The Ice Child (4 page)

Then, suddenly, at five, the ice moved like a locomotive.

The spar deck buckled, and the crew was ordered to take everything—clothing, bedding, books, and provisions—off. As they ran, another broadside collided with the hull, and the ship filled fast with water. It tilted to thirty degrees, and the last of the men got down, trying to pull the whole of the ship’s freight clear.

The
Jeanette
hung in the half-light, suspended in its death throes. The crew could hear it, as if it were breathing—its dying voice echoing around them.

She went finally down at four in the morning.

They stood on the floe and watched while the smoke-pipe top flooded and while the yardarms, which had been so far over that they had rested on the ice, righted themselves.
Jeanette
went down almost upright, as if she had wanted to raise her head up as she died and look around her for the last few seconds.

John could almost feel it—almost feel the cold water flooding the timber. Feel the great gulf of ice collapsing over her. For a second, ice flowed through his own bloodstream and invaded his senses. With a tremendous effort he willed himself from her.

He walked away in his dream, following the bear’s track, seeing how it mingled, occasionally, with his father’s own footprints. He looked at the long gray-and-white miles of the floes, and he shut his eyes tight, so painfully tight that it caused flecks of color, a starburst of blues and oranges, a sprinkling of fireworks. When he opened them, he caught a faint halo around the sun. The cold penetrated his body, through every inch of skin and bone.

He looked around once, to stare at the ghost of the
Jeanette
, the ship that could not be there again in this world. But perhaps he was not in this world.

“Dad!” he called. “Dad …”

His voice went barreling away across the ice, silenced in seconds. Thin trails of blowing snow, more like vapor than flakes, were already wiping away the tracks of both the bear and his father. The idea rushed in on him that he was lost, truly lost. He had vanished into the same empty gulf that his father had traveled before him, and there was no way back. No path. No guide. No exit.

He had an urgent desire to lie down on the ice itself.

“John,” a voice said.

He was aware of his naked arm.

“John,” she repeated.

And slowly he opened his eyes.

Amy Wickham was looking at him.

She had her hand on his arm.

“You,” he said.

“Me,” she agreed. “You’re bloody cold.”

John Marshall winced, flexing the arm that had been out of the bed. “I was dreaming,” he said. “Jesus, I feel like I’m freezing to death.” He grinned at her. “Warm me up, why don’t you.”

She put her hand under the cover and rubbed the skin of his arm. He caught her hand and turned over and she lowered her face to his.

“You smell good,” he murmured.

“I wish I could say the same for you,” she told him.

He smiled lazily. He worked at a college bar at night, and last night had been a busy one. He had been bought half a dozen drinks, and now his head was aching. As he lay back in bed, Amy considered his rumpled good looks with a smile. He picked up on her desire. “Get in here with me,” he said softly.

She started to laugh. “Not with you stinking like a distillery,” she said.

“Get in.”

She rocked back on her heels, out of his reach. More than pleased to tease him. “What were you dreaming of?” she asked.

He ran a hand over his face and turned away from the glare of the window, where she had drawn the curtains. The sun was pouring in. “De Long,” he said. “And the
Jeanette.
”

“Him again,” she retorted. “You are truly obsessed, Marshall. Obsessed.” She stood up.

“And Dad,” he said.

She looked down at him, her expression mixed; somewhere between concern and trepidation. She didn’t know what to say to him about his father; Doug was so rarely spoken of normally that it was all uncharted territory for her. Having only known him for a matter of weeks, she felt something like a trespasser. She walked away to the window, twisting a strand of hair around one finger. He had time to watch her as he stretched, trying to shake away the
Jeanette
’s image. He put his hands behind his head and looked at her.

Amy Wickham was his own age, nineteen. She was five foot two, black haired, sturdy rather than slim. He had met her at the end of last term: seen her dancing, alone, on the tiny floor of a pub in town. She must have been wheeling about there for at least ten minutes before he stepped forward to catch her arm and pull her toward him. She had a strong little body, fists raised to the music, hair slicked at the back of her neck.

“When are you going to marry me?” he demanded now.

“Don’t be daft,” she told him, not even turning her head.

Which was just as well, because there was no way that he meant it.

She turned around and he saw, by contrast, that her expression was serious. The thought of continuing to tease her left him at once, to be replaced with a sudden gut dread.

“What is it?” he said. He sat up.

“It’s not your father. There’s no news.”

Relief plucked the dread away.

“But your mother rang,” Amy said.

John sighed, and dragged himself out of bed. He picked up his jeans off the floor, where they had been thrown last night. He didn’t ask what Alicia had said.

“Didn’t you hear the phone downstairs?”

“No.”

“It was ringing when I came through the door. There’s some reporter here from
The Courier
, trying to do a family piece on you,” she said. She was watching him dress. “A woman. Your mother wants you to go home. Not to talk to her. She said it three times. Her name is Joanne Harper. Not to talk to her.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone anyway,” John said. He pulled a sweater over his head.

Amy had walked to the table with his computer on it, and was leafing through some of the printouts that he had made last night, after he had come in from work. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Nothing you’d be interested in,” he told her.

She was holding up a picture, turning it this way and that, trying to make out the detail.

“What is it?” she repeated. “Looks weird.”

“Ice drift,” he told her. He took the printed page from her and showed her the image. “Lancaster Sound,” he explained, tracing the shorelines with a fingertip.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“You remember I told you about this group?” he said. “Eighteen people going after Franklin relics. The Canadian historians. This is from their Web site. This is yesterday’s ice drift in the sound, and going south, down McClintock Channel.”

“Right,” she said.

He smiled at her. “Pretend you give a damn.”

She raised her chin, returning the grin.

He slung his arm around her neck from behind, holding the page in front of her face. “Historian people looking for big story,” he said, as she wriggled, her breath against his cheek. “Big historian people chasing big Victorian ship, big ship disappeared, men disappeared, whole fucking thing disappeared, never seen again. Lots of cash and kudos for guy finding wreck.”

“In all that ice? No way.”

“In ice,” he confirmed. “Thousand mile wide, yeah. Go
sikkim.
”

She feigned a yawn. “
So
boring.”

He released her. “No imagination,” he said. “That’s your trouble.”

She shrugged. “I’m mathematics, remember?” she said. “
You’re
archaeology.” But a second printout on the desk, a photograph, caught her eye. She snatched at it. “Oh, sweet!” she said.

It was a picture of a polar bear, way out on the ice: blue-white ice, with turquoise shadows, a slanting and blinding sun, and the bear’s head lowered in the characteristic pose of listening for seal.

John sighed resignedly. “That’s not sweet,” he told her. “That’s the world’s largest land carnivore. A killing machine.” He pulled the picture away from her grasp. “See the crescent scar on her face?” he said. “This maritime history crew have got a photographer with them, a guy called Sibley. He takes shots like this … grizzly, caribou. White bear. They call this one the Swimmer.”

“Why?”

“Why d’you think?” John said, grinning. “Because she swims a hell of a long way.”

“Excuse me for asking,” Amy replied. She looked at the photo again. “But look at its feet. The size of them! Aaaaah. They’re just cuddly feet.”

This time John didn’t even hear her. The enormous predator with the scar across her face, according to the Web site from where these pictures had been taken, was following the course of Franklin’s ships almost mile for mile. It was eerie. He considered her, the long neck, the powerful shoulders, the intensity of the bear’s look.

Amy had picked up her bag and slung it across her shoulder. She was standing with one hand on her hip, looking at him. “John,” she reminded him, “your mother told you to go home. Right now. Today.”

John at last tore his gaze from the paper in front of him, flung it onto the desk, and rubbed a hand through his hair. He looked pointedly at the bed, and back at her. He began to smile, a little-boy grin that lit up his face, all innocence and charm.

“But I don’t want to go home,” he told her.

Jo was driving back to the Academy when the mobile phone, on the seat next to her in the car, rang.

“Jo? It’s Gina.”

“Hi, Gina.”

“Where are you?”

“Driving back into Cambridge,” she said. There were traffic lights turning red ahead of her. She eased her foot onto the brake.

“Drive back out of Cambridge,” Gina said.

“What?” She thought that she had misheard her.

“Come back here.”

“Why?”

“I’ve had Mrs. Marshall on the phone.”

Jo joined the line of traffic. Students were crossing the road, books tucked under their arms. A girl in a tight black T-shirt cycled past. Jo saw the man in the car ahead turn to watch her.

“And?”

“She’s furious.”

“Why?” Jo objected. “I was politeness itself. You should have heard me. I didn’t even get over the doorstep.”

“Peter Bolton rang me too.”

“But he was perfectly okay!”

“Not now.”

“God,” Jo breathed. “She came to the door, I didn’t argue—”

“She’s a trustee of the Academy, remember?” Gina said. “A benefactor, no less.”

“And so we aren’t allowed to ask her anything?”

“It’s not worth it,” Gina said. “We can’t press it. Private grief.”

“He hasn’t died,” Jo pointed out. “And anyone less like a grieving wife I have yet to witness.”

The car behind blew its horn.

The lights had changed.

“Leave it,” Gina told her.

There was an opportunity to take a right turn, toward the M6 southbound.

Jo hesitated just for a second before she put her foot on the accelerator, and made for the city center.

She got to the doors of the Academy at one-thirty.

Peter Bolton was just coming out.

When he saw her, his face fell a mile.

“Can I speak to you?” she asked him. He had come out of the doors and was walking down the steps, without stopping for her. She walked at his side, out of the gates, turning along the street.

“I have a class,” he said.

“Mr. Bolton …”

He did stop then, and looked at her. “You lied to my assistant.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I did not give you Mrs. Marshall’s address.”

“No.”

He looked exasperated. “Have you any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?”

“I’m sorry.…”

He shook his head. “You can’t walk roughshod over people.”

“I didn’t walk roughshod!” Jo objected. “She seemed to know nothing about what her husband is doing. Did you know that?”

He opened his mouth to say something, then evidently thought better of it. “Nice try,” he said.

“Is it a state secret?”

“Yes.”

“Is it, really?”

“Yes.” He gave the ghost of a smile.

“Is Doug Marshall’s visit to Greenland controversial?”

“No, of course not.”

“Did he go unprepared?”

“No.”

“Is there another issue at stake, other than finding these Inuit relics?”

“Not at all.”

“It’s just Mrs. Marshall’s privacy.”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “I wasn’t at all rude,” she repeated.

“That’s not the point,” he told her. “That you were there at all, that is the point. Aren’t your relationships private? Do you want strangers asking pointless questions when you have a crisis?”

But Alicia Marshall had not been in a state of crisis. She had been composed, cool.

“Is Douglas Marshall concerned by his marriage?” Jo persisted. “Has he gone missing because of his marriage?”

This time Peter Bolton laughed out loud. “Because of …? No, no, no.”

“He isn’t concerned about the state of his marriage? It wouldn’t have affected his judgment?” This was the idea that had been preying on her mind. One of those out-of-the-blue hunches, the result of adding two and two and getting five. Douglas Marshall in a life-threatening situation and just not wanting to come home. Seeing no
point
in coming home.

Bolton stared at his feet for a while, then sighed. “What is it,” he said, “about his marriage that so fascinates you?” he asked. “His marriage is no different from anyone else’s. His marriage in no way affects his professional judgment, and no one else in the country is the least interested in it, which is as it should be.”

“But—”

“You really must excuse me,” he said. “I’m now late.”

She watched him cross the road and walk away.

For a while Jo followed him, not particularly intentionally, but simply because he was heading in the direction of the shopping district. After a while she lost him in the crowds. She dawdled along, irritated at his dismissal and at Alicia Marshall’s having rung Gina. It was like being reprimanded by a headmistress. In fact, that was exactly who Alicia had reminded her of—Jo’s own headmistress, a buttoned-up virgin, a
Miss
of uncertain age, who favored a beehive hairstyle long after the fashion had died and been buried. She had never once seen the woman smile.