He stared down at the ice cap, filling up on its peculiar charge of beauty and fear. Today it was glittering white velvet, strewn with lozenges of emerald and turquoise lakes. He did not remember so many of them, nor the line of five white radomes on a plateau of tundra. They had not been there the last time he was here.
‘Indian,’ said Danny Long, in answer to his unspoken question. ‘In the last year. Over on Barentsoya there’s another new construction going on. Telecom, or meteorology.’ The pilot smiled. ‘Improving our broadband.’
‘Good broadband is a valuable asset.’
‘Indeed, sir.’
Sean did not speak again until they were over Hinlopenstreten, where a convoy of cruise ships made white dashes on the dark water. He remembered Kingsmith’s admonition about his friend in Oslo.
‘Have there been many ships in Midgardfjorden? Before that one?’
Danny Long shook his head.
‘Sometimes they stop at the mouth – for photographs, I believe. Then they go round the other way. But the Vanir came right down deep. When it all went off on the radio – not the calving, when they went out and confirmed it was a body – the coastguard were close across at Freyasundet, in that new fast boat of theirs.’
‘Joe said they held it as a crime scene.’ Sean kept his tone neutral.
‘They did, sir, but they told me and Terry not to worry about the words, it was just so they could take all the phones and such from the passengers. Then we were ordered to stand down – return to the Lodge – by the coastguard. So that’s what we did.’ He paused. ‘We had Mr Kingsmith’s guests to look after.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘Facts, sir: a body had been recovered from the water. They didn’t know anything until they came down for breakfast. The coastguard had gone by then.’
‘How were they? The coastguard.’
‘Very polite, sir, as always. It was Inspector Brovang, he was out on their new boat, that’s why he was in the area.’
Sean imagined the heavy medevac cradle swinging in the air, trails of water falling behind. Tom’s dead body netted and trussed beneath a helicopter, as high as he was now. Less than forty-eight hours ago.
He put his right hand under his left armpit and pressed down on it. The tingling had come back. Nothing physically wrong with his hand, no nerve damage. Brovang had saved it, with his own body heat. He had taken Sean’s statement as he recovered in the Sickehaus in Longyearbyen, but they had not spoken since that time. Nor had he taken up the standing invitation to either visit Midgard Lodge with guests, or any of Sean Cawson’s other clubs around the world, though he had declined courteously. Sean cancelled out the obscure bad feeling that gave him, with a large annual donation to the children’s charity which Brovang supported and mentioned on his Facebook page. Brovang had never accepted his Friend request.
‘Well, at least he had all the details. He didn’t want to speak to the visitors?’
‘No, he was keen to get going.’
‘Who exactly are they?’
‘Excuse me, sir, I’m not good at names, especially foreign ones. Faces, I never forget. But you can meet them, they’re still at the Lodge.’ He banked the Dauphin over the great crumpled blue-white sweep of a glacier – that stopped short of where Sean’s eye expected it to turn.
He must have misremembered the glacier, it could not have retreated so far in a year and a half. Everything seemed different. ‘Danny,’ he said, ‘remember something: Midgard Lodge is my company and I am your CEO. Not Joe. You report to me.’
‘Yes, sir. I know. I made a mistake. I should have informed you first.’
‘Good, then we’re sorted. How’s everything else?’
‘All good, sir. I was in town a week before the Tata-Tesla retreat, and there were some Russian boys from the new place.’
‘The Pyramiden hotel? Or the one in Barentsburg?’
‘Oh those are long finished, and two more as well. This new one’s called the Arktik Dacha. They were joking with us about it, but in a friendly way. I reckon they’ve had a look at us.’
‘How would they do that?’ Sean’s stomach lurched as they suddenly rose up over the last peaks that pierced the ice cap.
Danny Long grinned. ‘Same way we don’t, at them.’
Although I had joined the Royal Geographical Society some years earlier, under the misapprehension that by so doing I would obtain Sunday tickets for the Zoo, I had only the haziest idea as to what a glacier was. I did not know at what temperature water froze. I had no head for heights, was not used to handling large, fierce dogs, could not row or ski or splice, and knew nothing of the working of an internal-combustion engine, or even a Primus stove.
But none of these considerations sobered my high spirits. I had enlisted for Adventure, and that was all I asked for. I had no responsibilities or misgivings and was as carefree as a kitten.
Sledge: The British Trans-Greenland Expedition 1934 (1935)
Martin Lindsay
They landed on the narrow strip of cobbled beach. The boathouse doors were ajar but all was quiet. The Lodge itself looked better than Sean remembered, the wood more weathered, the structure even more camouflaged. He waited for the bear all-clear signal then went in to greet the mystery guests. The discretion of Midgard Lodge did not extend to its founder and CEO, and absent or not, he had a right to know who he was hosting.
Two men were waiting in the lobby and jumped up to greet him. The first of Kingsmith’s pals was Benoit, from the Central African Republic. He was tall and broad with a winning open smile, and he pumped Sean’s hand warmly.
‘You don’t remember me? I came to all your parties on Spring Street!’ He looked to his companion, a young elegantly dressed Asian man, also smiling politely. ‘Jiaq, our host gave the best parties in Manhattan, didn’t you?’
‘You’re very kind.’ Sean smiled over his confusion. He had no memory of Benoit, but he had indeed lived in a loft on Spring Street in New York, owned by Kingsmith, in his first year after graduation. Kingsmith had him running errands and apprenticing for him, while he learned what he called ‘housekeeping’. Spring Street marked Sean’s first experience of making real money through his mentor’s generous guidance, and he had never looked back.
Jiaq complimented Sean on Midgard Lodge and apologised for not personally knowing Miss Radiance Young, though he had certainly heard of her.
‘Your facilities are a credit to you,’ Benoit smiled. ‘We feel very safe!’
‘Excellent. I’m glad it’s all going well for you.’
Benoit apologised for their unscheduled visit – the result of a chance call to Joe, who suggested that if they were in the neighbourhood …
‘The neighbourhood?’
‘Of Iceland.’ They broke into peals of laughter. They explained they had been showing off their new ice-class yachts to each other, comparing anti-pirate protocols. Now the Arctic was open for business it was good to be prepared, like boy scouts!
Their