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Authors: Jack Higgins
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perhaps you’ll realise now that there is more to this than the money—much more. I must know if that man out there is my husband. I must know. Can you understand that?”
The soft eyes were filled with anxiety, one hand reaching out in a kind of desperate appeal to touch mine gently. She was good—more than that. She was brilliant. For a moment she actually had me going along with her and I had to make a real effort to pull myself back to reality.
“Yes, I can understand that, Mrs. Kelso. I’m sorry.”
“I had to inform Mrs. Kelso of what was going on,” Vogel said. “She asked to come along and we were glad to have her. I should add that as well as a full physical description and photographs, she has also volunteered certain additional information as to identity which can only be confirmed on the spot. Under those circumstances I can’t honestly see how she could get away with a deliberately false identification.”
“Have you got a photograph with you?” I said.
He nodded to Stratton who produced a manilla file from a leather briefcase. He passed two photographs across. One was a straight portrait job in half-profile that looked as if it had been taken a year or two back and showed a reasonably handsome man in his late twenties with a strong jaw and a firm mouth. The other was more recent and showed him in flying gear standing beside a Piper Comanche. I think it was the face that had changed most. In the other picture he’d seemed pretty average, inthis he looked like a man who’d decided that in the final analysis only the price tag was important.
I laid them down in front of Sarah Kelso. “So that’s what he looked like?”
She stared at me, a slightly puzzled frown on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“Let me tell you about the ice-cap, Mrs. Kelso. What it’s really like up there. To start with it’s so cold that flesh can’t putrefy. That means that as soon as life leaves it a body freezes so quickly that it’s preserved indefinitely.”
“But from the expedition report, I got the impression that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition,” Vogel said quickly.
“There’s only one thing living up there on top, Mr. Vogel,” I said, “the Arctic Fox, and he’s a scavenger as savage as any hyena.”
I didn’t need to elaborate. Sarah Kelso leaned back, real pain on her face as she closed her eyes for a moment. Now she opened them and there was an astonishing strength in her voice.
“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Martin. Nothing matters except the knowing.”
There was another heavy silence broken by Desforge. “For God’s sake, Joe, what’s got into you?”
“I just wanted to make sure everyone had got the facts straight, that’s all.” I turned to Vogel. “Now we all know where we are, we can get down to business. First of all I’ll have to know where the wreck is.”
Stratton produced a map from the briefcase and spread it across the table. The position had been marked not asa meaningless dot but by two cross bearings that had been neatly pencilled in by someone who knew his job.
“Can you guarantee this is accurate?” I demanded.
Stratton nodded. “I drove over to Oxford myself just before we left and had a chat with the two men who led the expedition. They must have known their business or they wouldn’t have got across surely?”
Which was fair enough. Only an expert navigator could chart a course with any certainty across that wilderness of snow and ice.
The route of the expedition had been plotted in red ink. It had started from old Olaf Rasmussen’s place at Sandvig and had crossed the glacier at the head of Sandvig Fjord by the most direct route, following the high valley through the mountains beyond that led to the ice-cap. They had discovered the plane about a hundred miles inland not far from Lake Sule.
I studied the map for a while then shook my head.
“You’re talking to the wrong man, Mr. Vogel.”
He frowned. “I don’t
The soft eyes were filled with anxiety, one hand reaching out in a kind of desperate appeal to touch mine gently. She was good—more than that. She was brilliant. For a moment she actually had me going along with her and I had to make a real effort to pull myself back to reality.
“Yes, I can understand that, Mrs. Kelso. I’m sorry.”
“I had to inform Mrs. Kelso of what was going on,” Vogel said. “She asked to come along and we were glad to have her. I should add that as well as a full physical description and photographs, she has also volunteered certain additional information as to identity which can only be confirmed on the spot. Under those circumstances I can’t honestly see how she could get away with a deliberately false identification.”
“Have you got a photograph with you?” I said.
He nodded to Stratton who produced a manilla file from a leather briefcase. He passed two photographs across. One was a straight portrait job in half-profile that looked as if it had been taken a year or two back and showed a reasonably handsome man in his late twenties with a strong jaw and a firm mouth. The other was more recent and showed him in flying gear standing beside a Piper Comanche. I think it was the face that had changed most. In the other picture he’d seemed pretty average, inthis he looked like a man who’d decided that in the final analysis only the price tag was important.
I laid them down in front of Sarah Kelso. “So that’s what he looked like?”
She stared at me, a slightly puzzled frown on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“Let me tell you about the ice-cap, Mrs. Kelso. What it’s really like up there. To start with it’s so cold that flesh can’t putrefy. That means that as soon as life leaves it a body freezes so quickly that it’s preserved indefinitely.”
“But from the expedition report, I got the impression that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition,” Vogel said quickly.
“There’s only one thing living up there on top, Mr. Vogel,” I said, “the Arctic Fox, and he’s a scavenger as savage as any hyena.”
I didn’t need to elaborate. Sarah Kelso leaned back, real pain on her face as she closed her eyes for a moment. Now she opened them and there was an astonishing strength in her voice.
“It doesn’t matter, Mr. Martin. Nothing matters except the knowing.”
There was another heavy silence broken by Desforge. “For God’s sake, Joe, what’s got into you?”
“I just wanted to make sure everyone had got the facts straight, that’s all.” I turned to Vogel. “Now we all know where we are, we can get down to business. First of all I’ll have to know where the wreck is.”
Stratton produced a map from the briefcase and spread it across the table. The position had been marked not asa meaningless dot but by two cross bearings that had been neatly pencilled in by someone who knew his job.
“Can you guarantee this is accurate?” I demanded.
Stratton nodded. “I drove over to Oxford myself just before we left and had a chat with the two men who led the expedition. They must have known their business or they wouldn’t have got across surely?”
Which was fair enough. Only an expert navigator could chart a course with any certainty across that wilderness of snow and ice.
The route of the expedition had been plotted in red ink. It had started from old Olaf Rasmussen’s place at Sandvig and had crossed the glacier at the head of Sandvig Fjord by the most direct route, following the high valley through the mountains beyond that led to the ice-cap. They had discovered the plane about a hundred miles inland not far from Lake Sule.
I studied the map for a while then shook my head.
“You’re talking to the wrong man, Mr. Vogel.”
He frowned. “I don’t
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