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

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