almost all of it now. Time to lay it out for myself.

Meltwater → under the Helbreen → mine tunnels → Helbreensfjord → ocean current → Echo Bay

Contains Pfu-87 enzyme, turbocharging food chain along coast

Algae → plankton→ fish → seals → bears

Accelerated evolution of Gelidibacter incognita bugs

Contamination of Hagger’s original samples

WHERE IS Pfu-87 COMING FROM?

→ not from snow/ice accumulation — glacier samples negative

MUST BE PICKED UP IN THE MINE TUNNELS

Eastman must know. All those loaded comments this morning about Vitangelsk, Mine 8. He was testing me to see how far I’ve got.

If he reads this, he’ll kill me.

Still not clear why he gave me the paper with those numbers on it. Some sort of test? Connected with Pfu-87 enzymes?

If there were four numbers, it would make sense. Could be DNA sequence, 0 = G, 1 = C, etc. Be interesting to compare with DNA coded by enzymes.

Unless …

Pharaoh String! Is that why Hagger brought me here? Impossible.

Noise outside — someone coming.

I have to get to the Helbreen right now.

Franklin put down the journal as Santiago came in to his cabin. Kennedy was with him, leaning on a crutch. His bandages had come off.

‘We took a look at the guys from the tent,’ Santiago said. He looked angry about something. ‘Tell the Captain what you told me.’

Kennedy licked his lips. ‘The man you found out there — it’s Tom Anderson.’

‘I told him it can’t be. Tom Anderson’s got six inches and about eighty pounds on this guy.’

Kennedy looked irritated. ‘I think you can trust me to recognise him.’

Franklin closed the book. ‘Is he going to wake up so he can tell us himself?’

‘Doc says fifty-fifty. He was out there a few days. The woman, Greta, she’s in better shape. Doc thinks she arrived later, probably came to rescue him but ran out of gas. She must have let off the emergency beacon. Had it tucked up with her in the sleeping bag, to keep the batteries warm.’

A wistful look came over him. ‘Be nice to have a chick to curl up in a sleeping bag with me out here.’

‘Mrs Santiago would hate to hear you say that, Ops.’

‘Mrs Santiago hates the cold.’

Franklin reopened the book. Santiago didn’t take the hint.

‘Something on your mind, Ops?’

‘Just wondering, sir. If we do have Anderson, who the hell did we have before?’

I don’t know where to start. Don’t even know what day it is. After what’s happened … If I can’t make sense of it, how can I write it down?

At least I’ve got the rest of my life to think about it.

But that isn’t long. In this cold, life expectancy’s measured in hours. All that stands between me and the Arctic is a canvas wall. All that’s heating the tent is my own body. I can already feel it failing.

I read a story, before I came, how a nineteenth-century ship sank near the Bering Strait. Months later, wreckage arrived off the coast of Greenland, carried thousands of miles by the ice. Maybe one day this journal will land in Canada or Alaska, and a cruise-ship tourist will pick it up off the beach. They’ll wonder who I was, if this could possibly be true.

More likely, this flimsy piece of ice will spin off into open water and melt, until the ice gives and drowns the journal. Then all that’ll be left of me is a few drops of DNA in the ocean.

I miss Luke. Dying doesn’t frighten me on my own account — I’m not religious — but the thought of leaving him alone, and being without him, is making these last few hours a living hell. The best I can hope for, now, is that the ice holds long enough; that someone finds my body; that Luke can know the truth.

This is what happened.

I was on my bunk, staring at the sheet of paper with those noughts and ones and twos that I finally understood, when Greta came in.

‘Thing Night,’ she said. ‘You’re missing it.’

I swung myself off the bunk. ‘I have to get up to the Helbreen. Right now.’

She tilted her head five degrees to one side. That was about as surprised as she ever gets.

‘I know what Martin found up there.’

‘OK.’

‘We’ll need climbing harnesses and head torches.’

‘OK.’

We dressed for the cold. I could hear film music coming through the mess door, laughter and toasts, but they might as well have been on another planet. Greta fetched the climbing gear while I grabbed Hagger’s lab book and the journal with my notes. Luke’s Father Christmas letter peeked out of it, still undelivered.

I stood in the lab for the last time, and looked around. I had that feeling you get leaving for the airport, convinced there’s some vital thing you’ve forgotten to pack. But I didn’t dare wait any longer.

We left the Platform and headed for the snowmobile park. Just as we got there, a figure rose up from where he’d been crouching behind one of the machines. I was so keyed up, I almost shot him.

It was only Quam. He looked distracted; his hands were sticky, and he stank of petrol. Why he had chosen that moment for a spot of maintenance, I couldn’t think.

‘You’re missing Thing Night.’ He looked down, fiddling with his hands as if he’d spilled something on his glove. He sounded almost drunk.

‘So are you.’

‘Checking the fuel lines,’ he muttered. Greta gave him a sharp look.

‘Is something wrong?’

Quam shook his head. ‘Just checking.’

I could tell she didn’t believe him. I thought it was strange, too, but I had to be away. I grabbed her arm and tugged her towards the mag hut. ‘The reading,’ I said loudly.

Greta gave the snowmobiles one more unhappy look. She pointed to the flare pistol holstered on Quam’s hip. ‘Be careful with that thing.’

Quam covered it with his hand. ‘Be careful,’ he repeated.

He sounded dazed, like a zombie. If I’d only taken a moment to think about it, I might have put a few things together: the flare gun, the smell of petrol, the unlikely preoccupation with snowmobile maintenance. But the only exact science is hindsight.

‘What now?’ I asked, as soon as Quam was behind us.

‘The Sno-Cat.’

‘Won’t Quam stop us?’ Officially, we were still confined to base.

Greta shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

The Sno-Cat was parked behind the machine shop. Greta unplugged the umbilical cord that kept the battery warm, and started the engine. The moment it roared into life, I knew we weren’t going to get away unnoticed. The Sno-Cat’s not made for subtlety, or for speed. Sure enough, as we crossed the flag line I looked out the back window and saw Quam running after us, arms and legs flailing like a puppet with a broken string. For a moment, I thought he might even catch us. But you can’t run far in the Arctic. He pulled up suddenly, shouted something I couldn’t hear, then turned away. My last view was of him trudging back towards the Platform, shoulders stooped and head down. I kept watching, waiting for him to reappear with a snowmobile, but he never came.

I pitied Quam, then. I hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble on account of what Greta and I were doing. Of course, if I’d known what he was about to do, I would have turned the Sno-Cat around and put a bullet in his heart myself.

We crunched up the glacier and Zodiac disappeared behind us. In the tiny cab, there wasn’t much between us: every time Greta changed gear, or turned the wheel, I felt the point of her elbow. At least we weren’t cold, with the machine’s heater built from an age before oil shocks and global warming. I unzipped my coat.