CATHERINE
MOLONEY

2

Weird White World

 

Kate Burton, predictably, was enthralled by the museum’s polar exhibition when the hastily scrambled ‘Gang of Four’ assembled there first thing on Monday morning.

  Markham was struck by how well she was looking, the glossy chestnut bob more geometric and edgy than he remembered, and the turned-up features – snub, tip-tilted nose and chipmunk cheeks giving her an endearingly squashed up look – vibrant with wellbeing.

  Noakes and Olivia always maintained that Burton had long harboured a serious crush on him, and of late Markham intuited a jealous insecurity in his lover on that score which had surprised and unsettled him, causing him to wonder if Olivia was aware of something that he hadn’t cottoned on to. Privately, he admitted that Burton’s retrenchment of hero-worship had caused a pang, but he wryly put that down to his own punctured vanity as much as anything else. And it was good to see his former protégée so happy with Professor Nathan Finlayson – a man whom he liked and respected – even if Noakes did insist, ‘You’d only have to crook your little finger an’ Shippers would be history’.

  Now secure in her position as a DI at Southampton Row, her dress sense too had evolved, and she was the epitome of executive chic in a mint-green two piece accessorised with a khaki leather briefcase containing the essential notebook and reading glasses.

  DS Doyle too looked well content with life and was clearly delighted to be included in the team for the museum murder. Always a snappy dresser, he had opted for the preppy button-down look with navy gingham shirt, fawn chinos and deck shoes.

  Noakes, needless to say, had fallen wide of the mark in his attempt to muster a sartorial ensemble suitable for the student city, ample paunch spilling over baggy beige combat trousers bizarrely topped with fuchsia polo shirt and flapping navy cardigan. Markham was amused to note the mildly appalled sideways glances Burton and Doyle shot the DS before looking down with renewed complacency at their own attire. The only thing in favour of his batman’s horribly mismatched clobber was that Noakes had eschewed crocs or sandals and was sporting his usual George boots. Perspiring heavily on arrival at the museum, florid face the same hue as his shirt, the DS was grateful for the air-conditioned depths of the Reynolds, his complexion gradually subsiding from beetroot-red to something less suggestive of a coronary waiting to happen.

  Having ascertained that his three colleagues were satisfied with the accommodation he had arranged for them at Malmaison, the Victorian prison converted into a boutique hotel on Oxford’s New Road, Markham introduced them to the museum’s director who offered to show them around the polar exhibition since they had time before they were to meet the museum’s administrator.

  Noakes was as delighted as Burton by the stunning black and white pictures of the arctic landscape, though Doyle commented uneasily that the bergs looked like tombstones in a cemetery. ‘A kind of spooky ghost world,’ he commented.

  ‘Interesting that you should say that, Sergeant,’ Dr Ashworth told him. ‘When he was trekking over mountains and glaciers in South Georgia, Shackleton said he always had the feeling of there being an extra presence – one more person than could actually be counted.’

  On hearing this, Doyle looked more uneasy still.

  Noakes meanwhile was poring delightedly over a display case devoted to polar expedition dogs and ponies. ‘Says here they named one of the ponies Weary Willie,’ he chuckled delightedly. ‘An’ would you believe it, two of ’em that ended up going to the bottom of the ocean were called Davy an’ Jones!’ Doyle joined him at the large glass cabinet, glad to be distracted from thoughts of ghosts. ‘Blimey, it says here that Amundsen shot twenty-two of his dogs somewhere called the Butcher’s Shop.’

  ‘Scott was an animal lover,’ came an amused voice behind them. ‘Mind you, getting the beasts over by ship was a nightmare. On one trip, there were nineteen ponies housed immediately above the sailors….  kept peeing on them, so they spent most of the time drenched in urine.’

  The director brightened at the sight of a tall bespectacled colleague dressed in light-coloured chinos and cream linen jacket. Lean and rangy with curly black hair, he had an air of ironic detachment that reminded Markham of Mat Sullivan.

  ‘Ah, greetings Jonjo,’ Dr Ashworth greeted him. Then, turning to the detectives, ‘This is our assistant curator, John Kelleher,’ he said before introducing Markham’s team to the newcomer.

  ‘Everyone calls me Jonjo,’ the other said with a grin. ‘Not very donnish, but somehow I get away with it.’

  ‘Are you responsible for the polar exhibition then, Mr Kelleher…. or, sorry, is it Doctor Kelleher?’ Kate Burton was punctilious about getting handles right.

  Another grin. ‘No, you were right first time. Never got round to finishing my Ph.D….. kept getting distracted and going off at a tangent,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘He’s being modest,’ the director put in. ‘With a first-class M.A. on the role of the Royal Geographical Society in arctic exploration, we counted ourselves lucky to snap him up before academe got hold of him.’

  It was clear the two men enjoyed a good relationship. As though by mutual consent, they refrained from mentioning the recent tragedy while Markham and his team moved round the exhibits.

  ‘Behold how good and joyful a thing it is: brethren to dwell together in unity!’ Burton murmured, peering at the caption above a series of portraits along the wall.’

  ‘Captain Scott inscribed that at the front of one of his journals,’ the assistant curator told her. ‘Given the tricky mix of personalities, it was about as appropriate as Margaret Thatcher quoting St Francis at the door of 10 Downing Street,’ he added with a chuckle as Burton gazed at the trim slight figure with receding hair attired in naval uniform.

  ‘God, this bloke’s a bit of a runt,’ Noakes declared, from further along the line of pictures.

  ‘Ah, that’s Birdie Bowers, one of the two men found with Scott at the end,’ Kelleher told him. ‘A pretty good “hater” by all accounts, but devoted to Scott. The one next to him is Dr Edward Wilson. ‘He and Birdie were committed Christians while Scott was an agnostic. But they all had total faith that what they were doing counted.’

  As the DS nodded his approval, Markham reflected that this was a fair description of Noakes himself.

  ‘And there’s Oates,’ Doyle said, regarding the muscular handsome figure with the steely gaze and close-cropped hair. ‘They never found his body, did they?’

  ‘No, but a memorial was erected where he was thought to have walked out into the blizzard,’ Kelleher said. ‘His nicknames were “Soldier”, because he was army, and “Titus” for Titus Oates, the man who plotted a conspiracy to kill Charles the Second.’

  Absorbed, the group moved further along, listening attentively to their affable guide. ‘The last two are Dr Edward “Bill” Wilson and Petty Officer Edgar “Taff” Evans…. Dr Wilson was found in his sleeping bag next to Scott, but Evans – like Oates – has no known burial place. He fell into a coma – frostbite, hypothermia, mental collapse, no-one’s quite sure how it was – and they just had to leave hm. He was the only non-officer…. it was devastating for him when they found out Amundsen had beaten them to the Pole, because he was hoping that fame and fortune from being first would allow him to buy a little pub and settle down.’

  Noakes scrutinised the working-class bloke with interest. ‘Poor sod,’ he said. Then, ‘That Amundsen were a right sneaky bastard,’ he added venomously, with a contemptuous glance towards a nearby portrait of a hawk-faced man who looked like a modern-day Viking, ‘pretending to focus on the North Pole when all the time he planned to go South.’

  Before the DS had any chance to embark on a xenophobic rant, Burton drew their attention to the photograph of a woman in a sack-like dress with an intelligent face and hair piled high on her head. ‘It says Scott’s wife was a sculptor,’ she said, examining notes on the adjacent plaque.

  ‘That’s right,’ Kelleher said. ‘She was a feisty lady. Oates wrote about her getting into arguments with the other wives – said two of them had a magnificent battle and it was a draw after fifteen rounds.’

  As the detectives laughed, Markham could see the director was visibly pleased at the way his assistant curator had brought the exhibits to life, Ashworth’s rather fidgety, prissy manner giving way to a more relaxed demeanour.

  The two men were an effective double-act, the director taking over as they moved down the line towards the section devoted to Sir Ernest Shackleton.

  ‘He was different from Scott. More of an adventurer than your officer type, though he had worked his way up through the merchant navy.’ Ushering them to a long low table with newspaper cuttings under glass, ‘That’s the advert he put out before the Endurance expedition.’

  ‘“Men wanted for Hazardous Journey,”’ Doyle read aloud. ‘“Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful.”’ The young DS chuckled. ‘Great sense of humour,’ he said appreciatively.

  Ashworth laughed. ‘Oh, “Shackles”, as they called him, was the buccaneering type. He had heart problems but just shrugged it off. The last thing he said to his doctor was, “You’re always wanting me to give up things, so what is it I ought to give up now?” The doctor replied, “Chiefly alcohol, boss, I don’t think it agrees with you.” Shackleton died a few minutes later. He was only forty-seven.’

  Markham was surprised to find the museum director a natural raconteur, quite different now from the man he had first encountered in that over-the-top office.

  ‘Scott’s wife couldn’t stand Shackleton,’ Ashworth went on. ‘Even said she’d happily assist at his assassination.’

  There was an awkward silence at the reference to homicide before Markham stepped in. ‘Wasn’t that because Shackleton moved in on what Scott saw as being his patch?’ the DI enquired.

  ‘Well, to be honest, in the circumstances Shackleton didn’t have much choice,’ the director replied. ‘but according to the strange codes of chivalry in those days, it wasn’t the done thing to break your word… Edward Wilson had been one of Shackleton’s closest friends but never spoke to him again for doing that to Scott.’

  ‘Shackleton was a kind of ghostly pace-maker for Scott,’ Kelleher put in.

  Doyle shifted uncomfortably at the mention of ghosts.

  Seeing this, the assistant curator continued smoothly, ‘In many ways they were very alike. Couldn’t find contentment ashore…. There was always that yearning for the arctic.’ Kelleher smiled at them. ‘But I reckon Shackleton was much more fun than Scott…. less stodgy somehow…. There’s this lovely story about him teaching his sisters signalling…. When he sailed off with the Discovery on that first polar expedition with Scott, he brought out his white handkerchief then got one of the crew to bring him another and semaphored to each of them – in strict nursery order of precedence.’

  ‘Was he religious-minded like Bowers and Wilson?’ Burton asked.

  ‘Not at all. He didn’t like clergymen,’ Kelleher replied. ‘Called them sky pilots and only accepted one as chaplain because when the guy opened his attaché case, a woman’s silk underwear and champagne cork rolled out.’

  ‘Sky pilots, eh?’ Doyle said amidst the laughter, with a mischievous look towards Noakes. ‘That’s that you call them ain’t it, sarge?’

  The other affected not to hear this sally.

  ‘It says here Scott’s crew could’ve topped thesselves with opium,’ he observed, squinting at another noticeboard.

  ‘Correct, Sergeant.’ Kelleher grimaced. ‘But they chose not to take that way out. Actually, in Oates’s case, he wouldn’t have been strong enough to feed himself opium tablets or even undo his clothing to speed things up.’ Remembering what Olivia had said about the accusations levelled by the gallant soldier’s mother, Markham wondered if one of Oates’s comrades might have assisted the process. ‘But he likely died within ten minutes or so of walking out into that blizzard,’ Kelleher continued. ‘You see, nerve-endings would have frozen from the outside in…. and then he’d have been oblivious, probably travelling back in spirit to his home in Essex and leaving that weird white world behind.’

  ‘It’s like the surface of Mars or somewhere in outer space,’ Doyle murmured gazing around.

  ‘Treacherous too,’ Kelleher told him. ‘If a man fell through the ice pack and survived, the hole he fell through would drift away faster than he could catch up to it… It meant he’d be trapped on the underside of the ice, clawing desperately to find a way out, staring up till everything turned black.’

  It sounded to Markham eerily reminiscent of Timothy Colthurst’s death throes.

  As though conscious he had put his foot in it, the assistant curator turned to Doyle, ‘You’re right about there being something lunar about the landscape, Sergeant. The pressure ridges make it look almost Saharan.’ Following the young detective’s rapt gaze, he added softly, ‘Explorers said the ice pack gave out cries like human moans…. as though it was a child saying its first words.’

  To Markham, wandering past the stunning photographs, the arctic topography seemed at once sinister and curiously restful, mantled in the white silence of death, the medium he knew so well.

  ‘Reckon they were crap at skiing.’ Noakes’s voice brought him back to earth. ‘They look like bandy-legged crows with them poles.’

  Kate Burton frowned. ‘It’s so ethereal,’ she said almost reverentially.

  Kelleher smiled at her. ‘I suppose you could say so when you look at shots of the funny little crenellated townships they constructed out on the ice floes, but there’s nothing ethereal about the diaries. The men are either grumbling about the grub-scoffing useless beggars who don’t pull their weight or whingeing about fried penguin being inedible.’

  ‘Fried penguin!’ Noakes was appalled.

  Kelleher enjoyed the reaction he had produced. ‘Oh, believe me, that was haute cuisine compared with the usual hooch.’

  ‘Hooch?’ This was Doyle.

  ‘A sort of stew…. Basically they chucked everything in it,’ Kelleher told them. ‘From biscuits, raisins, curry paste and pemmican – that’s powdered meat mixed with melted fat – to cocoa powder.’

  Doyle’s jaw dropped. ‘Christ!’

  ‘Oh, they dreamed endlessly of big feeds in their sleep, Sergeant – cakes and sirloins – night after night.’

  The man was a born teacher, Markham reflected, enjoying this evocation of another world, though by the sound of it if Dante had witnessed the explorers at their worst, he might have found inspiration for another Circle of Hell.

  ‘Being trapped out there must have tipped some of them over the edge,’ the DI remarked.

  ‘Yes indeed.’ Kelleher’s face was suddenly sombre. ‘What they called “overwintering” could produce severe psychological side-effects. A sailor on one of the early expeditions developed delusions that the ice was alive – possessed by angry spirits that were coming after him.’ He paused impressively to let this sink in before resuming. ‘Of course, the ice could be a fairyland of light –’

  ‘The Aurora Australis,’ Burton cut in eagerly.

  Noakes and Doyle exchanged glances.

  Somebody’s been swotting up.

  Kelleher shot her an approving glance. ‘Correct. And there was a spectrum of rainbow colours to gladden the heart of any artist – aquamarine, pink, orange, mauve, indigo…. Plus there were spectacular illusions like the Four Suns.’

  Noakes’s piggy eyes widened on hearing this. ‘But ain’t it dark for six months of the year out there?’ he asked, recalling a programme he’d seen on the Discovery channel.

  ‘Indeed,’ Kelleher nodded in his unpatronising manner. ‘Lack of light often accelerated the emergence of mental symptoms.’

  ‘I’ve heard of folk going screwy like that…. S.A.D. or summat,’ Noakes confirmed sagely.

  ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder.’ Burton could never resist translating an acronym.

  ‘Yes, that’s one reason why explorers like Scott and Shackleton set great store by arranging theatricals,’ Dr Ashworth told them.

  ‘Theatricals…. You mean like musicals?’ Noakes boggled at the notion of Oklahoma on ice.

  ‘It was an essential distraction,’ Kelleher explained. ‘Shackleton in particular was always looking out wigs and dresses.’ He winked mischievously, ‘Some of the men made very fetching leading ladies.’

  Doyle smothered a grin at the expression on Noakes’s face. He could tell the older man didn’t at all care to hear his naval heroes associated with cross-dressing and ‘pervy’ goings-on’.

  Aware of the portly policeman’s disapproval, Kelleher steered them into safer waters.

  ‘It was important to keep the men from becoming depressed,’ he said easily. ‘Scott even got up an expedition newspaper…. anything to stave off mental breakdown.’ Face serious, he added, ‘It could make the difference between a happy crew and the threat of mutiny.’

  ‘Mutiny?’ Visions of Fletcher Christian and Captain Bligh of the Bounty danced across Doyle’s brain.

‘Oh yes,’ Dr Ashworth joined in. ‘Shackleton had to face that down more than once, but he had nerves of steel.’

  ‘When people live together in close proximity in a confined space, you can get collective outbreaks of semi-hysteria,’ Kelleher went on.

  Burton the psychology graduate was gripped.

  ‘They found it happening in convents in the sixteen-hundreds,’ she said earnestly. ‘There was a Ken Russell film…. The Devils of Loudun…. with Oliver Reed.’

  At this mention of the notorious hellraiser, Noakes looked as though he could guess only too well what kind of film that was.

  Registering his boot-faced expression, she added hastily, ‘Being in darkness half the year would play havoc with their body clock too.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Kelleher replied, ‘to say nothing of problems from scurvy which was poorly understood back then before the importance of Vitamin C became clear…. Edgar Evans said he would follow Scott to Hell, but he could never have imagined the horrors involved in getting to the Pole…. Starvation, their teeth splitting from the cold, altitude sickness, disorientation and madness….’

  ‘Of course, it wasn’t all about coming first in a race,’ Dr Ashworth told Burton in a confidential tone as they moved along the display cases. ‘People forget that Scott’s Discovery expedition was stunningly successful…. They were the first to take aerial photographs and the scientists made all kinds of discoveries… found a leaf fossil that indicated Antarctica had been part of a super-continent with a tropical climate…. The geological research was first-class.’

  Noakes’s expression clearly said, Bollocks to Geology.

  Doyle nudged the older man. ‘Hey, there’s some weird stuff about ’em in the newspapers,’ he said before reciting in sing-song tones, ‘At the Pole, at the Pole, Britannia’s pretty sure to reach her goal; Her ever-conquering legions, Will annex those distant regions, And make a new dominion of the Pole.’

  ‘Not much cop at limericks, if you ask me,’ Noakes grunted.

  Markham recalled Olivia’s colleagues deploring the jingoism of Scott-worshipers Personally, knowing that the Great War was just beyond the horizon, he found the words almost unbearably moving in their desperate evocation of an epic pre-eminence so soon to be extinguished….

  Extinction.

  Time to leave the Antarctic for now.

  Sensing the DI’s change of mood, Dr Ashworth gestured towards the lift. ‘Gentlemen,’ a courtly little bow to Burton, ‘and lady. Perhaps we should adjourn to my office. I’ve asked the museum’s administrator Yvonne Garrard to arrange refreshments so we can discuss…. recent events in comfort.’

  Reluctantly, Kate Burton turned her eyes away from the glaciers and crevasses and summits, with ice floes like gleaming prehistoric shields.

  As they walked to the lift, questions raced through her mind.

  Did the polar exhibition hold a clue to Dr Timothy Colthurst’s death?

  And why pose him in that grotesquely theatrical manner, as though to re-enact some frightful ice-bound trauma of long ago?

  Captain Scott’s wife had wanted to assassinate Shackleton….

  The word seemed to float in the still air of the galleries, like a malign prophecy.

  What had Timothy Colthurst done to merit such a violent end? Was it a one-off, or was the killer engaged in working out a pattern to some predetermined end?

  Even in the cool dim depths of the museum, she could not repress a shiver.

  Then there was the spectre of madness. From what Ashworth and Kelleher said, it sounded as though insanity had stalked those polar expeditions. Was it possible some contagion had reached across the centuries to break out here in Oxford?

  The others were waiting for her, Noakes and Doyle wearing expressions of the Oh no, she’s gone off on one variety.

  She quickened her pace to catch them up.

                                                          …………………………………

Yvonne Garrard, the museum’s administrator, was waiting for them in the director’s office and, after introductions were made, set about arranging coffee and biscuits for the group with a quiet, calm efficiency which was obviously one of her strengths in the job.

  Markham put her at late fifties, with something of mutton-dressed-as-lamb in the artfully silvered hair which fell in soft curls just past her shoulders. But she was perfectly groomed with an excellent figure set off by a well-cut charcoal business suit. The DI believed Dr Ashworth when he called her his ‘tower of strength’.

  He didn’t miss the faintly scandalised expression, swiftly suppressed, with which she greeted the news that they had been touring the polar exhibition, nor the propitiatory manner in which the director said, ‘The detectives wanted to gain a feel for the set-up, Yvonne.’

  ‘Yeah, soak up the vibes an’ all that, luv.’ Noakes beamed at her. The DI had the feeling that his wingman had been dreading the appearance of a Mary Beard character spouting ‘academic bullshit’, but the down-to-earth competence – and provision of lemon curd biscuits – had reassured him. ‘All that arctic stuff’s champion. Jus’ wish we had more time for a closer look.’

  The administrator smiled with genuine warmth at the policeman who looked the farthest thing imaginable from a hot-shot CID officer.

  ‘We’re very proud of it,’ she said. ‘Looks like being an even bigger draw than the David Livingstone exhibition in spring.’

  Noakes sniffed in the manner of one who would take the Antarctic over African jungles any day of the week.

  ‘Of course, Jonjo deserves the lion’s share of the credit,’ she went on. ‘He sweettalked the British Library and all kinds of places into loaning us items.’

  ‘I aim to please,’ Kelleher said self-deprecatingly.

  ‘Do you have valuable artefacts here, Ms Garrard?’ Burton asked, wondering if Timothy Colthurst could have interrupted a burglary.

  ‘Relics an’ stuff?’ Noakes prompted hopefully, remembering how the team’s last investigation into a religious cult had featured just such treasured souvenirs.

  ‘Well, certainly some pieces would be priceless to a collector,’ she said uncertainly, ‘The Apsley Cherry-Garrard belongings, for example…. No relation,’ she added before Noakes could ask the question.

  Frowning, the administrator turned to Markham.

  ‘Given that you said Dr Colthurst was…. posed…. in the art installation, I presumed this had to have been someone with a grudge.’

  ‘We aren’t ruling anything out at this stage,’ the DI replied. ‘But you’re right, there was something very deliberate about the positioning of the body.’

  ‘Almost like Shelley’s Memorial,’ she said.

  Uh-oh, thought Noakes observing Kate Burton’s sudden interest, Boffin Alert.

  And sure enough, Markham’s fellow DI couldn’t resist.

  ‘That’s a sculpture of the nineteenth-century poet Shelley depicting him after he was washed up drowned in Italy,’ she murmured. ‘Actually, he ended up being cremated and his heart buried separately.’

  It was just what Noakes expected of some longhaired Victorian poet. But he was quick to catch on. ‘Mebbe that means Colthurst was murdered by some academic type, he said darkly, the scornful emphasis eloquently conveying his distaste for the breed. ‘I mean it’s not likely your average Joe would come up with owt like that.’

  ‘What kind of a man was Dr Colthurst?’ Markham asked in the silence that ensued. ‘Was he at odds with anyone that you know of? A quarrel…. feud…. something like that?’

  The three colleagues looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Tim was very popular with his students and everyone at Sherwin,’ Dr Ashworth said after a pause. ‘Somewhat flamboyant, mind you….’

  ‘Flamboyant, sir?’ Markham prompted.

  The director cleared his throat. ‘He had a rather colourful private life…. bisexual and not particularly discreet about it, which caused a few ripples.’

  Noakes pursed his lips.

  I’ll bet it did. God, you’d think they’d be too busy writing books and thinking big thoughts for that kind of caper. The missus was bang on the money when she said their Nat was better off not going to uni. One great big shagfest by the sound of it….

  ‘Was there any relationship in particular that caused, er, controversy?’ Burton asked delicately.

  ‘Yeah, the one with Des Milner,’ Kelleher replied as the director hesitated. ‘Desmond Milner to be precise. Second year undergraduate in Modern Languages at Plessington College…. So no abuse of power,’ he added laconically. Observing the director’s troubled expression, he said gently, ‘Come on, Clive, it would’ve got out anyway…. It doesn’t mean they’re going to clap handcuffs on Milner.’

  Not yet anyway. But boyo had shot straight to the top of Noakes’s shitlist.

When it came to the subject of CCTV, Dr Ashworth hummed and hawed apologetically about the whole museum not being covered.

‘So what you’re saying is, the security here’s duff,’ Noakes broke in impatiently.

‘Why aren’t the lift areas covered?’ Burton enquired politely.

‘It wasn’t thought necessary,’ the director replied. ‘And the facilities budget was tight…. Plus we always positioned art installations next to the lifts as opposed to artefacts.’

‘But surely what happened here last time justified some additional outlay,’ Burton persisted.

Ashworth shrugged helplessly. ‘The council’s finance committee wouldn’t wear it.’

Mindful of the need to liaise with the pathologist and settle into their incident room at Oxford CID, Markham moved on to the matter of alibis. It transpired that all three members of staff were single and home alone on Friday night, Ashworth in his flat on the Woodstock Road and the other two further out in Summertown.

 

‘They were dead shifty when you asked if ole Timmy had mixed it up with anyone, guv,’ Noakes observed afterwards as the team emerged blinking into the sunshine.

  ‘Agreed,’ his boss said quietly. ‘But they need time to sleep on it… Hopefully we’ll get more out of them tomorrow when Dr Ashworth is going to give us a list of Colthurst’s main contacts.’ Romantic and otherwise, he thought grimly. ‘Obviously we need to review the movements of all museum staff, but I’m inclined to think Dr Colthurst was killed by someone in his intimate circle…. someone he never for a moment suspected.’

  Suddenly, Doyle remembered the director’s words about that ghostly extra presence Shackleton had been convinced was following at his heels.

  And for all the heat of the day, like Burton earlier, he gave a convulsive shiver.