‘What do you want me to say?’

‘We just need to get it clear,’ said Kennedy. Irish accent: he was made to be the good cop. He offered Jensen a breath mint. Nice touch.

‘Quam called in straight after I dropped Ash. He wanted to find Hagger on the Helbreen. I took him up and they had a conversation.’

‘Did you hear what they said?’

‘I stayed in the helicopter.’

‘And afterwards?’

‘Quam came back. I brought him home. Then I went to pick up Ash.’

‘Was Hagger alive when Quam left?’

Jensen sucked on the mint. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you see him?’

‘Look, I had plenty to do. If I’d known Hagger wouldn’t come back, I’d have paid more attention. Taken a picture or something.’

‘So you didn’t see Hagger alive after Quam had finished?’ Kennedy said.

Jensen looked between us again — trapped. ‘To be honest? I can’t say a hundred per cent.’

‘But you’re not certain you did see him?’

He shook his head.

‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’

‘Soon as we knew what happened — when Greta called in — Quam got me into his office. He said he knew it was awkward, but he didn’t want to explain himself because it would start rumours. He said that if the truth came out, why he had to go, that it would make Hagger look bad, and he didn’t want anyone speaking ill of the dead.’

‘Anything else?’

‘He said if I said anything, he’d get a new pilot.’

‘How did he seem when you flew back? In himself, I mean?’ That was Kennedy.

‘Tense. But that wasn’t unusual. You know how Quam is.’

‘The stick’s so far up his ass it almost comes out his mouth,’ I agreed.

Jensen risked a smile. ‘You could say.’

‘Nothing else?’

He thought about it some. ‘Nothing. If there had been, I’m sure I’d have said something.’

‘I’m sure you would have.’

‘I mean, I knew it was suspicious.’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m not even sure I didn’t see Hagger still there. When we left. I might have done. That’s why I wouldn’t have said anything.’

I could see his conscience rewriting history. I wouldn’t get anything else reliable from him. I stepped aside from the door.

‘That’s helpful, thanks.’

Jensen almost tore off the handle he was so happy to escape. Then he paused, troubled.

‘You really think Quam could’ve …?’

I shook my head and smiled. ‘Not at all.’

‘But he must have done it.’ Kennedy barely waited until the door was shut. ‘Everything fits.’

I could have punched his fat face. ‘Shut up,’ I told him. ‘If this is right, you think we want to be talking about it ten feet from Quam’s office?’

Kennedy flushed. ‘Is anywhere safe?’

I looked at my watch. ‘It’s nine p.m.’

‘Is that relevant?’

‘Let’s go get a mag reading.’

The mag hut is maybe a hundred-yard walk. It took us ten minutes to get dressed; by the end of it, we looked like spacemen. Hat, hood, goggles, face mask. We didn’t take rifles. We couldn’t have brought them in the mag hut, and if we put them down we’d never find them again. I figured polar bears are too smart to be out in a storm like that.

I checked the weather screen by the door. The temperature was -40˚. The wind speed read zero, which was a lie. I could hear it through the door, howling like a dog.

‘It busted the anemometer.’

‘That’s encouraging.’ Kennedy pulled up his face mask so it covered his nose a bit more. ‘Shall we?’

I opened the door. You remember the scene in Alien where she blows the monster out of the airlock into outer space? It was like that. The wind roared like it was sucking the life off of the planet. Damn near carried us away before we got down the steps. Ice crystals peppered my goggles. I thought I’d covered up pretty good, but the wind cut through cracks I didn’t know I’d left. Fine snow filled the inside of my goggles and froze my eyeballs.

We roped ourselves together and followed the flag line towards the mag hut. In theory, it was daylight; in practice, you could barely see the next marker. When I looked back to check Kennedy was still with me, I saw the lights on the Platform glowing, blurry pools that looked a million miles away.

You’re in the Coast Guard, Captain, so maybe you’ve seen a man go overboard in a storm. That’s how it felt. The noise, the force, the feeling your body is fighting every second just to stay in place, forget moving forward. Sometimes you’d be walking across scoured ice; the next, knee-deep in a snowdrift. Without the flag line, we could have kept walking till we hit the North Pole.

It was just as well we didn’t bring the rifles. I never saw the perimeter, just the mag hut like a dark shadow in the storm. We wrestled the door open and collapsed inside.

‘What do you have to do to get some privacy around here?’ I was shouting, still tuned to the storm. Not that anyone would hear.

Kennedy pulled off his hat, and shook the snow off his suit. ‘Jesus.’

I took the readings while he warmed his hands and stamped his feet.

‘One thing I don’t understand,’ said Kennedy.

‘That’s an understatement.’

‘If it’s been Quam all along, why did he ask me to find out who was telling our secrets? I mean, he might have thought I wasn’t up to much, wouldn’t get anywhere, but still. He didn’t have to say anything.’

I didn’t know what he was talking about. ‘What secrets?’

‘The climate data, the person who was spilling beans to DAR-X. Remember, I told you in Vitangelsk? It was Quam who wanted me to find out who it was.’ He clapped his hands together and winced. ‘Maybe it was just as well I didn’t. That must have been what did for Hagger.’

I almost laughed. Fuck-a-doodle-doo. We’d all been running around chasing our tails.

‘I don’t think this has anything to do with DAR-X,’ I said carefully. ‘Or with our data. It’s bigger than that.’

How much to tell him? ‘There’s a secret facility by Vitangelsk, inside Mine Eight. Some kind of Russian military radar.’

Kennedy stared at me like I’d announced I was Jesus Christ. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘You sound like Danny.’

‘This isn’t some crazy conspiracy theory. That guy who chased you at Vitangelsk — did you make him up?’

Kennedy puffed out his cheeks, then blew a long breath like a puff of smoke. It made me want a cigarette. And I quit three years ago.

‘I thought DAR-X were running it,’ I continued. ‘Now I’m certain there’s someone here at Zodiac.’

‘Francis Quam.’

‘That’s the way it looks,’ I agreed.

‘So what about Hagger?’

‘I haven’t figured him out yet,’ I admitted. ‘Either he was part of it and threatened to expose Quam, or he found out something he shouldn’t have. Either way, Quam got shot of him.’

‘That explains the notebooks,’ Kennedy said.

‘What notebooks?’

‘On Tuesday, when we went to the cabin. Do you remember that I looked in the stove? I didn’t tell you then, but what I found was the charred remains of Hagger’s notebooks. Someone took them there to get rid of them.’

‘Any idea who?’

‘I looked in the field log. Everyone comes and goes, but no one’s been to the cabin. Or admitted to it. I’m afraid that doesn’t do us much good.’

I thought through my list of names, all the lines connecting them.

‘How do you think Tom Anderson fits?’

‘Quam didn’t want him here,’ said Kennedy thoughtfully. ‘He and Hagger had the most tremendous row about it last week.’

I gave him a stern look. ‘Were you spying?’

Kennedy squirmed. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing.’

‘Forget it. I heard it too.’ The whole base had heard it. ‘So Hagger knew something. Quam thought he might tell Anderson, so he tried to stop Anderson coming here. When that didn’t work out, he killed Hagger.’

‘That explains why Hagger was up on the glacier near Vitangelsk when he should have been working on sea ice. But what about the faked data?’