Killer

He squirmed to his feet and stood over his enemy. His eyes swept over the floe. He caught his breath as panic gripped him. The tongue of ice had broken free: they were drifting, at the mercy of wind and tide. And the others didn’t seem to realise the danger. He opened his mouth to speak, to scream, to do something, but a feeling of helplessness swept over him, and he remained quiet after all. What could he say? What could they do? Suddenly he was desperately tired. He suspected they all were, too battered and tired even to care. His shoulders slumped, and he stared dumbly at them. Job was busy among the crates. Warren was half-supporting his daughter. Her hair was cascading onto the ice, catching the crystal light. There came a twisting of lust in his stomach. The other man, Preston, was standing looking helplessly around. It was very cold. There was a slight breeze, and the wind-chill factor lowered the temperature by a further degree for every knot the breeze blew. Only Ross and Job were properly dressed: the rest of them were in imminent danger of freezing. If Ross hadn’t woken them, they would all have slept forever. He went over towards Warren and Kate, hearing Ross rise unsteadily on the slippery ice behind him.

“How is she?” he asked the doctor.

“I’m all right,” Kate said.

“Good.” He switched on his most dazzling smile. “It was very brave of you to go into the plane like that: you’ve probably saved us all.”

She smiled back. “Thank you, Mr. Quick.”

“Please call me Simon. Well, Doctor, I think we’d all better get changed, or Ross and Job will be the only ones who make it through the night.” He made it sound light, like a joke; but he hoped it would draw their attention to the fact that rather than seeing to their safety, Ross had seen first to his own.

“Job, are you sorting out the clothes there?”

Job nodded.

“Good. I’d better give you a hand then. We’ll use the tent that’s unpacked. It’s a bit battered, but it should preserve the proprieties. I’ll get it up again.” His hands weren’t working too well, but he managed without much trouble. The double layer of material, carefully designed to give maximum protection against cold and wet, had been torn down one side by the force of the explosion and hung a little open. It would do, however, as a changing room; and after that as a store tent.

“I’ll just pop in first, if that’s all right with everybody, then I can help Job with the crates here,” he called.

Job paid no attention to him; Warren, Kate and Preston nodded; Ross had wandered off somewhere.

Quick climbed swiftly into the tent. The hole in the wall let in light as well as cold, and he had no trouble reading the tickets on the bundles of clothes on the floor. One read Large; two Medium; one

Small. They had that well enough sorted out, he thought. Large for Preston, Medium for Warren and himself, Small for Kate. He undid the string on the bundle he had chosen for himself, and laid the clothing out: long underwear, carefully quilted; heavy trousers and shirts; thick woollen socks; insulated waterproof overtrousers; an anorak lined with wolf’s fur; woollen gloves, sealskin mittens and boots. The clothes were a little loose, but not too bad: the boots at least fitted satisfactorily. He stepped out of the tent, pulled up the fur-lined hood, and gestured to Miss Warren that she should enter the tent next.

He went to one of the crates on the far side of the tent, and began to open it. It contained sleeping bags. His hands – warm at last! – mechanically began to unpack the crate. A careful look round revealed that he was alone here. His eyes fastened to the slit down the side of the tent. The wind moved the material, and he caught a glimpse of movement. He bent to pick up another sleeping bag, eyes riveted. A bare arm moved over the blackness. Abruptly the side of the tent billowed out, and he could see her balancing on one leg, the other raised ready to insert into the quilted long johns, her body in a delicate curve of hip, back and arms down to the stark white material . . .

“Simon?” Ross was beside him. He knew. Ross knew!

Quick swung towards him, face blazing. “What?”

“Look. I’ve been looking over this floe. It’s huge; maybe twenty acres. It would be better if we moved further down it. It’s wider, the ice is thicker, it would be a better place for a camp.”

The change of focus temporarily disorientated him. He had not yet got round to thinking about the floe; had not even looked it over to get a full idea of their predicament. It angered him that Ross had had the forethought to spy the land and begin to make a plan. It was what he should have been doing, if he was going to function credibly as leader; instead of standing here trying to get a look at that blonde tart flaunting herself in the tent.