The Mammoth Book of Locked-Room Mysteries And Impossible Crimes

ensure its pumps were clear and that it was well lubricated, was not popular with the scientists, who would rather be in the heated labs doing their own work.

Tanya had dressed in her warmest clothes, and the team had heard the drill start up. And no one had seen her since. There was a limited number of places anyone could be at Vostok: she was not under the beds, in the tiny cupboards in which belongings were stored, or among the stacks of supply crates. The only possible explanation for her absence was that she had gone for a walk.

“She wouldn’t do that,” objected Senko. “There’s nowhere to go, and she’d never abandon the drill.”

Paxton knew that was true. Tanya, like all of them, was reliable and conscientious. She would never shirk her duties, especially given that they were so close to reaching the lake.

“We should look for her,” said Julie, worried. “She may’ve fallen and hurt herself.”

“The drill-house is the tallest building,” said Paxton. “We can climb on its roof and see if we can spot her.”

“I’ll go,” offered Julie. “The weight of the snow’s already made it buckle, and I’m lighter than the rest of you. We don’t want it to collapse and damage the drill – not now.”

She quickly scaled a ladder, and then stepped cautiously onto the snow-laden roof. Taking a pair of powerful binoculars, she scanned the expanse of ice slowly and carefully. But there was nothing to see. When her fingers began to ache from the cold, and the tears from her watering eyes froze on her cheeks, she descended again.

“The weather’s clear today,” she said. “I could see thirty miles easy. If Tanya were out there, I’d have spotted her. You know how colour stands out on the ice.”

“We saw her less than three hours ago, anyway,” said Senko. “She couldn’t have walked that far.”

“So, she isn’t on the ice and she isn’t in the base,” said Hall, puzzled. “Where is she?”

No one could answer him.

“We could look for footprints,” suggested Wilkes, a soft-spoken Virginian who always sported a cowboy-like necktie as part of his cold-weather clothing. “They’d lead us to her.”

“The ice is too hard for footprints,” said Paxton. “And even if we did find some, they won’t necessarily be hers. We all wander outside the camp from time to time.”

For the rest of the day, until it became too dark and too cold, they inspected every crack and crevice at the station, and scoured the featureless ice outside. Julie reported Tanya’s disappearance to the American base at McMurdo, and when Paxton stumbled into the kitchen late that night, cold and weary after his fruitless search, she told him that McMurdo was fog-bound, and that no plane would be available to help them for several days.

“We’ve got to do something,” said Senko, as members of the team gathered to discuss what to do next. “Tanya’s missing. We can’t go about our business like nothing’s happened.”

“What d’you suggest?” asked Hall tiredly. “We’ve looked everywhere. What else can we do?”

Senko shook his head helplessly. “There must be something. Perhaps she climbed inside an empty fuel can.”

“We checked them,” said Julie. “And every empty crate. She isn’t here.”

“I can think of one solution to this,” said Hall quietly. “The stress of not knowing whether the drill will make it to Lake Vostok became too much for her. So she walked out onto the ice, dug a hole, and buried herself.”

“The ice is too hard,” said Senko, dismissive of the American he did not like. “And how could she’ve done it with none of us seeing? Even if she walked ten miles – unlikely in three hours – she’d still be visible from here.”

“And she wasn’t suicidal at lunch time,” added Paxton. “Normally, she hated drill duty, but she was okay today, because we’re so close to breaking through.”

“But she shut the thing down, and we’ve wasted the whole day searching for her,” said Hall bitterly. “Now we might never reach the lake.”

“We will,” said Paxton. “I’m on first watch tomorrow – I’ll start early, and we’ll continue ‘til we reach it; then we’ll tell McMurdo to evacuate us. We’ve been here six months, and by tomorrow, we’ll have done all we came to do.”

“I only hope the drill lasts,” said Julie anxiously.

“All we need is one sample,” said Hall. “More would be better, obviously, but one sample will at least tell us whether there’s life down there.”

“Where are Wilkes and Bannikov?” asked Senko, noting that two of the remaining seven were missing. “Still searching?”

Paxton shook his head. “I saw Bannikov ten minutes ago. He said they’ll join us when they’ve changed.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when Bannikov burst into the room, bringing with him a flurry of tiny flakes, more like ice dust than snow.

“I can’t find Wilkes,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve looked everywhere. He’s not in the camp.”

Stomach churning, Paxton raced outside to look in the huts and the labs, ignoring the burly Russian’s protestations that he’d already checked them. Bannikov was right: Wilkes was not on the base.

“What happened?” Paxton demanded, while the others clustered around in alarm. “You said both of you were back.”

“We were both back,” insisted Bannikov, his usually florid face pale. He took the hip-flask from his pocket and raised it to his lips with unsteady hands. “He wanted to look in the drill-house one last time before giving up for the night; I went to change. After a few minutes, I went to the drill-house to make sure he was alright. I couldn’t find him.”

“That makes two,” said Hall, glancing around him fearfully. “What’s happening here?”

“More to the point,” said Senko in a nervous whisper. “Who’s going to be next?”

A more thorough search of the base revealed nothing: there was no sign of Wilkes, just as there had been no sign of Tanya. The two scientists seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Paxton found the cowboy-style necktie, twisted and frozen, in the drill-house, but it gave no clue as to what had happened to its owner.

“This is impossible,” he said, gazing down at the material. “People don’t just disappear.”

Hall turned to Senko. “The Russians didn’t put secret tunnels here, did they? This base was built during the Cold War, and so it’s possible they did something like that. Wilkes and Tanya may’ve fallen down one.”

Senko shook his head. “They only built what you can see – no hidden rooms or passages. And even if there were, they’d have collapsed under the weight of the snow by now.”

“Then maybe someone else is here,” said Hall. He gave Senko and Bannikov an unpleasant look. “We announce our progress every night on the radio, and so the whole of Antarctica knows we’re on the verge of tapping into Lake Vostok. Maybe not everyone wants us to be successful.”

“We’re at the Pole of Inaccessibility,” Paxton pointed out, determined that the Texan should not start to blame the Russians. “A rival band of scientists can’t simply fly in, snatch our samples, and leave.”

“Why not?” demanded Hall.

Paxton sighed. “First, only specially adapted planes can land here; and second,