3
Callum reached out and shook his colleague’s hand. His grip felt weak and he seemed even thinner than usual, but Callum kept his thoughts to himself. “Jonas, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
In his thick Norwegian brogue Jonas replied, “You have told me so much about this monster of yours over the years that I just had to come out and meet him for myself.”
“But I thought you were supposed to be in Tromso for the summer?”
“I was supposed to be, yes. But things have changed.”
There was something about the word things that set the alarm bells ringing faster. It had been twelve years since Callum had first met Jonas Olsen. He had already established himself as a world authority on the archaeology of northern Eurasia and he had been one of the main reasons for Callum joining the department at Aberdeen. The result of over a decade of close collaboration was that he knew Jonas well and he was a specifics man, not a things man. He searched the pale blue of his friend’s eyes.
“Surely not again?”
Jonas nestled his boater back on top of his thinning grey hair. “Can we talk?”
Having settled Jamie back on the beach, Callum returned to Jonas, who motioned for them to sit at a nearby table. On it already were his favoured white jacket, lichen stains on the elbows where he had been leaning, and two glass tumblers, both containing generous measures of single malt. He slid one across the table to Callum.
“What’ve they said?”
“They think six months, a year at most.”
Callum slumped back in his seat. “Jonas, I don’t know what to say.”
“You can say whatever you like, my friend, but what you cannot do is feel sorry for me, please.” He assumed that same commanding gaze with which he fixed his students year on year. “You know, you should never feel pity for a dying sixty-year-old. He has enjoyed the things that are here to enjoy and now he gets to skip out on the bill. You should envy this man. You should refuse to drink the expensive whiskey he has bought for you and give it back to him on principle.” He grinned and held out his glass. Callum clinked it and they downed their measures.
“Is there really nothing they can do? Last time they said it was hopeless and then you came through.”
Jonas shook his head. “Three years ago it was a pussycat. This time it is a tiger. And besides, I’m afraid this time it has spread.”
“Where?”
He tapped the ends of his fingers against his hairline. “Straight to the old think tank.”
His words hung swollen and grotesque before them, as the shock passed from Callum’s stomach up into his chest and back again. They sat quietly together, the air cut with the familiar squabbling of gulls and the shrieking of children playing down on the shore.
“Is there anything you need me to do?” Callum said at last. “If there is then just name it, okay, anything at all.”
Jonas’s features hardened suddenly and his elbows forced a creak from the table-top as he leant forward. “As a matter of fact, there is something,” he said, “and it is the reason why I am here ruining your holiday like this.”
“You’re not ruining anything,” Callum replied. “I meant what I said. Do you need me to look out for Sarah? She knows, doesn’t she?”
“Yes, yes, she knows, and no thank you, she is far too headstrong, I mean stubborn, I mean independent an old girl to accept anybody’s help.”
Callum could feel a tear building in the corner of his eye. He turned his head and saw that Jamie was still sitting quietly down on the beach. Hand outstretched above his eyes, he was scouring the loch for movement.
“You have heard of a place called Franz Josef Land, of course?”
Callum nodded, still watching his son. “Off the north coast of Russia. Why? Are they developing a new treatment there?” No sooner were the words out than he knew they were absurd. There was no they in Franz Josef Land, let alone any advanced medical facilities capable of treating metastasised pancreatic cancer. For many years one of his major research foci had been the archaeology of northern Siberia, and he was familiar with the off-shore islands. Those that made up the Franz Josef Land archipelago were remote, uninhabited and glaciated. There was only a smattering of abandoned Cold War outposts, the odd meteorological research station and a handful of ramshackle nineteenth-century explorers’ hovels to show that man had ever given the place a second thought.
“No, nothing like that,” Jonas chuckled. “This is nothing to do with me knocking on heaven’s door. This is much more serious. This is research.”
4
Callum stared at his friend. “A field survey?”
“On Harmsworth Island. It is in the extreme north-east of the archipelago. Nobody even knew that it existed until recently, not even the Russians.”
“But it must be at eighty degrees latitude. The whole place must be under ice.”
“Eighty-one,” Jonas corrected. “But apparently this island has only a single, comparatively small glacier in the centre. The rest is open tundra, which can be surveyed like anywhere else during the summer. At least that is what I am told.”
“And you want me to go there instead of you?”
“I have suggested you to the powers that be, yes, and they have said that if I am satisfied you are the most qualified replacement then they are happy for you to climb aboard, pending all the usual checks.”
“And who are they exactly? I mean, who’s proposing to fund all this?”
Jonas threw a glance around the nearby tables. Then in a low voice he said, “One minute I am working on the report for the Malsnes excavation and the next minute head of department Clive Berridge is in my office telling me that he has had a phone call from the Arctic Council and that they have requested me to go to Franz Josef Land
