“I was led to believe that what happened to him wasn’t an accident.”
“No, quite deliberate. But I don’t think he really meant to kill himself. A month in Carlisle and he’ll be fine. The warm, sunny weather will do him good.”
Emma had never quite become fluent in sarcasm, even after all these years. She pushed on regardless. She tried to move the table flush with the wall, then gave up when she realized the wall was not straight either.
“What if, just to throw a crazy idea out there for a moment, some sort of crime were to occur?”
“Not likely. Last month we did get some excitement. That was the big lobster catch. They do this big competition every March, since the lobster fisheries are protected the rest of the year. People have a quick one, go out in a boat that's barely seaworthy, and try to coax a few furry sea monsters into a box. Every year there are a few fights over the alleged theft of said sea monsters. I remember standing on the docks while a couple of drunken idiots threw tackle at each other. Over lobster. I couldn't understand why anyone would make such a fuss. Might see the same level of disorderly conduct at the bonfire two days from now, if you’re lucky.”
“I take it it's a lucrative enterprise, then? Lobster fishing?”
“Oh, no, they eat them.”
“They don't sell them? Is it restricted?”
“Who would buy them? Sorry, I forgot you're fresh off the boat. What they call lobster isn't... real lobster. That's just what they call it.”
“Do I want to know?”
“No. If you see a pincer sticking out of a sausage roll in these parts, don't ask questions. As for proper crime, you're out of luck. Once or twice, Ned had to throw someone in the lockup, but that’s pretty rare. That’s the shed behind Steve’s place.”
“And Steve doesn’t mind?”
“Well, you can ask him when he gets back.”
“Back from where?”
“Who knows? He left a couple days ago. Be back soon, probably.”
“Left? Someone is unaccounted for on an island the size of a seagull turd, and that’s your reaction?”
“Yeah, well, he didn't swim to Amsterdam Island, did he? And Ned’s not here to make you fill out any missing persons forms, so if I were you, I’d spend the rest of your secondment at The Rock.”
“That's not how I normally approach police work. Does Steve disappear often?”
“Couldn't tell you.”
“Why the hell not? The man is practically the island’s jailer. You must know him somewhat.”
“Know him? You could live on this blasted island the rest of your life and not know these people. They don't even know who they are. You know they call kecks 'pants,' right? Like they're Australian or something.”
Emma paused to take stock of the situation while Kenny Larkin got in a fight with Henry Ramsay.
“Evan, did they not give you the option to serve somewhere more hospitable?”
“Like the South Pole, you mean? Not qualified.”
“You need a PhD to poke at penguins?”
“They evaluate you before you can overwinter. And there are no penguins at the South Pole.”
“You're not going to tell me it's polar bears, are you? Because between you and David I don't think I can handle one more iota of smarm.”
“No, there's no anything at the South Pole. It's just you and a handful of freaks in a tin can. It's enough to make a fella go mental.”
“Freaks in a tin can, eh?” Emma looked around the room.
“Yeah, yeah. This isn’t ideal, either. My mates had some lads' holiday in Tallinn last summer, while I was stuck listening to someone on the radio complain that they had too much poo at Halley Research Base and couldn't get it all out in one go. Days like that, I might as well be living on the Moon.
“But still, most days it’s a hell of a lot better than a real job. Here you've got no one to answer to. No command structure, no experiments. I was here two weeks before I realized that radio over there was turned on. Nearly scared the life out of me when someone in Kerguelen asked us if we had any propane.” Evan put his hands behind his head in the universal gesture of someone who has snatched the easy life out from under society's unsuspecting nose. “Come on, this is the good part. Get a chair.”
Emma was struck by the type of hopelessness that sets in after shouting slowly into an automated help line only to be redirected to the main menu. But despite his best effort, Evan had stumbled onto a good idea. The only place she was likely to get anything done was The Rock. There was routine work to be done first, paperwork, studying Ned’s logs. By the afternoon she was ready to do some real policing. She made a feeble excuse, brushed aside his jacket that was half-covering the door, and retraced the route back to the pub.
The way back toward the ocean put her face to face with the salt spray blasting up the street. She wondered if the chaotic twisting of the streets around narrow bottle necks and obtuse angles was less a lack of central planning and more an attempt at baffling the wind. In any case it didn’t work. To protect her eyes, she put a hand in front of her face and looked down at the cobblestones. She didn’t notice the woman calling out to her until she was nearly screaming. The chance to pretend she didn’t hear anything had passed. Down a narrow alley a woman was waving both arms in the air.
“Constable! This way, quickly!”
Instinct propelled Emma down the alley fast enough to lose her footing on a slab of volcanic rock that had been put down to replace a patch of missing road. Grace was not necessary for good police work, but falling on one’s face was generally discouraged, as
