The Ice: A gripping thriller for our times from the Bailey’s shortlisted author of The Bees

‘They’re sure it’s Tom?’

‘One hundred per cent. They had a good idea it could be and they matched DNA with a family member, apparently.’

‘No one told me. No one’s rung. They’ve known for two days?’

‘I guess you haven’t been in touch so much lately. We knew he was dead but … this is still a big shock.’

Sean walked away from the people coming towards him, out onto the great grassy plain of the park, the horses forgotten. He sank to his knees on the dry ground.

He felt the fingers in his right hand start to burn, as if they still had frostbite. He stuffed them into his left armpit and felt his chest trembling.

‘Danny should have called me.’

‘I wanted to be the one. I only know because I had to call him about something.’

‘What thing?’

‘Look: I completely get why you haven’t been up there. But you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and now isn’t the right time. I’m glad you’re interested again, but you’ve got an awesome team taking care of things so don’t even worry.’

‘I should be helping bring him back, I should be there.’

‘You can’t do anything: it’s all in progress. You weren’t next of kin, but I guess they’ll be in touch with you, they’ll be able to have a funeral at last. And an inquest, but that’s separate.’

‘An inquest?’ The word was so ugly. ‘But we know what happened, I’ve said it all, we’ve been through it.’

‘I know, but it’s what happens when someone’s brought home. Same in the States as in the UK – just a formality. I’ll be there to support you, I promise … Sean, can you hear me?’

‘Yes.’ The grey sky pulsed above him.

‘You get yourself home, get back to Martine. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she’ll know what to do. Sean, say something.’

‘What were you talking to Danny about?’

He heard Kingsmith’s bark of a laugh.

‘Boy, are you persistent! But I’ve always liked that. OK, mea culpa, I put in a retreat, very small and last minute, a favour for a pal. I saw a void in the schedule and he’s paying top dollar. But this is hardly the time—’

‘I’m still the CEO. Everything goes through me.’

‘And if you are thinking like that at a time like this, you are the right man for the job. Point taken. Sean? You’re breaking up but I hope you can still hear me: you need to speak to your friend in Oslo, about keeping traffic away from Midgard – it’s important—’

The phone connection dropped out – Kingsmith’s signature goodbye. Sean stood alone on the dusty red plain of Hyde Park, barely able to breathe.

He started to run.

Martine was in the wet-room shower when he came in, sweat-soaked like it was raining. Still in his clothes, he walked into the torrent and held her. She smiled, her eyes closed – and then she looked and saw his stricken face.

‘Oh my god, what’s happened?’

Sean hit his forehead against the streaming wall. ‘They’ve found Tom.’

‘Stop! Come here.’ She held him to her, keeping them under the streaming hot water, undressing him until he was naked. She kicked the clothes away from the drain and held him until he stopped shaking, then she turned off the water and helped him out and into a robe. As she put on her own, he went into the kitchen. She followed, watching while he took a bottle of vodka from the freezer and poured a big slug into a tumbler.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Handle it without that. You don’t need it.’

He knocked it back. Then he told her, in the barest detail, about Kingsmith’s call, and the facts he knew, including the fact of the inquest. Martine nodded slowly.

‘I’m so sorry, my darling. But Joe’s absolutely right: this is closure at last, and if there’s an inquest we’ll get through it. I need to plan how we handle it. First thing is I’ll work on a statement on your behalf, and then we’ve got a bit of time.’

Sean listened to her as she walked around their dressing room preparing for work, thinking aloud. Joe was right, she had a good head on her well-set shoulders, working out which journalists could be trusted, how she would cancel certain invitations so they were not seen out enjoying themselves for a while …

He wished she had burst into tears. He wished she cared more about Tom, and less about damage control. Her voice went on as he stared at the rails of his clothes. Abruptly she was beside him.

‘I’m staying with you.’

‘No,’ he said, getting up. ‘Go to work. I’ll be OK.’ He pulled open a deep drawer and took out his Arctic travelling clothes, alien with lack of use. ‘I’m going to Midgard.’

Martine held his arm. ‘That’s crazy. You’re in shock. Look at yourself.’

He did. The mirror showed him a beautiful young woman standing there half-dressed, her dark hair wet, beside an older man who stared back at him, eyes haunted and dangerous. Sean turned away.

‘Joe put in a retreat. Without telling me.’

Martine frowned. ‘Really? He shouldn’t do that.’

‘It’s because I haven’t been there. I’ve dumped everything on the team.’

‘No. You’ve delegated. You can’t personally run every single one of your clubs, you pick right then you trust people.’

Sean threw some clothes into the bag and zipped it. ‘I’m letting everyone down.’

Martine tried again, embracing him and pressing herself into him from behind.

‘You’re not! Forget about last night, forget all that. Just come back to bed and let me look after you.’ She ran her hand down his chest and closed it over him. ‘Be sad in my arms. I won’t go in today.’

‘No, go. I’ll be OK.’ He kissed her, to deflect the rejection. She stared at him in the mirror as he went out into the bedroom and found his car key. She followed.

‘You can’t drive, you’ve just had a huge vodka. And if you’re on the afternoon flight you’ve got plenty of time – where are you going?’

Sean looked out into the square garden.

‘It’s bad to hear it on the phone.’

‘Oh.’ She moved away. ‘I see.’

‘Martine, please, you know how fragile she is.’

‘Actually no, I don’t think she is, not at all.’

‘She loved Tom as well.’

‘Fine. But I think she was prepared to pull any stunt to try to stop you leaving. I think she’s manipulative and angry and she’s turned your own daughter against you, and me, and it’s totally a mistake to keep being sentimental about a marriage that was over long before I came along.’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded harsh. I just want to protect you from more pain at a time like this. You shouldn’t go.’

‘You’re right.’

‘Yes, I am. But if you don’t want me to stay with you today, or to come with you to Midgard, if you want to just be alone with the bad feelings—’

‘Yes! I’m a fucking mess, I told you I was a bad deal—’

‘I never make bad deals.’ Martine pulled back and looked in his eyes. ‘But if you want healthy boundaries you’ll have them, and if you want to put yourself through the wringer, you’ll do that too.’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘So I really care that you’re so sad, but as you won’t let me help you, I am going to work. Let me know when you’re back. I’ll be here.’

He listened to her light step down the outer hall, then the click of the front door. He went back to the freezer, but stopped. Martine was right, of course. He was in no condition to drive.

The easiest way to learn, of course, was to inquire of an angakoq (wizard), and in the course of my long conversations with Igjugarjuk I learned many interesting things. His theories, however, were so simple and straightforward that they sound strikingly modern; his whole view of life may be summed up in his own words as follows:

‘All true wisdom is only to be learned far from the dwellings of men, out in the great solitudes; and is only to be attained through suffering. Privation and suffering are the only things that can open the mind of man to those things which are hidden from others.’

Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1927)

Knud Rasmussen

3

Sean once knew the sequence of lights so well that he never got caught on red. Now the route had become as alien as his old home and he misjudged every stretch. To keep his mind away from thoughts of Tom, he focused on driving impeccably and not as if he had gulped three fingers of vodka in the last hour – but the morning rush-hour traffic was infuriatingly slow and he suddenly felt self-conscious in his car.

It was a beautiful Aston Martin Vanquish in a custom missile-bronze colour, and part of its appeal three years ago – the longest he had ever kept a car – were the looks he caught as he flashed past other drivers. But today, passing slowly made him uncomfortable. Perhaps he should change it for a Tesla to show what a good, upright, ecologically concerned citizen he was, as well as a flash bastard.

Perhaps the lights were stuck. The white van alongside him made little feints forward, and he glanced over. Two schoolboys in green uniforms clambered over each other like puppies, waving at him and pointing in admiration of his car. They tugged at their driver dad, a tough-looking young man with a shaven head, who stared straight ahead.

Red-and-amber – the white van surged ahead the very instant the lights changed to green, and Sean saw the boys cheering and goading their father faster.

He drew alongside then fell back a couple of times, pulling faces as if he were striving and failing to overtake, so that the boys screeched with joy and bounced up and down on the bench seat. As he saw the filter lane for his exit, Sean pretended he was giving up, and the boys pumped their fists in triumph as he let the white van surge past him. The tough young dad flashed him a grin and he felt a wave of good feeling. Then he indicated, tipped the wheel and the feeling frayed like a thread as he wound back on the roads of his old life.

He drove slowly for the last few miles, surprised to see it had rained heavily. There was no sign of the red dust of London and the fields were green. The track to the house was badly potholed and he felt irritated – it wasn’t as if Gail couldn’t afford to get it graded. The thought of the settlement still pricked him. He would have been generous had she let him, instead of taking out her anger against Martine in financial terms. He had not thought her capable of being so petty. But put that aside: he was here to deliver a terrible blow.

Gail, I’ve got some bad news. Gail—

Something on the track ground against the undercarriage and he cursed and slowed down. He would go out the other way. The grading of the lane was not his business and this would be the last time he would come here, so it didn’t matter. But still, his eye ran over the orchards in some dismay. The fruit was retarded and the leaves too heavy. All the rain without the sun.

Instead of the old blue Saab in the garage, there was a new silver BMW four-wheel drive. Only now did he consider the possibility that Gail might not have been home, or not been alone. He pulled up, blocking the garage, the way that always made them look out. And there she was, coming to the kitchen window. To his surprise, she waved. He walked down the path, hoping she had not got the wrong idea. No flowers, no bottle, a bad time of day to visit. He brought bad tidings of great pain. Gail, I’ve got some bad news …

She opened the door before he knocked. One year younger than Sean, the glaze of youth had cracked into a filigree of lines around her eyes. Her face was softening and dropping and she wore her clothes sexlessly loose. But she was still wearing perfume.

‘Sean, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘You know?’ He stared at his ex-wife. ‘How? I only just found out.’

‘Ruth called me.’ She stood back to let him in. ‘Crack of dawn.’

‘They told her first?’ Sean was assaulted by the smell of home. The old oak floors and stairs, the extortionate beeswax polish. He noticed a bowl of orange roses on the table. ‘You cut the Whisky Macs.’ They always left them blooming on the path, for visitors to enjoy their scent.

‘Saves them from the rain. Someone called her from Svalbard: Tom named her next of kin, apparently. But you already knew that.’

Sean touched a rose and its petals dropped. ‘I don’t remember every single detail of that time.’

‘I do … But they saw each other, didn’t they? That one last time.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t realise she was officially … next of kin.’

Sean winced at the idea of Ruth Mott relating her version of that last night. But that was the only way Gail could know, because at the time they were in the final throes of nisi to absolute, and only their lawyers were speaking. He looked up the stairs. Someone else was in the house, he could feel it.

‘Whose silver car is that out there?’

‘The colour’s called mineral white. And it’s mine.’

‘You said you wanted to keep the Saab forever.’

‘Out with the old. Apparently this new one’s attached to a satellite, so I’m tracked from space if I want and even if I don’t, unless I sit down online for hours and work out how to switch it off. It’s got this inbuilt—’

‘I’m glad you’ve got yourself a good car.’

She’d moved the pictures around. There was a new light on a table. Tom was dead, that was why he’d come. So that Gail could express his grief. She wasn’t doing that properly.

‘You and Ruth have made up then.’

‘I was unfair to her.’

‘She shouldn’t have meddled.’

‘I should have listened.’

Alarmed by the tremble in her voice, he went into the kitchen. A muscle memory prompted him: dump the coat, dump the bag – he looked down at the settle. The newspapers and the big tabby cat that slept there were gone.

‘Where’s Harold?’ He looked around, making the sound that called him.

‘He died too. Last year. Tea? Coffee?’ Gail filled the kettle, her back to him.

‘You didn’t tell me.’ He couldn’t help himself, he looked around. Each thing he recognised was like an accusation. ‘Isn’t this place too big for you now?’

Gail turned. ‘Sean, why did you come? You could have phoned.’

‘That’s what Martine said.’

‘Ah. She’s so thoughtful.’

‘You don’t even seem upset about Tom. Aren’t you upset? You could have called—’ He stopped. It was obvious she was upset.

‘Yes. I’m upset. But I don’t call you any more, about anything, unless it’s Rosie. I assumed you knew.’ She did not cry. ‘So, there’ll be a funeral, what else? Your knighthood’s finally arrived?’

‘Not yet, but it will.’ He felt bewildered. Gail wasn’t like this. She was soft.

‘Your services to British business. One in the eye for my father.’

‘Here’s hoping.’ He felt the trembling ghosts of parties and dinners, the familiar plates he’d eaten off, the cupboards that held them. The bunches of herbs hanging up. ‘The lane,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s in a shocking state, do you want me to make a call? You’ll never get round to it and it’ll just get worse. I don’t mind.’ He had not meant to say that.

‘I know you’re a master of the universe and all that—’

‘Those are bankers, I’ve never been a banker—’

‘—but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s been raining solidly for a month.’

‘It hasn’t rained a drop in London.’

‘I don’t care what happens in London! You can’t grade a flooded lane, you have to wait for it to drain. It’s all organised. But thank you for pointing it out.’

‘So you’re OK then. Not – clinically depressed.’

‘Sorry to tell you, I’m absolutely fine.’ She wiped her eyes, her back to him.

‘Is that Sean?’ His daughter Rosie swerved round the kitchen door in a long T-shirt that said OCCUPY, and her honey brown hair ruined into dreadlocks. Her ears were multiply pierced, and to his dismay, he noticed another tribal tattoo on her upper arm.

‘Rosie,’ he groaned. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

‘Grown up without you? Why is Mum crying? Sean, why are you even here?’ Rosie put her arm around her mother and glared at him.

‘I’m fine,’ said Gail, ‘really. We’re just talking.’

‘And I don’t like you calling me that,’ he said. ‘I’m still your father.’ The way she looked at him broke his heart.

‘Uh-uh, you sacked yourself. A father is someone you’re supposed to be able to trust, who gives his word and keeps it, who doesn’t cheat and lie again and again, when they’ve promised not to. Mum cries every day you know.’

‘Oh for goodness sake, I do not—’

‘My god! Why does everybody lie the whole time?’

‘Some day, Rosie,’ he said, ‘you might understand that things are not always black and—’

‘White,’ she finished for him, ‘I know. They’re in the grey, and in the grey, Rosie, is where people like me make their money and tell their lies and generally screw up other people’s lives. In the grey. I’ve got it. Sean.’

‘She doesn’t know,’ Gail said quietly.

‘Know what? Ugh: you’re expecting a little bébé with her. Well it’s never going to have anything to do with me.’

‘No, that’s not why I’ve come, and I didn’t know you were here, I thought it was term time. I came to tell your mother that Tom’s body has been found. And in person, Rosie, not to be insulted by you but to break it gently to her. Except she already knew.’

Rosie stared at her mother in shock.

‘Ruth called me this morning.’ Gail put her arm round her daughter. ‘I’ll tell you all about it.’ She looked at Sean over Rosie’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for coming. I appreciate it.’

He stared at his crying daughter, and his stranger of an ex-wife. He was being dismissed from his own home. Ex-home. But still his child.

‘Rosie,’ he said gently, ‘if you ever wanted to see me—’

‘Why would I want to do that?’ She didn’t look at him.

‘Because you’re my daughter and I love you.’

‘Don’t hold your breath.’ She ducked out from under her mother’s arm and ran upstairs, her face crumpling.

The Vanquish blinked an electronic greeting. Sean drove carefully down the rutted, waterlogged private lane, then into the long single-lane road. The numbness was definitely gone, the encounter had left him raw with failure.

A short sharp blast of a horn ahead returned his attention to the narrow road, where a battered red Land Rover pulling a trailer was upon him. A man and a woman in matching jackets – James and Emma Goring. OK, he could do this. He’d only just gone by a passing place so he waved then reversed, shaking himself out of his funk, ready to greet them. The shattered bones of the past, knitting back together. He would tell them what had happened.

James and Emma – he couldn’t remember their children’s names – but over nearly a decade they had eaten at each other’s houses, bought rounds at the Acorn, gone to firework parties, shared New Year – the stuff of life that slowly accretes into friendship. But they did not appear to recognise him. In fact, James raised a casual finger of thanks and was about to drive on, until Sean called out.

James did a double-take, and stopped. ‘Sean!’ he said. Emma lowered the phone she had been checking, and just that second also officially recognised him too, with a bright smile.

Engines running, they exchanged enthusiastic concerns about the weather and the state of the lanes, and Sean told them about the dust storm, which they’d seen on TV but only got a little of here, weren’t they lucky with their microclimate? And then the awkward pause.

Sean knew they wanted to go. He felt angry, he kept them talking, anything, about all the new vineyards, the farm, while he absorbed the fact they hadn’t wanted to stop. Pretending they hadn’t recognised him. People got divorced, people moved on – he looked pointedly at their trailer, where big sound speakers were covered with a tarp.

‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Your solstice party – here’s hoping for sunshine!’

‘Oh,’ James said quickly, ‘very small this year.’

‘Big speakers, for a small party.’

‘Not really.’

They looked at each other, their smiles fading. They were not going to invite him.

‘I came down to tell Gail a dear friend of ours died.’ Sean had to look up at them from his lower vehicle. ‘We’re still friends.’

‘Best way,’ said James. ‘And sorry for your loss.’

‘Absolutely,’ Emma said. ‘So sorry. Take care, Sean.’

James put the Land Rover in gear and the loaded trailer rattled dangerously close to the Aston as they passed, attention fixed on the lane ahead. Then they were gone.

Sean stared after them in the rear-view mirror, his heart pounding like he’d been in a fight. He’d thought of them as friends – he’d brought out his best wine and put up with their tedious company in the hope that they would surely reveal themselves at some point – he presumed it was just that English reserve—

No. They had never been friends; they had always been cold to him. It was Gail they’d liked, he knew they thought she’d married down. The loss of Tom burned through him again: Tom who had been a true friend and a gentleman, always showing the same kindness and self-respect whether he was talking to a tramp or a billionaire. Sean heard Kingsmith’s voice in his head, from the old days, when he’d taken a business loss. Learn, and don’t look back. He checked the time, and told the satnav Heathrow.

There is a power that we call Sila, which is not to be explained in simple words. A great spirit, supporting the world and the weather and all life on earth, a spirit so mighty that his utterance to mankind is not through common words, but by storm and snow and rain and the fury of the sea; all the forces of nature that men fear.

When all is well, Sila sends no message to mankind, but withdraws into his own endless nothingness, apart. So he remains as long as men do not abuse life, but act with reverence towards their daily food.

No one has seen Sila; his place of being is a mystery, in that he is at once among us and unspeakably far away.

Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1927)

Knud Rasmussen

4

Sitting in 1F, crammed against the plastic wall, the smell of his neighbour’s duty-free aftershave in his nose, Sean remembered Tom’s grim prediction that Svalbard would become the Ibiza of the north. The midnight sun, exotic locale, and public awareness of the fragility of the region had created the strongest driver for tourism the Arctic had ever seen. Now Longyearbyen even had its own club scene, a Mecca for outward-bound hen and stag parties and rich kids bored of skiing.

Sean watched the stewardess and her cart coming closer. The clink of ice made him swallow in anticipation. He must reframe the shock as closure. A stone – a literal heavy headstone, could be laid on Tom’s recovered body in its grave, and on the hope he would return.

‘Sir, any drinks or snacks?’ the stewardess repeated, with an economy-class smile. She passed him his two miniature vodkas, tin of tonic and a plastic cup with a single ice cube and moved on quickly before he could ask for more. He didn’t bother with the tonic, just poured in both vodkas and knocked it back. No matter what Kingsmith and Martine said, in his heart he knew this was anything but closure. He’d learned to live with the idea of Tom lost in pristine obscurity – that was how many Arctic heroes ended their story. His reappearance was unscripted, as if the glacier itself had moved against him.